A/N: To the people who read the original version of this story: Please read Cortana's new dialogue, it has suffered some extreme changes but the overall plot hasn't changed much. Thanks for reading this, I really spent too much time investigating the augmentation process on all of the Spartans and did a small change to my character's augmentations because it makes them just slightly different from the vast majority of the fours. Please review!
"Greetings Raven team." Cortana appeared on the holopad of the gym. The fireteam had been sitting and speaking with each other until Cortana appeared.
"Cortana," Alex nodded at her in greeting "feel like joining our bickering?"
"I actually come in the name of science," the team perked up at that. "I want to compare a Spartan IV fighting style with a Spartan II without the use of armor. I'm taking in consideration the differences in your augmentation processes, especially since your augmentations were done at an older age." The bitter reminder of the early conscription of the S-IIs didn't stop Cortana from rambling. "His augmentations did a far more severe change on his body than yours, a clear example of that is his size. He is a head taller than all of you and you are a head taller than the average human."
"Didn't you see Alex's fights with the Chief?" Asked Zoe with a suspicious look.
"Yes, I have recorded the three of them and stored them within my data. Which brings us to the reason while Alexandra here was able to take down the Chief. I studied her fighting style and concluded that it relied more on flexibility, agility and technique."
"Wait three? Did you just say three? Three! Don't you mean two?" Louis stared at Cortana as if she was rampant (which she is, but he doesn't know).
"So that's why you were acting weird this morning!" Teased Scott with a sly smirk. "The Chief beat yo ass again didn't he?" Alex hid her face with her arms as she hugged her knees and groaned.
"Loser!" mocked Louis "I'll be your subject Cortana! Bring him in!" Louis stood up and beat his fists against his broad chest gorilla style.
"I was hoping you would!" Cortana smiled, "I needed to check his abilities with a male opponent with the same skills at his latest female opponent. Taking in consideration that you shared not only your childhood and training, but you shared a womb. I couldn't get anyone more apt for the job. Would you consider yourself to be stronger than your sister?" Louis nodded along with Alex, "what about style? Do you consider to have a similar style to that of your sister? I checked your previous training records and some recordings from your time as ODST's but there are not enough recorded hand to hand combats that you participated in for me to make a precise judgement of your skill level and style. Perhaps you rely more in strength than your sister since your body type is not made for agility." Cortana became quiet for a second "... hmm but not all the Spartans IV have your same skills..."
"So? I'm still a four and one of the best at hand to hand!"
"Exactly," she flashed red for a moment. Raven team shared a look, they had seen the same on another smart AI but didn't want to bring it up. "I'm also trying to compare how the difference in bone density will affect the outcome of this match. It is quite obvious that the Chief's augmentations are better than yours. HA! I mean you guys only had a protein coating on your muscle fibers which was intermuscular." She laughed, "My twos received both the protein complex infusion which was intramuscular as well as the catalytic thyroid implant." She laughed again, this time louder. "Although I was quite surprised that your team and some other Spartans underwent the superconducting fabrification of neural dendrites. I'm also surprised that you survived that one, your base genetics were a bit weaker than those of a Spartan two. Sadly not many of your fours received that augmentation, it isn't even listed in many of the official documents. I really need to test this, I wonder if your neural dendrites respond better to a lesser quantity of mass. "
"You are far too excited to see this." Zoe accused Cortana with her arms crossed.
"Pfft! Of course I am! I was created from the brain of a scientist!" She crossed her arms and lifted her chin in defiance, "An average Spartan four in gen two MJOLNIR armor can take on an average Spartan two in gen one MJOLNIR armor and has the capability of being a little better off due to the gen two armor being more advanced. However, without armor, Spartan two are superior to most Spartan fours. Or that's the theory at least, there have been several trials but none with someone with their enhanced dendrites. In every other aspect you are clearly inferior to a Spartan two because you don't know what a lifetime of military training and indoctrination really means in battle!" Cortana smiled in a sweet eerie way, like she was telling little children that they would never achieve anything because they were simply too stupid.
Alex was slightly creeped out by the smile. Louis, Scott, and Zoe frowned at the implication. The four of them had always hated the word 'inferior', the media and the civilians loved that word. Even the trainers had called them inferior to break them, especially the trainers who happened to be actual Spartans. To have Cortana say it so bluntly really hurt their feelings and awoke something in their veins. It burned with the need to prove her wrong.
"Oh! I finally convinced him to engage in combat!" Cortana clapped her hands and sat down on the holopad with her legs crossed like a child waiting for permission to open her Christmas gifts. Raven team shared a look, they conveyed their anger and indignation but knew that it wasn't possible to talk Cortana out of her mindset. Louis felt an especial need to kick the Chief's ass to protect his honor. He started running in the treadmill to wake up his muscles, Cortana said nothing.
John arrived 5 minutes later. He nodded at Louis who nodded back and entered the ring gracefully. Louis bowed and took his stance. Cortana had already tampered with the gravity so that they wouldn't hurt each other a lot and was already analyzing the way Louis stood to that of Alex's, he seemed to prepare himself to use his strength while Alex always stood in preparation to jump away or do a quick combination of hits and kicks to keep her opponent from fully attacking.
"How many times do you want them to fight?" Asked Scott, he was still bitter after the small science class.
"Three," she received a look of disapproval from Scott and Zoe. Alex moved to the medic kit without saying anything. "I need enough data," Cortana shrugged.
Alex had entered the ring and called Zoe to help her place bandages around their fists, knees and ankles. Alex wasn't going to ask Scott to wrap bandages around Louis or John. That would have been troublesome. Zoe was hostile against John (apparently it wasn't going to end... like never).
So Alex had to kneel in front of John, awkward thing no. 1, and started to wrap the bandages around his knees. She knew Cortana probably wanted to test whose skin was strongest, but Alex really didn't want them to hurt each other too much, especially looking how riled up Louis was.
"Uhh could you spread your knees a bit more?" Awkward thing no. 2. He was wearing shorts (which looked like a miracle but it was probably in preparation to this fight.) She wrapped the bandages around his kneecaps in case he decided to his Louis in the face with his knee or something.
Her head was level with his hips (ok his crotch), awkward thing no. 3.
She could feel him looking down at her and studying her movements, awkward thing no. 4.
Alex finished and sighed in relief. He did his own hands and she did his ankles quickly.
She finished before Zoe did and fled the ring to sit next to Scott in a bench press. She yawned and Scott wrapped an arm around her shoulders for her to get comfortable on his shoulder. Scott had sensed how truly tired she was and how uncomfortable she had been with doing what she did for John.
John turned around and looked at her to nod his thanks. He saw the compromising position Scott and Alex were currently engaged in. He guessed that the blond man with green eyes was her boyfriend and made a mental note to remember that tiny detail. He always forgot that type of social things.
"Why don't you go sleep in your room?" Scott asked quietly and felt her shake her head on his shoulder.
"I want to see this," she replied and yawned again. She hadn't been able to sleep much last night, having taken a nap yesterday after she ran away from the cafeteria in the morning. It had disturbed her sleeping schedule.
Zoe sat next to them when she was finished and leaned against Alex who sighed t feeling so comfortable. It was quite interesting how at ease they were with each other, not only in their working relationship, but physically comfortable with each other.
The first fight looked like a Taekwondo match full of kicks and blocks. Alex swore to have heard something pop, maybe a knee or a hip, but both men looked fine as they tried to behead each other with kicks to the head. John had kicked Louis hard on the chest and threw him to the other side of the ring. Louis eyes widened in surprise as he rubbed his chest, surprised at the amount of pain his kick caused. He recovered quickly and lunged towards him. Louis roared and kneed him in the neck and chin. It was quite an amazing feat considering John's height. John staggered back but quickly regained his stance and blocked the next hit aimed towards his face.
Next, Louis lunged at John with a punch to the gut. John let himself get hit and grabbed Louis by the waist and wrist. He raised his leg and kicked him in the chest with his knee. If it wasn't for the gravity John could have killed him by breaking his ribs instead of simply making him grunt in pain in the floor as he struggled for breath.
Alex was giggling and Louis glared at her when he stood up. There's a thing about siblings, they love to see each other in pain in some of the most inappropriate moments; you'd understand if you had a sibling.
"Rest two minutes," ordered Cortana, "don't sit down." They nodded and stood in front of each other. "I think the difference in strength is quite obvious as expected." Louis glared at her. "He didn't break any of your bones, or did he?" Louis kept his glare steady.
They were too tired to do anything but regain their breathing. Alex had eventually found her way into the ring to check Louis's ribs, they were not broken at least. Alex checked the Chief's neck quickly and then returned to the spot between Scott and Zoe.
"Hey how old are you?" Asked Louis after a minute of silence, John simply inclined his head. "You do know how old you are, don't you?"
"I've never cared about it," John shrugged slightly "should be about 40 something." Cortana coughed in the background "I don't want to know Cortana."
"There are 3 to 5 ways to calculate your age," started Cortana. "Yes, you are indeed 40 something in 2 ways. Both of this would take in account the amount of time you've spent in cryo, which is a bit more than 6 years. Your body and mind didn't age while you slept in cryo. The others wouldn't be accurate and range from 30 to 45."
"Would you like to calculate for us?" Asked Zoe with a teasing smile. Alex and Louis simply grinned at the blue AI. Scott didn't give a fuck.
"I already have but it is not up to me to divulge the data."
"Well then maybe I could help with divulging the information" Tobi appeared in a different holotank from the other side of the room.
"You are a dumb AI, I could wipe you off this system with a flicker of my finger if I wanted to." Cortana turned red and her voice had a slight distortion. That was all that Tobi needed to make his disappearance.
"Feisty AI…" murmured Louis while stretching his arms and legs, he turned to John and grinned. "Shall we?" He bowed down with his arms flat on his sides.
John had lead the match into a fist fight with a kick every now and then. Louis was better than him in that aspect, he aimed a decoy hit to John's rib cage, and John held his fist. Louis attacked with his knee and John blocked with his forearm and then hit him with his elbow on the Louis's neck. He punched Louis's jaw with in quick succession, making Louis spit out blood and fall back against the ropes and finally on his knees to check on his abused jaw. John's eyes widened in surprise and slight worry. He ran to kneel besides Louis to check his wound.
"Fuck! Is it broken?" Louis asked in a high pitched voice.
John poked the skin around his jaw and shook his head slowly. Louis hissed in pain anyway.
"Well it sure as hell feels broken… Uhh better check it out for me sister."
Alex removed her face from Scott's shoulder and headed towards the ring. She looked at his jaw first and made him turn his face gently so that she could get a better look. Gently, she pressed her fingertips on his jaw feeling the bone. She didn't even know if she was hurting him due to his lack of expression. But everything was okay with his bones.
Zoe handed the men a couple of water bottles to drink or wash away the blood. Louis was bleeding a bit from one of John's hits to his cheekbone and would probably have to get it fixed on the med bay later. Alex returned to sit down with Scott and Zoe, no longer leaning against each other.
They chugged their water bottles and waited for Cortana to nod. She flashed red and said something under her breath.
Louis frowned at her avatar but shrugged it off having to fight with the Chief.
The Chief frowned deep in thought and motioned Louis to fight. Louis tried to punch his face with a fist. John dodged and hit Louis in the side. The Chief was angry at the circumstances, angry at her rampancy and his own inability to help her. John raised his leg to kick Louis who lunged at him with repeated punches. John grunted in pain and pushed Louis away with his knee.
"Don't hurt him," whispered Cortana flashing red with anger. Alex and Zoe looked at Cortana, knowing very well what was going on. Scott stood up and made his way slowly towards the area between the ring and the holotank.
Louis and John continued fighting. It was a brutal and desperate fight for dominance. There was blood covering the straps around their fists. Louis had managed to kick John's face with his tibial bone and then with his left hook. John pushed Loui's away with an uppercut and stood back to regain his breath. The gravity was really taking its toll on him, he shouldn't feel this tired and he should be hitting harder and faster. John spit out some blood and shook his head to clear his senses.
John's fists were fueled with anger at his own impotence with Cortana's situation. He aimed his fist to Louis's face who wasn't able to dodge and fell back bleeding from a split lip. Louis brushed his hand against his lip. He saw more blood coating the bandages on his hand. John got closer to Louis who grunted and suddenly jumped at him like a wild animal.
John fell back unable to hold his weight. Normally he wouldn't have fallen like that, but he was too distracted to hold a basic defensive stance. John grunted as he fell and Louis started hitting his abdomen with his fists.
Zoe and Alex stood up and stared at Louis hitting John again and again on his chest and lower abdomen.
"Don't hurt him!" Cortana's screams were disrupted by several voices of her own. Her avatar turned completely red as she shouted.
John didn't let Louis continue to land hits on his abdomen, he raised his legs and pushed him off of him in a fast MMA-style movement. He felt panicked, Cortana was glitching and there was nothing he could do. Louis fell on his back and didn't have time to move when John fell on top of him punching him once in the jaw, breaking it with a sickening sound. John didn't seem to notice, for he kept punching Louis.
Alex and Zoe were already inside the ring. They tackled John together and used their bodies to keep him still. They struggled to keep him steady until Alex trapped his left arm and leg in a grappling hold, Zoe aided her by keeping his other leg and arm on the floor using her body weight against him.
John didn't fight them when he realized what just happened. His eyes became wide with sudden shame and self-hate. He was panting heavily as he looked at Louis holding his jaw tenderly and then at Alex who was shouting at someone over her shoulder. He looked at her with shocked blue eyes and then turned to Cortana's holotank. She wasn't there anymore.
Scott held Cortana's chip on one hand. He was speaking with Alex, but John didn't seem able to concentrate on what they were saying. There was a preassure in his chest, like his lungs were expanding and being filled with a cold heavy liquid. He felt desperate, he wanted to tear his lungs out but Alex and Zoe wouldn't let him. He wanted to push them away forcefully or lie in a fetal position. He wanted to run and hide, but at the same time he wanted to fight.
Scott had activated the emergency ejection for Cortana. It didn't matter where the original chip was, the AI got ejected into a new chip only for emergencies.
"She is rampant!" He screamed. John was suddenly able to make out the conversation.
"I know Scott!" Alex shouted. "Just leave her there and take Louis to the med bay!"
Scott reluctantly placed the chip on the mat of the ring. He hoped inside and helped Louis to stand up.
"He could have a concussion, don't let him fall asleep or throw up on you." She was worriedly looking at Louis who stood unsteadily against Scott, he had a hand on his jaw and had his eyes closed.
"I know, Alex. I'll take care of him." Scott's voice was deep and reassuring. It worked slightly.
Alex noticed that John's body had relaxed a bit, yet he was still trying to see Louis and Cortana. He was attempting to shove Alex and Zoe away, he was uncoordinated and desperate in his moves. He was craning his neck to the left and right, trying to catch a glimpse at Louis or Cortana. He wanted to assess the damage on Louis's jaw and make sure Cortana was okay. His eye movements were erratic and wild. Alex frowned when the chief tried to yank his arm away from her hold in a desperate move, he looked like a caged animal. John was in shock, perhaps an anxiety attack or a PTSD trigger.
"Chief?"
"He is in shock" stated Zoe.
"I know," she whispered and looked at Cortana's chip on the ground. Was it her that what triggered the fierce physical outburst?
"Don't you know what to do in this case?" Asked Zoe rather desperate, she was practically counting down the seconds until her face was met by an angry elbow that belongs to a certain Spartan in shock.
"You are being negative, he will sense your negativity and... and..." she didn't know what it would cause in him. She hadn't really been into psych back at school.
"And what Alex?" Zoe screamed at her, John reacted and tried to get free from their hold. He squirmed and somehow hit Zoe with his elbow in her stomach. Zoe gasped in pain and surprise.
"Chief," she whispered in a soft tone while trying to hold him down "calm down please." She held his arm with her right hand and her body weight, she placed her left arm over his chest and took hold of his shoulder.
Surprisingly he relaxed a bit and looked at her with a lost expression. It was like he wasn't even there. His eyes were dead and slightly emotionless, the only emotions available were those of shock, fear and anger.
"Ok, so that could happen ... should I go? I can't leave you here alone." Alex looked at her, pleading for her to go away.
"You are only making things worse." She didn't mean to sound quite so rude, but it had to be done.
"I'll stay by the door."
"I'll scream if I need you," Zoe stood up and slowly walked away. She sat down in the corridor, where she could keep an eye of the door.
Alex sighed in relief when Zoe was gone.
She wouldn't be able to hold him down by staying on his side. The only thing that came to her mind was staying on top of him and wrap her arms and legs around him. Alex climbed of top of him and John struggled to remove her. He was panicking again. Alex quickly wrapped her arms and legs around him, her forehead resting on his sweaty shoulder.
His hands tried to push her, pulling weakly on her shirt and pushing her sides. His hands moved erratically and slowly began to move quicker and weaker. She sneaked a look at his face and he was grimacing.
"Calm down and I'll let go of you," she murmured against his chest, she could feel his erratic heart beat and his labored short breaths.
He shook his head as he became more desperate in his attempts to remove her. He took a deep breath and let out a low guttural moan. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
John had extracted his arms from under her body a long time ago. Alex was afraid of what he was capable of doing. She was an easy target, he could just throw her away like a rag doll if he wished. He could just break her neck or crush her with a bear hug. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and buried her face in his chest as if trying to hide herself.
"Just relax," she mumbled to his chest. She applied more pressure to his body, not in a threatening way to keep him still. It was more like a hug albeit in an unusual position. She had read an article about pressure and its ability to relax the sympathetic nervous system. She was reading an article about cows from the 20th or 21st century but it applied to her current situation.
Alex felt his arms slowly wrap around her body. She closed her eyes and attempted to keep any nervousness off her body, to make him think she was completely calm.
John sighed and held her closer to him, accepting the pressure she was granting him with. Yet he still wasn't able to take deep breaths and keep his body from shivering with the aftershock. He placed his chin on top of her head and held her closer to his chest. Perhaps pressure to his chest would help him be able to breathe normally and so he would undoubtedly stop shivering. He opened his mouth to say something to her, anything that would make her feel less troubled with what she just experienced. He was completely ashamed of not being able to keep his mind and body under control.
"I'm sorry," that's all that came out, it was barely inaudible and his throat was tight. His voice had sounded like a deep growl and he just hoped it didn't scare her more.
She responded by holding him tighter, her arms around his abdomen and her legs tangled with his. Alex snuggled her face against his neck and let out a shaky breath. She tried to keep her breathing controlled to coax him into a relaxed state.
It wasn't working, he was still panting and holding onto her tightly. His hold was beginning to become painful.
"Use your nose Chief," he didn't listen to her, he had his eyes closed and a frown on his face. Like he was having an internal fight. "John?" She had used his name for the second time in forever, she knew his name was important to him. Alex squirmed her body so that she could be able to rest her head on the crook of his neck and be closer to his ear.
John opened his eyes in surprise when he felt her breathing on his neck. He started to breathe through his nose without a second thought.
The position wasn't comfortable at all, so she squirmed back to rest on his chest. They laid there until John was relaxed.
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
"It wasn't your fault... it was an anxiety attack." Her voice was raspy and low, calming and relaxed.
"An anxiety attack..." he repeated, tasting the words in his tongue.
"I believe Cortana was your trigger." Alex felt his muscles tense under her body and immediately regretted speaking.