This is a one-shot that I came up with after playing Halo 3. However, the events in this story are based off the first chapter in the Ghost of Onyx. Enjoy and please review.

The Hell that is War

September 14, 2531, Camp Currahee:

"What is it now," asked Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose as he followed a young officer down one of the many halls at Camp Currahee. It was quite obvious that he was tired and irritated from the results of morning training.

"It's her again, sir. SPARTAN-A073 seems to have locked herself in one of the supply rooms and barricaded the door," explained the young officer as he slowed his pace so that he was walking right beside Kurt.

Kurt was not pleased to hear this recent development. "And why does it require me to settle the problem. I know the girl is a Spartan candidate, but she's still seven years old (however, she, like the other children in the SPARTAN III program have more matured bodies because of the different hormones placed in their food, so she should have the appearance of a ten year old) and hasn't even undergone bio-enhancements," he stated with his eyes locked on to the Army officer, even though he couldn't see them through the yellow visor of Kurt's helmet.

"With all due respect sir, it was Chief Mendez that instructed me to get you," he said to Kurt.

"Oh well, guess I have no choice then," said Kurt with a shrug. "Let's hurry up and get the kid outta there." He stopped five feet away from the storage room and motioned for the officer to make the first attempt, being that he really didn't want to get anymore involved than he already was.

The young officer nodded and stepped in front of the door. "SPARTAN-A073, this is Corporal Speed. I am ordering you to stop this foolishness and come out of there right now," he shouted.

"No," shouted the girl in return. To be honest, Kurt expected she would react this way. Hell, he would too if he were in her position. The supposedly MIA Spartan II decided that he'd better get involved before the situation took a turn for the worse. He ordered the corporal to stand aside while he maneuvered his hand so it could fit between, or partially between the crack where the two doors met. Using the enhanced strength he received thanks to the SPARTAN II project as well as the assistance from his MJOLNIR Armor, Kurt was easily able to open the locked doors. Through the monitor of his HUD, he stared at the cowering girl. "Please sir, don't hurt me… I didn't break any rules, I promise," she managed to say despite her voice cracking after every few words.

"Nothing's going to happen to you, I promise," said Kurt, trying to look as friendly as his MJOLNIR Mark IV Armor would let him. "Now tell me what happened so I can decide what to do about this mess," he instructed using the softest voice he had.

"Sir, SPARTAN-A073 directly violated her orders during a combat simulation," stated the corporal in a loud, professional tone. "As such, she should be punished in accordance to military law." The girl jolted into the nearest corner and locked her trembling purple eyes on Kurt.

The Spartan slapped his hand against his helmet and sighed out of frustration. With somebody as scary as that corporal around, he knew nothing would be accomplished. "Corporal, you are dismissed," he ordered with his back turned on the young officer. At first, the corporal tried to protest, but Kurt was able to persuade him to leave by placing his hand on his firearm holster. "Now that he's gone, why don't you tell me what happened to get you is so much trouble," he advised, crouching in front of the seven year old girl.

"Well sir, we finished our fake battle and we won. Well, apparently, the men from the army were sore losers and were taking it out on one of the dogs. It wasn't right for him to be mean to the puppy (that very same "puppy" would've ripped her and her teammates apart if it had the chance)," she finished, adding great emphasis on the last few words.

"So what did you do about it," Kurt was afraid of the worst case scenario where she'd beat the soldier to death, or at least put him in a coma.

"I bit him," said the child plainly. Kurt couldn't resist from laughing. Out of all of the combat simulations he'd participated in, he never heard of anybody biting an enemy after everything was over.

"I see," spoke Kurt. 'What's your name, soldier?"

"Hotaru Tomoe, sir," she said boldly.

July 31, 2537, Covenant stronghold above Asteroid K9-47:

As she was trained to do, SPARTAN- A073, Hotaru Tomoe, woke from a thirty-minute period of sleep. It didn't seem like much rest for a currently active soldier to work on, but she was a Spartan, so she was taught to fight under the worst of conditions, despite being only thirteen years old. Yet there was more to that than just a time of rest. Hotaru was mostly grateful for the chance to block out the screams of her friends and comrades as they died in battle. She hated the sound of screams and wanted to do everything she could to prevent the sound from reaching her ears. However, for her to turn off her audio receptors would practically be a request for an Elite or a Jackal to come and pick her off easily. She was unsure on what she should do, but she knew that doing nothing would definitely not help her situation at all. "I see you're awake, that's good to know," said her team leader, SPARTAN-A065 Helios, offering his hand to her. "You scared me when you got hit, but I'm relieved that it wasn't lethal."

Hotaru accepted her comrade's hand, but she would have been better off if he had not reminded her of her wound. She'd remembered that she didn't purposely fall asleep, but lost consciousness from being hit in the lower stomach by a plasma needle which exploded about two seconds after contact. Even with her wound dressed and the bleeding stopped by multiple layers of surgical tape, Hotaru knew she wouldn't live long thanks to internal bleeding. Then again, she didn't expect much from the relatively thin Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor (SPI Armor) that she and the other SPARTAN IIIs were given. Their armor was designed for stealth so it couldn't stand up to the beatings that the SPARTAN II MJOLNIR armor was designed for. And for further evidence, the black 

haired girl could still see the large breach in her chest plate. "I guess thanks are in order," she said quietly to Helios, even though his back was turned to her.

"Save it," he responded, throwing a new chest plate and helmet. "Hurry up and put these on. We need to move quickly if we plan on joining up with Team Wolf Pack." Hotaru felt a mixture of different emotions upon catching the helmet. She was happy that she could get some better protection from an undamaged one rather than a chest plate with a big hole in it. The new oxygen tank was also a positive since she'd been relying on a tank that was good for only seven minutes for the past three days. Not to mention that the shock she went through on the second day practically drained her own oxygen tank. Another plus was that she would be able to take off that uncomfortable, ungodly hot armor, even though it was only for a few seconds. However, the one negative aspect of receiving new armor was that it taken from somebody who died, a thought that saddened Hotaru deeply. Helios noticed her sighing, but he had no time to consol her. "What's wrong now," he asked impatiently.

"Why do we have to fight again," Hotaru asked, breaking into tears. "Haven't enough people already died in this stupid war?!" She dropped to her knees and started pounding her fist against the ground. Helios expected that her nature was the cause for this outburst. Throughout their training, Hotaru always got into trouble because she was too kind. Even in the beginning, she wasn't completely dedicated to the war cause because so many people had died.

"As far as the Covenant are concerned, no," the white haired boy snarled. "That's why we exist, to stop them from killing every human in the galaxy." Helios removed the old clip from his MA5K Assault rifle and shoved a new one in the gun. He then proceeded to do the same for Hotaru's rifle as well as reload the magazines from two M6C Magnums that he managed to find. "Hurry up so we finish this mission and go home," instructed Helios as he placed the weapons in his partner's hands. At first, Hotaru didn't want to go, but she was afraid to get left behind so she followed Helios.

After fifteen minutes of sprinting to the location of the other Spartans, Helios and Hotaru found themselves on the battlefield with one hundred Spartan III soldiers facing a force of three hundred Elites, Jackals, and Grunts. Both of them moved quickly to join their comrades in the fighting against the overwhelming Covenant force. Hotaru instinctively removed her rifle from her shoulder and opened fire, taking down two Elites, four Jackals, and about six Grunts. Quickly, she took cover behind a large rock and reloaded her gun. She pulled the pins out of two grenades and chunked them at the enemy. However, there was something wrong with the situation. The explosion she heard was too loud to be from two grenades, so she gasped when a hypothesis popped in her head. Much to the girl's horror, her assumption proved to be right when she saw two Covenant Seraph fighters fly over head. "Damn it," she cursed, activating her camouflage system.

Now, this was no longer a battle, the conflict on K9-47 had turned into a full-scale slaughter. The cries of her comrades quickly chiseled away at Hotaru's psyche until it finally broke. In a desperate attempt to free herself from this nightmare, she jerked off her helmet, drew her side arm, and shoved it in her mouth. 'Come on, pull the trigger Hotaru. Free yourself from this hell. Then you can be with your friends and family… That's right, you can do it…. PULL THE DAMN TRIGGER,' she thought, but her fingers were too uncoordinated to fire the gun. She wouldn't have a second chance to kill herself because Helios took the gun away and punched her hard in the face.

"What the fuck are you thinking," he roared, grabbing Hotaru by the neck. "What about our friends out there? Do you think they aren't scared to fucking death? What about me? How do you think I'd feel if you committed suicide," asked Helios as he glared at the broken Hotaru. Frustrated from the way she was acting, the white haired boy took off his helmet jerked her closer and pressed his lips firmly against hers. When he separated from Hotaru, she seemingly had come back to her senses. "Don't you dare die without my permission," he ordered in the softer tone that Hotaru had liked about him.

As fate had always done to Hotaru to make her life absolutely miserable, it snatched away Helios in the form of an Elite who'd impaled the boy from the back with an energy sword. Once again, Hotaru was overcome by sorrow, but this time, there was another emotion taking over her body, rage. "Bastard," she shouted, reclaiming her Magnum and slamming it against the Elite's throat. "Die," Hotaru hissed before pulling the trigger, splattering the alien's blood on the ground. However, she didn't stop there. No, what the Covenant did was unforgivable, and now every one of them must pay with their lives for this evil deed.

Hotaru reattached her helmet and picked up Helios's M7S Submachine Gun that he'd acquired at some point in the battle. She then proceeded to come out from her hiding spot and gun down every enemy in sight. Out of rage, she took out ten Grunts and two Elites. However, that was all she was able to do before getting shot by several rounds from a Needler in different parts of her body. "Son of a bitch," muttered Hotaru with a smirk on her face as she fell to her knees. Finally, her beaten and exhausted body crumpled on the floor before the needles exploded.

August 2, 2537, Onyx:

"Sir, Operation PROMETHEUS was a success. However, none of the Alpha Company survived."

"I see," responded Kurt, trying desperately to hide the sadness in his voice. "Mark them all down as MIA."

"Sir, with all due respect, the Spartans are dead?"

"Spartans never die," answered Kurt, clenching his fist.