[Gift from beyond the veil, 1x Random Gold Ticket] (Gang_Goose)
I rolled the ticket while sitting in the control room for Installation 04. It had taken a while, but I'd had my fun on Reach and the rest of the Inner Colonies.
With Ackerson sending Spartan-3s at me, I saved a few more and forced ONI to make more, since they still needed their toys for the throwaway ops the Spartans were made for. I'd rather have enjoyed seeing Reach and Earth, but the constant shadow of Spartans made my visit brief
[Done!]
[Focused Strikes]
|Common Ability|
Allows you to mark a target in your line of sight as your Target. While Focused Strikes is active, you cannot bring harm to anyone but that target; your attacks will simply fail to harm them to any extent.
I closed the Gacha interface as I read out the various reports flashing across the terminal. Various Sentinels and 343 floated around me as they prepared the ring for what was to come.
In the time I was being followed across human space, I subtly began grabbing units and Spartans who were doomed. Sometimes it was a simple squad of marines who'd been left behind on a planet about to be glassed.
Other times it was a lone S-III who'd been marked MIA after not returning in time. It didn't matter to me, and so I used Forerunner tech to grab them and store them safely for later. Later finally came when our probes detected Covenant ships within the Epsilon Eridani system.
I had already moved into Reach's orbit by then, and when UNSC High Command activated the Winter Contingency, I began releasing the humans I'd rescued. They had all been healed and placed on 'ice,' of course, but I gave them a crash course.
Reach is under attack by the Covenant. Kill them all.
Seems simple, until you remember the massive fleet the Covenant had thrown at this place. I'd been in and out of orbit as well, saving who I could. My latest prize was actually one I almost didn't want to grab.
This was obviously Noble Team. Though not my favorite Halo game, I loved the soundtrack and Noble Team's sacrifice to save this doomed world. As such, I saved them all. Jorge was easy enough.
I was simply cloaked on the ship they'd jumped as part of Operation: Uppercut, and had stayed near him the entire time. Despite what the games show, it still took Jorge several minutes to arm the makeshift bomb they'd made.
That gave me plenty of time to grab him and leave behind a Sentinel to blow the bomb on its own.
Jorge was currently on the Ark, catching up with Red Team since the Spirit's crew had been awakened. Jorge had rightly freaked out when he realized he'd been kidnapped by aliens, but the humans and Tragic Solitude had filled him in.
That was the easy one. It was much more difficult to grab Cat before her untimely death. I'd had the Forerunner analyze the blamite crystals used by the Covenant for years; add that to the detailed scans they had of Spartan physiology.
She would still die. Instantly.
The only way I could think of saving her would be to either grab her before the glassing of New Alexandria, or tank the crystal myself. The first one was an obvious no, so I had to finagle my way around the second one.
Now, if any random Marine or Army Ranger had a kill shot blocked by a random piece of debris, or, say, the shot just ricocheted off their gear, they'd thank god, the armor, and flip ONI the bird before drinking heavily.
A Spartan wouldn't. A Spartan would notice the distortion of air from me being above them to block the shot. A Spartan would notice the split second the distortion was visible as I hurled a rock in the way of the shard.
Spartans would definitely notice if their second-in-command was grabbed out of nowhere by a random alien that had been posted as wanted by the UNSC and ONI for the last decade of the war.
Cue, therefore, Operation: Get Help.
When I'd pitched this plan to Red Team, with plenty of pictures, I'd been unsurprised by their lack of enthusiasm. "It would work, but it's too risky." "I'm not grabbing you like that." "Like hell I'm gonna get thrown around!"
Jerome, Alice, and Douglas had shut the idea down very fast. I was determined, however, and spent an hour trying to convince them. Cutter and Anders had even gotten involved until Mendicant and Serina had returned from the jaunt in the Domain.
"Destroy the transport."
"Why not just blow up the Phantom before it gets there?"
It had been silent for a long time before I agreed to their admittedly simple plan. So I'd rather happily appear as the mystery alien once more as I tore the Phantom apart. Noble had been rightly freaked out by this and had opened fire. I'd been gone before any round came close.
After that, I'd followed the Spartans towards Sword Base while releasing more old humans. These, however, I sent towards the ground-based power sources of the few remaining orbital defense platforms.
I'd grinned like an idiot when hearing Cortana's confusion when they literally showed up from nowhere. Still, it kept most of the Spartan-IIs on the Pilar of Autumn. The only thing I really had to be careful of then was the Forerunner artifact Cortana and Halsey were messing with.
As such, I kept my distance while picking off any Covenant ships that got too close to Sword Base and the Asźod shipbreaking yards. Reach had been lost, and I was ok with that. It would teach humanity loss, and that sometimes you need to lose to see the path forward.
I was waiting for Noble Team halfway to Asźod. Their pelican had already been damaged, but Carter was still alive enough to save. Once Emile, Cat, and Noble Six jumped ship, I was there to grab Carter and place the ship on autopilot as I programmed a series of words to keep them unaware.
From there, I let destiny take hold as I had Carter taken to the Ark to be treated. I didn't doubt he'd make it, but I worried even now.
As for the last three Spartans of Noble Team, they tore through any and all Covenant foolish enough to get between them and the Pilar of Autumn. They performed admirably; despite the tech gap that even humanity's best still dealt with, they made it to the landing platform.
I, of course, had already sprinkled in the last few rescued troops who'd 'died' years ago, and they were more than willing to lay waste to the swarms of Covenant charging them. I also appeared again as the mystery alien as I helped Emile, who was having a blast within the mass driver, tear apart Phantoms.
I made sure to tear apart the Phantom that was hovering over the mass driver as Captain Keys arrived to take Cortana's shard with him. He'd tried to convince the Spartans and other troops to go with him, but the fools tried to stay.
I'd ended up throwing them onto the pelicans myself as the Covenant cruiser began getting closer. Once Keys and the pelican were away, I noticed Cortana had already begun spinning up the ship's drives to get into orbit, so I shot towards the Covenant ship.
It was a show of unoriginal might, the ship tried to use its excavation beam on me, which did nothing. I ended up tearing the ship apart from the inside for once, since this particular Shipmaster had ticked me off.
That had all been days ago; now the Autumn had reached the Ring. Things were starting to line up, but I wasn't done messing with cannon just yet. As I watched Blue Team make their way towards the Control Room, the gacha pinged once more.
[Gift from beyond the veil, 1x Random Gold Ticket] (ThirdRate_Reader)
[Spinning, spinning, spinning, done!]
[Mechanical Tentacles]
|Rare Item|
Spider-Man - A high-tech harness that has 4 mechanical tentacle arms fused into it, you can move the tentacles with your thoughts, or they can move independently according to your commands. The arms possess supernatural strength and have several tools integrated into them depending on what they need to do.
Maybe I could give this to Halsey, or Anders?