Chapter Text
Lance-Corporal Jackson “Helios-3” Stëdhardt
Gotham City, 2022
Unknown Cult-Wierdo’s Basement
==~===
Jack wakes up confused. I mean, who could blame him? He woke up to an AI secretary lady frantically calling in his ear, her orange glow giving him a reason to get up from his forced nap. Yeah, those coffins aren’t really all that comfortable for a quick eepy time, but they work well enough with a heavy impact and an odd glowing forerunner portal thing. Yeah, things got weird after the Human-Covenant War, especially with Forerunner tech. Jack couldn’t care less, though, he had his team… well, not anymore, much to his overwhelming disappointment.
“Wake up! Wake up, Trooper! C’mon man! Dammit, wake up dumbass!” Ah well, what can he do? Back to the AI secretary lady. Jack groans quietly, eyes cracking open behind his visor, taking in the scene. His pod’s open, less work for him, with what seems like the grim picture of a human splatter behind where it’s embedded into the wall. Yeesh… well, looking around the space, there are quite a few more splatters of separate human blood, so… what goes around comes around? With a few more impressive expletives, Jack finally gets around to looking at the AI.
”OKAY, OKAY, I’m up! You got a name to be waking me up, lady?” The AI scoffs, deflating with clear exasperation and the mildest hints of relief.
”Selene, Trooper. And it’s about damn time. You were out cold for a good while, thought you’d died from bad posturing.” She chuckles a little at her own joke, but sobers up quickly, “Long story short, we’re not in our own universe anymore, we’re in another universe where it’s 2022 and superheroes exist with superpowers and related topics. I’m guessing you were caught in your own forerunner tech fiasco and were launched through a portal. I’ve been here for an hour already, you’ve been here for about ten minutes. You catch all that?” Jackson never really knew he could be so stunned in his entire life, staring at the AI for a few seconds.
”…I think I’ve been flash-banged by words…” Selene snorts at that, clearly amused, snarking back without missing a beat.
“Better get used to it, trooper. We’re in this together.” He gives her a curious once-over at her words.
“Speaking of…” Jack drawls out, “…how the hell’d you get here?” Selene seems to dim slightly, her smirk faltering. She hovers back, letting him step out of the pod. Damn does it feel good to finally stretch his legs, popping his back and looking around. By all the stars, this basement is almost comically huge, clearly a basement too. Or a sublevel to some kind of large building. There are things from his universe EVERYWHERE, the most notable being the crashed Condor half in the wall.
Jack straightens up slightly, feeling an inexplicable sense of dread at the grief in Selene’s eyes. He creeps over to the jarred open bay door, climbing inside the large, sparking gunship interior. As the ODST looks around, he spots a shape in the shadow of the cockpit, and moves closer to get a better look at it. When he reaches the half open door and pushes it completely open, he sighs in resignation. There, neck bent at a weird angle and halfway through the already shattered window into the concrete, a Spartan. More specifically, their corpse.
Jack reaches over, carefully turning the head over to see any signs of life, then pulls back when he gets none. He looks over at Selene’s shattered demeanor, voice quieter than before.
”…I’m sorry.”
”You shouldn’t be.”
”Maybe not, but I understand.”
“Do you?”
”Better than most.” There’s a long, almost grief-stricken silence before Jack breaks it with a sigh, reaching over to try and find dogtags. Selene wordlessly highlights where they would be on his HUD, hovering over his shoulder as he reaches into the dead legend’s armor and pulls them out, looking at the name.
”Ceris-A137,” Jack breathes out, considering the dogtags with some modicum of respect, “sounds like a warrior.”
Selene nods along, voice cracking slightly, “She was…” the ODST looks at her, then looks around at Selene’s AI chip in the back of Ceris’s helmet, pulling it out. Selene gets the message, downloading herself back into it before downloading into Jack’s own helmet’s VISR. In a moment, she appears on his hud, seeming to take a deep breath. Jack breaks the silence again.
”Better?”
”Yeah… yeah.”
”Good. Can you repair any of this?”
”With some time? Yes. It’ll take a while, though.”
”Shii-hit. Well, we can take a walk around up top while we’re at it, can’t we?”
”Sure, I can delegate a piece of me to the repairs. Move along, fine steed.” Selene lifts the mood with her joke, Jack scoffing incredulously as he walks, just now processing his limp and the blood on his leg:
”Don’t call me steed, secretary”
Selene gives you a look of amused concern, “Should we worry about that leg?”
Jack chuckles, grunting as he moves up some stairs he found, “Been worse.”
”Course you have…”
”Shut up, Selene.”
==~==
Jack’s an odd sight, walking down the gloomy, rainy street in ODST armor and a bloody leg. According to Selene, this place is called Gotham, and it’s a shithole. Ah well, what better place for an ODST to hide out in than a gloomy city of crime and misery. It’s more rainy now, clouds thick but slightly bright in the dim daylight hours. Selene looks around curiously from his VISR, humming pleasantly as he walks. Jack groans quietly, looking down at his stomach.
”Selene? You think you can point me to any cafés nearby?”
”…Helios-3, I know you are not using me as a gps right now.”
”…”
”…”
”…can you?” There’s an exasperated sigh as Selene marks something on Jack’s HUD’s map, having already downloaded a map of the city. Our glorious hero all but melts in relief at the prospect of actual food, looks like a small family café from Selene’s description.
So here we are now, an ODST limping into this cozy café, moderately active. The silence when Jack walks in is deafening, but he doesn’t care. He trudges his way over to the counter where a nervous looking teenager with an odd white streak in his hair is shifting uncomfortably. Jack leans on the counter, speaking through the heavy silence.
”…You got muffins?” The kid, about seventeen, looks like, blinks in surprise.
”What?” Jack sigh quietly in response to the question, “Muffins. You got any?”
The kid looks like he wants to snark something, but decides against it, sighing in resignation, “…what type?”
”Double Chocolate-Chunk. And a hot coffee, three cream, three sugar, five shots of espresso.” The kid finally lets the snark out at that.
”You tryna get cardiac arrest?” Jack cuts back dryly, not even hesitating.
”One can only dream.”
”Touché. That’ll be 7.25.” Jack nods, reaching down when he pauses, coming to the almost humiliating realization that he doesn’t have his wallet. Or money. Or anything. Selene cackles in his helmet as he lingers, weighing his options. The kid, oddly enough, seems to hear Selene and frown slightly, but waits for Jack’s response. Before the ODST can get on his knees and beg for a freebie, the doors slam open as two masked guys storm on, one with a switchblade and the other with a gun. The one with the pistol yells first, brandishing his firearm.
”On the fucking ground! Money in the bags!” The robber’s referring to the bags his companion is carrying, but as soon as he lifts his gun a little too high in Jack’s direction for his liking, the ODST’s SOCOM comes up and a cough pops as a bullet nicks the gun-robber’s shoulder, to which he screams and drops his weapon and collapses to the floor, holding his injured arm. “GAGH- MY ARM!”
Jack all but rolls his eyes as the knife-robber stares in disbelief, stammering out, “you… you shot him!” At this point, the entire café is silent, speechless. The ODST snarks back, walking over.
”Yeah I fucking shot him you fucking idiot. He pointed a goddamn gun at me, what the hell was I going to do, throw it at ‘im? Knife down, by the way.” The knife-guy drops his blade, eyes wide. Jack looks back down at the groaning gunman, tone dry and sharp, “Holy hell, we get it you asshole, you’re in pain. I just fucking grazed your shoulder, it’s not like I took your hand off.” He pulls a small combat wrap out of one of his chest pouches, starting to wrap the injured shoulder.
”I swear to god if you keep bitching while I try to help, I’m gonna take the arm off.” When Jack gets a good way through, he pauses and pulls a ziptie out of another pouch, scanning the crowd before his eyes land on some raven haired woman about his age. He tosses the ziptie to her, “You look semi-sane, restrain the other guy. Don’t cut yourself.” She gives him a bewildered look, but goes to do it. Guess Gotham really does have that kind of effect on people.
After he’s finished treating the gunman, he holds his palm out. “Wallet.” The gunman, confused and slightly terrified, hands his wallet over. Jack pulls out a ten, hands the wallet back, then moves over to the counter to give the counter-kid the payment. “Keep the change, pal.” The kid gives Jack a resigned look.
”…Your order will be out in five minutes.”
”Fantastic, amazing, might be the best news I’ve gotten all day. Thanks for your service, kid.”
”You look like a veteran.”
”Same difference, you’re in customer service.”
”Touché.”
===~===
POV Change- Cassandra
Cassandra likes to think she’s hard to catch off guard. She IS Orphan after all, so it’d be embarrassing to be surprised easily. But this oddly armored soldier… he managed to completely blindside her, both with his appearance and his mannerisms. She half thought he was going to kill the gunman when he pulled his gun out, but now. The soldier just shot him non lethally, snarked about it while treating his shooteé, gave her zipties to restrain the other guy, and is now waiting patiently for his food.
She looks over at Stephanie, who’s been recording all this on her phone, and Tim, who’s trying to process the scene. She’d been there because Tim wanted, as always, to stalk the new hiding meta he met. Stephanie wanted to tag along to meet the “Peter” Tim’s been ranting to her about, and Cassandra was dragged along for the ride. Peter, the subject in question, tiredly hands the soldier his order, looking done with life. The soldier, however, looks more alive than she’s seen for the whole interaction.
”Tha-ank you, buddy! Man, I’ve been starving for hours.” He waves to the gunman, who’s now restrained to a table-leg by his own zipties, “Thank’s for the food, palio!”
And with that, the soldier walks out happily, seeming to ignore the limp in his left leg. Slowly but surely, as the cops come to collect the robbers and leave after taking statements, the café goes back to normal, Tim going back to stalking his subject. She doesn’t really find mild irritation in that anymore, she sort of understands now, the fascination with something not understood. Tim can have his… “Spider-Man” and “Peter Parker”, the two people keeping him up day and night respectively. Cassandra found her own subject, one she will be watching… very, very closely.