SPARTAN-D761

SPARTAN-D761, also known as Matthew, was a SPARTAN-III Supersoldier in Manticore Team, a fire team operating as part of Delta Company.
==Biography==
===Early Life and SPARTAN Training===
Born in early 2550 in Sydney, Earth, Matthew lived with his parents and was the youngest of three brothers. Leading a relatively normal life, in late 2552 during the Battle of Sydney this was changed as Covenant forces assaulted. Watching from inside a cupboard which his mother had hurriedly hidden him in, he looked on as he father, trying to protect his family, was brutally slain by a Brute Chieftain followed by the rest of the pack. It was unknown why Matthew was able to remain undetected but he was found the week after, a considerable distance away, by UNSC infantry, covered in dried blood and dirt and holding in his hand an M6G Pistol with an empty magazine. It was unlikely that he used the weapon due to his extreme young age; the weapon's origins and Matthew's reasons for possessing it were completely unknown. Having no belongings beside and only a name tag to identify his first name, Matthew was put into an intact orphanage in London as soon as the battle was over, where he grew up among others like him and said very little.
In 2555, at the age of five, Matthew was selected based on his genetic, physical and mental attributes to join the SPARTAN-III Program, an initiative to create expendable supersoldiers field them against the Covenant. Matthew was visited by an ONI agent, who offered him the chance to go and take revenge on the Covenant, which he immediately accepted. After this he was conscripted into Delta Company, the fourth batch of suicide soldiers to be fielded against the Covenant Empire.
Delta Company's training recommenced in 2555; former candidates from 2552 were recalled, in addition to many new candidates such as Matthew. As a result of this, most of the candidates were aged six, with many also being aged as young as 4 and as old as 8, with Matthew being one of the youngest. Beginning training with some 3000 other candidates, despite his troubled and quiet nature, he eventually made friends with his fellow SPARTANs. In particular he became close to four other trainees, despite their wildly differing personalities, and during their 12-year long training regime the five formed Manticore Team together. Training was intensive and gruelling, with SPARTAN-254, a class II SPARTAN-II, overseeing and training the young SPARTANs. Regimes involved exhaustive firearms training, hand-to-hand, blade and unarmed combat, survival techniques, tracking, stealth and marksmanship training and above all, teamwork coaching. SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduated in 2567, Matthew aged 17 at the time.
===Early Military Career===
====Raid on Majoris-4====
Matthew's first official combat deployment came in September 2567, when he and Manticore Team were deployed to the fourth planet in the Theta Majoris System, Majoris-4. The main target of the mission was an antimatter bomb production facility in the northern hemisphere of the planet. Manticore Team was tasked with setting explosive charges onto the antimatter containment chamber, rupturing it and taking out a sizeable chunk of the planet's operations including dozens of mining facilities on the planet and several sizeable military bases and shipyard/vehicle manufacturing plants. Manticore Team was covertly deployed to the planet from SOEIV Pods launched from the UNSC Prowler UNSC Andromeda, bypassing the considerable orbital force and reaching the planet's surface undetected. The team infiltrated the heavily guarded antimatter facility, where SPARTAN-D2541 and SPARTAN-D157 planted a small, remote detonation explosive device on a concealed panel in a remote part of the facility.
The team succeeding in leaving the facility unchallenged, expertly bypassing patrols, guards and automated defences. Their destination was a Phantom in a hangar seven kilometres from the facility, which they were to reach undetected and escape to the Andromeda with. However, the alarm was raised when their path was blocked by a pack of Brutes, leaving Manticore Team no option but to engage. Defeating the Brutes, they then dealt with several Kig-Yar sharpshooters preventing them from advancing, Matthew personally counter-sniping four. Upon defeating these and enemy reinforcements of several Choppers and a Wraith, and fighting through a mining facility, they found their exfiltration craft was scheduled for departure on a cargo transport run earlier than expected, as a result of the team's premature detection. SPARTAN-D2541 ordered the team to find transport and, commandeering five Banshees, they sped through hostile territory towards the hangar. Arriving just as it took off, they had no choice but to open fire and destroy their chance of escape, SPARTAN-D761 firing the fuel rod burst that downed the Phantom. Manticore Team landed, killed the crew and verified the Phantom was not airworthy, let alone spaceworthy; as they did this, they fell under heavy attack, dozens of Brutes and innumerable Unggoy assaulting their position. At this moment D2541 ordered Aaron-D157 to detonate the explosives, killing the team but completing their objective; at that moment, however, the Andromeda, flew overhead, using its pulse lasers, scythed through the Covenant infantry, and deployed a Pelican Dropship to retrieve the SPARTAN team. The Prowler then left undetected and slipped past the orbital forces. Once they were at a safe distance, they detonated the device, rupturing the antimatter containment chamber and destroying all primary and secondary targets on the planet, as well as most of the orbital force.
The battle was an almost complete success for Manticore Team; although the details of their assignment remained largely classified, word still spread of a team of five lone SPARTANS taking on an entire Covenant world and winning; details of an antimatter detonation that caused it were subdued in carefully controlled leaks by ONI manipulated to back up the SPARTANs' near-invincible reputation and boost public morale. For Manticore Team itself though, they felt as if the mission was a failure; their prowler was forced to intervene and their early detection endangered the mission and risked the detection of the Andromeda.
The raid severely hampered the Covenant's antimatter bomb production capabilities; they were forced to withdraw more and more from front line units to reserve stocks as time went on. In addition to this, their alloy armour production in that sector of space fell by more than 40%, delaying the construction of dozens of new warships. Aside from this, it announced to the Remnant that humanity's most formidable warriors, the SPARTANs, were once more at the forefront of galactic combat and that they were a force to be reckoned with; a single five-man team had devastated an entire Covenant world and escaped unharmed.
====Assault on Bellerophon====
In November of the same year, SPARTAN-D761 was involved in a large-scale SPARTAN-III operation on the world of Bellerophon, leading seven Tactical Strike Teams from Foxtrot Platoon against Covenant forces on the world. The UNSC aimed to retake the planet which had, during the Human-Covenant War, had been a human colony, in order to secure its substantial titanium deposits as well as several Forerunner artifacts found by the Jiralhanae. The teams split up and attacked one power regulator site, which operated the substantial orbital and ground defense grid. These regulators were spread across the entire planet; the SPARTANs had to destroy them before a UNSC invasion fleet arrived in orbit. While most of the regulators were swiftly downed, two of the teams were engaged after achieving their objective, and Piranha Team was assaulted by an unusually large enemy force including a number of Jiralhanae Chieftains. With them unable to deactivate the defense grid and with just minutes before the UNSC fleet arrived in orbit, Manticore Team directly assaulted the now-heavily defended last regulator, single-handedly shooting their way in, setting detonation charges, assisting the besieged Piranha Team and destroying the regulator, and a large amount of enemy forces with it.
While Manticore Team had done this, the three other undetected SPARTAN Teams had successfully found the two struggling teams and repelled their attackers. The seven Teams regrouped, just as the Covenant's main counterattack started; within minutes the thirty five SPARTANs were pinned down and under constant, massive volumes of fire, despite the best efforts of SPARTAN-D2541. Making the most of intense covering fire from his comrades, Matthew picked off several of the most threatening targets- the gunner of a Wraith, a charging Jiralhanae Chieftain and a trio of Kig-Yar sharpshooters- assisting the besieged SPARTANs in holding out. Just as their ammunition ran low and the Covenant had nearly completely encircled them, a trio of Sabre-class Starfighters raced overhead, volleys of missiles and guided bombs decimating the Covenant's infantry and armour; the Banshees strafing the SPARTANs' position quickly broke off to engage the more serious threat; at the same time, hundreds more Longsword-class Starfighters and dozens of frigates of various types raced across the sky. The UNSC ground forces that followed captured the immediate vicinity in under an hour, and held the planet within a day, warships providing tactical close-in air support for the ground skirmishes. The battle could not have taken place without the SPARTANs' actions in disabling of the defense grid that would have otherwise torn the fleet apart
In the wake of the Battle, the Covenant deployed a far greater military force to its border worlds, seeking to ensure they were not so spectacularly routed again and seemingly taking seriously the threat of UNSC counterattacks in the wake of Covenant pushes into enemy territory.
The UNSC's long term supply of titanium ores and production of hardware increased by roughly 20% following the capture of the planet, helping to give the UNSC Navy space to grow into. The Forerunner artifacts that were being excavated were sent to ONI for study and eventual reverse-engineering, in the hope that one day the UNSC would master whatever purpose they were built for and use it against the Covenant.
Delta Company of the SPARTAN-III Program was more heavily involved in offensive infiltration missions against high value targets or enemies, paving the way for larger tactics. It became Manticore Team's trademark tactic to drop in undetected behind enemy lines, sabotage everything and anything vital and vulnerable and leave the world open to an imminent UNSC attack.
===Later Service===
==Personality and Traits==
Matthew's parents and two siblings were killed by Covenant forces when he was two years old, which profoundly affected his personality and behaviour. He remained silent and largely introvert, during training and after being silent even by SPARTAN standards. Matthew said very little, speaking only when he needed to but constantly thinking and analysing, and choosing to let his actions speak for themselves. Stealthy and silent, Matthew was a expert at covert operations, stealth tactics and concealment, favouring doing so without the burden of a team and seeming to match his silent nature. Matthew did not especially like working as a team and, although he saw its importance and benefits, wholly preferred working independently. Matthew could be cold and merciless at times in regard to fighting, though never vengeful, and this demeanor did not interfere with his making of objective combat decisions. Most often, however, he seemed merely pensive and slightly sad, an enigma which his teammates never fully understood. He was plagued by a sense of inadequacy stemming from early childhood and constantly strived for self-improvement, compounded by the fact that he never communicated about his issues, his past or his emotions. It was confirmed that Matthew suffered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a result of direct exposure to the death of his family, suffering symptoms including flashbacks, insomnia, uncontrollable emotions and a constant alertness or inability to relax (hypervigilance).
==Appearance==
==Vehicles, Armour and Weapons==
As Manticore Team's designated sniper, Matthew almost exclusively used either the M45A Marksman Rifle or SRS-99 AM as his primary weapon. Matthew was a proficient sniper and had a passion for sniping, finding that it often brought peace to his troubled thoughts. His sniping abilities were often compared to those of SPARTAN-058, though he felt that he could not match her talents. As soon as his skills were compared to her in this respect, seeing this as a kind of insult to her and knowing he wasn't as proficient as she was, he began to deliberately miss shots during training, enough so he wouldn't stand out but not so many that he would be re-allocated from sniping. D761 would alternate between the M45A and the SRS99-AM Rifle, using the latter when he required an exceptional degree of firepower and the former when rapidity of fire took precedent. Matthew was also exceptionally skilled at using weaponry such as the BR60 Battle Rifle and M392 Designated Marksman Rifle, and commonly employed these weapons when he had the chance.
Matthew's secondary weapon was usually an M12 Submachine Gun, a lightweight yet powerful compact personal defence weapon that allowed him to properly defend himself at medium and close range. This was especially important for Matthew as his Sniper Rifle was not an ideal CQB weapon, despite the fact that he frequently achieved one shot kills from the hip. The M12 was small and light enough for him to carry, while powerful enough to deal with shielded and armoured infantry targets should his sniping position be discovered. Sometimes, however, when better range or power was needed, Matthew elected to carry an MA7C Assault Rifle, which was had better range and power although was larger and heavier.
As a backup defensive weapon, SPARTAN-D761 carried a single M224 Directed Energy/Personal Defence Weapon, which he relied upon should be primary weapons be unavailable or out of ammunition. Matthew was a skilled user of this weapon and could achieve accurate shots from comparatively long range, merely applying his sniper skills to a different weapon. D761 also often carried what appeared to be an SM6D Personal Defence Weapon System, which he used to defend himself in combat. While Matthew consistently denied it, it is uncertain whether this was actually the M6G PDWS found in his possession as a child.
As a SPARTAN, D761 was proficient with weapons of all ranges, not just long range ones. Like all SPARTANs, Matthew was a skilled operator of all small arms, whether they be Human or Covenant in origin.
Category:AAO Delta Company