O.N.I. Olympic Tower

Noble Six was leaning against the wall of the hallway next to the elevators on the fifty second floor. He had been on his way up to where the rest of Noble team had assembled. But something in his mind kept him from entering the elevator. He would walk up towards the elevators he would hesitate and then walk right on past them into the next hall way.

This habit had persisted for almost ten minutes and now he was getting fed up with it himself. So he had stopped himself to figure out exactly what was preventing him from meeting with Noble Team. It wasn't the fact that he had to explain to his team how Jorge died. Six had already procured a data-pad and had prepared a well-documented after-action report and had uploaded it into the data storage module inside his helmet. It retold the situation on the Covenant corvette, the Ardent Prayer, as Six had witnessed or at least what he could best assume of what transpired on board. He wasn't concerned with addressing specifics.

It was what the others thought of his disposition, that he feared. The material he had written was worded professionally, devoid of empathy or personal connection to what befell the strike team. He feared being held by his fellow Spartans as a cold blooded operative once again. As a hard liner willing to accept whatever necessities were needed to get the job done. It was a stereotype that B312 had been working so hard to disassociate himself from ever since 'The Incident'…

(Flashback)

Visegrad Relay Outpost

July 24th, 2552

It was B-312's first mission functioning as Noble Team's replacement 'Six', and so far things had been going rather well. Except of course for the fact that he and his fellow Spartans were being attacked left and right by alien invaders, but that didn't concern him that much. In fact, Six was having a pretty good day so far, at least by his standards.

After having successfully held off the Covenant outside the relay outpost, Noble Team had finally entered the complex and had begun clearing the interior. As Six moved into the control room he could see the body of a scientist in a white lab coat lying face down on the floor in a pool of his own blood. A red flag was drawn up in his mind.

'What was a person in a lab coat doing in a hard hat area like a Communications Relay?' He thought as he approached the body. The other elements of Noble team began filing into the room, moving to make sure the room was clear. As soon as Noble One, A259-Carter, gave the all clear signal, Six dropped down to a squat and began inspecting the body.

'Lab scientists aren't part of a relay station's designated personnel. Unless this guy was calling someone from the U.N.S.C. or maybe the O.N.I.' Six continued to speculate as he began patting down the body for anything important. 'But then what was he calling for?'

"Where's the rest of your squad?" Carter said. Hearing this Six turned to Noble One, who was trying to speak to a severely wounded Army Corporal. The soldier was in bad shape, from what Six could tell from reading his wounds.

"We got separated." The soldier said weakly. "I think they…" the soldier paused, wincing in pain from his injuries. "I-it sounded bad on the comms."

'He's not gonna make it.' Six thought to himself grimly. 'Trooper's condition is terminal, thus irrelevant. Continue searching.' His mind corrected itself as he continued patting down the corpse.

"Alright, hang tight Corporal. We'll get you a combat surgeon." Carter tried to reassure the Trooper with a friendly pat on the shoulder. Unfortunately that only aggravated one of his plasma burns, causing the wounded soldier to yelp out in pain. To which Carter quickly retracted his hand and replied "Sorry."

As this was going on Six had begun to flip the scientist's body over when something glowing and metallic fell out of the pocket of the lab coat. 'What is thi-?'

"Damn." He heard Noble Two, Catherine, curse. Six raised his head towards his fellow Spartan, only to get an eyeful of her posterior. 'Damn is right.' He admitted to himself, only to be auto corrected by his conscience screaming at him 'THAT MAY BE TRUE, BUT GET BACK TO YOUR SEARCH BEFORE SOMEONE SEES YOU GODDAMNIT!' He quickly corrected himself, hearing Kat say something about 'plasma damage', and redirected his attention to what had dropped out of the lab coat of the scientist. Picking up the glowing data module, Six raised the mechanism to eye level. 'What is this?'

"Found something." Six said out loud. Kat's attention was drawn from the fried terminal to this new piece of technology in Six's hands. She quickly snatched the data device over studiously.

"I'll take that Six. Not your domain." Was all the response Six received from Kat. 'You're welcome.' Six thought to himself.

"I got a live one over here!" Jorge hollered from the section of the room. Everyone turned to see Jorge pulling out a civilian woman in her early 20s. Jorge tried to calm her down, but she was in a frenzy shouting in Hungarian, fruitlessly trying to pry her arm from Jorge's grip. After a brief struggle, Jorge subdued her enough to hear her say something in Hungarian which made him stiffen up. Six was about to ask Jorge what she had said, when suddenly an elite strike team dropped down from their hiding places, deactivated their stealth fields and attacked the team.

Now the scenario had shifted Six's mindset. Gone was his previous mode of passive intelligence gathering. Now he found himself in an ambush situation. There were three of them, clad in maroon armor and frilled helmets. Six could tell they were Zealots, elite sangheili commandos armed to the teeth with heavy shielding and devastating weapons.

Jorge, using himself as a barrier, pulled the previously hysteric survivor down and out of the way of the oncoming attack. This brave, albeit feeble action managed to get him and the civilian out of the elite's line of sight but not out of harm's way. They would have been easily discovered had their attention not been diverted away by Noble Six shouting "Contacts". With their attention redirected towards the other Spartans, the elites began their attack on their human foes. The first elite, who appeared to be the leader from the energy sword he was armed with, leaped forward to engage his human foes.

The Spartan's automatically identified and prioritized him as the immediate threat. He had to be taken down first. Almost simultaneously Noble team began firing at their split faced assailant. The lead elite heading the charge had his shielding dropped by the combined fully automatic fire from Noble One and Six's assault rifles, but due to his powerful legs it managed to close the distance between them before any real damage could be inflicted. Noble Team was caught off guard by the elites' burst of speed, sheer luck Carter managed to get Kat to duck down far enough to avoid the initial swing of the elite's energy sword. Noble Six kept firing in to the flank the elite at point blank range, expelling what ammo remained in his magazine. The elite lunged straight past him bounding towards the exit, knocking over Six in the process and effectively separating the Spartan from his now empty rifle.

Six, undaunted by his fall, reached for his side arm and attempted to pull off another round at his unshielded foe. Unfortunately as Six's pull out his magnum, another elite had pounced upon him and tried to gut him with its energy dagger. With lightning fast reflexes Six grabbed the elites' right arm with his free left hand, redirecting the blade away from his armored body. Then with his right hand clutching his magnum, Six pistol-whipped the elite square in the face, failing to drop its energy shields but with enough force to earn him a fierce growl from his assailant.

Again Six managed to pistol whip the elite, but by this time Six had wrenched the energy dagger out of the elite's grasp. Now Carter, having been previously engaged with the third elite, had seen Six in distress and moved to kick the elite off his downed squad mate. Reaching out with his now free left hand, Six grabbed the collar of the elite's armor and was able to roll with the elite so that Six was now positioned on top. Having gained the upper hand, Six jammed his magnum into the elite's mouth and started shooting at point blank range into the elite's cranium.

After dispatching his second attacker, Six picked himself up off of his dead foe and raised his magnum to bear against the remaining elite, currently positioned in front of the doorway way into the other room. Unfortunately during Six's melee with his Zealot comrade, the remaining elite had meanwhile managed to pick up the wounded Corporal lying in the corner and was now using him as a human shield. Carter, Kat and Six were now facing the elite with his unwilling cover shouting in protest and pain. Neither of the two sides moved against the other. Noble Six checked the ammo counter on his visor; it read only one round left in the magazine.

Six calculated the statistics of the current situation.

The soldier wouldn't survive long enough for the medevac to save him, no matter what anyone did.

Noble Six only had one round left in his clip.

The Spartan team he was with was holding their fire, their reasons unknown to B-312.

The Elite must know and expect other humans to care for their fellow man, which was why he chose to take the Corporal as a hostage.

The soldier wasn't wearing his helmet.

In an instant, Six had made his decision. Six leveled his weapon, aimed down its sights and squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

The Trooper's skull split open sending blood and brain matter out through the bullets exit wound and all over the front of the Zealot, into its face and eyes. The elite, in a mix of shock and disgust, dropped the lifeless body of the Corporal and began wiping at his face. Six immediately dropped his empty side arm, not bothering to reload. Unsheathing his combat knife, Six began charging full speed at the distracted elite.

"Nam, tihs hho, Gnineppah s'kcuf eht tahw, hha!" The elite managed to snarl before being knocked over by Six. Falling over on his back the elite was helpless as Six pinned him to the ground and plunged his knife down, deep into the elite's left eye socket. Instinctively, Six twisted his blade left and right, ignoring the shrieks of the elite shuddering beneath him.

Carter and Kat had lowered their weapons watching their new Noble Six attack the elite, registering what had just occurred. Noble Six had just eliminated the hostage. No warning, no sign of restraint, no chance of target misidentification. Six had just deliberately executed a fellow soldier of the UNSC, with the intent of inconveniencing and enemy combatant. This kind of a situation never happened before with Noble Team. This situation had never happened to any Spartan team, as far as they knew.

Behind them they could hear the frantic screaming in Hungarian again from the civilian. Having seen the actions of Noble Six, she was now in hysterics believing that both the Covenant and the Spartans were here to kill her. Jorge now had his hands full trying to get the girl to calm the hell down.

Six got back on his feet, retrieving his combat knife from the elite's head. As he was in the process of scraping the gore off of his blade and before any of the other Nobles to begin berating him for his actions, Six heard the squawk of jackals coming from the other room. Six turned his head in the direction of the noise, away from his fellow Spartans.

"There's more." Six said, making an about face in the opposite direction of his fellow Nobles. Looking to his right, he reached over to a nearby gun rack and grabbed an M392 'Designated-Marksman-Rifle' from its mantle. After charging his new rifle, Six made a quick about-face towards the door and replied to his squad mates, "I'll deal with this." He then holstered his rifle to the magnetic clamp on the back of his torso armor and with both hands pulled over the blast doors to the loading bay, effectively isolating him from the rest of Noble team.

After almost four minutes of small arms fire, grenade explosions, close quarter hand to hand techniques and Covenant death rattles, Six checked in with the rest of Noble team, to give the all clear.

"Kat needs you to reset a juncture." Carter said over the radio built into the Spartan's helmet. "Do it and get back here." He ordered.

"Affirmative" Six retorted in compliance with his new Commanding Officer's order.

"When you get back…" Carter spoke again. "There's something we need to discuss with you."

(End of flashback)

Six sighed in recollection of that "friendly fire" incident. Noble One made sure to leave that part out of Noble Team's after-action report. Carter had told him of the necessity of keeping B312 on board with the Spartan team. But he had warned Six that if he ever pulled a gun on another human, Noble Team would see to his own demise.

Since then he had complied whole heartedly to his commanding officer's order. For the first time in several years, he had been able to re-humanize himself. He found that he could work in cohesion with the other Spartans, in some instances at a greater capacity than he could before. Finally he could let go of being a cold blooded assassin and be the Spartan that Noble team needed him to be.

Six shook his thoughts away in frustration. 'This is pointless. I need to deliver my report and rendezvous with the rest of the squad. The more time I waste down here the longer it could take to get Noble Team ready for whatever desperate task that The Colonel has for us to do.' He thought as he turned yet again to face the elevators. He took a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself. Upon releasing it, he began his march towards the elevators yet again.

Unfortunately, through Six's bolstered determination he didn't hear the sound of elevator doors opening. Nor did he hear the footsteps of the elevators occupant emerging from it. So as he went to turn the corner he crashed into the person who had exited the elevator. Startled by the collision Six was jostled out from his tunnel vision and was able to see who he had just knocked over. Upon realizing who he had knocked over his mind immediately switched from 'deliver report' to 'aid & apologize profusely.'

"Oh shit, Dude, I'm sorry." Six said as he bent down towards the person he had just felled. He extended his right hand in an offering of assistance, cautious of causing any further provocation. Thankfully for him, his assistance was accepted as a bionic hand took firm hold of his.