Spartan-273

Jeremiah-273, later known as Joe-J73 (after changing his tags to his liking), was a SPARTAN-II Class-II. Much of his career was deemed classified due to the main fact that Class-II SPARTANs were made mostly in secret; however, the documents containing information on his life in general seemed to have survived. What is known is this:
*Joe was a lone wolf.
*Joe was skilled with the shotgun.
*Joe was notorious for breaking rules if it allowed him to help or to be with one Scarlet-275.
*Joe was sent to Reach with a small group of skilled soldiers.
*Joe was reported MIA in 2552, with only his original tags being found.
Though Joe hated ONI and everything they stood for, his love for his race never faltered, even in the face of death. A picture of him standing next to Scarlet-275 and Alex-278 can be seen today on the war memorial in Africa. It is currently unknown who left it there, but ocasionally, one can see a young girl admiring it.
==Early Life (2531-2545)==
Joe-273 was born Jeremiah Tanner in 2531. At the age of 3, he was orphaned when a group of Elites killed his family. After their death, he was taken away to an orphanage.
His life in the orphanage was far from pleasant. He had no friends and nobody seemed to want to adopt him. He continuously wished for a better life, but in the end, he would have preferred the orphanage if he knew what he was to become.
At the age of 6, a seemingly nice couple arrived at the orphanage looking for a child to adopt. They continued to come in and out for several weeks, until finally, they approached Jeremiah and talked with him. They spoke of having a nice home out in the country where he would be able to be himself. He instantly fell in love with the family and thought he would finally have a home where he could be loved again. Just one week after their official meeting, the couple adopted him and took him from the orphanage at last. If only he knew his dream would soon fade.
After being adopted by the couple, they revealed who they really were. The two were agents from ONI, and they had taken Jeremiah to become a SPARTAN-II Class-II. He was then sent to the planet known as Reach and began his training, a woman by the name of Catherine Halsey watching his, and every other SPARTANs, every moves.
Upon arriving at Reach, Jeremiah Tanner had been stripped of his very name and became simply a number, SPARTAN-273. Officially, his records show him as being called Jeremiah-273; however, after a while of training he began to feel that since they stripped him of his life, he didn’t deserve his own name. Only a month into his training, he changed his tags to read Joe-273. Later on in life, he changed it again for originality by flipping the 2 in his number upside down to look like a J.
==Training (2537-2545)==
Early on during his training, Joe was a hyper, sarcastic boy and full of energy; however, he had few friends and was beaten up almost daily. Even though he hated this, he felt it was good compared to the training itself.
As was the training for all SPARTANs in training, he was put through many immense challenges and tests that were far from merciful. Joe wasn't the best at his training either and for this he was beaten more, because whever he failed the others were punished as well. His daily beatings ended up changing how Joe saw and appreciated life. He went from being a hyperactive boy to being a quiet, serious natured boy.
Sometime after his change in attitude, one boy had been mocking Joe during a training exercise. Joe had finally had enough, so he fought back and attacked the boy. The two fought until the other boy ended up cutting Joe's face with a survival knife he had been carrying, leaving a long gash on the left side of his face. The two were quickly broken up and punished. Ever since then, Joe had to live with the scar.
After his encounter with the boy, Joe wasn't picked on again and stayed to himself until his augmentation at 14 in 2545.
==After Augmentation (2545)==
Upon being augmented, Joe's perspective on life changed. No longer was he energetic and sarcastic, he was now serious and emotionless.
Shortly after recieving his MJOLNIR armor and becoming a full fledged SPARTAN, Joe began going into real combat and killing real enemies. During his training, he prefered fast weapons that he could use from a distance, but upon fighting in reality, he felt that close range weapons did the best and most effective killing.
==War (2545-2547)==
When Joe reached the age of 16, he had already been in many small battles, but nothing major. Most of them either involved small covenant attacks or civil disputes. Up until then, he had been fighting with allys, but no friends, that is, until he met two SPARTANs by the names of Alex-278 and Scarlet-275, the two of which became friends with Joe very fast. Joe became associated with them during a small mission on one of the outer colonies, after which, he began to fall in love with Scarlet.
In 2547 during the Battle of Skopje, Joe was finally assigned to a small team of close quarter combat specialists. The team only consisted of two other members (Scarlet-275 and Alex-278), but due to the nature of their seciality, it was all that was needed.
Joe, being use to a lone wolf lifestyle, decided to go his own way during the battle. His plan of action was simple, he would enter an area that he figured would end up the most populated about five minutes before anyone else arrived, and then he would hide in a deserted building and wait for the action to come to him. With a Sniper Rifle and a Shotgun at his side he would snipe anyone that he could without getting caught, but once he was, he would go to them and use his shotgun.
After ariving on the battlefield and hiding in a building as planned, he sat quietly waiting for the battle to arrive. As the Covenant arrived, he readied a head shot for a particular Elite Zealot Field Marshall. After making the shot, he then proceeded to shoot the others; however, due to the panic he couldn't hit them very well. After killing several Covenant warriors, he noticed two SPARTANs run onto the battlefield, his team members. Becoming destracted by this, he failed to notice several Elites running right at him. Just as one caught his eye, he instantly dropped his rifle and pulled his shotgun off his back.
He proceeded to kill all but one of the aliens, the final one jumping on him and pinning him to the ground. Just as it was going to blow his head off with a plasma rifle, one of the other SPARTANs, a large male, killed it and helped Joe up. Together, the three SPARTANs managed to take down the small army and return back to their base.
Upon arriving home, Joe was introduced to the other two SPARTANs personally. They were a man named Alex-278 and a woman named Scarlet-275, a woman he almost instantly grew a crush on. After the battle, Joe finally had friends, and for once in his life as a SPARTAN, he was kind of happy.
Sometime into his career as a warrior, he became acquainted with a small group of ODST, one of which being a woman named Verina Iweala. He never got to know her too well, but she seemed to like Alex a lot.
==Love (2547- 2549)==
After meeting Scarlet, he almost instantly had a crush on her. He enjoyed flirting with her and making her happy; however, as he began to notice her feelings for him become more apparent, he made his move and confessed to her. Her reaction was almost instantaneous, and the two became inseparable.
Almost two years had passed, and after much time together and breaking many rules, Joe and Scarlet started to become intimate in secrecy. On his time off, Joe would convince the guards any way possible to let him see Scarlet in her quarters and the two would spend the day together.
At first it was just talking and being friendly, however, as their love grew, so did the way they showed it. Unfortunately, this later resulted in Scarlet becoming pregnant, something they never wanted to happen.
==A Harsh Nine Months (2549)==
After finding out she was pregnant, Scarlet began to panic, fearing that ONI would force her to abort the baby against her will. Even though Joe feared the same, he realized the two could never hide it, and decided to be there with her as the two told their mentors everything.
After telling them, ONI immediately wanted the pregnancy terminated and the two separated permanently; however, they told the two that they would consider all options first, leaving the two worried. Several days passed, the two kept separated as punishment, until finally ONI told them what they wanted done. ONI told the two that keeping the child alive was the better option; however, they never really explained why. In reality, the only reason they let the child live was to make them trust them more. Though the child was allowed to live, they still had punishments. Joe’s punishment was harder training and he was only allowed to see her once a week, if that. Scarlet on the other hand was forced to give the child up upon birth, making both of them sad. During her pregnancy, Scarlet was almost forced to stay in her quarters. During the time, she began to become depressed whenever Joe wasn't around. Also during her pregnancy, she decided to let her hair grow out, and at one point, even kept it in a ponytail. However, she cut it short again after the birth.
During the nine months, Joe had to continue his usual training and combat; however, with the added weight of knowing he could be killed and leave Scarlet alone on his shoulders. One of the hardest parts of the nine months was telling Alex, a long time friend of Scarlet, of what he had done to her. After telling him, Alex instantly slugged Joe and cussed him out. Alex was the most upset he had ever been in his life. Joe understood why Alex hit him, and forgave him, but then Alex hit him again. What started as a few hits became a full fight in the middle of the mess hall. After they were broke up, they were punished. After the punishment they apologized to one another, and the two stayed friends, but their friendship was strained.
Finally, the day arrived when she gave birth, and a long day that was. Joe was allowed to be present for the birth, comforting her the entire time. Then, when the baby was finally born, for once in their lives, they felt as if there was more to the world. The child was a girl with dark brown hair like Joe, and bright blue eyes just like her mother. For a long time, the two just sat in the room admiring the child, Scarlet holding her in her arms and humming to her, and Joe holding her for a moment telling her how beautiful she was. After a time though, after only a brief moment in their daughter's life, ONI arrived and took the child, leaving Scarlet in a sobbing mess and Joe sitting by her side in anger.
==Love Is Like a SPARTAN, It Never Dies (2549)==
After the birth, the two began to grow distant from one another and most of the time forced to go to different planets for various missions; however, the two still loved each other very much. Eventually, it grew to a point where the two became separated for several months at a time. Finally, after another several months of separation, the two were assigned the same mission druing the Siege of Paris IV and were reunited once more. However, they wouldn't be together long.
The start of the mission was a success, the group had just cleared out a base from Covenant soldiers; however, shortly after, Scarlet was mortally wounded by a Brute Chopper that had run her over from behind. Joe ended up killing the rider very quickly, but it was too late.
After the attack, Scarlet was escourted out of the battlefield with Joe by her side, reguardless of the punishment he was going to recieve for doing so. He stood by her side the entire flight; however, shortly after landing at base, she died from a mixture of blood loss and internal injuries.
Before her death, she spoke to Joe about the life she wish she had, her final words being "I wish we could have been a family..."
==Loss (2549-2552)==
Scarlet's demise resulted in a depression that resulted in him becoming a cold blooded killing machine. Even his own friends and allies weren't spared from his anger. With that, he was essentially a lone wolf once more.
During this time, Alex and Joe had split, their team disbanded with the loss of one of its members, Joe never hearing from Alex again. Nobody is quite sure why, but it certinally had to do with Scarlet's death.
After the death, Joe also disobeyed ONI every chance he could get; however, his love for Scarlet never faded, not even at the end.
==The Fall of Reach (2552)==
In 2552, Joe was sent to his most important mission, the battle on Reach. There he was given new armor and a new team. Joe's team consisted of five other SPARTAN-IIs and IIIs known simply as Squad B13. They were trained to defend a major city on Reach from the Covenant, and to make sure they succeeded, they were given an AI unit named Zena with intel on everything they would need to overpower the Covenant. Joe was given the honor of carrying Zena across the battlefield.
Though Zena was given to them to succeed, they all knew they would most likely lose. Within the first several hours of guarding the city, all the SPARTANs were killed except Joe, who managed to stay alive by sniping in a building. Realizing the city was lost as well as the planet, Joe did what he could to kill as many Covenant warriors as he could. The entire time, he talked to the only person he could, Zena. He told her about Scarlet, Alex, his daughter, and his life of hell as a SPARTAN. After hearing his life story in a condensed version, Zena felt bad for him and apologized for what ONI had put him through. As Zena did this, Joe was shot in the back and fell over. Zena tried to get him to stand up, but Joe refused. He told Zena that if she got off the planet, to tell ONI to tell his daughter his story, or at least as much as she was allowed to hear. Zena agreed as a large Elite walked up behind him. The alien grabbed Joe's throat and held him up so his face was right next to Joe's. The Elite laughed as Joe smiled, but then stopped as he realized why. Joe told Zena goodbye one last time before killing both him and the Elite with several plasma grenades he had stuck to his own chest.
==Zena Lives==
After the glassing of Reach, ONI searched the city Joe was at for anything they could find that they needed. All they could find was a SPARTAN CQB helmet in a pile of rubble, inside the being an AI card and the dog tags of one Jeremiah-273.
After his disappearance on Reach, Joe was recorded as MIA, for his remains were never found.
==Appearance==
Joe-273 was a 6' 3" Caucasian male that was fairly light weight for a SPARTAN. Without his armor, he had short, dark brown, curly hair and brown eyes. He also had a long scar on the left side of his face from a fight during training.
Early on, he decided to alter his tags so that the name was Joe instead of Jeremiah and the 2 was flipped over to look like a J, making his tags read Joe-J73; however, before going to Reach, he had them switched back, wanting what was left of his humanity to die with him.
His armor was a very dark grey (almost black) with blue features and tan markings. He had received many armor styles over the years, but when it came to his favorite, it was his EVA armor with a CQB helmet. His emblem was a green SPARTAN helmet with crossed gold swords on a dark red diamond background (shown above); however, on reach he changed the diamonds to a shield. Reasons unknown.
The armors he had over the years were:
*Original Mark IV Power Assualt Armor
*Mark IV CQC Power Assualt Armor
*Mark IV CQB Helmet with EVA Power Assualt Armor (favorite before Reach)
*Mark V [B] Power Assualt Armor
*Mark V UA/CNM Recon helmet with UA/Multi-Threat Armor (was given before Reach in 2552)
*Mark V CQB Helmet with UA/Multi-Threat Armor (favorite, used on Reach, shown above)
==Squad B13 (a.k.a. group 666)==
When Joe was deployed to Reach, he was sent with a group of Five other SPARTANs known as Squad B13, or group 666 due to the fact they were all, as one of them put it, "destined for hell" and there were six of them. They consisted of SPARTANs with a career of rule breaking and extreme lethal abilities. Due to personal reasons, none of the other members gave out their true SPARTAN names, instead calling themselves a codename followed by 666.
The Members were as follows:
*MQK-666 (a.k.a. Matt)
*TKO-666 (a.k.a. Gary)
*Near-666
*Pemilli-666
*LHR-666 (a.k.a. Rouge)
==Zena (Smart AI)==
Zena was the Smart AI that 273 carried around with him on Reach. She was made using the mind of one Gale Hammon, a little known scientist that had volunteered to be used for the creation of an AI before her cancer induced death several years prior.
Zena's appearance as a hologram was a lightweight female with a thin figure. Her hair was in a long ponytail on the back of her head, yet she had two strands of hair that framed the sides of her face. She was usually a light shade of purple, yet when she was mad she was more red and when she was really happy she turned pink.
Zena did have one flaw however, she had a tendancy to randomly fade out when she was thinking too hard, but when she came back she would be perfectly fine; however she totally forgot everthing 30 seconds prior to her fade out.
==Gallery==