Biofoam.

It was a peculiar little invention meant to prolong the life of a solider on the field. Many complained for its painful bite, but most swallowed the pesky side affect and continued fighting on the front lines. The foam specialized in numbing the pain and stopping the bleeding of the wound. It can petrify the feeling of affliction a soldier has for an extended amount of time – but if ignored for too long, could provide an infection instead.

Six was well acquainted with the so-called biofoam as he had often used them as guns. To say that its injection wasn't painful would be a lie – but it was also becoming a slow comfort to him. If he wanted to, he could recall every moment he had used it to save his life. But Six did not have the luxury of time to reminisce; only war awaited him.

"Commander says it's time to go, Six." announced Four. He towered over Six like a giant in his current poise. The skeleton imprinted on the man's EVA helmet also assisted in adding an air of intimidation to him; Six remained unfazed.

The said Spartan quickly rose to his feet with a feline's grace as he threw the empty bottle of biofoam at the ground. Grabbing his gauntlet, Six covered up his hand and arm; "I'm moving." he mumbled, walking past the other Spartan.

But for how long? Emile scoffed in his head. He stared at the bottle of biofoam with aversion. For a soldier to use the whole thing...Noble Four wondered just how deep and wide the shot was. Although, he did not linger on the curiosity and shoved the emotion away. He turned from his spot and watched as the rest of the team conversed quietly to themselves.

"Alright, let's move out," Carter ordered, breaking his conversation with Kat. The doors hissed open as a dull light crept out of the entrance; it was still too dark. A spark of adrenaline lit up in Emile. Whenever you have damaged lighting meant that you also have a bunch of unwanted personals that had infiltrated the building; all meaning that there were definitely Covenant in the area. Emile was eager at this idea.

"Four?" Carter's voice cut in his thoughts. You stay on guard at the entrance," any hope Emile had of fighting dissipated there. " Two, Five, and Six – you're with me. Pull up your night vision and we'll do a quick rundown of the area. After that, well, you know what to do Kat." Noble Two nodded in acknowledgment.

Just like training, Six thought as he entered the unknown abyss first. He preformed a quick sweep of his surroundings before deeming it safe enough to wander in with a clouded mind. The others thought differently though and continued to explore the rest of the hallway's twists and turns. It appeared that Kat was the only other one who was influenced with other pressing matters.

"Six?" she called out, stopping him from venturing further into the dark. He turned around and walked back to where she was; and once he was in front of her, she beckoned him into a better lit room; a dead body lay there swimming in its own drying blood. "Search that body." she commanded.

Six did not need to be told twice and quietly visited it. He bent down, momentarily scrunching his face at the stench of the red liquid, and shook off his glove. Next, he turned the body over and let his black-clad hand roam and pat the body for anything worth of interest. He did this with all his focus and was seemingly ignorant to the entrance of the others. If they needed anything else from him, they could just ask – or order. Six decided that he was ordered around more often than asked.

Apparently, they thought the same and didn't bother to reference his presence. He or she did their own thing silently except for Carter. He spotted a Marine shuddering at death's door in a corner of the room. He carefully led him to lay against the wall.

"Found anything, Six?" Kat asked, doing her own inspection of the equipment. Six glanced at her position and noticed the status of the wiring in the room. It was clearly burned. And although Six was no genius with electrical maintenance or computer wiring, he was sure that the whole building's electrical status was almost beyond repair; he shook his head.

"How about you, Kat?" Carter sauntered towards them. His voice was thick and heavy – the authority and calm he added to it when he talked to the dying soldier was gone. The woman too, shook her head.

Well what do you know? Six thought briefly to himself. Something flew out of the dead man's sleeve and Six picked it up before it could be tainted. He ran his gloved hand over it, removing any dried blood that had stuck onto it before announcing: "I found something."

Kat perked at this. Instantly, she turned about and snatched Six's discovery from his hand. "I'll take it, Six," she said imprudently, as if to apologize for her sudden snapping. Six could have nearly choked at the insincerity her voice held. "Not your domain." she mused, evidently and quickly finding more interest in it.

Six refrained from commenting and stood up as Jorge brought a girl he had scrounged up from some wreckage. "I've got another live one," he announced to them; the girl thrashed in his hold, beating him with her free arm as she yelled at him in a foreign language. "Easy there, we're not going to hurt you." Jorge said placidly. Six watched the girl under a scrutinized gaze as Jorge continued to calm her down – it seemed to take forever, but she finally quieted to a respectable degree.

Hm? Six looked up, feeling alarmed by the sudden thump he had heard. He glanced around the rest of the room to see if anyone had noticed, but it was apparent that they were all too focused on the civilian. Six uncrossed his arms as one of his hands trailed to his magnum.

"We've been engaged!" Carter shouted as the girl screamed once again. A red Elite appeared from behind Jorge and swung his energy sword at a threatening angle. Six gritted his teeth as he too grabbed his gun and began shooting at the alien. Another person's voice joined the girl's screaming as Six's eyes flickered onto the fatally injured Marine. Six barely had time to notice that his eyes were staring past him as two more zealot-class Elites surged their way into the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw Carter push Kat back as one other trampled Six over.

Six's mind was thrown into a vertiginous course as he caught glimpses of the scene occurring around him. Jorge had taken to shielding the girl whilst two gold Elites made a grab for the man. Six's brain was scattered, but he knew enough to start moving and save the soldier. But as his torso rose, it was brought back down again by the red Elite. Six frowned internally as he swung his fist at its jaw; the Elite's face was thrown to the side, but came back leaning into his helmet. Six could have sworn he would have been able to count the thing's mandibles at this close perspective.

Taking aim, Six pulled back his fist again to hit the alien, but was saved the trouble as a blue armored foot kicked the Elite back. Noble Six did not bother to thank his liberator as he grabbed the assault rifle nudged to him and sprung to his feet. "Commander, what's your status?" Emile's voice fiercely crackled through the COM. Carter had appeared by Six's side and had stopped him from going on a head and killing the trespassing zealots. Six could only wait with a bated breath as his ears trained in on the inhumane screaming. Why wasn't Carter giving the signal to pursue? Could he not see that the man was going to die? Six's thoughts met their end as the Marine's struggling shouts were silenced.

" - handle her. Five and Six, clear the hole." were the only words he picked up after.

…

There was nothing stopping the one-man army; Six held a poker face as he fried the last remaining Covenant in the sector. He pulled back the energy sword he used to murder the Grunt and threw it at its owner feet; Jorge's loud footsteps alerted him back to earth.

"A bit gory, don't you think?" he heard the man inquire. Six turned around and saw that Jorge was gesturing to the dead bodies that surrounded him. Even the floor around Six had been repainted into a purplish green.

Six shrugged: "I do what I need."

"Well," Jorge's tone lightened, finding amusement in the situation. When he told Six to flush the Covenant out, he didn't mean actually mean for Six to take them all alone; Noble Four had been standing at the overlook as backup. "I can see that. Kat wants you to reset a junction here. Think I can let you go without guidance, again?" he mused.

Six grumbled incoherently. Jorge was referencing to the time when a Grunt had conveniently latched itself around Six's head. Its pudgy hands had covered Six's line of vision and he was deemed a blundering idiot. If it weren't for Jorge's 'guidance' on what to do, Six would have perished by the hand of some measly alien. Six reloaded his newly acquired DMR.

Jorge grinned behind his visor: "I'll take that as a yes. Come along now, Six. Kat isn't a patient person."

"Don't I know?" Six mumbled, sauntering into the adjacent room. He easily spotted the junction because of its orange glow and went to finish the task. As he finished resetting it, he could not help but feel as if something was watching him again. Six surveyed the room and found no heat signal or other presence; besides Jorge's pacing shadow, Six knew he was alone.

"Noble Six reporting: did anyone note what color the Elite Zealot was? The one that tackled me?" he asked through the open COM.

"What? You taken a liking to it?" Six heard Emile rhetorically say. He did not reply to Noble Four's sarcasm.

"It was red. Why do you ask, Six?" Carter finally answered. Six strolled back to where Jorge was. He too, was aware of his question, but remained quiet; the two began their trek back to the where the others were.

Something twisted inside of Six's stomach when he found the words to reply to his commander: "It wasn't here." It escaped.

"Well isn't that wonderful." Jun commented, also coming to the same realization Six had been dreading.

The two heard Carter sigh in exasperation: "We'll leave it be for now, but Command might not be happy with this," there was a pause. "How long till you two get back, Jorge?"

The giant beside Six seemed to come back to life: "In a minute, sir."

"Acknowledged. Carter, out."

The two Spartans slowly awaited the click of the disconnecting COM link before they ascended the few steps leftover for them to walk on. Six took this time to do a short field survey of the massacre they had left in their wake; Grunts were littered around the floor like excess trash whilst Jackals remained pinned to the exact location where Six had left them earlier. Out of all the mess, Six's eyes landed on the damage a lone Elite's fuel rod gun had done. Something deep inside him stirred at the reminder of it still being alive.

"Ready to reacquaint with them, Six?" Jorge asked him. The two super soldiers were now barricading the only entrance to the tech. Room. Six glanced at the rack of guns for a second before walking over to them. In amusement, Jorge watched as the new Spartan of the group refreshed his gun with quick diligence.

Once he was done, Six looked up at the taller Spartan with a nod of his head: "Now I am." he said. Jorge seemed to grin back behind his mask as he set to work on unlatching the deadbolt in front of them; Kat was kneeling down and hard at work when they entered.

Something is up, Six thought to himself. He nodded once again at Jorge as he set off to lean against an adjacent wall. Emile was on the opposite side, and together, the two cast off a glaring demeanor in that section of the room. With nothing but the steady sound of his breathing to listen to, Six tuned into the Commander's and Kat's conversation.

"How long?" Carter had asked. He leaned in closer to Kat to see if he could get a better inspection of the damage. He might have not been able to translate its current state with all his knowledge, but he knew that it would take time for it to be repaired – something he did not have right now.

"Question of my life," Kat seemed to murmur quite audibly. She waved a hand at the entire console. "If the question is how long it will take for the entire station to go back online, two weeks at the most. This," she sighed. "is plasma damage."

"Even two minutes would be too long," Carter said wearily; he leaned back a bit, but not enough for there to be a considerable amount of distance change to be noticed between the two. "We need to make contact with Holland, now." he clarified.

Kat was anticipating this answer; she shot him a condescending look and equally replied to him in her own brisk manner: "Which," she appeared to counteract, "is why I'm splicing into the main overland bundle to get you a direct link up to the Colonel." she said, and added almost contrastingly: "You're in my light, Commander."

At this, Carter wisely backed off in unison with Six's vanishing attention. His thoughts, since he had been deployed to Team Noble, had been distracting him and rendering his performance sloppy. It was unlike of Six, and he wondered if he should check himself into a mental evaluation exam. But then...Noble Team might be looked down upon for having acquired a dysfunctional member. No. Six refused for that to happen and decided if things really did get bad with his mind – then he'd bring it up with the Commander himself.

"...I'm sorry." Six's head snapped back to the giant Spartan-II as he interacted with the civilian girl. He didn't pick up the girl's reply as the Spartan in front of him finally noticed that he had returned from the clouds.

"Big man forgets what he is sometimes." Emile informed Six. The Noble sneered over at Five as the Spartan leaned in heavily against him.

"She just lost her father." he said in a warning tone. Six was a bit soft from the lack of action, and briefly suspected that the two might emerge into a fight with one another; none came as Jorge sauntered away. Six's fellow comrade scoffed in good riddance.

"She's going to need a full psychiatric examination, sir." Jorge told Carter.

Emile nodded at this: "She's not the only one." he mumbled, loud enough for the ears of a Spartan to hear.

Jorge's head turned to him at a frightening speed, but before he could utter anything in reply, Carter cut him to it: "Lock it down. Both of you," and in a quieter tone he added. "Evac's here, take her away, but the body stays behind." Jorge nodded reapprovingly and made his way back to Sara.

"Got it." Kat suddenly proclaimed. She rose to her feet and glanced at Carter briefly. Six and the others took this as a sign to move out. "The signal's patchy but its there," her head tilted at Carter at an almost teasing manner. "Be careful, Commander. You don't want to ground this place like you did last time."

Commander seemed to grin back at her: "I'll keep that in mind, Kat."

Six lingered by the doorway for Kat; he didn't know why, but he found their exchange intriguing. Inside TEAM COM, a private one opened and linked to him.

"You got a question, Six?" she asked.

Six paused. In reality, he did have one. He wanted to ask why she and the Commander kidded around so easily in such a hot zone, but didn't think it would be right to inform her that he had been listening in on them; so he shook his head, as Noble One and Holland filled in the silent gap between him and Kat.

"What did you say, Noble? The Covenant?"

There was a short pause – one only a Spartan would recognize, before Carter confirmed the Colonel's questions. Six heard the man sigh, and in suddenly weary voice, say:

"May God help us all."

Six resisted the urge to scoff at that. God? What god? He had been through countless battles were hopes were raised, but only to be crushed; where children died in their parents arms and vice versa; where worlds that used to overflow with life – now represented giant graves. If there ever was a god or gods, they were sure doing a spectacular job on keeping what they created alive.