A/N: Dossiers-short stories- will be issued for each member of Noble Team, for five in total (Six will be lumped in with Jorge. Yes.). Genres and lengths will vary. If you see anywhere I should have fact-checked either the Halo-verse or real life military protocol, please point it out nicely.

Dossier 1: Emile-A239

Summary: Emile is not an artist, unless you define an artist as someone who conforms the world to how they see it. The skull mark and the death of Thom-Noble Six.

Security Warning: Rated T for brief but icky violence.

Vengeful Spirit

The first part of the skull was a long, gray scratch in front of his left eye. It came from an Elite's claws; the thing was right there, because Emile had broken its other arm and taken its sword, so it couldn't do much else except charge him and scrape its gloves off trying to make a dent in his helmet.

Emile tried to trigger the sword, but the u-shaped handle wasn't made by human hands, and the Elite knocked him backward before he could get a grip with all his fingers. He hit the ground on his shoulder, cushioned by the gel of his armor. Another Elite loomed behind him, slammed its foot down on his hand, and took the sword from his stinging fingers.

Emile cursed. The common radio channel was filled with shouts and gunfire, although UNSC command had their own quiet channel, silence except for regular reports on Kat's progress with the bomb.

He pulled the kukri from its shoulder holster and stabbed the second alien in the foot, the knife point thudding into the ash-gray dirt beneath. The beam sword flared over his head in a wild swing, but Emile rolled and got to his feet. When the Elite stepped again to swing and flinched over its severed toe, Emile ducked under its arm. Its hooting battlecry echoed between the ruined buildings and inside his helmet. He grabbed a spur of blue-purple armor at its back and stabbed into the soft stuff between the plates, where a human would have kidneys.

The scratch on his helmet was really distracting him. The Elite sagged, and Emile grabbed its sword arm and heaved. It cut off the second Elite's right arm and two of its mandibles before the two collapsed together, propped up as if they were embracing.

He pushed past the feebly stirring bodies, pausing to recouch his knife and salvage the beam sword. The Elite with the maimed face, coating the ground with dirt-flecked blue blood, tried to talk at him.

Emile flexed his fingers and activated the sword. It was easy enough to operate with Spartan hands once he got the chance to look at it well enough.

That scratch was far too irritating. Emile tapped his left hand against his helmet, trying to get the camera out beyond the glass to feed again. It's like having something in my eye.

The Elite hooted again.

"Quiet, ugly." Emile kicked it and moved on.

The next time the team was all together and quiet was on the cruiser where they held Six's funeral. Marines stood at parade rest around the hanger, probably glad for the break after the battle where Thom had lost his life and the aliens had shown just how hard they were to kill. The name "Elites" was sticking. The Spartans were scattered about the scene like color-coded action figures. Most of Noble Team had taken their helmets off for comfort and for the marines. The official ceremony was over, but Thom's sealed coffin had not yet been given its burial at space. Emile worked at the scratch with his knife, expanding it. Might as well expend his twitchiness somewhere if he was gonna have to replace the visor anyway.

Carter, blue helmet held under his arm, walked across the deck and stood in front of Emile. "You okay?"

"I got the cameras working. Don't even see the scratch."

"I meant Thom."

"I'll hold together, commander. It's you bleeding hearts that've still got to figure out how war works."

Carter looked a little disgusted. "Right. Sergeant Roarke sends his condolences."

"Any of 'em spill that bull about Spartans not being able to die while they're looking at the coffin?"

Carter turned away. "You're a fine human being, Emile."

"You too, sir."

He watched Carter walk away and almost nicked his hand when he caught the curvature of the helmet with his knife. He started making a circle with the grain.

The marines were only here to spectate. They wanted to learn what Spatan MIA meant. It meant a coffin filled with pieces. Emile pictured a human soldier he'd found dead on the ground soon after he'd taken out the two Elites together. The face looked pale, and he'd had to look for a moment to tell pliant skin from the hard white surface of visible skull in the middle of the bloody patch.

He'd heard the live marines talking quietly as they filled this room.

"I thought you couldn't kill Spartans. That's why they get over all the controversy and make 'em."

"I heard they're just kids."

"It'd be less freaky if they showed their faces more."

"Some people call them death's heads in Mexico. Guerrillas muertos."

Emile stood and walked toward the short line of mourners, keeping his helmet under his arm and staring straight ahead. The Nobles were arranged around the coffin. The marines stood straight and quiet as Emile passed, but their eyes shifted to his face. He wanted one to step out.

He wanted some bullheaded soldier to decide to be brash and say 'So you aren't invincible,' and Emile would look down at the top of his head and say 'You're the death's head, little man. You're gonna be killed off out there and it's our masks the Covvies see and think this is what humans look like.'

No one gave him the satisfaction. Emile turned and joined Noble's vigil. Thom had tried to be a cowboy, but he was a useful soldier, and Emile would mourn him.

He knew what he'd been scratching on his helmet now too.

Such a short time later, on Reach, he stood in a canyon and watched Carter's Pelican fly overhead. The commander was going to die.

The new member of the team, whom Emile thought alternatively of as girl Six, new Six, or mostly-useful Six, paused and looked up too. The same resignation he felt showed in the slump of her shoulders. Smart newbie—but then, how did a soldier not learn fast when two Spartans had been killed already?

Oh, sorry, I mean Missing In Action.

They didn't need to say anything, and he didn't think there was much point. They slogged on, the muzzles of their guns twitching upward at any sound that might be a swarm. At the end, Emile saw Carter fireball out, giving the skull-face of the cave crevice a sudden orange eye. He watched the explosion settle, because if all you have left to give someone is letting the fire of their passing burn itself for one red descent of seconds onto your retinas, then you better give them that.

He thought of paying respect to Carter by taking his helmet off, but it wasn't safe, and the closest you ever got to someone was seeing the skull behind their face anyway—