Somewhere on Reach - 2552
"Lone Wolf", the name given to the operation Noble 6 was tasked with completing, truth was the young Spartan was anything but a "Lone Wolf". Without his team he felt lost, alone in a world that was about to be glassed by the Covenant. "Lone Wolf", it was like his superiors were rubbing it in his face, he was the only surviving member of Noble team, and he had to complete the mission that the rest of his squad died trying to complete; deliver the A.I. core which held Cortana to Captain Keys. This task seemed easy enough on paper, but in reality the length and complexity of this task was greater than anyone could have expected. One by one Noble fell, Six watched every one of them die, either sacrificing themselves for the good of humanity or taking a bullet right in front of him, he watched them all burn. And now in a desert village on the way to rendezvous with Captain Keys, it was his turn. Bloodied and bruised he limped his way from cover to cover, building to building, trying to escape the endless hoards of Covenant Sangheili elites, but he was growing weak. He knew if he had any chance of making it to the rally point, he would have to find another way. When an opening showed in Covenant defenses, Six plucked weapons from the hands of fallen elites, and pushed forward. However, this opening didn't last long, and soon more Covenant were attacking, surrounding him from every possible angle. Six was becoming sloppy, and he knew it. Time was running out. While moving he used his shotgun to pick off closer targets. He was focusing all to well on the targets, but not on where he was going. Then he hit it, ran square into a wall, knocking him right on his ass. He looked around dizzied, trying to find his barrings. He looked up to find not a wall, but a Sangheili Zealot, silhouetted by one of Reach's many suns. The Zealot's energy sword pulsed in its hand, it paused for a second, let out a gut retching roar, and stomped on Six's left arm, before stabbing him in the abdomen.
When Six came to, he was lying right where the Zealot had stabbed him, in the middle of a now abandoned desert village. His amour's shields took most of the force of the sword, but it still pierced the amour. According to his HUD readout, he was critical with a broken leg, his crushed left arm, and several broken ribs, but luckily for him his ribs stopped the sword from piercing anything vital. Realizing his situation Six layed back, and just listened. Unfortunately, the only sound to be heard was the faint wurring of the Covenant fleets as they began to glass the planet. The once Covenant populated village he was in the middle of was now deserted, nothing but ammo and fallen Covenant remained. "They don't even have the decency to bury their own men." Six hissed, as he spat blood on his visor. Then he remembered his mission, he remembered Cortana. He rolled a bit on his left side, so he could reach the A.I. core that was still attached to the magnetic holster on his lower back. He pulled the core from its holster, and held it in front of him. "Well, if I'm gonna go out, I might as well see if she's in here." Six opened the side of A.I. core. Six being a Spartan, bred for battle, was unaware of the several dozen checks of the core that had to be done, or the mental training, and stimulation that have to be done before noral implantation of an A.I. could take place. Failure of these procedures could result in serious mental and physical injury or death to both the patient and the A.I. But since Six didn't know this he took the small chip that held the A.I. Cortana inside, lifted his head, and slipped it into the small port in the back of his helmet. Almost immediately, he felt like a dozen flash bangs were set off within six inches of his eyes, he felt a headache so bad it felt like his head was going to explode. "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" An oddly feminine voice screamed. Then nothing, everything went black.