Author Note: not much to note, so enjoy!

0955 Hours, January 3, 2532 (Military Calendar)\Zeta Doradus System, Planet Onyx, Camp Currahee

In the week since he was here, Cory had been doing the hardest exercises he had ever done in his life. Chief Mendez would lead the calisthenics like he was a machine, going from hundreds of jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, and more, non-stop until every part of his body would ache. But Cory kept reminding himself that this was necessary for him to become strong enough to defeat the Covenant. The drill instructors helped in this, by using a stun baton to shock anyone who stopped or slowed down. The company was just finishing up their usual 10km run. At this point, they would go into a schoolhouse, where they would be taught history, math, and all sorts of things. But today, Mendez led them down a different path, ending up in a clearing full of tall wooden poles. Rope nets and bridges were stretched between the poles, in every direction, an obstacle course in midair. While the recruits stretched to avoid cramping, and drank water passed out by drill instructors, two people conversed in the back.

The Spartan-II camp commandant known as Kurt Ambrose, (Which was just an alias) took in the familiar sight. Chief Mendez strode up next to him,

"Reminds you of the "playground"?"

Kurt nodded in affirmation,

"We're going to be teaching them about team work, and I thought, what better way than this?"

Chief Mendez chuckled at the memory of the playground this obstacle course was based off of.

"Of course, your team placed first the first time the Spartan-II's tried it. Although as I recall, even the most idiosyncratic Spartan eventually learned teamwork after spending a night hungry."

"Precisely," Kurt said. "And teamwork will be crucial among the Spartan-III's, that's why I chose this."

"Shall I do the honors sir?" Mendez asked.

"Sure, we do have to maintain our appearances of inspiring commander, and their worst nightmare, respectively."

Mendez winked, and then turned to the recruits.

Cory saw Chief Mendez moving to the front of the recruits, and got up from catching his breath.

"A good run recruits; now, today's game is called Ring the Bell." Mendez explained. He pointed to a brass bell hanging from a pole twice as high as the poles around it.

"There are many ways to get to the bell, find the best way yourself, and one more thing." Mendez said. Kurt came forward.

"Form equal length lines, each person in your row will be in YOUR team. Each member of your team must ring the bell, and make it back here across the finish line to win." Kurt said. He waited for someone to ask the inevitable question.

Someone spoke up near the back, Robert-A091 he believed.

"Sir, what do we win?"

Kurt smiled, remembering when he heard John ask the question,

"You win dinner, recruit. Tonight's dinner will be roast turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, brownies, and ice cream." Kurt said. "Dinner of the champions…" Kurt thought.

Murmurs of delight, and whistles swept through the lines of recruits.

Mendez took this moment as his cue to step in.

"However, for there to be winners, there must also be losers. The last three teams to make it go without dinner."

That shushed all the recruits. They eyed each other warily.

Cory had specifically gotten into a row with Emily and Ellen, the two friends he made on day one. Ellen looked confident of victory, while Emily looked worried. The final recruit in their team was Carter-A259, an older looking, hazel eyed boy. Cory remembered Carter getting hit with a pie on their first day. Carter nodded to the rest of them, and offered his hand. Both Emily and Ellen shook his hand, Emily with a squeaky hello, and Ellen with a nod. When it was Cory's turn, Cory noticed that Carter had a very strong grip.

"Make ready," Mendez shouted.

Everyone tensed up.

"Go!"

Hundreds of recruits ran towards the course, pushing and shoving through each other, and climbing up rope ladders. Emily fell after getting shoved by a bigger recruit. Both Cory and Carter stopped to help her up. Then together with Ellen, the four recruits bunched up together, making it impossible for any other single recruit to knock them down. They barreled through toward the first rope ladder and climbed up. The poles and platforms were suspended over a pool of water, and every now and then, a recruit would be fall screaming down. Each team started fighting other teams, pushing each other off. It was mayhem. Carter tapped Cory and pointed down another bridge, empty because it led directly away from the bell post, where everyone was bunched up at.

"We can go down there, and go up to the bell from the side." Carter said, indicating a side path, hidden behind a maze of poles and nets.

Cory was impressed at Carter's quick thinking, he tapped Emily and Ellen, and the four recruits headed down the path, ignored by everyone else. From this angle, Cory had a clear line of sight to the higher platforms, where maybe four or five teams had made it through the throng of recruits stuck at the beginning. After climbing through several levels, Cory's team made it up to the bell, and everyone rang it. Directly ahead of them was another team that had already rang the bell, which Cory recognized because of their apparent leader, Robert, who had asked what they would win. Cory also remembered that Robert had started the food fight on the first day, by hitting Carter in the face with a pie. Judging from Carter's expression, he hadn't forgotten. It seemed that Robert recognized Carter too, and he came up to them.

"Hi, I'm Robert, no hard feelings from what happened that day?"

Carter thought for a second, then he shoved Robert off the platform, and down into the pool below.

"Nope, none left."

The rest of Robert's team stared in shock for a moment, and then got ready to fight. But Robert called out to them from below.

"Jump down! It'll be faster if we swim!"

After a moment of hesitation, Shane-A103, Jane-A400, and Emile-A239 hopped down after Robert.

Carter grinned. Cory looked down at the floundering shapes in the water. Meanwhile, other teams were finally getting up.

"Robert's right, it is faster if we swim, rather than going through that clump back there."

But Emily presented a problem,

"I can't swim!" Emily said.

Carter frowned.

"Just hold on to me, the water isn't that deep." Cory offered.

Emily nodded, and the team dived off the platform.

The water was lukewarm, and Cory was glad he had learned swimming in the orphanage at Reach. That was the one bright side of his life in the orphanage. Emily grabbed on, arms around Cory's waist, and he swam/dragged her along. They made it to shore, soaking wet in their gray recruit sweats, and ran double-time to the finish line. They were sixth. Over the next hour, the rest of the recruits finally made it in, with the last three teams coming past the finish line dejectedly.

That night, Cory, Emily, Ellen and Carter stuffed their faces with white turkey meat, savoring creamy ice cream, biting off sweet corn off the cob, and left the mess hall with chocolate brownies still in their mouths. Cory was glad Carter was on their team, because without him, they probably wouldn't have made it.

1402 Hours, November 19, 2533 (Military Calendar)\Zeta Doradus System, Planet Onyx, Near Camp Currahee

Cory crouched, hidden by the thick foliage around him. He sighted down the scope of his M392 Designated Marksman Rifle, and scanned the field of tall grass in front of him. Earlier in the day, all 75 teams of Alpha Company had been dropped off separately in this zone. They would hunt each other, and the surviving team would win. Each team started out with pistols, and a single stronger weapon. By Cory's estimate, there should be less than 20 teams left, three of which his team, team Lion had taken out personally. Cory's headset radio beeped.

"This is Lion-three, I see four contacts at eight o'clock."

Lion three was Emily, their team sniper, she had scored the highest accuracy rating in their team. Cory turned in the direction Emily indicated, and saw four recruits spread out in the field, well camouflaged in their fatigues, good enough that Cory wouldn't have spotted them if he hadn't known exactly where they would be. But Emily had some of the best eyes in the company, and nothing could escape her gaze.

"Affirmative, orders Lion-leader?" said Cory.

Carter was the leader of Lion team. Through the various team exercises they had been through over the years, he had shown natural leadership, and good tactical thinking. It came as no surprise to Cory and the others when he was chosen as one of the 75 team leaders by the Lieutenant, and Chief Mendez a couple months ago.

"We'll hook left under the cover of the foliage. Two flash-bangs, then take them out. Go." Carter ordered.

Cory came up and went along under cover. He met up with Carter and Ellen. Emily was somewhere up in the trees, giving them long range fire support. Cory silently nodded to his two teammates, and got into position behind some bushes. When the enemy team got close enough, Carter motioned for Ellen, the team's explosives expert to toss flash-bangs. The enemy team, which Cory now recognized as Ram team, saw the grenades coming, and scattered. But they weren't quick enough, and the grenades popped with loud noise, blinding and deafening the recruits. Cory fired off two shots at Jason-A040. Two red puffs appeared on his chest, and he fell down, stunned from the TTR rounds. TTR were a special type of training ammo, red paint balls that released an anesthetic upon impact, simulating real injuries. The rest of Ram team fell. Their armor locked up, and a transmitter would alert C and C for pickup of the "corpses". Cory spotted an M90 CAWS shotgun one of the fallen recruits had and went over to take it. On the other side of the field, a recruit had Cory in his crosshairs. The recruit fired a single shot aimed directly at Cory's upper chest. But as luck would have it, Cory at that moment was bending down to take the shotgun, causing the round to miss and splatter behind him.

"Sniper! Get back here Cory!" cried Ellen, as she and Carter fired at where they thought the enemy recruit was.

Meanwhile, Cory didn't waste any time, abandoning the shotgun and diving back into the cover of the foliage.

Shane cursed when Cory bended down. He fired another shot, but Cory had already dived back into cover. Shane immediately moved from his firing position, he knew Emily of team Lion had probably zeroed in on where he was already. But it was alright, the rest of his team knew exactly where Lion was now, and they were flanking.

Robert opened fire with his MA5K, and scored a hit on Carter, but team Lion's leader got behind a tree, and evaded the rest of his shots. Emile laid down suppression fire while Jane went around. They had Lion and everyone knew it.

Jane moved stealthily around to the rear of Lion's position. Robert and Emile had them pinned down, but Lion was far from helpless. Jane turned the corner around a tree and spotted Emily, Lion's sniper. This was the best shot she had all day, and Jane raised her assault rifle.

Emily saw Jane out of the corner of her eye, and realized she was as good as dead. A loud gunshot cracked, and for a second, Emily thought she had been shot. But Jane was lying face down on the ground, her fatigues crimson with TTR. Jane hadn't been shot by her own team, so a third team was here too. Without wasting a second, Emily made her way to her teammates.

"I just dodged a bullet, Jane had me in her sights, but she got sniped by someone before she could fire, there's another team behind us." Emily said.

Carter took in the new information.

"We're probably going to be flanked, we need to get out of this spot." He said.

"I only see Emile and Robert firing on us; Shane's still out there somewhere." Cory said.

With team Wolfpack pinning them down, and one unaccounted member, and another team closing in behind them, there weren't many places they could move to. There was the field outside of the forest they were in, but it was completely devoid of cover.

Carter quickly formulated a plan to get his team out of this situation. They couldn't go back, so they would take out Alpha's two members in front of them. They outnumbered them anyways.

"Ellen, throw flash-bangs at them, we'll take them out while they're disorientated. Emily, you provide cover fire from here." Carter ordered.

His team nodded, and got ready.

Robert fired a three round burst at Cory, who had decided to peek up. He and Emile were running low on ammo, why hadn't Jane flanked them yet?

Shane's voice spoke on his radio. "Robert, Jane's down, someone sniped her when she was flanking, I think its Eagle team, I'm watching out for them."

"Eagle team" Robert thought, "That's Jun's team…"

"Robert, I think Lion's about to try something, their sniper is firing cover, and the rest of them are moving." Emile said.

Before Robert could come up with something to do, his radio came to life, but it wasn't Shane.

Chief Mendez's voice boomed loud over the radio, and while listening, Robert realized that probably every recruit was hearing this.

"Recruits, there is now a new twist in this exercise. A team of six drill instructors in our latest armor has entered the training zone. They will be hunting YOU. Think smart, and decide to do, that is all." Mendez said. The radio went silent.

Robert looked at Emile, and knew his teammate was thinking the same thing he was. "A twist to our exercise? That sounds just like Mendez, damn it. There's probably not many teams left, and my team's already down a person."

Robert made a snap decision.

"Hey Carter! You heard what Mendez said, let's make a truce!" Robert yelled out.

Team Lion stopped firing, and their leader replied

"Fine, I'm coming over, don't shoot me."

Carter came out from behind cover, limping slightly from a TTR impact on his right leg. Robert and Emile held fire. His radio crackled, it was Shane.

"Hey Robert, I've made contact with team eagle, they want to make a truce." Shane said.

"Do it, I'm making a truce with team Lion right now, I get the feeling that we'll need the help against the DI's." Robert replied.

"Carter, we're making a truce with Jun's team too right now, they were flanking us earlier. Now, we're against a team of 6, and they're decked out in some new armor, and probably heavily armed, what's the plan?" Robert said.

Carter spoke without a moment's thought, a plan already in his mind.

"We'll hold position here. We have good cover, and a view of everything around us." Carter said. He waved at the rest of team Lion to take cover.

Shane came up behind them, with the four recruits of team Eagle. Robert turned and saw Jun-A266, Kevin-A092, Dennis-A312, and Rachel-A111. Carter repeated the plan to them. They propped Jane up against a tree, and policed her weapons and ammo. The three teams connected their COMs, and took up positions behind dense foliage, and on tree tops. Then, they waited. Seventeen minutes went by without a single thing happening, but everyone still stayed alert. Then loud gunfire came from across the large field, the sound of assault rifles firing full auto. Half a minute later, they stopped.

"What do you think happened?" asked Cory

"Not sure, probably another team, maybe they took out the DI's?" said Emile.

But Carter shook his head. "Probably the other way around, keep an eye out."

Cory scanned the field, looking for anyone hidden in the tall grass. A minute went by, and then his radio came to life.

"Contacts! Can't tell how many are there, in the field! They have some sort of…active camouflage, look for blurs!" Emily said.

Cory instantly looked at where Emily indicated, and saw an indistinct shape, before he lost its position. "Holy shit, active camouflage?" He thought. He was surprised Emily had even saw them, despite how good she was, he couldn't even make them out, even at such a close range. Cory came up from his crouch and started to move higher where he would have a better view. A three round burst was fired at him, barely missing him, and he ducked. Carter and Ellen opened fire, sweeping the area with TTR, but they didn't hit anything. Another three round burst came, and knocked Ellen down for the count. Cory fired two shots at where the muzzle flash came from, and was rewarded with the red splatter of TTR outlining a figure. The drill instructor's camouflage failed, and a figure in some sort of green armor appeared, with an orange faceplate covering much of the helmet. But despite the otherwise perfect shots, the DI didn't drop, instead, he moved, while firing more three round bursts from what Cory thought to be a BR55. Emily fired a round from her SRS99 sniper rifle, and hit the DI, staggering him, but not stopping him. She fired two more rounds before the DI finally dropped. Whatever this new armor was, it could take a severe pounding. The sound of gunfire came from behind them. Eagle team had engaged the other DI's. Jun fell out of a tree, splattered with TTR. Rachel dropped after taking a shot to the face, covering her goggles with red paint. Kevin and Dennis fell shortly afterward.

"We need to regroup! Cory, come with me, Robert, have your team cover us, I have an idea." Carter said.

"What can we do? We can barely see them!" Shane said.

Carter took a flash-bang off Ellen, her last one.

"They're probably using some sort of photo-reactive material, the light from the flash-bang should overload it." Carter replied.

"And if they aren't?"

Carter smiled grimly. "Then you had better avenge us, in any case, we don't have much of a choice. Now lay down some suppression fire."

Team Wolfpack obliged, and its three members opened fire with MA5Ks. Five figures returned fire, revealing their position. Carter tossed the flash-bang in their midst, and he and Cory took cover. After the muffled bang, they came out with their weapons ready, and found five disorientated and thankfully visible DIs. They wasted no time, and laid down withering fire along with Wolfpack. The figures dropped, screaming and writhing. The recruits didn't let up, because they saw first hand that the armor could take a lot of punishment. But finally, tell tale red lights flashed on the DI's armor, signifying that they were "dead". Chief Mendez came back on the radio.

"Congratulations recruits, you are victorious, there are six recruits left on the field, stand by for pickup."

Robert grinned, "Did you hear that? We're the only ones that made it, oh yeah, we rock!"

But Shane shook his head. "We almost didn't make it."

Cory chipped in his words. "It's a good thing Carter thought of the flash bangs."

Emily came over grinning. "That's Carter, cool under pressure, and smart too."

Carter simply nodded. He offered Robert his hand, "Good job today."

Robert stared at the hand for a full three seconds before taking it. "Alright, so…friends?"

"Friends."

A pelican roared above them, and started landing in the field.

0230 Hours, March 17, 2536 (Military Calendar)\Aboard UNSC Hopeful, Interstellar Space, Sector K-007

Since that training exercise where team Lion had finally made their peace with team Wolfpack, the recruits had started utilizing the armor the DI's used against them. It was called Semi-Powered Infiltration armor, or SPI for short. It featured hardened plates and cushioning liquid nanocrystals that provided better ballistic protection than most standard UNSC armor. It was nearly impervious to small arms fire, and highly resistant against assault rifles. But Cory wondered how it would fare against Covenant plasma weapons. It had been many years since he had been inducted into Alpha Company, and since then, he had learned many things, and formed close bonds with his teammates. And now, it was graduation day. The Lieutenant had briefed them on the Spartan program augmentations. They would be able to move and react faster, and have enhanced strength and durability. But the Lieutenant also showed them the risks. They saw archived videos of the bioaugmentation phase of the Spartan-IIs. How more than half of them had washed out, either dying from the procedure or becoming so badly deformed that they couldn't stand. Cory had seen the videos, but he remained resolved. He was so close to becoming a Spartan that he wouldn't have quit just because he could die in the procedure. None of the other 299 recruits in the company had opted out either. Cory had been strapped to a bed, and was about to be put under. He thought about how he would be able to kill Covenant more easily after the augmentations, and held on to the thought as he lost consciousness.

The chapter was longer, but I decided to cut it off here, and save the rest for the next chapter. Cory has made it through years of training, and he's finally getting the augmentations! We'll meet some interesting characters in the next chapter, so stay tuned. Reviews are always welcome guys! (And girls, just so I don't appear sexist.)