Daniele-D003

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Daniele-D003 is an SPARTAN-III commando of the breakaway Beta-5 Division project, referred to as the DELTA Initiative. The Initiative sought to establish a fourth company-size force of SPARTAN-IIIs, called Delta Company. Daniele, among the Delta Spartans, was the leader of the frontline Spartan unit called Team Boson. First recruited in 2553, Daniele would not graduate from the SPARTAN-III Program till 2557, four years following the Human-Covenant War.
During his tenure as a Delta Company Spartan, Daniele acted as the in-house talent for close quarters, stealth, and acted as his team's guiding light. His talent for fighting, and eventually, the killing was unprecedented, marking him an early standout during training. He would be the first to turn rogue from the UNSC among Team Boson, acting as a catalyst for the team's desertion.
==Biography==
===[CASTLE OF GLASS]===
====Under the Castle Guard==== 
Daniele Veracruz was born in the colony world of Skopje in 2544 to parents, Marie and Stefan Veracruz. Living in the planet's capital city, Port Kale, the Veracruz family came from a lower-middle-class background. Marie and Stefan, like their son, were born and raised in Skopje, never leaving beyond their star system - only traveling relatively short distances to work. Both parents were employed as low-level corporate managers for local asteroid-mining corporations.
While his parents' employment kept them afloat, put a roof over their heads, and put food on the table - it provided little in terms of a spectacular upbringing in Daniele's formative years and plenty lacking in materialistic distractions like toys. Daniele remembered little from his childhood, only remembering traces of his hometown. A castle atop a hill at their city center was among the most striking. His few memories of the planet would go on to influence some of his future choices.
====Fallen Skies of Blood====
Three years after his birth, in 2547, ships of alien make arrived in orbit over Skopje, the Covenant Empire had arrived on the colony - finally bringing the everlasting, 22 years of bloodshed - the Human-Covenant War, to Skopje's shores. Daniele was three years old at the time and just developing a long-term memory. His first glassing would be among his first re-callable memories, as he would tell the Office of Naval Intelligence later on.
The Covenant entered the atmosphere, deploying landing craft and lowering cruisers over the population centers. While the UNSC fleet and garrison attempted to hold the city, the fight was ultimately futile. The last holdout in the world would ultimately be the castle at the center of Port Kale, its stone walls managed to withstand the Covenant's energy weapons compared to more modern construction materials. Daniele's mother, Marie was killed during the Covenant's opening assault - the skyscraper she worked at was toppled when a Covenant battlecruiser collided with it. Her death went unnoticed in the chaos, likely becoming among the many poor souls that fell to their deaths or were blasted to death by Covenant energy weapons in the downtown area. At home, the rest of the Veracruz family was only signaled of the impending attack when the warning sirens began to echo across the city. Evacuated by city bus, Daniele and his father were unable to contact Marie. Told to make their way to the city castle after a number of other evacuation sites became compromised, Daniele and his father made it to the last transports going off-world before the Covenant envelope over the planet closed in completely.
The city castle, the UNSC garrison's last hardpoint on the ground was evacuated minutes before a Covenant carrier moved into position and glassed the area when ground assault proved ineffective. Daniele watched from the open doorway of the transport he was on as the castle atop the hill was glassed to oblivion. Having managed to escape his father for a rare momentary glimpse of a Covenant glassing, he did not understand what the event curtailed and what it meant for his homeworld, only that it glowed in an interesting way. He was a child but one day he would understand the context and the death that it brought with it. After six months of Slipspace transit and jumps between colonies, Daniele and his father would be left to Earth to find a new way to live out their lives as refugees. Their misfortune, however, was only beginning.
====Survival through Adversity====
Arriving on Earth, Daniele was treated to a world similar to his own, and yet, different. The city of San Diego, where he and his father took refuge, was more established. Cleaner with exception to the refugee camps. On Earth, the Human-Covenant War was still distant compared to the experience that Daniele had seen over Skopje. The residents of Earth were less friendly than the neighbors on Skopje toward the refugees, as they saw the displaced as bottom feeders and strains on the already difficult lives of the general population still untainted by the war effort.
The misunderstanding between the civilians of Earth and the refugees of the Outer Colonies had long been established as the conflict had already been going on for more than two decades. It was hard to comprehend an enemy they did not understand. For Daniele who had never experienced such hatred or been this level of disrespect from other people before, and mixed with the loss of his mother, meant that he was emotionally compromised - still fresh from the loss of his mother and home. He grew to hate the population of San Diego and started yearning for the day that he could leave the planet and these people alone, maybe even return to Skopje. He was still a child at this time and had a hard time understanding that the only thing left of the colony world was a smoldering glassed rock deep in Covenant-held space. There was nothing left for him there.
While the pain Daniele dealt with was a new experience for the young child, it was nothing compared to his father. Stefan Veracruz was old enough to comprehend the dislike he and his fellow refugees dealt with and to shoulder it, but, it also meant he was fully capable of acting on it. In the months and years following their arrival in San Diego, the father and son family were living in a basic, low-quality flat built to accommodate the rising numbers of refugees coming from planets lost to the Covenant war machine. The refugee districts on Earth continued to expand in size and the tensions between Earth-born residents and the refugees continued to sizzle. For some, the tensions reached a boiling point leading to a number of disconnected terror plots, both successful and unsuccessful to occur on Earth and throughout the Inner Colonies.
When the Surveyor General of the California State Lands Committee, Cedric Lauren Silva, pushed for downsizing the land grants provided to refugee care organizations and facilities and higher regulations placed on the existing refugee districts, it caused a rift in the population of San Diego where a large portion of the state's refugee population was centered. Stefan and some of his allies considered this the time for them to act, in a moment of building rage, to send a message that refugees were suffering from the actions and beliefs held by their residential neighbors in the city. While their intentions were understandable, the lengths they were willing to go reached radical heights as their plans descended into a murder plot against the state official.
Following a string of minor heists and crimes committed by Stefan Veracruz's nameless crime ring that saw Daniele left alone for extended nights on his own and the suspicions drawn by the San Diego Police Department toward radical elements in the refugee districts, a confrontation reached a breaking point.
On one windy night in the fall of 2549, the two bedrooms flat that Daniele and his father shared, the two were paid a visit by members of the San Diego Police Department. Armed with a search warrant, a warrant for arrest, and digital evidence tying Stefan Veracruz to several crimes and an action plan for conspiracy of murder, they ordered the father to submit himself to their jurisdiction and turn himself in peacefully.
Not much was known what was passing through Stefan Veracruz's mind, the night of his death. Maybe fear for his son, who would have been alone without him, alive or dead. Fear for himself, faced with the attempt of murder - during a war no less. The worry for the plight of his fellow refugees, his dead wife and his destroyed home, or self-pity for the life he had, bound by external circumstances. Whatever motivated him to draw his stolen firearm on the officers ended with two shots through his chest, an injured officer, and the blood-soaked form of Daniele Veracruz.
Daniele had been awoken by the commotion at his home's front door only to be greeted by gunshots, his father's slumped body and a world soaked in red blood. It was his first taste of true death and the cost of war. It was his of many moments, awakening to an embattled, unrelenting reality of life. Daniele's preferred silence and lack of trust for most people can be stemmed to the loss of his father. His hatred for law enforcement can be drawn back to this moment - the day his father died and he became an orphan.
===[SAN DIEGO'S SLUMS]===
====The Know-Nothing Runt====
On the night of Stefan Veracruz's death by the San Diego Police Department, several things occurred in rapid succession. Daniele Veracruz grew to have an internal hatred for police officers and developing a quiet streak as a mark of defiance. For the toddler, these police officers were no better than the aliens that destroyed his home. They took away his father's life and left him alone. Their sympathetic eyes meant nothing. They killed his father and he would never forgive them for that.
The rest of the night for Daniele moved fast, he was secured in the back of a police cruiser and taken to the nearest orphanage where his file was updated and his identity was secured in the city records as a dependent of the State. The orphanage, Sunny Shores Foster Facilities, was a decently-established complex and not rundown like much of the refugee districts down the road were like. However, they were crowded and Daniele's new found hatred for people in general quickly alienated him from the rest of the orphan population at the foster home. He wasn't well liked as soon as he was dropped off by the cops - it didn't help that he had no introduction and he talked little to give people something to judge him correctly off of. He was cleaned up by the orphanage staff then sent off the bed, his future fate unknown and his relationship to those around him left in the air.
Daniele's arrival at the orphanage created shock waves with his specter-like presence, covered in blood and silent, scaring some of the children and creating a reputation for bad luck among the youth. It also made Daniele enemies as he would find out over the days he spent at the orphanage onward. The next days were best described as boring or mundane as nothing really happened. Daniele ate, slept, and shuffled as he came to the realization that his father was gone, forever. He overcame the shock slowly, replaced with self-pity and a dislike for other children. They didn't understand him and in Daniele's woes, he didn't want them to either.
Daniele's continued silence with exception to basic conversation and responses he deemed only necessary, usually related to speaking to the caretakers, he didn't speak much and it created an ominous presence around him. Eventually, some of the older boys in the orphanage got fed up with his ghostly presence and Daniele came into several confrontations. Most of these fights were one-sided, as in Daniele was beaten to a pull and on the rare occasion beyond that. He was a punching bag, and even when he tried to fight back, he couldn't. He didn't know how to fight but watching the older boys pick on him and his continued brawls slowly molded him into a stubborn fighter. He didn't attack, but his defense improved over time. Eventually, the fights drew out into matches of equal capabilities as Daniele had learned to protect himself from trial and error. This slow but effective learning method taught him how to survive on the street as he would start making it a habit of sneaking out of the orphanage during the day. Daniele had grown tired of the orphanage and in 2550 began looking for a greater purpose in his life at the young age of six.
====The Right Crowd====
Daniele's excursions continued into the Spring of 2550, however, as time went on, his behavior became more visible to his fellow orphans. Some were bullies that had previously fought Daniele and found his disappearances a nuisance as their punching bag started to disappear more and more. Some of the more observant children followed Daniele's behavior to the point of seeking to replicate it, with some success and failures. One individual that Daniele caught the eye of however was an accomplished escape artist and child thief, William Morse.
An orphan of the age of ten years and an Earth native, William Morse was an expert on petty crime, living the life of a street urchin, and surviving without the support of the state - having left the dependent life behind. He had no interest in being taken in by a foster family and disappeared from the orphanage on a regular basis. When the foster facilities and the state were already dealing with an overwhelming refugee crisis, the disappearance of a few children was easily overlooked, especially an Earth-born as most of the crisis centered on mistreatment and the disconnect with colonial refugees and Covenant War survivors. William Morse was working to build himself an empire based on the criminal narratives he had absorbed from watching movies about the criminal underworld, gangsters, and mafia activity. While he was inspired by fiction - he was well aware of the reality that life as a criminal was not easy and he never expected it to be, but, as an orphan, he saw no quick way to fortune besides the criminal route.
Of his early prospects, the seven-year-old Daniele Veracruz stood out as a clearly talented recruit. While distant, Daniele shared many of the same views on the world as William and they hit it off, even if Daniele tended toward the quiet side. Daniele quickly became one of William's closest confidants in a growing gang of street urchins in the California area, mostly San Diego. Under the bad blood held between Earth residents and the colonial refugees of the region, William's forces operated within the chaos, taking advantage of the mutual hatred held between the adults.
Under William's guidance, Daniele began his work as a child thief by mapping out shortcuts and hiding places throughout San Diego's high rises and favela districts to prep for the crime sprees that would follow. The alliance between William and Daniele became known as the Child Crusaders, inspired by the controversially mythical Children's Crusade. Beginning their heist sprees, the children began to actively recruit and perform theft acts from neighborhood establishments and assaulting pedestrians on the subway or on the street. On their own, the kids created a new crime wave in the San Diego area, unusually heavy compared to the rest of the state of California. To hide their activities initially, the kids stole from individuals of all economic status - refugees and residents alike. The children cared less about who they stole from it as it had been the system and the war that had put them in this position, to begin with. Their actions made them rich and Daniele found himself in a stable economic position where he didn't need to worry about going hungry and had taken advantage of his rising capabilities in thievery and self-defense. He stole knives and tools from some appliance and sporting good stores, stole food from restaurants, and acquired clothes from stores to his liking. Daniele became feared by those that used to pick on him and he gained the respect of many children and teenagers in his small community. Acting as one of William Morse's personal enforcers, he was nicknamed "the Quiet." His silence and his eye for social cues made him good at intimidating others.
During this period of Daniele's life, he functioned and lived with an eye watching his back. He lived light, stayed mobile, and worked through simplistic contingencies. He kept a list of rules in his front pocket to remind him of what would keep him alive and free. These tricks were drawn from long contemplation periods at night and experience from watching other children get in trouble with those they robbed and the law at times.
:1. "Never get caught. Or disappear forever."
:2. "Cover your face. AIs and people remember faces."
:3. "Know the terrain. Have multiple escape routes."
:4. "Hiding places. Always be ready to hide or run. Have your tools ready."
:5. "Adults can't be trusted."
For a time, life was good. However, the children's actions were leading to a head. Their meddling and carelessness for the social-cultural splits of the city led to outright rioting. Civilians began buying weapons to prevent robbery and people were actually getting hurt due to confrontations between refugees, San Diego residents, and law enforcement. 
In 2552, the colony world of Reach fell to the Covenant onslaught. Mass looting ensued as the world was on the galactic doorstep of Earth and the colony had been one of a few military strongholds of the UNSC. During this period of mass hysteria, 2 Child Crusaders were killed, 12 adults were killed over the course that night and 132 were hospitalized. It had been September 19, 2552, the same day the UNSC Pillar of Autumn discovered Alpha Halo.
Under personal guilt for the deaths of his subordinates, William Morse, now known by the alias, "Bunker Billy," started to call for fewer raids by the Child Crusaders and to mourn the loss in the "family." The children's deaths weighed heavily on his conscious and that of Daniele's. The action to stop creating chaos, however, did little at this late point, when their own agents attempted to turn them into the authorities. Having found little satisfaction or pleasantries under William Morse's leadership, as much as he attempted to lead the kids to his own reason and childish ideals. It was only a matter of time before Bunker Billy was toppled from his throne, whether Daniele wanted it or not. San Diego Police, assisted by elements of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The children, including Daniele Veracruz, were rounded up and detained for processing. It was an end of the first iteration of the Child Crusaders.
====The Office Wants You====
Daniele Veracruz was among those rounded up during the police raids on Child Crusader hideouts across San Diego, like they knew where to hit, which was true due to intelligence provided by the other orphans. Under normal circumstances, the police would not have gotten involved but, following pressure from the FBI to seek out all leads and the recent deaths during the mass looting following the Fall of Reach, they took the matter seriously, especially when the tip-off proved accurate. Child Crusaders with exception to those who confessed and surrendered themselves back as wards of the State managed to salvage several hideouts and continue Child Crusaders in their own image.
Daniele among those loyal to William's inner circle, were detained and processed, becoming juvenile delinquents heading for the South California Youth Detention Center, until the operation was temporarily halted by agents of ONI Section III, the Special Projects department as recruiters sought out Daniele Veracruz. While both the FBI and the San Diego Police Department disapproved of ONI's intervention in a domestic case, they had no power to prevent Daniele from being removed from their jurisdiction due to wartime regulations giving ONI and the UNSC overruling powers on all administrative and governing decision above civilian institutions. Daniele's record was expunged and he was rerouted to an ONI holding site where he was brought up to speed on the Office of Naval Intelligence's interest in him. Taken to Naval Base Coronado in the San Diego Bay Area, Daniele was offered two options by ONI: become a Spartan or return to prison and live the rest of his life as a convicted felon. While a child, Daniele could be tried as an adult or receiving a second criminal offense could easily lead to a death sentence during wartime.
It was a low blow and an easy blackmail position to be placed in following his debrief and a personality assessment test conducted by the head recruiter for SPARTAN-III Delta Company, Dr. Reyna Zhou-Romero. During his interview, Daniele proved to be on edge though traditionally quiet and polite to the doctor. They asked about his past and his worldview. There was a basic education-based competency test. Once it was all done, ONI asked their question. Daniele could return to his juvy life as a convicted criminal and know nothing, or, dedicate himself to Mankind and become something greater than himself.
Without a fight or time taken to contemplate, he said he would join ONI. His quick thinking was surprising but not without some expectation, he was a quick thinker and ONI knew it. Daniele went willingly, becoming "Sierra/Delta-003."
===[THE DELTA INITIATIVE]===
====Individual Evaluation====
----
*FULL NAME: VERACRUZ, DANIELE 
*SERVICE #: S/D003 
*UNIT: NAVSPECWAR/SPARTAN-III DELTA COMPANY/CABIN 001
*ENLISTMENT DATE: 10/06/2552 
*LOCATION: SAN DIEGO 
*STATUS: ACQUIRED 
*GENDER: M 
*BIRTPLACE: PORT KALE, VALLEJO 
*BIRTH DATE: 02/26/2544
----
====Arriving on Argus V====
Shipped aboard the UNSC Give Me More to the world of Argus V, Daniele, now stripped of his last name and known as D003, avoided making last friendships with the other children on the military transport as he was unsure what to expect in his future. He was given no introduction and had no idea what to expect, it went against what he knew or what he was familiar with, but, now fully committed to his decision, he waited to see what his future would be.
Upon landing, he was assigned to a dormitory at the military base on the planet, Camp Ambrose, and then roomed with those numerically similar to him between Spartan numbers D001 and D010. These nine other Spartan recruits would be the first friends he would make following his short stint as a Child Crusader. Cabin 001, the first room in their barracks.
(WIP)
Category:SPARTAN
Category:Delta Company
Category:Renegade Spartans
Category:Humans
Category:Into The Unknown
Category:ITU Characters
Category:Males