March 9th, 2525 / ONI Medical Facility, High Orbit, Planet Reach, Epsilon Eridani System
The hallway was cold.
Not temperature-wise—at least not officially. The ambient readouts were within optimal comfort margins. But the air felt clinical. Sealed. Processed. Like we weren't marching to a medical procedure… but to disassembly.
Seventy-six of us. One after the other. Silent.
The floor beneath our feet gleamed with surgical polish. No scuffs. No sound. Not even our steps echoed.
We entered the room as a unit. No formation.
It stretched wide and sterile—rows of surgical tables lined in perfect columns, each surrounded by racks of diagnostic machines and cradled by clusters of multi-jointed robotic arms. Steel vultures waiting to operate.
Two doctors. Two nurses. Per table.
The air smelled like antiseptic, oxygen, and inevitability.
I caught Kelly's eye across the line. She scowled. Not at the machines—she didn't flinch for things like that—but at her own reflection, caught in one of the polished monitors.
We all had to shave our heads.
No exceptions.
She'd always been proud of her blue hair. Let it fall wild during downtime like it was her armor when the helmet came off.
Now she looked like the rest of us.
Angry. Exposed.
I gave her a small nod. The kind that says I get it, even if we didn't say a word.
One by one, we moved to the tables.
No fanfare. No ceremony.
I climbed onto mine, the surface cool against my back. I could hear the machinery powering up around me—smooth hums, the low hiss of vacuum seals, the steady rhythm of a dozen digital heart monitors spooling up across the room.
The doctor beside me said something. I didn't catch it. I was already gone.
The sedative hit fast.
The ceiling blurred.
My arms went numb first. Then my chest. My breath stayed steady even as I felt it fade.
This is it.
When I wake up—if I wake up—I'll be faster. Stronger. Smarter.
But I'll never be the same.
______________________
Waking up felt like drowning.
Not in water—but in sensation. Every nerve was screaming at a different volume, and none of them were in sync.
My body was… wrong.
Too heavy. Too light. Too fast. My thoughts raced ahead of my breathing, and my breathing kept trying to keep up with my pulse—which now pounded like a drumline inside a pressure suit.
Everything ached.
Muscles I didn't remember having were twisting with tension like they were still fighting the surgeons. Bones throbbed in pulses like fault lines shifting beneath my skin. My head—God, my head—felt like it had swallowed a lightning storm.
Pain flared behind my eyes, sharp and constant, like my optic nerves were recalibrating in real time.
I tried to move.
Bad idea.
My arm twitched—and the restraint strap gave a little snap as the reinforced polymer peeled apart.
I froze.
Slowly, carefully, I lifted my hand. It moved smoother than it ever had, but not in a natural way. More like a machine that had learned to mimic a boy. Precision without context.
I flexed my fingers.
Too strong.
Too fast.
Even blinking felt like it came with a reload animation.
The migraine was blooming now—center of my skull outward, like a flower made of static and rage. But no fear came with it. No anxiety. No edge-of-the-void panic clawing at my chest.
Just the facts.
I remembered the pellet.
Emotion suppression.
Good. I'd be curled up and screaming if it wasn't working.
My voice came out hoarse. Dry.
"Phoenix… status report."
A soft whirr echoed beside the bed as the table's built-in holoprojector activated. The glass plate warmed under my arm.
The air shimmered.
And he appeared.
The smart AI ONI lets me utilize.
Phoenix flickered to life atop the projector plate, his holographic form stabilizing into a tall, armored figure wreathed in fiery wings of cascading data. His eyes—piercing gold—locked onto mine like he'd been waiting. Overall he resembles the archangel Michael.
"Welcome back, Commander," he said, voice calm but full of something dangerously close to emotion. "You gave us quite the scare."
I blinked slowly. Even my eyelids felt upgraded.
"Status?" I rasped.
Phoenix inclined his head. "I've already alerted the medical team. The coma reversal was successful. You are fully conscious and stable. I estimate the doctors will arrive within the next two minutes."
I let my head fall back into the pillow.
"Report."
He didn't delay.
"All seventy-six Spartan-II candidates survived augmentation," he said. "Zero fatalities. Zero recorded rejections. Neurological stability across the board is within optimal variance. Emotional suppression is active in 93% of subjects. The remainder are being observed—no panic symptoms reported."
My throat tightened—but not from fear.
Just relief.
"It worked," I whispered.
Phoenix nodded once. "Your modifications. Your designs. The new protocol saved every one of them."
I exhaled slowly. My chest still felt heavy. The pain hadn't faded, but it had been knocked down a few notches by certainty.
We had won.
I glanced down at my arms for the first time.
Scars.
Surgical lines. Everywhere. Circular markings around each joint—shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees. Clean incisions down both sides of my body, crisscrossing like some kind of living circuit diagram. Rings connected by thin lines like biomech tattoos.
Functional. Patterned. Ugly in the way lightning is ugly.
We were fourteen years old now.
But our bodies?
Eighteen. Maybe more.
Olympic-level mass. Unnatural bone density. Precision-engineered tissue architecture. And beneath it all—the power.
"I appreciate the update," I said quietly.
Phoenix folded his arms across his chest, wings dimming slightly in standby. "They'll want to run diagnostics. Expect blood draws. Cognitive tests. Strength baselines."
I nodded, eyes closing for a moment.
"I'll be ready."
The door hissed open with surgical precision—quiet, controlled, like the people walking through it.
Two doctors entered. One male, one female. Both in white ONI-issue coats, both with pads already syncing to my vitals via wireless uplink.
They didn't introduce themselves.
Didn't need to.
They'd known me longer than I'd ever known them.
The female doctor began with my eyes—small light, reflex test, retinal response speed. "Excellent dilation control," she murmured. "Stimulus response within predicted margin."
The male doctor was already at my feet, rolling back the hospital blanket and adjusting the scanner near my ankles. "Muscle density scan initializing… confirming zero tissue degradation."
My throat still burned, but I stayed quiet. Movement was easier now. Breathing too. The migraine had dulled to a steady hum—still there, still angry, but manageable.
They worked in rhythm.
Cold hands. Warmer results.
They took blood samples, tissue scans, even marrow data—drawing from my tibia with a needle that punched through the reinforced bone with a hydraulic hiss. I didn't flinch. Not because of the suppression pellet. Just because flinching felt… unnecessary.
A full-body diagnostic bed was rolled into place, and I was guided—gently but firmly—onto it. Phoenix dimmed his projection as scanners passed over me in slow, buzzing arcs. My scars lit up under certain wavelengths, like circuit traces printed in protein and skin.
The male doctor finally looked at me, just once.
"You're stable," he said. "Better than stable."
"Vitals are elevated," the female added, "but consistent with early post-augmentation recovery. You're the baseline we'll measure the rest against."
I didn't respond. I didn't need to.
They knew I understood.
The last scan passed over my skull, pinged softly, and shut down.
They packed up with the same precision they entered.
The male doctor tapped his pad. "Rest. Command will want cognitive tests in forty-eight hours."
Then they left.
No goodbyes. No praise.
Just numbers.
And now, those numbers were mine.
The recovery wing was quiet—except for the soft beeps of monitors and the occasional hiss of auto-injectors stabilizing dosages.
One by one, they started to wake up.
Fred first, groaning like he'd just done fifty pull-ups too many. Then Linda, sitting up so fast a nurse dropped her datapad. Fhajad blinked his way back to consciousness like someone rebooted him manually.
John stirred next, eyes opening with that same cold focus he always had—only now it felt sharper.
I was standing in the doorway when Kelly sat up, holding her shaved head and muttering something about how much she hated the lights.
But she was awake.
They all were.
I greeted each of them the same way—short, quiet, just a nod or a hand on a shoulder. No speeches. No grand gestures. Just presence.
"You made it," I told each of them.
Not we. You.
Because I already knew I was alive.
They needed to hear they were too.
Once cleared by medical, we left the facility together. No escort. No ceremony. Just a slow walk down a sterile corridor toward the Spartan-II barracks.
Every step felt heavier. But not from pain.
From weight.
Our bodies were rebuilt. Stronger. Taller. Denser. We weren't just Spartans in training anymore—we were weapons in progress.
We passed through the barracks threshold. The familiar space looked smaller now, like we'd outgrown it. Same layout. Same rows of bunks. Same scuffed lockers and faint smell of industrial soap.
Fred dropped onto his cot like gravity finally caught up to him.
Fhajad followed. Then Linda.
Kelly sat down stiffly and muttered, "Feels like someone poured molten metal in my spine."
I didn't disagree.
Then John looked around—expression unreadable as always—and said:
"This place feels too small."
He turned toward the exit.
"I'll be in the gym."
No one stopped him.
We just watched him go, his silhouette already broader, stride already longer.
That was John.
Even after everything—he still needed to move.
John-117's POV
The gym was empty.
Just how I wanted it.
No doctors. No chatter. No mirrors.
Only machines.
Only steel.
I found the bench press first. Familiar. Old model. Fixed plates, reinforced bar. Meant for durability, not comfort.
I sat down, braced my back against the pad, and lifted.
Too light.
Way too light.
It felt like lifting a toothpick with a power loader.
I re-racked the bar and sat up. My breath was steady. Slower than it used to be. My heartbeat—barely elevated. Not even a sweat.
I stood, walked around to the weight tower, and pulled the pin.
I held it in my hand. Cold. Heavy for its size.
Then I dropped it.
Watched it fall.
Too slow.
It hit the rubber floor with a soft clack, and I stared at the exact spot it landed, already running the numbers.
Drop distance: 1.26 meters.
Fall time: 0.51 seconds.
Acceleration: 9.81 meters per second squared.
Still Earth gravity.
Still normal physics.
Which meant—
I wasn't.
I flexed my fingers. No tremor. No resistance.
Just precision.
Every movement felt calculated, like my body was already simulating five outcomes before I picked one.
I reached for the pin again, lost in the math of muscle memory and reaction time—then something crashed behind me.
Metal-on-metal.
Hard.
Fast.
I turned instinctively—combat stance half-loaded into my legs.
Someone else had come in.
And they'd tried to use my bench.
Without the pin.
The sound had come from the second bench station.
I moved in slow, deliberate steps—every part of me conscious of the weight I wasn't used to carrying. Not just physically. Presence. I felt like a machine walking through porcelain.
Four men stood around the bench press, all in standard-issue PT gear. Black shirts. 105th Shock Trooper Division patches on the sleeves. Helljumpers.
ODSTs.
Their barbell had collapsed mid-lift—plates rolled across the rubber mat like angry coins, one dented from impact. One of them was gripping his shoulder, swearing like it owed him credits.
Then they saw me.
Saw the pin in my hand.
Everything clicked in their eyes.
The one nearest me—stocky, older, scarred across the jaw—pointed.
"You," he snapped. "You took the pin."
I didn't answer. No lies to tell. No reason to deny it.
"You Section Three freaks always think you're above everyone else," another spat. "Can't even leave equipment the hell alone."
"You useless little lab rats need to learn your place," the third growled.
The fourth just cracked his knuckles and stepped closer.
They weren't armed.
Didn't matter.
Four ODSTs still meant four problems. And I'd just been rebuilt from the bones up.
I shifted my stance slightly—enough for my weight to settle into the balls of my feet.
Then a voice cut through the room.
Low. Dry. Dismissive.
"If you're going to do any fighting," it said, "do it in the ring."
We all turned.
A junior-grade lieutenant leaned against the wall, arms crossed, unimpressed. Probably waiting to see which one of us would break first.
The ODSTs glanced at each other.
Smiles broke across their faces.
They thought they were getting away with it.
Even worse—they thought I was about to learn a lesson.
I didn't move.
I just turned my eyes toward the ring at the far end of the gym.
And waited.
The ring was standard issue. Padded floor. Tension ropes. Sweat-stained canvas. One overhead light buzzing like it resented the tension in the room.
I stepped through the ropes.
Didn't bounce. Didn't stretch. Just waited.
The ODSTs climbed in after me—two at first, then the third. The fourth stood outside the ropes, grinning like this was a bar fight and I was the rookie who picked the wrong uniform.
One of them cracked his neck. Another did that hop-step warm-up that only made sense if you were trying to impress someone.
I wasn't.
No bell.
No command.
They just came at me.
The first one—scar-jaw—swung wide. Amateur move. Big, obvious haymaker.
I caught it mid-swing.
And shoved.
Not pushed. Not deflected.
Shoved.
His body launched backward. He hit the ropes, bounced, and landed in a heap with a loud oof that knocked the air clean out of him.
Too much force.
I hadn't meant to do that.
Second guy came in faster—jabs, quick, controlled. I slipped past his reach and slammed my palm into his sternum.
He dropped like I'd hit him with a sledgehammer.
Still too much force.
The third one paused just a second too long—hesitation.
I stepped into him, used his arm against him, and twisted with a textbook CQC redirect into a knee strike.
He crumpled.
All of it took maybe five seconds.
I stood there, breathing steady, heart rate barely above resting. The first ODST was groaning. Second was twitching. Third wasn't moving much at all.
The fourth guy outside the ring wasn't smiling anymore.
Neither was I.
Because I wasn't fighting.
I was executing.
And I didn't know how to stop.
The last ODST didn't hesitate.
He grabbed the barbell pole from the collapsed rack—plates still on one side. With one angry yank, the weights clattered off and rolled across the floor like warning bells. He tested the balance. Satisfied, he stepped into the ring.
His boots hit the mat like war drums.
The other three ODSTs were back on their feet now. Shaky. Staggering. Breathing like they'd sprinted through smoke. But their eyes were locked on me.
I saw it before they moved.
Rage.
Pride.
Fear.
All sharpened into violence.
They came at me together.
All four.
It wasn't a brawl. It was a coordinated strike—something they'd practiced before. One high, one low, two from the sides. I didn't think.
I reacted.
The first one lunged. I caught his wrist mid-strike and drove my elbow into his jaw. Bone cracked. His body went limp.
Second came in with the bar—swinging hard. I ducked under and kicked low. My foot connected with his knee and I felt it dislocate. He screamed.
Third and fourth—too slow. I rotated, grabbed the bar mid-swing as it came around again, and used it. One blow to the sternum. One across the throat.
They dropped.
All of them.
The gym went still.
And then I saw it.
Blood from the mouth.
A neck at the wrong angle.
One chest… not rising.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Then the door exploded open with a voice like thunder.
"AT EASE!"
Chief Petty Officer Mendez filled the room with just those two words.
I froze.
Hands still up. Muscles twitching. Heart calm.
Too calm.
Mendez's boots thundered against the floor. His face was carved from stone and rage.
The kind of rage not born from surprise.
But disappointment.
And something else.
Fear.
My hands snapped into a salute the second Mendez's bark registered in my skull.
Not out of habit.
Out of instinct.
Because even now, with four men broken and bleeding at my feet, Mendez still commanded my spine.
Medics rushed past me.
Their boots hammered the mat. Their voices were clipped, urgent. They didn't shout for vitals.
They didn't shout at all.
They already knew what they were dealing with.
I didn't look away as they checked pulses. I watched the subtle shake of one medic's head. The slow drape of a black cover over a still form. Another marine rolled to his side, coughing up blood before seizing.
The barbell pole still lay in the ring like a relic from a ritual gone wrong.
I turned to Mendez.
"Was this a test?" I asked.
My voice sounded steady. Too steady.
He looked at me. No hesitation.
"No. It wasn't."
He stepped closer, just enough for me to see the steel in his eyes.
"But you defended yourself. That's what matters."
He didn't blink when he said it. He didn't flinch at the bodies. He looked at me like I'd done what needed doing.
Then he turned to the pale junior officer leaning against the wall—the same one who gave the green light earlier. His face had gone from smug to sun-bleached terror.
Mendez fixed him with a stare sharp enough to slice titanium.
"Your CO wants to speak with you, Lieutenant."
The man swallowed hard and nodded, bolting from the room like it was on fire.
Mendez turned back to me.
"Barracks," he ordered. "Rest."
He paused, just a beat.
"Someone may come for a statement. Be ready."
I saluted again. Held it. Then turned and walked out.
No one stopped me.
No one could.
Dr. Catherine Halsey's POV
The footage played again.
Four Helljumpers. One Spartan.
Timestamped. Clean. Brutal.
John's movements were clinical—too clean for someone who had undergone the most invasive surgical overhaul in human history less than twenty-four hours earlier. The ODSTs didn't stand a chance. Their attacks weren't coordinated, not really. Just pride and anger thrown at a wall of precision.
And the wall didn't yield.
It shattered them.
I paused the playback at the moment his palm strike caved in the second marine's chest—body folding like cloth. Reversed it. Played it again. Slower.
Fascinating.
The knock came, sharp and rhythmic.
"Enter."
Mendez stepped inside, boots clicking against the polished floor of my temporary office aboard the orbital facility. He still looked like he hadn't slept, and I suspected he hadn't since the augmentations began. The lines around his eyes were deeper today.
He glanced at the screen, then at me.
"So," he said, voice even. "Was it really necessary to wait before stopping it?"
I didn't look at him. "Yes."
"That a moral answer or a scientific one?"
"Scientific," I replied without hesitation. "It was the first opportunity to observe real-time performance under duress. John was pushed. He responded. I needed to see if the augmentations held under live stress with human unpredictability."
He folded his arms. "They did."
I finally turned from the footage. "Remarkably well."
He exhaled, long and slow.
"I was never worried about John," he said. "Even cut open and rewired head to toe—I knew those ODSTs' families were getting a letter they'd never want to read."
I didn't disagree.
But I didn't flinch either.
"They attacked one of my Spartans, Chief. I don't have sympathy for men stupid enough to poke a predator and act surprised when it bites."
Mendez raised a brow at that. "Getting a little personal, aren't we?"
The words hit harder than they should've.
I glanced back at the paused footage. John's face frozen mid-movement—calm, focused, empty of hesitation.
Miranda had been born just a month ago. February 8th. My daughter. Still fragile. Still innocent. Still untouched by the blood and compromises of the world I'd built.
But something inside me had changed since she arrived.
And as I looked at John, at the weight he carried, the pain he'd inflicted without a second thought, it hit me like a whisper I hadn't meant to hear:
These 76 are mine too.
Mendez didn't speak again for a moment. Just stared at the screen, the frozen image of John mid-strike. He didn't look away until the console beside me chimed.
Priority update.
I opened it without pause.
RECEIVED: LOGISTICS TRANSFER CONFIRMATION
From: Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez
To: Dr. Catherine Halsey
Subject: PILOT ODST Armor + Jump Kit Delivery
Mendez spoke while I skimmed the report.
"Armor arrived at the Reach military complex this morning. Full set of test units. Jump kits included."
I raised an eyebrow. "Already?"
He nodded. "Leonidas adjusted the specs personally. Retuned the output curves, reinforced the gyroscopic stabilizers, and swapped out the limiters."
"Limiters?"
"He removed them," Mendez clarified. "Said they were for normal humans."
Of course he did.
Leonidas had been planning for this since the moment he could walk again. While the rest were healing, he was calculating. He didn't just survive the augmentation—he evolved with it.
"Which means," Mendez continued, "they're not just running tests anymore. The Spartans can push those kits to the max. Full vertical bursts. No artificial ceiling."
I let that settle for a second.
A normal human crashing during a jump-kit run was like laying down a motorcycle at 120 kph.
Now?
Now that their bones were nearly unbreakable, their reflexes augmented past natural limits, and their recovery time cut to a fraction?
Crashing didn't mean death.
It meant data.
I leaned back in my chair, eyes still on the report.
"The real test begins now."
Mendez grunted. "Just make sure the real test doesn't end with them going through a wall."
I closed the logistics file and pushed it toward Mendez on the holo‑table.
"Have the medical teams finish their post‑op evaluations today," I said. "The moment they clear any Spartan for light activity, you transfer them to the Reach jump‑kit facility."
Mendez straightened. "All of them?"
"All of them," I repeated. "They heal faster together, they learn faster together. And I want Leonidas' modifications validated against live Spartans, not theoretical ODST projections."
He studied me for half a heartbeat, then nodded once—sharp, accepting.
"I'll arrange transport and security. They'll be on the tarmac by 0600 tomorrow."
"Good." I folded my arms, gaze back on the frozen frame of John's decisive strike.
"Let's see what happens when the wolves learn to fly."
Mendez turned on his heel and left, boots echoing down the corridor.
The door sealed behind him, and the office fell silent—save for the soft hum of the computer still holding the image of Spartan power made real.