Chapter Text
In a world where mankind faced extinction by digging their heels into the dirt and never daring to retreat, one figure stood tall on the burning planet he and his lost team had made their last stand upon. Corpses of the enemy that had burned every piece of ground that Humanity had settled for the past near-on thirty years surrounded him.
His rifle was empty, barrel warped from the shooting, his knife dirty with alien blood and his armor, failing as bursts of plasma fire melted away layer upon layer of Titanium alloy. His shields flickered, reactivating and dying after each burst. He felt one of the aliens draw its last breath in the grip of his healthy hand while another gargled its own blood from a knife stab to the neck.
Another pair advanced on him, pelting him with bolts of energy weapons fire. The adrenaline in his system numbed the pain and kept him alert, even as he felt his internal organs start to boil with each shot he took that the shields didn’t absorb. He grabbed a rifle and a pistol off of the ground and opened fire.
Bolts struck his helmet, his visor cracking. His heads-up display died as spiderweb-like lines criss-crossed his vision, blood pooling in his mouth. He tasted metal as he moved behind cover. He grabbed and tossed his helmet aside, then engaged the enemy again, bullets ripping apart the shields of a swarm of hinge-jawed, hunchback aliens of various ranks.
Elites. From the Minor to the Major and the General, even to a few Zealots, they charged him. Some fell to the gunfire he put out, while others still got into range for melee. One pushed him to the floor and pounced on him, trying to use its energy blade to cut his throat open. He barely deflected the blade, to the point it seared the flesh off his neck. He kicked it off, aimed his pistol and fired the remaining shots into it, causing its shields to flare. Its hoof-like foot kicked the helmet as it charged again.
… An Elite of a higher rank approached. It ignited the energy sword it wielded in its left hand as the Spartan that had been fighting took several more stabs from its comrades, then marched forward and cocked the blade back. In one sideswipe, he could feel the burning heat of the micron-sharp plasma blade cut through his neck, then he couldn’t feel anything anymore. The world suddenly turned dark…
He was not religious and, despite that, he’d also never really feared death until he was staring it in the face. Now that he was gone, though, well aware his head was severed from his body by an Elite Energy blade, Spartan-B312, known to many as Noble Six, wondered why in the name of God, should He be listening right now, could he think?
He saw a small light in the distance, a female voice calling out to him. Then another. Then another. Three voices chorused, calling him toward the light, though he could barely understand their words. He recognized it as a language he was familiar with, though. From his time in the service, obviously, but…
Something urged him to take his first step toward the light. He felt a familiar ‘weight’, or more-so a weightless motion as thought was executed before the brain could send the necessary orders for the action itself. He walked, same as he would’ve with MJOLNIR. He felt three pairs of hands take his own, pulling him toward said light.
The words became clearer. It wasn’t English, obviously, but he could mentally translate them… “Freedom”, “Peace”, “A New Life”. Basic statements and buzzwords, but when put together, whoever these three female silhouettes were, they were trying to tell him something. If this was what the last thing his dying mind would show him, then that was perfectly fine.
As they dragged him toward the light, he felt warmth. A comfortable kind, not the burning of plasma rounds or the heat of a simple campfire, but the kind of warmth one would feel when bundled up during a cold winter’s night. A kind of feeling he’d long forgotten about. It was the kind of warmth that he had thought he would be preserving for others when he was very young and accepted to join the Spartan Program.
As the light and warmth washed over him, he felt gravity come back. Reality seemed to strike:He was, in fact, a dead man. Someone whom the Office of Naval Intelligence would put on the list of those ‘Missing In Action’, the Ones that Never Die. Spartans. He was gone from the world, completely and utterly now. Reach was glassed. He was no more.
So… Why was he feeling the pull of an Earth-like gravity, or the weight of his armor again?
He gasped for air, tasting the recycled, almost metallic taste of his MJOLNIR suit. His eyes shot open as his Heads-Up Display activated, screens, monitors, TEAMBIO data and even shield diagnostics flashing on. One noticeable detail that was missing from the visor, however, was the presence of the cracks left by the Covenant’s weapon fire.
He lifted up a hand and ran it over the visor, then felt a slight sting in his neck and rubbed the black undersuit. Breathing in deeply, he felt air rushing down into his lungs. He went upright and found himself sitting in a pile of boxes that had all crumpled when he had landed on them. Around him, the sights and sounds of an abandoned concrete building greeted him, light poking through barred windows.
The old building looked abandoned, cobwebs hanging in the corners and a thick layer of dust covering the floor. He shook his head, feeling his breath, heart rate and overall bodily activity return to normal as he stood up, standing tall enough to reach the ceiling with his hand. He crouched behind a wall and looked outside… Then paused.
Deep blue skies bearing few clouds, tall, rising spires of steel and glass, roads occupied by what looked like the ancient precursors to his contemporary motor vehicles and even people milling about on the boulevard below. He saw the writing on one of the buildings, clearly Asian characters. Kanji, the Japanese alphabet.
He could read them.
Was he on Earth?
Probably, since one of the signs below literally read ‘Fuchu, Tokyo’. He leaned against the wall, peering out from the darkness of the abandoned building and into the light of the city below, watching the local population go about their business, blatantly unaware that he’d just dropped in. The only issue he had, meanwhile, was the lack of recognizable architecture.
Or, at least, architecture from the 26th Century. All of what he was seeing below reminded him of the old picture books he’d seen in his childhood. The Tokyo of old, from where the distant blur that was his family had moved into the stars. He sighed, then looked at himself and mumbled, “Hell of a day I pick not to die... “
He then started walking around. He was on the first floor of the place, so a little UrbEx might help him discover something he could use to conceal himself. He’d need to deploy to grab food and water and he couldn’t do it in his MJOLNIR. The Titanium armor would’ve scared the living crap out of any civilian out there, because Spartans usually meant bad news to anyone.
If he was still in his time frame, if he was still on Earth… He paused, then tapped his helmet’s com system. He made sure it was encrypted before starting, “This is Sierra-312 transmitting in the Blind. Does anyone read me?” and taking his hand off. The encryption was gonna scramble his location as well as his words, meaning only the UNSC could pick up the code and translate it. He tried again, “I repeat, this is Sierra-312, transmitting in the blind to any ONI and UNSC assets nearby, I have arrived on Earth and require transport to UNSC HQ in Sydney. I have a warning for what’s left of HIGH-COM…”
Noting that he received no reply again save for the crackle of static, he sighed. A quick diagnostics check told him his transmitter was working just fine, meaning either that command didn’t want to pick up, or there was something else afoot here. He activated his armor’s transmitter again, then engaged a protocol to link with local intelligence networks. He watched old code stream across his Heads-Up Display for a moment as he sat himself down in one of the darker corners of the place.
The OS of the armor seemed to update the internal clock. The numbers flickered, faded, then reappeared, causing the Spartan to almost double over physically. His mind recoiled, then adjusted as his eyes locked onto the date and time readout. Bringing it to the forefront of his HUD, he saw he wasn’t reading wrong.
‘10:05 AM, 15/09/2018’
He reran the diagnostics again . The data showed the same, though the clock was ticking away slowly. He pondered for a second the idea of possible time travel. Wondered if some Covvie bastard had touched an alien artifact buried below the surface, considering how often the UNSC and ONI seemed to have found those on Reach, then he leaned his head back and sighed deeply after running a third and even more in-depth examination of his armor’s systems, only to find everything was working at one hundred percent.
He needed to acquire supplies. Food, water and clothing to blend in. He felt his back and drew his M392 DMR off of it. Racking back the bolt, he saw it had a round chambered and it had a full magazine. He tapped his right thigh and found his pistol, too. Pulling it off the mag lock and pulling the slide back, he saw it was loaded, too.
He stood up again, deciding his best course of action right now was to figure out how to obtain what he needed. He had a shelter, albeit a temporary one. Now, he needed food and water to survive properly, meaning he probably required some sort of workplace to earn the money for it. If this was the 21st Century, the grandfather of trans-colonial communication, the Internet, had begun to develop into its final form, meaning he could search there if he could find a way to access it.
As he walked through the abandoned building, which he quickly assumed was set to be demolished, he descended down a flight of stairs that had been stripped clean of any form of cover, leaving only bare, cracking concrete. He made sure to move as slowly and methodically as possible, considering buildings like this could still house various homeless people.
He paused when he saw more plywood placed against the windows, alongside a mix of what looked like workers’ clothes and outfits strewn about on old benches. Lockers with tools resided there, too, combined with what looked like material for construction. So, this was either a building undergoing renovation, or a newly-erected concrete build that the workers would soon finish.
Either way, it meant he couldn’t stay here. He could hear people outside, talking, so he did a quick final check of his armor and found that he still had the one powerup he stole off an Elite equipped:The active camouflage. He activated it, crouched and made sure to make as little noise as possible when he started scouring the lockers for possible clothes that would fit him, plus a backpack to store them in.
It didn’t take long to find one of the burliest workers’ clothes, thankfully. Three lockers down from where he’d started, he discovered the items he needed. Shoes, jeans, a grey hoodie with coffee stains on it and a ball cap with the words ‘Red Sox’ on it, if that was an actual Japanese baseball team. He sighed, then felt the pocket of the hoodie and pulled out the man’s wallet, dropping it on the top shelf of the locker and closing it.
They needed to lock the damn things, honestly, but this was Japan. A High-Trust society. He stuffed the items into the bag he’d retrieved, slinging it onto his back and watching the active camouflage make it disappear before he crept out through the door frame, dodging three Japanese workers that went inside.
Sighing and moving it into cover as he listened to them suddenly discover that one of their lockers was missing some key pieces of clothing, he slid into the cover of a dark alleyway, then looked around. He needed an actually abandoned place to set up shop in, a small enough place to be unnoticeable but just enough to give him room to breathe and to hide his equipment.
His main objective would be trying to find a way home. If that was even possible.
He continued his trek through the city until day turned to midday and the sun lit even the alley he walked, forcing him to hide in narrower corridors, then continued until the night, finally finding a small house that, going by the multiple extra layers of dust on the furniture and everything, had been left empty for a while. There was even a sign out front showing it was for sale for almost seventy-seven million yen.
He had no concept of what the Yen meant, but at least he had somewhere to hide for the time being. He clambered up the stairwell to the top floor, finding the most secluded room he could find in this old-looking Japanese home with paper separating walls and mats on the floor, then shut the doors behind him and utilized his VISR to examine what he’d retrieved so far.
The clothing, a bottle of water that was in the bag, half-full, and an uneaten cereal bar, still in its colorful wrapper. It’d have to do for the next few days, considering his genetic modifications and SERE Training. He set the food aside, then sighed deeply and wondered what he could do to find a job. His mind was working overtime trying to keep him from overthinking the fact that he had somehow been thrown five hundred years into the past after dying.
He let night turn into day, hiding his armor and equipment away in the darkest recesses of the house and dressing himself in his new clothes. Although he was pretty sure what he was doing was squatting, it really didn’t matter. Not until he could find some proper place to work. He took the ‘FOR SALE’ sign inside and placed it by the door, then quickly closed it behind him as he waded out into town.
A Spartan stuck in what was tantamount to the ancient past, unsure of what to do or how his future would play out. He walked through town, hands in his pockets, no wallet, no money, no nothing and looking for a sign that said anything about people hiring. His only objective right now remained basic survival, meaning having the money on hand to buy more food and water and maybe the house if he could afford it, for more permanent shelter.
So, he did what any man would do when outside of conflict:He fought to find a place. A few convenience stores had accepted him, no questions asked. They were all surprised a burly, six-foot-something man had asked to work for them and despite his own issues pertaining to social interactions outside of Spartan ranks, he did finally land a job restocking shelves at a Seven-Eleven.
He remembered somehow seeing that brand of stores well into the 2500s, even back on Reach. Were they all so goddamned prominent that they survived five separate centuries of changes and humanity’s colonization of space?
Regardless, he worked. Day in and day out, buying what little food he could acquire in the ‘Konbini’, as the locals called it through his employee discounts. This all went on for about a week, wherein the Spartan also mostly worked Night Shift. Some part of him wondered why the hell people weren’t really asking him anything. Seven-Eleven was a recognized brand store in Japan from what he could see… So why not check an employee’s background? He spoke Japanese well enough, mostly because he’d had to learn it to infiltrate an Insurrectionist Cell that was using the language as a good front and he had the face of a more pasty Asian, thanks to his family heritage, but he was scarred all over.
Fuchu must’ve been a weird part of Tokyo, then…
On the seventh day of his stay here, as he packed up something he could eat cold due to a lack of any real appliances or services in the old house, he looked up at his boss. A young woman with black hair. She looked back at him, then smiled, asking, “Something the matter?” as she watched him put the food away in a plastic bag.
He shook his head, then sighed, “You never asked me my name, I guess?”
“You look like the type of man who doesn’t want to talk much,” She told him, “And you work hard enough for me not to mind. Paying you up-front is also helping the store keep up its profits, so the bosses upstairs in America probably don’t care either,” and she shrugged, “And anyways, this is a temporary job, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” Six nodded, “Suppose so,” though he was unsure. It was, however, best not to ask anymore questions, he thought to himself as he picked up his bag.
The woman told him, “You look like you could use a little excitement. The Tokyo Racetrack’s nearby if you wanna see a nice little expo race between Umamusume,” and that wording was… Hard to translate. Horsegirls? He shook his head and listened to her as she said, “Entry is free for this run, I think,” then she scratched her cheek, “Though if you wanna bet and maybe double or triple your salary for today, you could try the local sports house, too. Beats eating your food in a crummy apartment barely big enough to fit you.”
“I’ll look into it,” Six replied, then nodded, “Thank you, miss Satou… Good day,” and left as she waved at him. Moments later, the man walked out into the streets of Tokyo, looking up at the sky as the morning sun rose above him. He felt something slam into him. A brown-haired blur quickly apologized with an accent. A young girl that sped past him, going by the voice.
He looked toward the way she’d run, then paused as he could swear he saw hair moving independently on her head, twitching. He blinked, rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep, not excitement. Even a Spartan would scoff at being awake for nearly twenty-four hours for a full week. Something , however, urged him to follow the girl’s trail through the crowds in Fuchu. Like those voices…
He trailed through the crowds, marching toward the sight of the Tokyo Horse Racetrack. It was one of the things that had survived throughout the ages in Japan, as far as he knew. History told of how the famed racehorses of the past would go through Tokyo’s racecourse at breakneck speeds, near identical to those of a Spartan if not a bit faster. A dance of hooves and jockeys guiding their quadrupedal comrades to victory. Sort of inspiring, if not a futile sport that felt like it was simply there for money laundering…
Well, if there was a free entry to a sort of Exposition Race, he might as well take it. Beat waiting for signs from his allies, or searching for a way out without the internet. He crossed the main boulevard, looking up at the massive steel structure that was the Racetrack’s bleachers. He didn’t have an assigned seat, though, so the crowds pouring into the place were probably all gonna be standing.
He walked into the place, looking around. People lived their lives normally, blissfully unaware of the fact that their descendants of five centuries would be facing extinction while they were just walking in to watch some horses do a few laps around on the grass. He didn’t know what compelled him to walk into the place, though, continuing along with the flow.
He heard the muffled cheers as they passed through the archway, into the spectator areas themselves. The bleachers were filled with activity, crowds cheering loudly, pumping their fists into the sky as they watched the race. He heard one of the two representatives, a woman, going wild on the PA system, “ ... And Silence Suzuka takes the lead! Silence Suzuka, putting length between herself and the other Racers ! SILENCE SUZUKA !”
There was a certain level of ‘hype’ being generated, where the crowds loudly cheered the Horse-
The Spartan visibly paused as he reached the edges of the standing crowd, eyes widening as he saw them. Running on the track itself weren’t horses. Young women turned what looked like the final Corner for this race, running at… If his mind was doing the maths correctly, NEARLY SEVENTY KPH. Leading from two lengths of horse in front of the pack, a beautiful young girl with ginger hair and blue eyes ran like a bullet, her horse-like tail flapping in the wind, head ornaments that the Spartan soon realized were covering ears dancing with the breeze. She had a look of determination on her face that surprised even the Spartan.
Trailing far behind her, seemingly desperate as they tried to keep up and failed, almost a dozen other girls ran the same course. They were trying to keep up, though for most, air resistance seemed to be hard to defeat, especially that far behind the lead horse… Horse-girl? Umamusume ? Was this what miss Satou meant?
“ SILENCE SUZUKAAAAA ! SHE’S IN THE LEAD AND CLOSING IN TO VICTORY !” The announcer almost sounded ready to jump out of her seat. Six paused, hearing a young girl gasp beside him. He looked down, eyes locking first onto the twitching ears, then onto the white streak of hair going between her eyes, then at the wagging horse tail attached to her back, poking out through a specialized hole in her clothing. He also noticed the strength of the muscles in her legs.
“ SILENCE SUZUKA WINS THE RACEEEE ! ” The announcer cried and the cheers grew impossibly loud, raucous cries of adoration for the young woman as she slowed her speed. She was still as stone-faced as when he’d seen her taking the lead, simply turning to face the crowd and seemingly scanning it for someone.
He breathed, then shook his head. He was about to turn and leave when he heard the young girl beside him yelp. He looked down again, saw her embarrassment and saw a guy with a weird haircut, red hair and a very obtuse way of dressing feeling up her legs. With a lollipop in is mouth and a smirk on his face, though not one that screamed the word ‘pervert’, he spoke almost scientifically, “... Wonderful development of the muscles…! You must’ve run before, eh? Trained quite well, too! Though you’re a bit off-balance…”
… Some part of his early life had kicked in. He was about to grab the guy by the scruff of his neck and intervene, only to pause as he saw him get a backward kick boot heel to the face and go tumbling back with a bleeding nose. He blinked, confused by what the hell he was seeing. The man called out, “Oh, damn! You’ve really got some legs on ya!” as he slowly moved to stand up.
“W-What the hell were you just doing!?” The young girl beside him demanded with a sharp voice, “P-Pervert!”
He blinked, paused, then said, “Nonono, wait a minute!” and raised his hands in defense, “I was just… You’re an Umamusume, aren’t you?!”
“... Y-Yes?” She replied, awkwardly watching the man stand up.
He wiped the blood off his nose while Six couldn’t help but wonder how he survived a kick that looked like a sledgehammer blow and had the presence of mind to stand up. He rubbed his jaw and asked again, “Do you wanna race, too?” before watching the girl awkwardly nod. He grinned, then said, “Then you must be looking for Tracen Academy… Heh.”
“I am,” She replied, looking a bit more serious and less embarrassed, “D-Do you know where it is?” and that put up some red flags for Six. The man proudly nodded, then grinned. He paused however, when he saw the burly man with black hair, bright, almost unnaturally ice-blue eyes and scars across his face staring at him like he was a threat.
He raised his hands defensively again, almost as if trying to show he was a good guy, then said, “L-Look, can you call off your pal here?! I’m a trainer! T-R-A-I-N-E-R! I work at Tracen!” which got the girl all excited. He pulled out his badge quickly, showing it to the two, which seemed to cause the Spartan to relax a bit. The man whispered, “Jeez… Where’d you find this guy? He your bodyguard?”
The girl paused, looked up at the man beside her, then blushed, face immediately morphing into embarrassment. The Spartan, however, sighed, his shoulders sagging as he said, “No. I don’t know the girl and she doesn’t know me. I just came here at my boss’s recommendation to unwind a bit. See the races…” only to immediately see the guy go through the five stages of grief.
“Y-You wouldn’t happen to be Y-Yakuza, right?” The girl immediately assumed.
He narrowed his eyes, almost in disbelief at the question, then shook his head. Both the girl and the Trainer breathed deep sighs of relief, before the Trainer asked, “Well, if you’re here, even if by your boss’s recommendation…” paused as he noticed the Seven-Eleven bag, then continued, “Oh, Konbini worker. Cool… Then you must have a good eye for umamusume!”
“... I uh…?” He paused.
“I could see you noticed her power, too! Well, latent,” He shrugged, grinning, “Her legs are well-built! Got a lot of muscle on them, as proven by the kick!” and Six could almost swear the grin matched the hoof print. Wait, why did the girl have a metal horseshoe on her normal shoes? Was it because of running?
There was so much stuff that wasn’t adding up in the Spartan’s mind…
“So! Dear possible future coworker! How about I take you and this here Uma…” He looked at the girl and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Special Week,” She replied, staring.
“Special Week! To Tracen Academy! It’s really late… And if she’s a student there, going by the purple uniform, she might miss orientation,” He told them. The girl went ramrod straight, letting out a squeak of realization. He continued, “Oh, shoot, yeah, night’s coming in fast. You in, or are you out, pal?” and he looked at the Spartan. He added, “C’mon! Pay’s a lot better than a convenience store!” and looked at Special Week.
The Spartan and the ‘Umamusume’ exchanged a look, with the young girl seemingly wanting the Spartan to follow along just so they didn’t stick around. The Spartan thought back at all the issues he had right now, ranging from the money problem, to the house he could easily have to vacate due to a buyer appearing and to the fact he had NOTHING ELSE TO DO.
“... I’ll help escort Special Week to the School. We’ll see what happens after,” The Spartan replied. Both the Uma and the Human ahead of him cheered. Six immediately found himself dragged to a weird-looking van or shuttle bus of some kind by the two, casually not bothering to resist, only to arrive at the Academy and be dropped dead in front of the heads of faculty.
A young-looking woman with wavy blonde hair and fancy outfits stared at him, while one in a more modest green outfit with brown hair and eyes stared at ‘Trainer-san’, as he was being called. Both of them immediately let out a, “WHAT?!” as the words the man had said hanged in the air. The Spartan, a man who looked like a homeless person this guy must’ve just picked up off the street, clad in a dirty grey hoodie, jeans, boots and a cap, and carrying a Seven-Eleven container lunch he wanted to eat cold. And what the man had told his seeming bosses, Director Akikawa and Head of Faculty Tazuna, leaders of Tracen Academy?
“How about we hire this guy? We need new trainers!”
… Jesus Christ, how the hell had he even gotten into this situation? Who dropped him off here?