ARES:Gods of War

The Squad Part 2:Syuen

Chief had been called by Alyosha for a short walk as they awaited for the man's new squad, callsign 'ARES', as chosen by the Chief(and Cortana, secretly), to arrive. The Scouts were already present within the Outpost's confines, as was Oh-Niner. And Oh-Niner would stick around for Chief's combat operations for as long as the Chief could afford to keep her around. No soldier deserved to be torn to pieces before fully serving their duty, just because of one failed Mission or lost officer. If that had been the case for the Spartans, the Spartan Project would've died in 2530.

"Well, you're gonna be a fellow 'Commander' from now on, Chief, so I guess we can say mi casa es su casa, eh?" Alyosha quipped. Chief gave him a quick nod, to which Alyosha continued, "With that in mind, I'd suggest keeping an ear and an eye open on the goings-on here, by the way. I've been told that it's best to keep in contact with the girls, so most get a free pass when they need advice. Don't over-exert yourself, though. With you around, it means I can split the load."

"Sir," Chief nodded, "Not sure how I'll be able to advise them, sir."

"Oh, trust me, Chief, it'll be fine," Alyosha smirked, "They ain't as hard to help as it seems. Even if we're all on entirely different levels..." And then he shrugged, "As for you, Chief, if you ever do need advice, just swing by and we can talk. Though, going by how level-headed y'seem to be in general, I doubt you'd need my advice. Just something to keep in mind, though, I suppose."

"Will do, sir," The Spartan replied with his usual, impassive calm. He was unsurprisingly as stoic as soldiers came to be. Alyosha looked over to him with an awkward smile, while Cortana simply continued computations in his armor's CPU, probably trying to figure out yet more about the Ark, the Big Three and the likes. He had gotten a basic overview yesterday about them, plus data on some of the units he'd be working with. He'd found he picked well.

"You really need to stop calling me sir, Chief. Doesn't feel right to me to be called that by an actual Vet," Alyosha replied, taking the Spartan out of his moment of introspection. To a tune of Cortana's short chuckle at the comment, though that was inaudible to the Commander, the young man added, "You also haven't told us about your war, by the way. Kinda looking forward to learning about what kinda stuff you fought."

"I'll prep a report ASAP, though I'd like to get to know the squad I'll be working with first..." Chief hummed, then hesitantly added, "Sir..." as they passed by a statue located in the middle of the Outpost, that of the Wings of Victory. Notably, it did have some Nikke names carved at the base... Though not all of them were actual names, rather product numbers. He really needed to find time to name the actual MP Nikkes. Niner already got her nickname.

"Heh... Alright. I'm as excited to hear your war stories as the girls are." The man quipped, a smile on his face. He would certainly not be smiling when he heard of the Human-Covenant War, but then again, the war with the Raptures seemed just as bad in terms of casualties. If not worse, considering humanity was still only confined to Earth before these alien machines struck.

"Maybe I should get onto writing that Report..." The AI murmured as she shifted some of her processing power to that.

"Mm..." Her Spartan replied as they kept walking.

"Say, Chief, do you think...?" The girl then started, a chunk of her processing power still examining the data on the Ark. She paused, blinked, then shook her head and stated, "Hm, nah. Nevermind. Figured we can ask the one of the Big Three to provide me a certain type of servicing, but it'll have to wait for now. We gotta see who's the most trustworthy out of them..."

"Agreed...?" Chief was a little confused, though he chose not to question it much.

Cortana waved it off verbally, "Don't worry, what I want is ways away anyhow..."