Oddball
Kelly looked around at the gathered Spartan-IVs, trying to spot any that she recognized or had been impressed by in the past. It was hard for her to pick out individuals when they weren't wearing their unique armors, as they were still waiting to suit up. It was odd to her, because the Spartan-IIs didn't use their armor as their identity; she could tell Linda apart no matter what armor she wore, but that didn't seem to be true for the Spartan-IVs. Their armor seemed to be a part of who they were, a part of their personality and identity. The only Spartan-IV she recognized was Sarah Palmer as she walked across the room toward Kelly.
"What do you think of the competition?" Palmer asked.
"You chose them?" Kelly asked. Palmer nodded and watched Kelly, likely looking for her approval. "They're a good selection. Hopefully they'll make this a bit of a challenge." Kelly did like the assortment of Spartans, and she supposed it might be more interesting to have the added difficulty of the other competitors, but Kelly had been hoping to test Palmer one on one.
The Spartan-IVs started to move to the armor stations so Kelly followed suit. She was slightly annoyed to see that a few of the Spartans stopped to watch her armor up, but she tried to ignore it. She'd gotten her leg and arm armor attached before she spotted Palmer frowning at the crowd. "What are you all standing around for? Armor up, Spartans!" Palmer shouted, causing the Spartan-IVs to scatter to their armor stations before she moved to her own.
Kelly's helmet came down and secured into place as her HUD came to life. She waited until it completely booted up and was settled before she stepped down from the platform to where the Spartan-IVs were walking toward the holo-chamber. Kelly moved down the row and into the large chamber to wait with the others. When the game started after the countdown finished, they'd all be moved to other locations on the map. For this game they'd be playing on a map called "Haven" that Kelly liked. They had votes on which map they would use, and for Kelly it hadn't been a hard choice. Another option had been a map called "Solace" that she disliked because of the size. She'd watched games played on it and most of the time the Spartans were just running from one side to the other, giving the carrier easy points. The last option they had was for a map called "Shutout", which was the worst. There was just so much time wasted because people tossed the ball out of bounds, or fell off the edge. Haven on the other hand was a small enough size that any spawn-point wasn't too far away from the action, and there were less open areas so the ball went out of bounds less often.
There was a white light, a moment of vertigo, and Kelly was standing on smooth white metal. An ordinance pod appeared beside her and once it opened she grabbed the assault rifle, pistol, frag grenades, and her chosen armor upgrade. The time on her HUD counted down and Kelly limbered up a bit. As soon as the clock vanished and the icon for the ball's location appeared, Kelly took off. There was one Spartan who had spawned ahead of her and she quickly dispatched him with an elbow to the back of the head as she passed. The Spartan wasn't actually hurt, the system had safety measures to limit how hard you could actually hit someone and paralyzed "dead" soldiers so they didn't hurt themselves. And they were teleported off the map and moved to a new spawn point right away, though they'd have to recover and get any new gear they requested. Kelly really didn't understand how it worked and it seemed a bit rough, but she'd been assured that it would improve over time.
The ball came into view and Kelly watched as a Spartan almost reached it, but at the last second Spartan Palmer grabbed the soldier's armor, pulled him back, and slammed a knife handle down on the man's sternum where the armor didn't cover. It was registered as a knife kill and the Spartan vanished in white light. Still it was enough of a delay for Kelly to dash ahead and take the ball, much to Palmer's visible anger. Kelly was sure the Spartan-IV had wanted to at least grab it before she could, but she'd been too slow. Kelly charged toward Palmer and although the other woman tried to move away the ball collided with Palmer's helmet and she fell, taken away by the system. With the real threat gone Kelly jogged off, knowing that she'd have to keep moving. The system marked her location for all other the players to see, meaning she couldn't hide with the ball - not that she minded going for a leisurely run.
Kelly heard gunfire ahead, but by the time she reached it there were only three Spartans and two of them were firing on each other. The third was crouched to the side so the others wouldn't notice her. Kelly saw Palmer getting up, preparing to strike her, so Kelly took off as quickly as she could. A grenade went off near her and Kelly's shields fell completely, though it didn't even break her stride. She was a bit impressed that Sarah had gotten the timing so close and had almost hit her directly with the blast. Kelly heard another gunfight break out behind her, but she ignored them and moved up a couple ramps to the upper level, weaving through the curved passages. There was one soldier ahead of her but he was running in the same direction, so Kelly simply came up behind him and slammed the ball into the back of the man's head. She was seeing other "dead" bodies around, so there must have been side-fighting between the others. She was disappointed that they were still failing to use proper tactics. She was so focused on the soldiers scattered about that she didn't see Palmer until the Spartan-IV was already on her. Kelly reacted, just barely being able to bring the ball forward in time to smack into the white Scout helmet before Palmer's blade struck her.
Kelly stood in place for a moment after the white light had faded and looked down at the now-false body clad in white Scout armor on the ground. She needed to be more careful, Palmer was simply getting too close and she was relentless. Kelly spotted dots on her motion tracker and took off down the ramp to the lower level. She saw a few other Spartans but they were hardly able to keep up with her so they were no concern, until Palmer showed up again. Kelly had just jumped across a small gap in the upper structure when Palmer appeared from around the monolith at the center of the map…with an energy sword. Palmer swung with the blade a couple times, moving to try to get behind Kelly but the Spartan-II dodged each strike. Palmer suddenly moved back, put one of her arms up as though to guard from a strike, and an energy plane similar to a large Jackal shield flared to life. Kelly didn't even see or feel the blast, just a flash of blue and then white. The force of the blast did force Kelly off her feet though, and she fell to the ground at her new spawn point.
Kelly forced herself to stand up, realizing what had happened. Palmer had apparently stuck her with a plasma grenade. On her HUD she could see Palmer's time holding the ball was ticking up, which she just couldn't stand for. Kelly grabbed her gear and took off toward the icon. When she found Palmer the woman was being followed by three people. Kelly threw a grenade and stopped, waiting for Palmer to get closer. The explosive went off and two of the three people were taken out, the last one having his shields downed. Kelly opened fire and cut the last man down before turning her attention to Palmer, who had just run past her. Kelly turned and charged the woman, grabbing her blade to strike Palmer from behind. Just as Kelly was reaching her Palmer turned, swinging with the ball. Kelly was faster, though, and ducked down to tackle Palmer by the waist. They fell to the ground and Kelly quickly raised her knife and brought it down, rewarded with a flash of white light. The ball rolled away and Kelly scooped it up, tucking it to her side and continued running.
For the rest of the game Kelly tried to just avoid Palmer completely. The other soldiers were no match, but the female Spartan-IV got in a few more close blows; at one point Kelly only survived a barrage of needle-rounds by ducking behind a pillar when Palmer unloaded with two needlers from above. She also showed a great familiarity with the map, as at one point she threw a plasma grenade up a gravity lift and stuck one of Kelly's followers, nearly hitting Kelly. The blast still might've even taken Kelly out, but she pulled a quick one-eighty and led them backward so the grenade took out some of her pursuers instead.
When the match ended, Kelly had won without anyone else having touched the ball aside from Palmer, who had scored ten seconds. Kelly had her armor removed and then made her way to the observation room, knowing that that was where Palmer would be. The Spartan-IV was standing in the room, holding a copy of the final score to the game. "That went well," Kelly commented.
"It went better than well," Palmer said with a smile on her face. "I think I'm going to get this framed." She motioned to the final score in her hands.
"Why? You didn't win?" Kelly didn't really understand how ten seconds was something to show off.
"Because I got ten seconds in a game against you. I'm sure to you that must not seem like something to be proud of…but you're you. You're the fastest person I've ever seen, and…" Palmer looked away from Kelly and to the score. "And you're kind of a role model to me." Kelly let out a laugh at that idea. Sure people looked up to all the Spartan-IIs, but it seemed more logical to have someone like John bee thought of as a role model. "Hey, don't mock me," Sarah said defensively.
"I'm sorry, I just don't know why you'd look up to me," Kelly explained. "Sure I'm fast, but that's about it."
Palmer was silent for a moment before she finally replied. "The day we went in for our first augmentations, when I entered the room a few of the others asked me if I was the nurse sent to shave them for the operations. When I told them I was there for the augmentations as well they laughed at me until I threatened to shut them up. You don't to have that problem. Your Spartan-II Lieutenant, what is his name…Fred? He doesn't treat you like that. He respects you, treats you like you're exactly the same as him. I guess I admire that you have that respect, and it's something I want. I go into these war games and even when I trounce the others they say it's just luck, or that I cheated. I want to be able to shut them up for good." Palmer's voice was agitated and she was scowling.
"Well then you have to keep on destroying them until you get to a point that they can't claim luck, and are forced to recognize your skills. John…the Master Chief, once told me that he thought I would slow him down or be a burden on the team until I proved to him that I was strong and fast. Back then he was a bratty kid though, more susceptible to change. With adults it's just going to take longer, that's all," Kelly assured.
"Wait, the Master Chief was a brat?" Sarah asked, an amused smile on her face. "The big, bad, legendary Spartan was an obnoxious little kid?"
"Yeah," Kelly confirmed. "On our first day of training he cost me and our other best friend dinner. The next day we had to threaten to beat him up to get him to work with us."
"You have got to tell me that story," Palmer said, seeming enticed by the idea. Kelly looked away, not sure if she really wanted to do that. "Come on, you can't tell me you don't want to talk about him. Whenever I was separated from my boyfriend the only thing that made me not miss him was talking about him. Reliving the memories makes them feel close."
Kelly shrugged and nodded. "I suppose it seems worth a try. I was never really away from him until the last few months of the war. And I had actually hoped that when we came home he'd be here, but he just...isn't."
"Well we'll get some drinks, whatever's the best we can find, sit down, and you can tell me all about your boyfriend," Palmer proposed. "What do you say? It doesn't have to be anything too personal, and I'd be happy to hear about some of the missions you went on as well."
"I would like to talk to someone about him. The other Spartan-IIs don't want to hear about him much these days, and I wouldn't want to force that on them." Kelly smiled slightly at the younger Spartan. "All right, you're on. But fair warning, I've got a lot of stories."
"And I've got time and ears, so now all we need are refreshments." Palmer moved toward the door and Kelly followed. She liked this Spartan-IV, and she was now even more confident about what she'd told Mendez after having properly tested the other woman.