Prologue: Back from the dead
Jolt, Light, Darkness... Jolt, Light, Darkness... Jolt, Light, Darkness.
The process just repeated itself - what in God's name was happening?
Jolt, Light, Darkness.... Jolt, Light... uncontrollable urge to cough the Spartan quickly opened his eyes and coughed loudly, clutching his chest, uncontrollable pain. It was everywhere.
He needed for it to stop.
"He's back... We got him." The female voice stated, it sounded far away, distant and muffled.
"Give him a moment to get his bearings... he was dead for almost 30 Years after all..." The same familiar female voice ordered the first voice, she also sounded distant.
He opened his mouth to talk but all that came out was coughs, unbearable coughs, liquid spurted out of his mouth and he continued to cough. Desperately trying to inhale air.
It was beginning to aggravate him, he let the liquid out and once he was done coughing, wiped his mouth. He blinked his eyes.
"Better?" That same female voiced asked, it was extremely familiar but he couldn't remember it.
Another cough, "Yes." He said flatly and searched for the source of her voice.
He saw a woman... a very old woman wearing that same old white jacket that every ONI officer like her wore. She had grey hair, and grey-blue eyes. Ice-cold expression - and she was his mom, not by blood but by heart.
"Did it work?" He asked her, and squinted his eyes slightly, he wasn't in the same bed as he was before the augmentations work.
"We don't know yet, but there were some complications." She said and paused for a moment. "You died."
His eyes widened and he took in a deep breathe and he smiled at what he though was a joke. It clearly was not, because she was still staring at him. He felt stupid as he wiped that smile off his face and nodded slowly.
"How long was I-" He was about to ask but she already knew his question.
"roughly 25-30 years." She stated. "you're now about 40 years old. Just like every other spartan.
"You were... in Cryostasis, so you look the same you did as when... you were getting the augmentations... except, your eyes are a deep-crystal-blue and you have massive black circles underneath your eyes." She stated simply, showing almost no emotion - but he saw hints of them, it was one of his passive specialties. He could sense and see emotions just from looking at a face or hearing a voice. She seemed sympathetic, or somewhere along that line. A hint of sorrow was in her voice - or was it guilt?
"What... is the year?" He asked her, he did calculations and cared not to hear the four numbers from himself.
"2552... and we tried to revive our others... who failed to survive the augmentations... you're our only success so far." She informed him, he was the best, fastest, deadliest... he may still be but... he was gone for almost 3 decades. Irrelevant, he had to obtain his 'kit' and get ready for action.
"Just as calculated... Now... what was Phase III?" He asked her, she simply smiled at his remembrance, she had assigned him specially for her own little gift, or so he believed.
"Come with me." She ordered, the Spartan simply nodded as he rose off the bed and followed the Proffessor. She led him through several lit corridors and occasionally told him to hurry up because he was moving too slow - and hurry up is exactly what he did once he remembered how to walk like a normal person.
His feet were bare and he began to shiver as they met with the cold floor, and the damn air-conditioning didn't help one bit.
She seemed to notice and either cared but didn't want to show it or figured he could tough out a little cold, and he could - but he liked attention - and she sure as hell knew that little secret better than anyone.
They soon entered a room, and she looked back at him. "You ready to claim your shield and Weapon, spartan?" She asked him.
He immediately remembered the battle of Thermopylae and what the original spartans did that day, three-hundred. Three hundred men put a dent in half a million persians, using the pass - His thought were abruptly ended.
"Well?" She asked as his mind trailed.
"Yes." He stated simply as she pressed a code series and the door slowly hissed open. His eyes widened as he saw the armor in the center of the room. It was... beautiful. He couldn't take his eyes off of it and Halsey seemed to notice.
"You going to put on the MJOLNIR Commando Class armor or just stand there gawking like a insignificant child in a toy store?" She asked him, and he snapped out of his daze.
"Thanks for ruining the moment." He said.
"We must hurry, you haven't much time before noble arrives." She stated to him.
"Yes ma'am." He stated simply and nodded before several machines circled him, they were mechanical arms and began installing his suit. Starting with some sort of gel layer, and his boots. They wrapped around his feet and seemed to close around them permanently, then came his leggings - and soon came his body armor, and finally the shoulder pads and gauntlets. Just as well came a Tactical Wrist Pad.
"That was fast." He said flatly and looked at Halsey, his voice was amplified and a Heads up Display loaded and a meter slowly began to fill, he was engulfed in a gold-hue that slowly faded, for all he saw.
"Shielding system enabled and working optimally." Halsey stated as she just tossed a rock at him, it fell to the floor after bouncing off of the air surrounding his armor.
"When can I kill something?" He asked her.
"Soon enough, but your main directive is to get off this planet, it is being glassed by the covenant..." She said to him, as a fact, and when she said something like that she meant it.
"What about you?" He asked her.
"I have some business to take care of, now get out of here. Take the elevator that noble arrives in, make sure you remain cloaked." she ordered him with a small but detectable smile.
"How-" He was about to ask.
"You'll figure it out, you always do." She said to him, putting an end to his question on how to use the cloaking device. That 'matter-of-fact' stuff was annoying to him, but he smiled, he always did figure things out.
"Yes ma'am." He said to her, turning and leaving. A nav point was placed on his hud. "Theres your exit." She said to him as he began his walk.
