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      "Idu, who is this human? He fights like one of the accursed demons, but he has neither the stature nor the armor by which we recognize the demons." Honors', deep grave voice sounded, as his brows furrowed while he focused on the view of Evans displayed on the monitors of his private quarters. Evans had just regained consciousness, eyes gaining that intense alertness I had never seen them without, despite being surrounded by bruises and welts. He hung by his wrists from a pair of energy manacles, elevated enough that his single set of knees only just reached the floor of his cell. Purple illumination from the security field across the cells entrance granted him an ominous cast, on top of his already predatorial air.
      "I know little enough excellency, I have only encountered him four times. The first time, I was leading a boarding party on one of the humans orbital weapons platforms protecting the ark. Evans was equipped with active camouflage, and his first blade. He destroyed my entire squad, two Kig-Yar, seven Grunts, and defeated me in single combat afterwards, first destroying my carbine, and then besting me when I drew my plasma sword." Honor raised an eyebrow, and looked at me, then back to Evans, considering.
      "If I had not seen him fight against the Kig-Yar in the detention center, I would hardly have believed it possible for a single human to have defeated a warrior such as you, especially at a disadvantage."
      "Indeed excellency, my own overconfidence was my own undoing. In my mind, I had dismissed any human other than the demon as a threat, and Evans not only acknowledged me as a threat from the start, but from the way he fought, he also accepted his own limitations. He never attempted to block one of my blows, he knew I am vastly stronger, and when on attack he used swift, precise blows, rather than crude and powerful blows. He analyzed me, and was able to conclude how I would fight, simply by how I drew my sword."
      "A formidable opponent." Honor said gravely, and motioned me to continue with my retelling.
"The second time I encountered him, I was almost completely incapacitated by a painful and draining human chemical they had used in interrogation attempts."
      "Attempts?" Honor said, half absently, watching as Evans tested his bonds, bracing his entire body before pulling against them, and then straining against them with every sinew in his body.
      "Unsuccessful excellency, the drug made my tongue disturbingly loose, but I countered by deliberately misunderstanding their questions about troop deployments and such. They now know a great deal about the course of the game of Ja'te'nai I played against the headmaster of the academy in my first cycle of attencdance there."
      "If I recall correctly, you defeated him rather handily." Honors deep voice was amused.
"Yes, excellency, at the time I had no reputation, and underestimating a Sangheili who is not only a cadet, but also diminutive, comes easily to those who already think too much of themselves."
      Honor snorted derisively, which called to mind the time a Jiralhanae had attempted to assasinate Honor in his bed, and left the room in several body bags. As I recalled, its pelt still hung in his chambers on Sanghiel.
      "I was in a cell on a human vessel, In Amber Clad, attempting to overcome the effects of the human chemical, when I smelled the Parasite. Shortly after, Evans came to the door of my cell, and asked me what the odor was. When I told him that his ship was being invaded by the Parasite, he did not even flinch. Of course, he did not comprehend the nature of the Parasite, but he understood that I believed his ship would be shortly overrun. But he did not leave me to die. Somewhere, he had acquired an energy blade, I know it was not mine, for the human scientists had confiscated it, but he gave me the one he did have. With it, I was able to break free of my cell, and quenched my thirst at a nearby canister filled with water. Fortuitously, the water seemed to cleanse my system of the debilitating chemical, and I found myself completely combat able, for an unarmored Sanghieli."
      Honors' voice carried a note of surprise, "I have never before heard of a human displaying such honor. Was he not afraid you would turn on him and his or the other humans?"
      "Indeed, excellency, he told me that it was on his honor that I not attack, by his words, 'those I am bound to protect.'"
I waited, carefully preventing myself from reacting in any way other than meeting Honors' level gaze.
      "You know, Idu Ashanee, what this means about your honor?" His voice was grave, a voice that demanded truth, a voice that commanded that would have an answer, a voice that told you why Honor held the loyalty and oaths of more Sanghieli than any prophet since Solitude.
"Yes excellency."
      "And you are willing to not attack another human until such time that he realeases you from this bond?"
"Honor demands it." I gazed straight back into those challenging eyes, not backing down for an instant.
       Honors' short face suddenly quirked spasmodically into a smile. "I would expect nothing less from you Idu. I never told you, but if Teryn had not returned from the war with the Jiralhanae, I would have named you my new champion."
       I blinked, and then hastily regathered my mandibles from their limp sag. "You honor me, excellency."
"No more than you deserve Idu, I have had my eye on you since the day that the head of the academy on Sanghiel was removed for incompetence. Apparently, he was shown up by a green gilled recruit, and then lost his temper when Truth came for an inspection. Last I heard, he was guarding the Kig-Yar monastary on Donlus."

      I grinned; Donlus was as far from the front lines as you could get, without leaving known space. Plus, Kig-Yar monastaries smell horrible. "Anyways excellency, during my departure from the human vessel, I encountered part of a flood command form, but was still able to reach the landing bay. There, due to the humans own escape effort, I was able to reclaim a banshee they had stolen, and I climbed out of reach of the flood, waiting for the humans to open the bay doors for their own escape attempt. The humans entered the bay in three groups, a vanguard and rearguard of marines, and in between crewers, pilots, and technicians carrying equipment and ammunition. Evans led the vanguard, carrying only his sword for armament. I must confess some amazement, excellency, when he engaged the flood in close combat unshielded. Even greater was my amazement, when his skill proved superior to their vast numbers. However, he became so embroiled in combat, that he could not break away when all the other humans were aboard their dropships, and only their supporting fire kept the infection forms from overwhelming him. I did not realize it at the time, but when Evans observed my banshee considerably closer than the human dropships, he took advantage of a powerful volley of grenades the other marines gave to board my banshee, and he clung to it all the way to High Charity. Once there, he tore through half the ambush the Jiralhanae laid for me. You and Teryn arrived to see the outcome of that engagement, and you have seen more of him since than I have, excellency."
       Honor continued to gaze at the screen for some time, watching as Evans smeared blood from his head wound on to his left shoulder, then examined it, smelled it, and tasted it, nodding to himself in satisfaction.
      "So who is he?"

      "He's probably one of the greatest warriors alive, Seargant" Yung said, looking at me levelly, his bank of incomprehensible electronics softly illuminating the left side of his face in contrast to the near pitch black of the rest of the cave we had holed up in.
      "That doesn't really answer my question," I replied, not bothering to keep the irritation from my voice, "He fought those things to a stand still with nothing more than a pair of swords, told me he had an alternate exit, and then disappeared into that cloud of smoke. If there had been any chance we could have looked for his remains and not die in the process, I would have ordered it. A man like that has to come from somewhere. Especially if he is still alive somehow, as you claim he is."
      "The where was a backwater outer colony world called Predation, it was glassed about nine months ago, his entire extended family was killed in the orbital battle."
      "How did they all get assigned to their homeworld?"
"They didn't," Young replied, glancing at one of his displays briefly, then tapping in something before continuing. "Evans is the only one of them ever to enlist in the UNSC. They used their own craft to attack the small covenant fleet, fighter sized ships they manufactured themselves. The covenant fighters did absolutely nothing to stop them, and the fifty seven of them boarded three of the five cruisers. Shortly afterwards, all three self-destructed, crippling a fourth one in the process. In the meantime, the inhabitants of Predation were almost all able to evacuate, almost all of them making it off before the fifth managed to glass the planet."
      "If they were such formidable fighters, why didn't they join the UNSC?"
      "ONI. When the Spartan II program was kicking off, ONI tried to kidnap Evans cousin. Somehow, I'm not sure quite how, two of them survived the mission, getting away with the girl. The other eight died pretty nastily. Anyways, half the clan went hunting to get her back after that, and a lot of ONI agents died after nasty interrogations, or were fitted with cloned digits and eyes. Two months later, when they finally caught up with the pair who had survived the abduction mission, they summarily executed them, then sent their heads to ONI headquarters, which no-one is even suppossed to know where is, and at the same time the heads arrived, five of them slipped in, killing twelve security guards, and slipped out again with the documents on where she was buried, and everyone that was involved in the setup for the abduction. She'd tried to escape when the transport landed on Reach, and some idiot shot her before she even got out of the spaceport. They were not happy, and every operative on that list was dead as soon as they could reach the planet they lived on. Finally, they delivered a death threat to Ackerson himself, if he messed with their clan again, before they all headed back to Predation. Ackerson has been waiting for a chance to grab one of them ever since."
      "Who are these people?"
"Were Peters, Evans, or rather Ethan Hunter as his real name is, is the last of the Hunter clan. The Hunters were die-hard survivalists, their training is comparable to the Spartans, and the only engagement anyone in their clan is ever known to have lost was the aforementioned one in which they failed to take out the fifth cruiser over predation. And they can trace the history of their clan back before the industrial revolution in the 1800's. Ethan Hunter is a blademaster, sharpshooter, expert pilot, could pass for holding a masters in Metallurgy, photon/wave mechanics, and artificial sentience. He was fit enough to try the Spartan obstacle course when he arrived at boot camp, and a week after arriving, he did, hacking the security cameras, and clocking the sentry patrols so that no one knew about it, except Cortana, Halsey, and I. You too now, of course. He'd probably appreciate it if you didn't let it slip. Anyways, he scored within 10% of the lowest times the Spartans made, not bad considering that they had strength and neurological enhancements, power armor with shields and nightvision, and he had his wits and about 100 meters of rope. The Spartans started training for war at age six; he started at birth. By tradition, his clan lays in the hand of each newborn child a knife, at the same time as they return the child to the mother." Yung stopped, looking back to his monitors.
      "How do you know all this?" I asked.
"Oh that's easy, I used to be in ONI section three."
      "used to be? Why, and how did you leave?"
"Because of me, and by means of me." A deep voice sounded behind me, and I nearly leapt out of my skin. Eriksson stepped around me, and while I regained my composure, he walked up to Yung's bank of monitors, and spoke again. "How is he doing?"
      "Pretty good," Yung replied, "He's stopped bleeding, and is conscious again. He seems to be in a holding cell, and held in place by some kind of energy bonds."
      "And the modifications?" Eriksson continued.
"The surface mapper still hasn't finished, but the lifespan on the active camo will be about fifteen hours now, it should be finished in another six hours or so. The strength augmentation is still calibrating, his reflexes are extremely well tuned, so the membrane will only function when he manually activates it. The nueral pathing is just too complex for the system to map out until he gets some REM sleep and the activity recedes. The health monitors are functional for everything except his head and neck, but we already knew his helmet ahd been removed. He's got some bruises, but his armor has protected against everything else."
      "And the permanent aug package?"
Yung grimaced before responding this time, "Nothing yet, he's just to controlled."
      Eriksson's voice was heavy with lethal import. "Lets hope for his sake that he manages to get angry soon."
       I finally recovered enough, and was frustrated enough with not knowing what was going on, that I broke in. "Why!" I yelled, "Why do you want him to get angry? How did you cram all that stuff you were talking about into his armor? What do you mean that Eriksson was the why and the how for you leaving ONI? What is going on here?"
      "Calm down Seargant," Eriksson said, "We've done nothing to harm him. In fact, what we've done is pretty much his only chance at survival right now."
      I controlled my voice, but barely. "What. Did. You. Do. To. My. Marine."
Yung replied, cutting the reply I saw on Erikssons face before it could escape his lips. "I left ONI when I found out what Ackerson had done, and intended to do. You see, I was logged onto the section three network when the Hunters broke in, and I saw the hacks they used. Of course, I tried to stop them, but for the first time ever, someone out hacked me. They were able to crack into files I had never known existed, and while they were in, I grabbed some copies myself. A lot of the projects Ackerson had initiated disgusted me, but there wasn't much I could do about almost all of them. However, I did keep an eye on the Spartan program after that, and tried to crack into the Hunters grid. Their grid was even more secure than Halsey's though, they live over a thousand clicks from any other human habitation, and run everything on land-lines. Nothing I could do remotely. Halsey kept me out as well, but by which intrusion attempts she, and her AI's blocked, I was able to track where the Spartans were. Which lead me to Eriksson here. You probably know that only three Spartans were ever reported MIA, well, one of them did die, and the people who put 'MIA' on his file, thought Eriksson was dead too."
       Eriksson grunted, and muttered something I couldn't pick up.
"In reality, Acherson kidnapped Eriksson right off the battle-field, after a squad of Elites mangled his armor. They kept him at section three headquarters, and I developed plans to break him out, without revealing myself. But then there were complications; Acherson identified Evans as a Hunter. I broke Eriksson out half an hour after Acherson identified Evans, and took advantage of the distraction I made to get Evans into the ODST's, then played hide-and-go-seek in cyberspace for six months, keeping Ackerson from finding Evans again. However, when the In Amber Clad left Earth's orbit, I lost my connections to all human comnets, and Ackersons AI's are going to find us. If we ever get back, Ackerson will have a team checking DNA and description on every human that returns from this ringworld. So, the other techies and I did everything we could to prepare Evans for his return to Earth."
      "What does 'everything you could' mean?"
Eriksson grunted again, and Yungs composure slipped for the first time, worry appearing on his face, and he sighed. "We put all the tech toys we thought could possibly be of any use to him, health monitors, self-diagnostics, a slot for an AI, infrared and nightvision, we boosted the comm in there, gave him a hud, installed an Active Camouflage unit, upgraded the crap out of the quartz shell, he'll be much more resistant to plasma fire now, grew a psuedomuscle sheath on the interior of it, and slaved it to an extremely sensitive net of neural sensors, once he gets some real sleep, it will finish mapping out his neural pathways, and act like an extra set of muscles for him." Yung stopped, and sighed deeply, closing his eyes for a moment, and then continued. "Finally, we coated the innermost layer with a bioagent, that when his biochemistry changes to a compatible form, will be absorbed into his bloodstream. Rage will make the neccessary minute changes to the chemical balance in his body. It's something that Halsey was working on before she was suppossed to flee Reach, and with a little help from studies of one Seargant Avery Johnson's blood, I have been able to finish it."
      "What does it do?" I asked, keeping careful control of my tone, and eyeing Eriksson's tensed jaw, and bunched muscles.
      Eriksson responded, his voice fierce, and eyes gleaming, cutting Yung off. "Exactly what it did to the Spartans. Sixty percent chance it kills him, if it doesn't, His muscle strength will increase by over eight hundred percent, his reflexes by better than four hundred percent, give him near perfect memory retention, and strengthen his bones over time, he'll be VERY hungry for minerals in the coming months, to be just as strong as mine. ONI wanted him for their version of the Spartan program, well, he'll be a Spartan, but HE will choose who he's going to be working for. Every Spartan so far has been SOMEONE's pawn, well, Evans enlistment runs out in one week. Then there will be a Spartan who is NO ONE's pawn, who was never trained for blind loyalty to the UNSC. If Ackerson knew, he'd probably wet himself.

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