John-117/Early life: Difference between revisions

As the years of training proceeded, the children were routinely matched up as teams against one another.<ref name="HGOO1">''[[Halo: Ghosts of Onyx]]'', ''Chapter 1''</ref> John usually led [[Blue Team]]. Years later, he recalled often losing whenever his team had to compete with [[Green Team]], led by [[Kurt-051]].<ref name="HGOO1"/> By [[2523]] the trainees had begun to be matched up in exercises against [[Tango Company]], a [[Company|unit]] of UNSC [[marines]].<ref name="HFS17">''[[Halo: First Strike]]'', ''Chapter 17''</ref> On July 12 of that year, four years to the day since the exercise that made John Squad Leader, he led a six-person team in its seventh operation against the company.<ref name="HTFOR5"/><ref name="HFS17"/> They hadn't lost yet. Their objective on this date was to [[Capture the Flag|capture]] their opponents' flag and exfiltrate with it. John's team was comprised of himself, Sam, Linda, Kelly, Fhajad, and Fred. On the twelfth they managed to capture a sniper-spotter team that had been tasked with hunting them down. From them they learned that Tango's captain had given orders to win no matter what, even if it meant bloodying some of the kids this time.<ref name="HFS17"/>

John led Red Team to crouch and crawl through the forest until they reached a gravel road.<ref name="HFS17"/> Two large rocks were rolled onto the road and it wasn't long before a supply truck came along that had to stop when its occupants found the way ahead blocked. Two marines emerged, both expecting an ambush, but as they moved the rocks away John and the others silently rushed the truck and wedged themselves against the undercarriage so that when it set off again, they were carried along underneath. The truck took them about a kilometer to the unit's base. When the time came for the vehicle's bottom to be inspected at a security checkpoint, Red Team produced their mirror shards. They had spent the entirety of the previous night practicing how to match the movement of the mirror used by the opposition so that they were able to perfectly use misdirection to make the truck's undercarriage look clear. Once it was parked inside a warehouse and left there, the trainees allowed themselves to emerge. John had Sam fill up canteens with battery acid while Fhajad picked the lock on a door nearby. John was bleeding from one of his ears as a result of gravel striking him during the commute so he took time to bandage his head before moving to patrol their surroundings with Kelly to ensure no dogs, cameras, or guards were present. One Fhajad got through the lock, each preteen split off to move through the shadows to different portions of the base. John sent Kelly to secure an exit at the perimeter fence and each of the boys went to a different barracks and crawled underneath. As soon as he was beneath the one he'd selected, John began chewing three sticks of [[Wikipedia:Chewing gum|gum]] whilst applying battery acid to the plywood bottom of the building with a rag to weaken the wood. The gum was then used to stick each of his three stun grenades to the bottom. With only around thirty seconds until 0455 hours by the point he was placing the grenades, he set them to all go off in five minutes' time before sprinting back to the warehouse at 0458 hours.<ref name="HFS17"/>