Red Team approached Blue Team at the bonfire pit. Keiichi had just been shown the door by his teammates after he took over the challenge and cost them. John was sitting on a log bench, staring into the fire while sitting between Linda and Naomi. He looked over at Red Team as they approached.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"To show you how we've felt the last couple days" Cal answered. Naomi looked behind Cal.
"Hey, Malcolm! I didn't see you there!" Malcolm threw his hands up in defeat.
"Why has no one noticed me?" he asked. Everyone laughed at that.
"I have a question all of us can talk about. What would you do with the million dollars if you won it?" James asked. A deafening silence came over the Spartans. At night when all was quiet, it gave them time to answer. They thought about it throughout the challenges of the past few days, but they weren't able to fully put those thoughts into words. Sam broke the silence first.
"I'd flex on everyone with a big house, designer clothes, and expensive jewelry" he said. Kurt shook his head.
"No, no. I'd do something more productive with that cash. Maybe I'd pay my rent finally" he replied. John answered as honestly as he could.
"I don't know what I'd do" he blurted out.
"Well, certainly you have to have thought about something" Carris responded. Then, Arthur let out a scream.
"The hell was that about?" Soloman asked.
"I saw a squirrel" Arthur replied. Margaret busted out laughing.
"You're scared of squirrels? A genetically modified supersoldier who's looked death in the face and laughed, and you're scared of squirrels?"
"Well, yeah. You must be scared of something, Margaret"
"I never really got into the E.O.D. stuff. I can't mentally bring myself to do it"
"Mine is getting locked in an airtight box and getting buried in it" Isaac piped up. James looked down at his feet.
"Me, I'm scared of clowns" Everyone bust out laughing.
"Clowns? Really, James?" Alice asked. James crossed his arms and gave her a death stare. "Alright, fine. After being frozen for 20 years, I guess that's what I'm scared of. Being frozen and just...forgotten"
"That is pretty terrifying" Kurt muttered. "My biggest fear is having to face the SPARTAN-IIIs and what I've done to them. Entire companies, just gone before my eyes. I don't want to talk about it" Everyone looked at each other, confused. SPARTAN-IIIs? Were there other SPARTANS they knew nothing about? And how did Kurt know about them? They were going to have to find the answers later. Margaret checked her watch.
"It's getting late" she said, and began walking off towards the bases. Red Team followed her lead.
"I think it's about time we do the same" Soloman said, and Blue Team began heading for the showers and their beds.
John confessional: "We may be competing against each other now, but we're still brothers and sisters in arms. It's nice to talk to each other like that sometimes, as people, not war machines"
The sun was rising over the Spartans. Johnson and Dr. Halsey were looking over everyone's files before the cameras began rolling. Halsey had detailed files on all 22 Spartans, including their fears.
"The footage last night was telling. I had no idea they felt fear" Johnson told Halsey.
"Truly. Anyway, here's all their fears from the deep parts of their files. ONI censors covered these up, and now we have access" she responded. Johnson was going to have fun messing with them today. In the mess hall, Sam was eating a stack of pancakes topped with strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, and maple syrup.
"I'm loving civilian life!" he exclaimed as he began downing them.
"Eat like a person, Sam. That's disgusting" John told him. Blue Team shared this sentiment. Johnson entered the room with a box. It was made of wood and had airholes throughout it.
"Hey, Malcolm! Special delivery" Johnson set the box in front of Malcolm, and opened it to reveal a live goose. Malcolm fell out of his seat. The rest of the remaining Spartans looked shocked.
Malcolm confessional: "How did they know I'm scared of geese?"
"The cameras…they got us talking about her fears on camera" Alice gasped.
"That's right I did. And today's challenge is a sort of therapy. We're helping you conquer these fears"
John confessional: "I fear nothing"
"When you're done with breakfast, meet me at the firepit and we're starting" The Spartans met in the firepit at around 10:45 in the morning. "The team that has the most members conquer their fear wins. It's pretty basic" He motioned to a goose in a pen. "Malcolm is first. Spend two minutes with this goose in this pen" Malcolm began shaking his head and started backing up. Leon began pushing him towards the pen.
"Oh no you don't" Leon said, shoving Malcolm into the pen.
"Two minutes. That's all" Malcolm muttered to himself.
"You got this!" Cal called out to him. Malcolm began pacing around the pen. Then, the goose attacked. Malcolm began running around the pen being chased by the angry bird. He screamed and punched it, the force enough to kill it. He was sitting in a corner of the pen shaking.
"Do we get the point?" Carris asked. Johnson nodded.
"One point to Red!" Red Team high fived each other, and Cal pulled Malcolm out of the pen. Johnson motioned to the lake.
"Isaac, come with me" He led Isaac to an airtight box over by an open hole behind the barracks. Isaac looked stunned.
"How did you know?" he asked.
"There's cameras everywhere, remember?"
"Oh, right" Johnson shoved Isaac in the box.
"You have to spend 5 minutes in the box" Isaac began panicking as the box was lowered. "Your five minutes begins once the box is buried. Please don't panic too much because it's airtight"
Isaac confessional: "This is a big fear I have. I didn't say my real biggest fear, but Johnson wouldn't do that. Would he?"
Sam confessional: "We're going to have to face the heat if we're going to win this one. Not looking forward to it"
Both teams watched anxiously as Johnson started the clock. Johnson had a bell Isaac could ring if at any point he couldn't complete the challenge. He wanted to test the Spartans, and help them with their post-war transition, but he didn't want to hurt them. Too many heroes lost in the war. John began pacing as the clock ticked down. Linda began biting her nails. Red Team began talking amongst themselves.
"What if he actually does it?" Vinh asked. Cal shrugged.
"He did better than me in this situation. Airtight box? No way" she replied. James looked over at the clock.
"He has two minutes left" James said. Then, he was tapped on the shoulder by someone. He screamed and began running when he saw it was a clown. The clown began chasing after him. Red Team busted out laughing. James was being chased by the clown off into the woods.
"Is he going to be coming back?" John asked. Margaret shrugged.
"Don't know. Can't tell you" she responded. The timer went off and Isaac was raised. He quickly climbed out of the box, pulled out his wallet and opened it, kissed a picture inside the wallet, and quickly put his wallet away. Blue Team cheered him on. James came streaking back in, his voice giving out from all the screaming. Kurt tripped him, and he began crawling away from the clown. Johnson pulled out a camera.
"All you have to do is take a picture with him. That's it" James was skeptical. He began inching towards the clown.
"You've been to hell and back, and that's what you're scared of?" Carris asked, tauntingly. Red Team believed in a tactic of aggressive motivation. James drooped his head.
"I can't do it" he said. He and the clown began to walk opposite directions. Red Team collectively sighed. Arthur was next up. He had to sit on a branch up in a tree, over by a group of squirrels. He jumped off the branch as soon as he saw them, costing his team a point. The two teams were still tied up 1-1. Johnson looked at the files. He had another trick up his sleeve. He approached Margaret.
"There's a stink bomb in the rec room. You have 15 minutes to defuse it or the rec room will smell like a Brute's asshole for a week" he told her. Johnson shoved Margaret into the room and closed the door. "Your 15 minutes starts now" Margaret began frantically trying to diffuse the stink bomb. Johnson returned to the gathered Spartans. A Pelican arrived, and two people got off in UNSC Army dress uniforms.
"This is a Navy installation. You two have the wrong branch" Malcolm said to them. The man took his hat off.
"We're looking for Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose. Do you know where we can find him?" he asked. Kurt stepped forward.
"Tom. I'm here" Kurt said as he approached the pair. Tom smiled.
"We were told to come here by Avery Johnson. Said you wanted to talk to us" Just as Tom finished his sentence, the second person stepped out from behind him. She was very miniscule compared to everyone there, standing only 5'3. She began communicating in sign language.
"This is Lucy. She's introducing herself. She's mute, so she uses sign language to communicate. Lucy is saying it's a great honor to be in the presence of Lieutenant Commander Ambrose's brothers and sisters, our predecessors" Tom explained. Kurt addressed his peers.
"Colonel James Ackerson created the SPARTAN-III program in response to our success. He went to ONI behind the back of Dr. Halsey and created the SPARTAN-III program to create a mass-produced supersoldier. Tom and Lucy are from Beta Company, the second wave. They're the only survivors of Operation: TORPEDO" Kurt elaborated.
"Was it a Beta-5 program?" Linda asked. Kurt nodded. Soloman approached Lucy.
"You're small to be a Spartan" he said, patting her head. "I like it, though. Use you for a lot more covert ops in tight spaces" Lucy smiled and gave a thumbs up.
"Her muteness is psychological from Torpedo" Tom said. Lucy shivered at the mention of the operation.
"We don't talk about it much" Lucy signed, with Tom translating. Kurt looked at the ground, then back up.
"I should've backed out after Alpha Company. When I saw all of them obliterated, I felt sick. I wanted to cry. I look at Lucy, and what I've done to her. I feel ashamed" Kurt said. Tom put his hand on Kurt's shoulder.
"It wasn't you. It wasn't Mendez. It was Ackerson, ONI, and the Army" he reassured him. Kurt was glad to see the two. After Operation: TORPEDO, Tom and Lucy became inseparable.
John confessional: "I'm not mad at the fact there was a SPARTAN-III program. I'm mad that only Kurt knew and no other SPARTAN-II was told. And Mendez? He was in on it, too?"
Johnson approached Kurt.
"Blue Team gets the point" he said. He turned to Tom and Lucy. "You two are welcome to stay. You just have to leave after dinner" Lucy gave a thumbs up and Tom thanked him for the offer. "Cal! You're up!" Cal spun around, her long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Johnson brought in a cage with a live deer inside. Cal jumped at the sight. It was a large buck, and it made Cal tremble. The buck's antlers were very big, and Cal feared she would be impaled by them. Johnson put some food in her hand.
"You have to feed him" he told her. "That's it. That's all you have to do" Cal took a deep breath and approached the buck. He was standing there peacefully, taking in the scenery. Cal began to slowly approach the buck.
"Hey, there. I don't want to hurt you" she whispered as she approached it. Just then, Margaret burst out of the rec room holding the defused stink bomb. She defused it with a minute to spare.
"I did it! Now the rec room won't smell like the inside of a Brute's asshole!" she yelled as loud as she could. The buck got startled and headbutted Cal. She lay on the ground on like a slug; it was her only defense. The angry buck ran off into the woods. Leon helped Cal to her feet. Everyone was glaring at Margaret. She slinked back into the rec room.
"Red Team gets a point for Margaret, but not one for Cal" Johnson said. Cal was sucking her thumb. Halsey was watching on a live feed from her lab on Reach, and she made a note of this. In her notes, she made note of this sudden mental regression. She noticed this in a lot of the Spartans over the course of the last few days. Robert pointed to a corner in Red Base.
"Bad Cal! Go to the Cal Corner!" he yelled. Cal put her head down and slinked into the corner.
"But…"
"No buts! Cal Corner! Three minutes!"
"You all right?" Tom asked Cal, whispering in her ear as she stood in the Cal Corner. She nodded. Blue Team was next. Sam was brought into the mess hall.
"I know you have a fear of octopuses. So, you have to eat a live one" he said. Sam sat down at the table. A live octopus was on the plate, complete with chopsticks, a bottle of soy sauce, and a glass of water. Sam threw up at the thought of having to eat a live octopus.
"No, no. I can't do it" he sighed. A Marine arrived and began cleaning up. John pat Sam on the back.
"I don't blame you. That's nasty" he said. Sam nodded.
"I wonder what the others have to do" he replied. John shrugged. The next up was another Blue Team contestant, Alice. She had to spend a half an hour in a cryo tube in the Blue Base. Once she was in, nobody was allowed in the room. When the timer went off, she was released, but had to find everyone else. When Johnson explained that to her, she began shaking. She went to the far corner of the base and began begging Johnson not to do that to her. Fred and Arthur were comforting her.
"It's all right. You don't have to do it" Fred was telling her. "We can take the lost point on this one. It's a calculated risk" Alice stood up. She was backing out.
"Am I going to get in trouble for this?" she asked Johnson. The Spartans were punished with corporal punishment during training for noncompliance.
"Don't worry. You're not going to get punished for this" Johnson whispered in her ear as they walked back outside.
Fred confessional: "Today is probably the most intense day of this show. *nervously chuckles* I'm not looking forward to what they're going to make me do"
Right on cue, Fred was next. He slumped down hearing his name called. Fred had been around the universe, bred for war, but this was going to break him.
"Fred, I've read your file. Even the part covered in black ink. Your biggest fear is snakes" Johnson said. Fred had a chill run down his spine. He knew with all the camera rolling and all the people watching at home he had to do it. The snake was in a glass case. It was a small, non-venomous snake that was just chilling on a stick. Fred slowly approached it. The snake stuck its tongue out at him. Fred nervously booped its nose. Johnson awarded Blue Team a point. From here, things picked up the pace. Adriana fell off the mountain in the background after getting in a boxing match with the Abominable Snowman. Tom and Lucy slid in with a safety net to catch her.
"I'm still trying to mentally process what just happened" Carris told her teammates. They nodded in agreement. Carris was next and she got a point for her team because she successfully drank the mac & cheese powder mixed with vodka.
Margaret confessional: "I tried it as well. It was disgusting"
Carris confessional: "I will NEVER, EVER drink that again"
Naomi stumbled out of the gate, literally and figuratively. Her biggest fear was having to run on all fours in a horse race while being forced into the stuff they put on the horses. Her "jockey" was chosen by Johnson to be Sam. Naomi stumbled out of the gate and wiped out, costing her team a point. She began ripping everything off.
Naomi confessional: "Highly specific, I know"
Vinh was up next. She had to run across a minefield. She was able to run straight across and not get blown up, winning a point for her team. Soloman was claustrophobic, and crawled through a series of increasingly shrinking tubes. He squeezed out of the one at the end, and gained a point for his team. Blue Team was jumping around celebrating with him.
"You're not done yet" Johnson reminded them. Both teams looked at each other. They realized he was right. John hadn't gone yet.
"John, you need to go for Blue now" Johnson said. He led John into the Red Team base to a closed door.
"This was supposed to be Jerome's room, but he got eliminated on the first day. Because of that, it's been empty. Perfect for your challenge" he explained. John gulped. He opened the door and walked in. He saw a small orange kitten laying on the pillow on the bed.
"Cats? You're scared of cats?" Malcolm asked. John nodded. Johnson pushed John in.
"Pet it" he told John. The hulking war machine slowly approached the small kitten, which let out a small squeak as its meow hadn't fully developed yet. John reached out and slowly ran the tip of his pointer finger on his right down its little body. Blue Team golf clapped for John, who walked out with the kitten on his shoulder like a pirate with a parrot. The two teams were gathered by the firepit.
"I hope all of you who conquered their fears got over them" Johnson began. "However, a team has to lose and another has to win. Red Team, you had three members fail the challenge. James, Cal, and Adriana all failed. However, Blue Team had four fail. Alice, Arthur, Sam, and Naomi didn't conquer their fears. Red wins!" Red Team began celebrating.
"What do we win?" Carris asked.
"You get a trip to Club Errera, the premier nightclub on all of Reach. And not just any old trip to Club Errera, you get V.I.P. access!" Johnson answered. Red Team began celebrating more. They went into their base, and began to get ready for their night out. Blue Team knew they had to show someone the door.
Dinner was chicken tenders with mac and cheese, broccoli, and a baked potato with a brownie for desert. Tom and Lucy were staying for dinner at the insistence of Kurt.
"So, you just kick someone off?" he asked. Kurt nodded.
"We just need to figure out who" Soloman leaned back in his chair.
"I say one of the four who didn't complete the challenge" he said. Sam, Arthur, Naomi, and Alice began nervously looking at each other.
"I'll second that notion, Soloman" Linda added. Naomi broke out in a cold sweat. Isaac took a sip of his drink.
"I've narrowed down to the final two out of those four"
"You do realize we're sitting right here, don't you?" Arthur asked. Isaac began acting like he didn't hear him.
"Wow, you hear that? There's a spooky ghost here!" Arthur gave Isaac a death stare while everyone laughed.
. . . . .
It was time for the elimination ceremony. Johnson was using ice cream as the immunity symbol.
"Blue Team. Back to back losses now. What happened? You got out to a fast start" he began. Blue Team looked around uncomfortably. Tom and Lucy were in the Pelican, as they would be hitching a ride with the loser.
"Alright, let's begin. The contestants staying are Isaac, John, Linda, Soloman, Fred and Kurt" The remaining four Spartans were the ones who failed the challenge.
"Next one staying is Sam" Sam breathed a sigh of relief and took his place with his teammates.
"Naomi! Come on down!"
"Woohoo!" Naomi exclaimed, jumping up out of her seat. Now it was down to Arthur and Alice. Alice began darting her eyes from Arthur to Johnson. Arthur was shaking he was so nervous. Johnson stared intensely at them.
"Get it on already!" Kurt yelled.
"I need to drag it out for the cameras. It makes things more dramatic" Johnson snapped back. "Anyway, the last contestant staying is Alice. Arthur, you're done" Alice ran over to her teammates, hugging both Naomi and Isaac. Arthur slowly got up, and walked to the Pelican. He sat down with his face in his hands. Lucy tried to cheer him up by lightly rubbing his shoulder with her fingertips, but it didn't seem to work.
"For the rest of you, you live to fight another day. Enjoy your ice cream!" Johnson said, ending the ceremony.
Fred confessional: "Nothing personal against Arthur, but as a team we found his fear of squirrels as an annoyance rather than a quirk."
As the fire died down and everyone was heading back to the base, John and Isaac were the last two sitting outside. The cameras had stopped rolling for the day, and the two were watching the flames die down.
"Your wallet from earlier. Why did you kiss it?" John asked. Isaac pulled his wallet out and opened it up.
"She's my adopted daughter Wyoming. I found her on Luna when the Covenant reached Earth. She was so scared and so helpless" he answered. "I had to help her, so I sheltered her. We formed a bond, and she's been my angel since. She changed me"
John looked at the picture of the young girl. She was wearing a powder blue sundress and a white beret, her long red hair hanging all the way down her body to her hips.
"I can relate somewhat" John said. "I had a son with Kelly years ago. Never met him until he was an adult, but it still had an effect on me" Isaac put his wallet away and shot a look at John.
"You have a son?" And John began to tell him the story.
At Club Errera, Red Team was living it up. Margaret and Malcolm were watching James and Leon make fools of themselves on the dancefloor as they sat on a couch in the V.I.P. lounge. Malcolm was watching Cal drunkenly fumble around in her heels while Robert was trying to support her.
"I'm sure Otto would love to see where that dress" Malcolm said to Margaret. She smiled.
"You think so?"
"You bet"
"So, this is what winning feels like?"
"I guess"
"I've never felt…so free…so liberated"
"None of us have felt this way, Margaret. Let's hope our team isn't too hungover for tomorrow"
