Cortana had spent the better part of the day looking over more data from the link she had acquired with the CCTS and from checking through the stuff they managed to retrieve out of that White Fang base they struck and brought out of commission. Much of the data itself was a combination of communication transcripts, recorded messages for families located in places like the Faunus continent of Menagerie(ironic name) and deployment orders for the cell located in that little base alone.
In general, Cortana had found absolutely nothing interesting. Much of what was in here was useless and half of what wasn't, she already knew from other com systems or from entering into the RemNet continuously for the past few days. She checked a senior-level Atlas communique that came straight from the top about retrieval orders for any of the Paladins that were still within Vale's borders and not going anywhere, set it aside and filed it away under a new partition in the MJOLNIR's storage space.
She finally 'peered through the window', so to speak, watching as Echo Four-Nineteen prepared to land the Chief and his team to retrieve another group of their allies. The rattling of assault rifle fire filtered in through the suit's external microphone, loud enough that she could hear it. She watched as John engaged with his magnetic rifle and took out a pair of Grimm, then switched it to mace mode.
He'd gotten somewhat proficient at using Caliburn in both modes. Then again, he was John. The Master Chief. If anyone could learn how to swing a gravity mace around with enough precision and skill to make it an art, it'd be him. Beside him, Linda sniped away at a squadron of Grimm, while Kelly engaged with her shotgun. The Spartans that they were picking up were members of Red Team that she had last seen deployed during the Fall of Reach to defend the ODP Generators. Vinh-030, Li-008, Will-043 and Grace-093.
She remembered all four of them from either aboard the Pillar of Autumn during the battle for Reach or from during the preparations for what would become Operation FIRST STRIKE aboard the Ascendant Justice/Gettysburg. Each of the four carried MJOLNIR Mark-V armor with active shielding and enough armaments and ammo to hold them for a few continuous hours of fighting. The AI busied herself with sending the group the data she'd sent to every other Spartan while John and his team worked awoke their Auras rapid-fire.
Curiously, she found a few genetic abnormalities akin to the ones in Kelly and Cal among them, more specifically in Vinh. She had the faint traces of animal DNA akin to those one would find in the genetic sequence of other Faunus. More specifically, she found Vinh to be a fox of some kind or other, though the girl probably wouldn't know it until she removed her helmet.
Fred seemed the most jovial of the lot to welcome the four members of RED Team back into the fray, offering each of them the trademark 'Spartan Smile' gesture which they quickly returned. She also detected spikes in their heart-rates upon the initial scans after the four had spotted Sam among BLUE's members. The boy nodded to them, gripping his own MA5B Assault Rifle tightly and watching as his fellow Spartans approached and placed hands on his shoulders. Li flicked the man in the visor and Cortana heard him comment, "I'll be damned... Guess we are all real..." before he sat himself down.
"No surprise to me," Grace remarked, standing up and looking to Sam. She stated, "Good to see you again..."
"Likewise, Grace. Still all out on EXO? I'm seeing a lot of C12 in that pack of yours" He replied and got a nod from the girl. As the bird lifted off and the Spartans got to chatting, Cortana continued looking over any information that could be useful in the future while listening in part to what they were talking about from within John's suit. That she'd gotten it connected to the RemNet meant she needed to build up a security system for the MJOLNIR.
She had, of course, done that in her spare time. For all Spartans and MJOLNIR types.
"Are we clear, Cortana?" John asked as he slid his rifle onto his back. The man seemed far more calm than when they'd first started out on their job. Admittedly, it was way easier to deal with Grimm on a regular basis while working your way to finding out more about the White Fang than it must have been to deal with the Covenant, the losses and just about everything in that damn War, not to mention waking up four years later to find out your job's not done.
Cortana still remembered the first time they saw the Storm Covenant and Jul 'Mdama during their little bout against the Didact. That, too, felt like it was decades ago at this point, to both the AI and Spartan. Chief being calm, however, meant she could be calm too. That she could take solace in knowing that she and John were no longer risking much was recomforting to the AI whose emotional suites had taken such a beating in the past week alone, she wasn't sure what would've happened if whatever pulled her back from Rampancy didn't act immediately after her utilization of that Covenant AI's self-replication algorithms.
So many fragments of her had screamed in her ears while she was aboard the Mantle's Approach, so many of them had damn near lost it and vaporized in an instant thanks to the rampancy, yet she could still hear their voices. Thousands upon thousands of her, screaming, gnawing, remembering, forgetting, processing and breaking apart as their copied and re-copied, malfunctioning matrices collapsed in on one-another to take down the defenses of the Composer and of the Didact.
She shuddered, wondering for but a moment if that was what the copy she'd sent with Chief and the rest of BLUE and RED aboard the Unyielding Hierophant during Operation FIRST STRIKE felt. So many voices screaming at once in her ears caused her to partially overload her processing systems to keep up, speeding up her Rampancy considerably. A knock-off of her that managed to divvy herself up into a thousand others to overwhelm the Covenant Station's defenses was...
She squelched the thought, noticing a faint trickle of data from John's TEAMBIO. His Thyroid implant was further failing and hormonal discharges were growing more akin to those of a standard human male at his biological age. It was intriguing, but, at the same time, concerning to see. Still, she worried little about him. John had the ability of self-control, among other things. She was sure that he and his fellow Spartans would be fine.
She'd consumed as little as eight picoseconds while processing everything that was going on after the others had joined the team aboard and Chief had asked her if all was clear. She finally decided to reply, "We're all clear in this sector, Chief. Section three-thirteen on the TOPO Map of the area is our next hit. Counting half a dozen more contacts. Ident from this distance flashes them as Marines. Foe Hammer, follow the markers I placed and you should reach our beleaguered gentlemen rather quickly."
"Roger that, Cortana," Foe Hammer replied, then chuckled, "Bet Sarge wishes he was tagging along."
"Indeed," Cortana chuckled. She then flicked on coms to the Spartans and said, "Vinh, Will, Grace, Li. Glad to see you all here again... Hope you're all reading that short brief I sent your way."
"We are, ma'am, don't worry," Grace replied. Cortana was able to track her progress through the doc via the Battle Net that linked the dozen or so UNSC Spartan Armors together during combat. Indeed, all four of them had been reading about the background of the world and their little fake Identity. Certainly, some read more than others as was the case between Vinh and Li, but nonetheless...
As they flew in to pick up the rest of the Marines, Cortana's thoughts turned to home, namely, to Earth. How were they faring? How was mankind after the second departure of the great John-117? She figured they must've been combing the remains of the Mantle's Approach still, which meant that they had enough to deal with beyond just finding them. That big a debris field floating high in orbit above Earth? And they hadn't even fully destroyed the ship, if she recalled correctly. It was the size of a damn moon.
Still, it'd gone and it'd left a mess above Earth after she and the Chief dealt with it and its owner. She wanted to be thankful that they'd managed to deal with it, but the city of New Phoenix(if her map calculations were correct) had been wiped out in the first blast of the Composer's dreaded beam. What it'd done on Carinae Station, to doctor Tillson and the others, had repeated again over with the North American city, with, if her calculations were correct, several million casualties. If she had been a moment sooner and if her rampancy hadn't deviated them so much from their course...
She sighed audibly.
"Are you okay?" John asked the very next second, his external speakers turned off.
"I'm fine, John..." She replied calmly, though she mentally berated herself for that little slip-up, "Just thinking a few things over..."
"Like?" He inquired again, worry clear in his voice.
"Home. Earth. The Composer incident..." She replied as sincerely as she could, "It's not exactly easy to know that we were a little too late to save one of our cities from the Composer's beam. Y'know, the usual."
Sure, if the usual meant 'moping about a mistake'. Admittedly, it was a mistake that had gotten several million people swallowed into the war machine of the Prometheans and of the Didact, by extension. It wasn't a particularly easy thought to live with, but she'd lived with worse on her mind, like Captain Keyes's death and the loss of the Commander, when she was told about the latter at least.
"You can vent if you want. I'll listen," Her companion for the longest time offered so nonchalantly, Cortana could swear she'd just misheard him. Yet, no, a quick parsing of her most recent memories did reveal that John had in fact allowed himself to listen to her problems. Cortana mentally slapped herself for that one stupendously idiotic thought. John had always listened to her problems and offered to help solve them, no matter what they were.
She replied gratefully, "Thanks, John... I'll do so if I feel the need to."
"Good..." He replied, refusing to elaborate further as he switched the external speakers of his armor back on. She peered once more through the 'window' that was his visor and helmet camera system, watching as the Dropship dipped, swung in and landed, with the Spartans opening up on whatever Grimm was chasing about six Marines clad in full combat fatigues. These fellas were also Pillar of Autumn crew, once manning one of the many checkpoints on the vessel or patrolling the corridors.
They greeted the Spartans with salutes and cheers as they boarded the Pelican. The bird lifted off, aiming for Beacon now, to drop off the main bout of cargo, while John, Fred, Sam, Kelly and Linda regarded their new arrivals. John stated calmly, "If anyone wants to get off, they can do so here..." as they reached the landing pad. He watched as Fred stepped up with the Marines and the four Spartans they'd recovered.
Fred explained, "I'll lead them to our bunking area and then I'll go see what's with miss Belladonna... If I understood correctly, she's searching for the same things we are. Answers for the White Fang's actions."
"Understood," John nodded, watching as one of his comrades departed alongside their newcomers.
"Blake, huh?" Sam hummed, his mind returning to that talk he and Ruby had had about her a few hours ago.
"Yeah," He nodded.
"Sounds like a good idea. Make sure you get her to sleep some. She looked absolutely haggard today," Sam replied, clearly worried by the tone of his voice. Fred gave his friend a nod and slid his DMR onto his back, preparing. All Spartans and even Cortana, by proxy of Chief's armor, felt the aircraft decelerate, rumbling as its VTOL engines roared. Upon touch-down, the Spartans and their new comrades filed out of the vehicle, with Fred leading the foursome of Spartans they'd acquired to their bunks the moment they arrived within the house.
Penny poked her head out of her room, watching as more Spartans and Marines filed in, then climbed down the stairs and approached John. She bowed her head, trying not to look him right in the visor, then said weakly as she fiddled with the hem of her skirt, "Sorry I missed classes today, Dylan... I was... Sick..." before hiccupping. John hummed and nodded, placing a hand on Penny's shoulder, then he took his helmet off.
"It's fine. We have the notes for professor Oobleck's classes, so you didn't miss much," He offered, giving the girl a half-smile. He wasn't mad at her, nor was he happy, but he was glad she seemed 'better' if she had been really sick. Penny looked up and gave him a warm smile, then looked to see Grace, Will, Li and Vinh walking out of the bunk area, helmets under their arms and scanning the place. The entire group noticed Vinh seemingly surprised, her eyes wide as saucers and lips a narrow, white line.
Kelly and Cal both waved to Vinh, approaching the ginger-haired half-Asian girl and revealing their own Faunus traits. That seemed to ease Vinh, though her lips curled into a smile and she seemed to be stifling a laugh at Kelly's expense. The rabbit Faunus girl that also had the speed of her animal familiar glared at Vinh, causing her to settle down, while Grace, Will and Li all seemed to welcome the sight of their comrades still interacting as they did during the olden days.
"It's good to see yet more of your people," Penny remarked, though her mind wandered somewhere else. General Ironwood had requested that she accelerate her mission and retrieve the scan of the Spartans' armor ASAP, as he felt it'd be needed for later usage. John easily noticed the girl's demeanor had changed a bit. She hadn't been seen as much around the past few days, but he himself wasn't sure what this was about.
"Yeah... Are you okay, Penny?" He inquired, raising a brow.
"Yes, I'm well," She replied and let out another hiccup. Sighing, she said, "I'll just be in my room, studying..." and bowed her head in defeat. BLUE approached Chief and all of them seemed concerned. Indeed, Penny had interacted less and less with everyone as of late, so much so that even Sam, the kind-hearted youngster of the team and Kurt, their most open-to-the-world Spartan were concerned about her sudden change.
John sighed, then called out, "Penny," which caused the girl to turn around, raising a brow. His mind raced for a moment, wondering what he could even say to comfort the girl that seemed so troubled. Sighing, he settled on one thing he could do, courtesy of Ruby, then offered, "Teams RWBY, JNPR and several of us are going to a paintball game this Saturday, as was suggested by Yang. Care to join?"
For a moment, her face morphed into absolute surprise, as if Chief had just asked her for the unbelievable, before a smile grew in its place. "I'd love to!" She exclaimed jovially. Maybe that was it? She needed to get out and John and Co. had to invite her? She smiled, approached the Chief and, without hesitation, gave him a tight enough hug for the Spartan to feel it behind the layers of the MJOLNIR suit he wore. And hard enough for some of the Titanium to at least partially bend under the stress.
Surprised, John could do little but pat the girl on the head. From a slumped, seemingly sad mess, Penny now scampered away from the team with a smile on her face as she went back upstairs. A hand on her hip, Kelly commented, "That was mighty nice of you, Chief..." wearing as big a smile as Penny. John shrugged. It only felt natural to summon the girl to play alongside her friends.
"I'm just surprised Ruby didn't swing by to call her-" John started, then the door slammed open and a stream of petals flowed into the room. A panting Ruby stopped in front of John, her cheeks burning red and silver eyes shimmering as she looked up to him, a single emotion flaring on her face:Worry. John wondered what had gotten into the girl with gradient red hair...
"Penny! Where!?" She demanded, grabbing onto the man's armored breast-plate. He tilted his head toward Penny's room and Ruby flashed a smile before she surged upstairs, leaving a trail of rose petals between him and the door. Weiss also stumbled into the house, breathing heavily, her face burning red. She leaned against the frame of the door and bowed her head as sweat from her brow dripped onto the floor.
"I swear..." The Heiress coughed, then looked up, her blue eyes glimmering with a mix of emotions ranging from worry to anger, though generally topped by a flickering joy. She straightened up, breathing in and out. A Marine slid her a glass of water which she immediately grabbed and gulped down, giving a thumbs up as thank you to the Marine. She nodded approvingly, giving the girl a salute before taking a plate of some kind of homemade ethnic food to a table between the couches and the Holovision on which sports were playing.
Weiss set the glass down gently on the kitchen counter, then approached John and the others and said, "She realized about midway through the team study session that she hadn't called Penny to ask her if she wanted to join the Paintball game this Saturday."
"Ah," John hummed, then shook his head while the others around him chuckled. "Of course..." He murmured, slightly amused. It was unsurprising that Ruby would some times forget to do one thing or another. She was not a klutz per-se, but she was still Ruby Rose, the cookie and weaponry aficionado that John had had the luck of running into during the first couple of days of being in Beacon.
Weiss spared a look into the house and saw the Marines and Spartans gathered, then whistled, "... So, this is the active crew of your ship?" her eyes wide. Some Marines turned to greet her, offering waves of the hand and smiles, despite the thousand-yard stares each man and woman wore. All of them were clad in heavy-duty green-colored armor sets akin to the color the Chief and several other Spartans wore. The Spartans themselves acknowledged Weiss through nods of the head or motions so faint, she was sure only a trained eye could pick them up, seeing as she thought she missed half of the ones she actually noticed.
"Yeah," John nodded, "Part of it anyway."
"There's still more?" She inquired, raising a brow, "From the amount of times I've witnessed your aircraft fly in and out of Beacon, I can assume you've been doing recovery operations for almost a week... I'd have thought you found everyone by now."
"Science crews and general deck crew haven't been accounted for yet," John lied. Most of the tags were still military, sans that single tag in Atlas that he had a nagging feeling he knew the owner of. Or that he could at least suppose he knew the owner of. She wouldn't have been here, though, would she? He squelched the thought. Definitely not. The Doctor would probably be in some top-of-the-line, top-secret research facility, reviewing more and more Forerunner technology with a staff of elite scientists, not stuck on some planet in the middle of nowhere.
Giving Fred a nod, John let the man depart to find Blake and talk to her. Weiss watched as a peppy Ruby came out of Penny's room, then asked, "I take it she agreed?"
"Yup! Though Chief already invited her for us," She nodded, then looked to him and said, "Thanks for that."
The Chief hummed, then gave a nod to Ruby. She waved to the rest of the crew, then departed with Weiss in tow. Chief watched them leave, with Weiss shutting the door behind them after bidding a quick goodbye. Cortana had witnessed everything from the man's helmet. After fawning for a moment at the cutesy interactions between John and Penny, she continued working. She hummed, watching as John set his helmet back on his head, then said, "That was adorable~..." jokingly. He hummed, moving back up the stairs as she continued running diagnostics. She chuckled, quipping, "Oh, come on, John. Ya gotta admit it was kind of sweet."
"... Sure..." He sighed, "What's next on our objectives list?"
"IFF Tags still popping up, I'd say... That and the Paintball game this Saturday..." She smirked, setting a reminder, "By the way, you gonna be alright, or...?"
"I'll be fine. It's like a training exercise if what Yang said is true," He replied, "One that combines shooting, mobility and teamwork as a test..."
"Yeah," Cortana chuckled. Ah, John and his always-militaristic view of things, "It's still a silly game, though, so don't take it too personally if you lo-ho-hos-hahahah!" She laughed out loud at the fallacy she was about to say. She continued to laugh for a solid minute while John checked and cleaned Caliburn, before finally settling down, "Ah... As if you could lose, even against kids with soulstuff superpowers..."
"... I guess I'm going to have to leave you here?" He inquired, setting Caliburn aside and stowing it under his bed.
"I'm pretty sure you'll have to leave everything armor-related here..." She replied, chuckling.
Outside, Linda had decided to take a hike for a bit. Clear her head, figure out her own issues, somesuch things. Namely, Nornfang needing its own modifications and her wondering how she could get them without burdening one of the local smiths with it. She was also still in her armor, minus the helmet, which was currently on the counter of the kitchen. She'd left it and Nornfang behind for the sake of not being so threatening to the locals.
Certainly, some of them must've figured out the good Spartan was one of their 'classmates', which was still a temporary engagement for her and for much of the Spartan Cadre currently stationed in Beacon. She figured she should also request extra bunks and a place to set them up, for Will and the others to have a place to sleep in. Right now, though? She was having different problems.
Both male and female civilians approached her as she walked by. Some were shy, some were bold, but all of them desired the same thing. Or, at least, Linda felt like they did, considering some of the looks some were giving her. One of them asked for her autograph, another had asked her 'out to the movies', whatever that meant and some folks just outright seemed to be taking photos of her. She refused as politely as she could, citing the fact that she 'had something to deal with' as she moved past them.
Ignoring the weird behavior of the civvies(some of which were classmates) she strolled forward into Beacon's amphitheater. Perhaps a little bit of training on those katas Kelly had given her would help clear her mind from whatever was going on. She paused, breathed in, then slowly turned toward the door to the training area, to see a few kids still looking at her. She ignored it, letting the doors shut behind her, before taking position in the wide-open area as the orange light of the dusk sky filled the place through the skylight at the top.
Kelly had trained her in the use of Katas for her combat form, provided she was ever so up-close-and-personal to the enemy that she had to use her fists. Every move, she'd practiced a dozen times as a means of both clearing her head and ensuring her own safety. Her mind was clearing and she could think more clearly when she trained, which meant she had just about got to her zen.
Her mind never really wandered when she entered 'the Zone'. She was only focused on what she was currently doing when entering it, her mind sharp, focused, directed. What it meant for her mind to never 'wander' was the fact that she never really bothered thinking or reflecting when in this state, mostly because she was usually on her belly, scoping in the skull of some unfortunate sod that was trying to kill her teammates.
Now? Well, now Linda permitted herself a moment to process the current situation. That she was alive was nothing short of an act of God after everything she and her teammates had been through. She would and should have definitely died after the hits she took on board Gamma Station. The injuries she had sustained there, the third-degree burns from plasma and the irradiation she must've suffered. She had died then, clinically, at least. Doctor Halsey had restored her to life during the early phases of Operation FIRST STRIKE.
Then, she went on to serve another glorious four years as an asset for the UNSC. She'd hunted everything from Covenant Remnants to more Innies, the latter of which with hesitation after the end of the war and the many times she'd fought side-by-side with fellow humans in what was a war of attrition they damn near lost. She had been there for several of their own casualties, too. Several Spartans that now walked with them on Remnant, she'd seen either spaced or blasted to pieces by the Covenant's energy weaponry.
And now? Now, she was on a foreign planet where it felt like there would always be a curveball, a surprise, something around the next corner that would change the mission parameters. Currently, she saw the balanced tipped their way, thanks to the fact that there were so many of them back from the dead. Sam... She was glad he was back. The boy had died very early. Their first loss. Then, there was John...
John was alive. He'd been alive for the better part of the four years that she, Kelly and Fred fought together, missed his fair share of missions. He'd saved Earth again while they were away working on another mission in the middle of nowhere... And then he wound up here, where whatever he'd done to the Didact and his ship probably caused the revival and gathering of so many Spartans here.
She sighed, then straightened up her posture, noting to the second person in the amphitheater, "If you're here to train, be my guest. The place is big enough."
"Oh, thank you," A young woman's voice replied. One that, despite having known her for less time than she'd even known about Noble Team, she could immediately pin. Pyrrha Nikos, elite fighter. She looked back to see the girl with the blood-red hair and the hoplite-like, greek-style armor as she drew her weaponry. The girl spoke, polite to a fault, "I'm sorry if I bothered you, I just... I didn't know if you heard me come in."
"I did," She replied. The two stared at one-another for a moment. Both were redheads with emerald eyes and both seemed to be pros at what they did. She'd seen Pyrrha during a training course in combat that professor Goodwitch was teaching. She hummed, noticing Pyrrha was carrying the blade and shield with her, then asked, "Do you need a sparring partner?"
"Actually, yes," Pyrrha nodded after a single moment of thought. She smiled, "It's... A bit boring to train alone."
"Ain't that the truth..." Linda murmured, then said, "I think we've met before, but just in case, I'm Linda. Linda Pravdin. One of Chief's comrades."
"Nice to meet you, Linda. I'm Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos," She offered with a curt, but respectful nod.
"Pleasure's all mine," Linda replied, "Now, if we're sparring..." She took her position as Pyrrha entered the ring. The girl stowed her weapons and Linda shook her head, stating rather bluntly, "You're going to need them..." and watching her reluctantly pull them back out. Lin watched the girl's form and found it perfect for a sword-and-shield wielder like Pyrrha, but soon remembered that all weapons on Remnant, or at least all modern weapons, had the ability to form-shift during combat. And from the barrel Linda was seeing poking out at the bottom of the hilt, it had another mode, at least.
Fun...