Disclaimer: I don't own Halo. I wish I did, because then I'd be rich. I do, however, own Spartan-150 also known as Mariana.

Okay, I don't know how good this is going to be, but bear with me please.

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Year 2513 - Somewhere in space

Adadee watched as Mariana trained with the members of her class. As young as she was, she was unusually advanced for her age even for Elite standards. She was currently training with junior officers who were about four times her age of five. If she progressed at this rate, she would soon be earning armor. Adadee was so caught up in watching Mariana basically beat the tar out of the classmate that she was sparring with, he didn't notice a prophet come up and address him.

"Adadee, how is Anamee progressing?" the prophet asked. Adadee looked over and bowed respectfully.

"Holy one, it appears that she is able to learn quickly. In fact, she is learning faster than the rate of one of our own. This is unnatural for humans. Mari Anamee has learned, with all due respect, probably as much as a minor prophet," said Adadee.

The prophet thought on this and turned to leave. "I shall give this report to the Prophet of Truth. He'll be very interested to know this information," the prophet said floating away.

Adadee turned back to see the class ending. Going over to the trainees, he easily visually picked Mariana out from the group. Mariana, seeing him, ran up and gave him a hug around his middle.

"Hello daddy," she said happily in the Elite tongue, which Adadee was immensely proud of. Adadee knew he had a special young one on his hands. A few months after her arrival, Mariana was eager to learn the covenant languages. So far, she has mastered them all, even the Engineers', but has yet to fully grasp the sacred prophet language that a minor prophet was teaching her.

"Mariana, me and Arkanee have a surprise for you. Would you like it?" he asked, kneeling down to her level. Mariana's eyes brightened behind her mask, and she nodded vigorously.

"Yeah!" she cheered pulling her father to his feet and, grabbing his hand, pulled him out of the room.

"Okay little one, close your eyes," Adadee said a little later. Mariana removed her helmet first, causing her shoulder blade-length black hair to come cascading down, and shut her eyes. Adadee guided her into the room they had been standing outside of and stopped her.

"All right, Anamee, open your eyes," came Arkanee's voice.

Mariana made a face at her Elite name, but obeyed. Opening her eyes, Mariana was curious about the pod that was in front of her. Looking at Adadee, she gave him a questioning look.

"It's a stimulation pod. We programmed it to teach you how to fly each vehicle that we own. There's Shades, which you can already work, Ghosts, Wraiths, Banshees, Seraphs, and every space ship that you can think of," Adadee explained. Watching Mariana's indigo eyes clear of all confusion, replaced by excitement, he smiled.

"When can I start learning?"

Arkanee laughed. "Immediately," he replied.

A few months later, after Mariana mastered the pod and the prophet language, she and Adadee were summoned to the council. Entering the council chambers, Mariana looked around at all of the prophets' solemn faces and got a very bad feeling. Kneeling down in respect next to her father, Mariana heard the Prophet of Virtue speak.

"Adadee," he said, "From what I've heard, it seems to me that we finally have a conclusion on your hypothesis."

"Yes Holy one, I have found my hypothesis to be quite accurate. Humans are influenced by their elders. Marian isn't filth like them," said Adadee. Mariana was confused by his words. What did Daddy mean when she said she wasn't filth? Before she could ask him, the Prophet of Regret spoke.

"I see. Well, since the experiment is quite complete, I believe that Mariana will not need to stay here any longer," the Prophet of Regret said.

Adadee stood suddenly and pulled Mariana to him tightly. "You will not take my Anamee away from me!" he roared. Mariana was frightened. They wanted to separate her and her father? What did they do wrong?

The Prophet of Regret glared and snapped his fingers. Out of the shadows came Tartarus and his goon squad of Brutes. Seeing them, Adadee held on to Mariana tighter and muttered in her ear, "Don't forget me. They plan on sending you to a human colony. I will keep them from separating us for a while, but you must hang on."

Mariana nodded and clung to his waist as tight as she could. Feeling one of the brutes' hands on her trying to pry her from her father, she held on tighter.

While that Brute pried at Mariana, three others worked on Adadee. Two on his arms, and one to pull him off. Adadee, feeling his grip slacken slightly, he unhooked something around his neck and dropped it around Mariana's neck with a mandible. "Use that to find me one day," he whispered as they slowly separated. Finally the two were separated, and Mariana was carried out kicking and screaming while Adadee was held in place by two of the Brutes. As Mariana's last cries of "Daddy" faded from his hearing, Adadee felt despair course through him and gave up struggling, slumping to his knees.

Mariana didn't give up, though. She kicked and fought until Tartarus finally had to knock her out. Putting her in a drop pod for transportation, he launched her into space and towards the nearest colony, which was a hundred kilometers away.

On Reach, some time later, civilians of a city saw something streak overhead and land in the forest a klick away. Hurrying towards the object, they were surprised to see a single person escape pod with a little girl inside. Seeing that she was unconscious, a civilian picked her up and took her to the hospital.

Mariana started regaining consciousness and heard a strange dialect around her. Opening her eyes, she saw creatures that looked like her standing over her bed looking down at her. Panicking, because she couldn't understand them, Mariana spoke to them in every language she knew: Grunt, Jackal, Hunter, Brute, Prophet, Engineer, and even her own beloved Elite tongue. Sadly, they just shook their head and tried to communicate in their tongue that sounded familiar, yet foreign to Mariana's ears.

"The poor thing," said one of the nurses as the girl babbled to them using weird sounds, "Something must be wrong with her."

The other nurse nodded and injected something into the girl's arm to calm her down. The girl looked furious for a second, and then calmed down and settled for glaring darkly at them while making a clicking sound at them. (Ria: basically, she would be clicking her mandibles if she had them… hence the clicking sound)

A while later, Mariana was trying to find an escape route, when her attention was distracted by a holo panel that started glowing. Pressing a button curiously, Mariana leaped back making excited Grunt sounds, surprised as a transparent figure appeared on the panel. The figure was a female with flowing hair and was dressed as an Ancient Egyptian queen.

"Hello child," she said in such a soothing voice, that even though Mariana couldn't understand it, made her come closer, "My name is Iris. I am going to teach you this language, your language."

Mariana sat on her bed and merely looked at Iris. 'What a pretty name,' she thought, and felt something suddenly clamp onto her wrists, holding her down. Struggling against the bindings, she became aware of something akin to tentacles attach to her head. Ceasing her struggles, Mariana felt a wealth of information flow through her head.

"Is that better?" asked Iris putting down a scroll of papyrus that she was holding.

Mariana's eyes shot open. She could understand the hologram now. "I-I think so," she replied testing out her newly acquired language. This language, English, was rough and crude to her ears. It didn't flow like her Elite language, and there were really no hidden meanings to the words. "What are you?" she asked curiously as the "tentacles" and bindings retracted.

"I am an Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short," explained Iris, "And now that we can speak the same language, I am going to ask you two questions. First of all, how old are you, and secondly, what is your name?"

Mariana thought for a second. "I'm five, and my name is… Mariana," she said, her indigo eyes tearing as she remembered the harsh separation from her father. Iris, sensing Mariana's sadness, wrote something down on the papyrus scroll and disappeared.

As Mariana grew well and was moved from the hospital to an orphanage, she learned not to trust people much. Instead of playing gravball or other games with the rest of the children, she would do her soldier exercises that Adadee had taught her. After she finished her "workout," she would spar with a tree. The orphanage runners tried everything to get her to stop, making Mariana withdraw from their help even more. Finally they gave up and just coiled rope on the tree to make Mariana's kicks and punches not hurt her hands and feet. This continued on a daily basis until Mariana turned six and was visited by Dr. Catherine Hasley.

Dr. Hasley and Lieutenant Keyes walked into the orphanage and up to the front desk. "Hello," said Dr. Hasley, "my husband and I are looking for a child to adopt." (If you've read the Halo: The Fall of Reach book, you'll understand what I mean when I say that they're not really married.)

"Well, you've come to the right place," laughed the secretary, "Any preferences?"

"We are looking for a girl around six years old, and preferably has black hair," said Dr. Hasley.

The secretary stirred uneasily. "We have one who fits that description," she said pulling up the profile of Mariana, "but she's quite rebellious, and withdraws from the adults and playing with any of the other kids."

"I would like to see her," said Dr. Hasley. The secretary nodded and led them to a set of glass doors.

"All of the children are outside," she said opening the door for Hasley and Keyes, "The child that you want to see is near a tree with rope around it."

The two nodded and headed outside and looked around. Sure enough, there was a tree with rope coiled around it, and a little black-haired girl sparring with it. Walking over to her, Dr. Hasley saw the girl suddenly stop and just watch warily as Dr. Hasley drew closer.

"Hello, My name is Catherine, what's yours?" Dr. Hasley asked. The girl gave her an icy stare and fingered a necklace around her neck.

"I'm Mariana," she muttered after a pause.

"Well Mariana, I think that's a lovely name. Can I ask you why you don't play with the others?"

Mariana looked at Dr. Hasley and gave a small, barking laugh. "I don't bother with such childish antics. My father was training me to be the best soldier that I could be. I was so advanced, that before we were… attacked, I was training with junior officers," she said proudly watching Dr. Hasley's face take on a look of surprise. "You aren't going to try to make me change my ways, are you? Just like those other shrinks they sent to reason with me, right?" Mariana asked losing the cocky tone that was in her voice, replacing it with concern.

"Wouldn't dream of it. I just wanted to ask you that. Now, I'm busy, so I must go, but I suspect that we'll see each other again soon," said Dr. Hasley standing up and walking off with a little wave. Mariana watched her go, reminded strongly of her own father, the only ones who technically had ever cared for her. With this new feeling, Mariana fiddled with the necklace Adadee had given her, wondering if her and her father would ever be reunited again.

Going back to her room, she sat on her bed and pushed a button on a portable pad next to her bed. Iris had explained how an AI was made, and at Mariana's insistence, created one for her using a clone of Mariana's brain. (Ria: an AI is made from a selected person's neural impulses, but the process decays tissue, so Iris used a clone to preserve Mariana's brain.)

This AI, named Amee, had Mariana's attitude and knew every UNSC dirty trick in the book. Knowing Mariana's tastes for cold beauty, Amee had taken the form of a person made of precious stones that glittered with data. Appearing on the data pad, Amee yawned and stretched.

"Done already? I'm sure you're still supposed to be outside," Amee said looking at Mariana with garnet eyes. Mariana laughed and making sure she was alone, she replied in her favorite tongue.

"I skipped out, so what?" she said. Amee rolled her eyes.

"I only speak english, you know that," Amee snapped.

"I know, that's what's so fun about it," Mariana giggled, switching to human.

Amee sat down crosslegged, her form turning to sapphires with emerald eyes, a sign that she was thinking of something. "What did those two want?" she asked.

"I don't know, the lady asked me something and then left looking satisfied. Maybe we're getting out of here," Mariana said shrugging and laying back on her bed. "I wish I were back with… daddy. I miss him a lot."

Amee sighed, turning onyx with ruby eyes, oblivious to the fact that Mariana knew everything about the Covenant, and her father was an Elite. "We'll find him one day," she promised. Mariana smiled, and putting Amee in sleep mode, curled up on her bed and fell asleep.

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Ria: hums a little tune I love no school. I really wanted to write more, but then I'd get carried away. Oh well. R&R please!