Spartan-404

== Spartan-404 (Mark-404) ==
"Originally, he wasn't even supposed to be here. We took him in because we didn't have many other options at the time. We ignored several new factors that came about after creating his file, and I think that's why he's... different." -Dr. Emily Ford
=== Personality ===
[Psych evaluation file currently under review for declassification]
=== Childhood ===
Spartan-404 was born on the human colony of Veruvian, December 5th, 2528, as Mark Bishop. His father, John Bishop, was an ODST serving with the 92nd Shock troops battalion. His mother, Alice Bishop, was a nurse, and he had an older sister Lillian. 
With his father as an ODST, he wasn't around much due to the war, but Mark grew up with a strong belief in the UNSC. As a child, he physically appeared about three years older than he was due to his height, and proved not only to be very smart in school, but also quite clever. He had a very out going positive attitude. In late 2532, his name appeared on the list of potential Spartan II candidates for the now slowly revamping Class II, but as an auxiliary candidate. However, the ongoing war, caused several of the original candidates to become unobtainable or no longer viable.
Then on March 12th, 2533, the Covenant found Veruvian. Military personnel, including John Bishop who was on leave, sprung into action. However, the convoy Mark and family were taking to evacuation sites was ambushed by covenant troops. It was during this ambush, the Mark would witness both his parents killed. His mother was struck down by carbine fire from a jackal in an overhead dropship. His father was mortally wounded, and used a grenade in a suicidal attack as an elite pinned him down. The young spartan managed to find a 9mm pistol dropped by one of the fleeing civilians and attempted to shoot several present elites, blinding one whose shields were down when he shot it in the eye. Mark, and the rest of the evacuees were only saved by the timely intervention of arriving UNSC reinforcements. On the transport out, it was said the young boy sat quietly, staring at his fathers badly damaged ODST helmet, which he held in his hands.
During the finalization of the Spartan II Class II roster in 2534, enough candidates had been killed, lost, or maimed for Mark and two other auxiliary candidates to make it on the list.
It was at this time Mark and Lillian were relocated to Meridian, living with their Aunt and Uncle. Of note, their uncle was a former ONI member. It was on Meridian the an ONI team snuck into the Bishop residence, and replaced Mark with a flash clone, and brought him to Reach. 
*****************Warning******************
Special order: Sierra-404/015A 
Issued: 2546, ***** **
Sierra 404 is not to be deployed with the following Individuals except for under extreme circumstances:
-UNSC Marine, Lillian Bishop
-UNSC Marine, Mark Bishop 
(The flash clone replacement of Sierra-404 has proven to have unusually stable health and has enlisted with the UNSC Marine corps, as has the natural born sibling. In order to prevent any risk of information breach, or negative psychological effects, every attempt with in reason is to be made to prevent Sierra 404 from coming into contact with these individuals, in particular the latter, Marine, Mark Bishop.)
=== Training ===
Mark-404 would acclimatize to his new life very quickly. His instructors noted that after being informed of being allowed to become a spartan, he seemed highly motivated for two primary reasons. The saving of humanity, and revenge for the death of his parents. The latter reason would for a time, bring up a panel as to whether or not transfer him into the Spartan III program. However, he remained with the Spartan II's in the end. Among the Spartans, he proved himself to be the best of the second class graduates. While not the strongest, fastest, or the smartest, he proved to be one of the most resourceful and unpredictable. While only a little above average in terms of marksmanship among the Spartans, he would prove himself to be one of the best CQB experts in the UNSC, second only to Kelly-087, whom he would befriend and spar with regularly after graduation. He proved to be highly adept in engineering and splicing, regularly breaking into the kitchen to steal food for himself and fellow spartan trainee's, and on seven known occasions, bypassing the security door systems to the arsenal and acquiring equipment, weapons, stun rounds, flash bang grenades, and on one occasion, a helmet with a thermal visor, to use in exercises much to the surprise and dismay of instructors who found themselves being flashbanged and pelted with rubber bullets.
Spartan-404 has surprisingly shown none of the problems that seemed to crop up with many of the class II candidates early on, being very open to working with others, regardless of being part of his unit or otherwise. After graduation, he helped make the other Class II Spartan's more cooperative as well once they had been shaken by live combat. He worked well with almost everyone he interacted with, leading him to being considered the leader of the second class. Due to this, he often organized the other trainees in combat and survival exercises for coordinated tactics against staff. In one case, they managed to take over a field camp and restrain several instructors who were present. They then used equipment on hand to fortify and hold the camp until ordered to stand down by an impressed, though annoyed, Nolan Byrne. In the earlier years, it was noted by staff when other candidates attempted to coordinate the trainees in a similar manner, most times, the group would fall apart as trainee's began to fight for authority. When purposely separated from his fellow trainee's during similar exercises, Mark proved to be just as capable as a solo combatant as well.
Mark-404 was also noted to have a high degree of independence during training, though this didn't always result in rebellious behavior. Multiple psychological and loyalty tests have revealed that due to indoctrination and his early upbringing by his father, his loyalty to the UNSC is unwavering. However, due to his high degree of independence, he is not unquestioning, and is prone to carry out actions that may be seen as loopholes, such as acquiring information and data from behind ONI censors and black ink for the sake of "mission preparedness". (Note: While some have been concerned about the possibility of his defection to rebel units post 2553, continued psychological testing has revealed perceived loyalty issues are still of no concern, though with a notable sense of lack of purpose with the end of the war).
During training, especially in exercises known informally as "hide and seek", he became especially notorious for laying booby traps and ambushes among instructors, noted though as taking special care to ensure such methods proved non-lethal after he almost killed an instructor on accident with a booby trap. In a tactical sense, he has a highly aggressive yet subversive mindset, but is fully aware of boundaries and parameters. In one case, after ambushing and restraining an instructor, he donned the instructors uniform and equipment to pose as one of the staff for a good portion of the exercise, imitating said staff member over the radio with startling accuracy. When the instructor was discovered by others sweeping the area for Spartan trainees, Mark used the "borrowed" stun baton and sidearm loaded with stun rounds to eliminate a majority of the remaining instructors from the exercise by incapacitating them with said weapons before disappearing into the forest. Of note, exercise staff would travel only in groups of two or more after said event and be given random callsigns before each exercise to prevent a similar incident.
While Dr. Halsey has shown a general distaste for the Spartan II Class II members, she has taken interest in two of the subjects, one of which is Mark-404, whom she describes as, "an interesting elective, but a worthy one nonetheless".
Several years later, he would graduate at the top of his class among the Spartan II's at the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer, 1st class. 
=== Service ===
"I'm a soldier, well, sailor technically. I do what I'm told. If you're on the same side, then fall in. If not, then pray to whatever god you believe in to have mercy on you, because I certainly won't. And neither will they."
-Mark 404 convincing human rebels to join the UNSC against the covenant on Avache IIIUpon graduation, the Spartans of Class II would be immediately deployed. Participating in multiple engagements, sorties, and other missions, Spartan-404 soon proved himself to be one of the best among all of the Spartans. 
He served as part of a special ONI team for a while until he eventually got into trouble for his habit of getting to know things he wasn't supposed to. He was then reassigned to the UNSC Navy proper to fight on the front lines. On several occasions he would be deployed as an attached technology expert with blue team. Generally, he was attached as team lead of the five man, Spartan Silver team. Silver team would originally start as a Spartan II only unit, but would incorporate several Spartan III members over its time as well. After the Fall of Reach, Mark-404 was the only survivor of Spartan Silver team, the rest having been killed while fighting as part of Spartan teams, Beta-Red and Gauntlet. Silver team, would see many missions to recover and/or destroy forerunner artifacts and facilities, more so than many other Spartan teams. As such, Mark-404 is relatively familiar with information pertaining to the forerunners and their technology, and is moderately familiar with their history (much to the annoyance of ONI), and while never having encountered them, was one of the few humans vaguely aware of the flood from these data stores prior to 2552. This is largely due to him reading recovered and decrypted information, with or without permission. While uncomfortable with the Spartan knowing said information, ONI Special Warfare Command has begrudgingly admitted it has been useful for mission completion on many occasions. For instance, manually activating flood quarantine procedures to lock down a forerunner facility to prevent covenant acquisition of said facility. 
By 2550 he was already aware of the survival and existence of his flash clone, and had met him on two occasions in the field. Strangely, he does not seem troubled by it, and once suggested a study on the difference between the two be carried out. While the spartan was informed that said proposal was denied, ONI section 3 still carried it out.
During his service, he earned a reputation as the "angriest" Spartan II among his superiors. While generally having a calm, relatively positive, and spartan demeanor similar to his peers, he has been known to go into rage induced berserker-like states on occasion. One notable occasion was when Sierra-404 witnessed several captured UNSC Army troopers in a covenant camp being eaten alive during a scouting mission. Upon returning, he had the remaining survivors with him, his report indicating the camps garrison having been eliminated. In the following counter-assault the next day, when UNSC forces from the left flank had reached the position, they found the remains of the dead UNSC troopers buried, the camp cleared, communications equipment and vehicles destroyed or disabled, and multiple mutilated and unrecognizable covenant corpses littering the area. Autopsies confirmed they appeared to have died from multiple methods, including but not limited to strangulation, blunt force trauma, gunshots, knife wounds, burning alive, shrapnel, and for two notable corpses, a jiralhanae having been staked to a cell wall and left to bleed out from multiple open wounds in a manner similar to crucifixion, and a sangheili officer with broken legs and arms who had been "lynched" with a severed power cable from atop the watch tower. The position and wounds of several of these bodies indicated they were killed while attempting to flee the engagement.
Over his years of service during the human covenant war, Spartan-404 would go on to serve in 173 full campaigns, and multiple battles and ground engagements. Like many Spartan II's, he would become a highly decorated veteran by the wars end. On Avache III, a world with significant rebel activity, the Spartan managed to convince a small army of insurrectionists to side with UNSC forces against covenant invaders. Sierra 404 managed to ensure the evacuation of the newly allied rebels, many of whom continue to serve with the UNSC in the post war era. Several other notable engagements include the destruction of a covenant mining operation on a moon, infiltration and destruction of a covenant super carrier, [Redacted], [Redacted], [Redacted], several "one man army" engagements on the ground, [Redacted], temporarily commanding a corvette as the highest ranking survivor on board, and [Redacted].
On the colony of Jasper IV in early 2552, the spartan was separated from his team during extraction from a mission to destroy an unearthed forerunner facility and recover several artifacts. He then made his way to a Killovah, Jasper IV's capital, which was still undergoing evacuations and linked up with UNSC forces. Here, he helped the evacuations, going above and beyond the call of duty. Single handedly pushing back waves of covenant troops, sneaking into the night alone to destroy covenant AA emplacements, and leading UNSC forces into battle, he became an invaluable asset to the defenders. Then the covenant attempted to break the UNSC lines by sending in packs of brutes. The fighting was hard, but with the aid of the spartan, the brutes were killed. At one point, the spartan, alone, faced off with a brute chieftain and several of his body guards. While he succeeded in killing all the brutes, it was here that he was severely injured. Then in the closing stages of the fighting and under the cover of airstrikes, he managed to board the last transport off the planet with the rear guard. His actions however, had been witnessed by hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom had caught him on camera, making the event and the Spartan's actions highly publicized. 
He was publicly awarded the colonial cross for his actions, and as part of a PR stunt, promoted to second lieutenant. In mid-2552, he was released from medical care, but still not cleared for active service, resulting in him missing operation Red Flag. However, he was transferred to the Atla testing grounds for the rest of his recovery, where he would help test new improvements in the Mjolnir platform. He was issued a modified version of the standard MK-5 which carried several proof of concept designs. A refined gel layer allowed for 1.5 times the strength enhancement of normal MK-5 while being more durable, 50% stronger and faster regenerating shields, a limited internal supply of biofoam, a voice modulator, built in EVA thrusters, and a primitive voice to text covenant language translator. Personal modifications included an up armored chest and helmet, an uplink on his helmet, additional ammo and supply pouches, a trauma kit, and a pad on his left arm designed for use in splicing and engineering. The armor he used was colored forest green with steel grey accents, and adopting the same silver color for his visor as he had for his Mk-4. In addition to the combat knife he carried on his chest, he also carried a kukri on the back of his waist armor. Part of the testing included working with a smart AI, named Siren, in order to better understand and streamline the Spartan-AI interaction through the uplink.
Upon the invasion of Reach, at first, Spartan-404 was not mobilized due to not being fully recovered. However, as the fighting got worse, he was sent into action. Records of his deployments were mostly lost with the fall of Reach, however, in the finals days of the battle, he was sent back to Atla in order to help evacuate the site and its valuable staff, data, and Mjolnir testing equipment which had proven instrumental in developing the upcoming MK-6 through shared data with Earth. After the site was fully evacuated, it was destroyed with a nuclear warhead to prevent capture by hostile forces.
The Spartan, the Altla facility staff, and their evacuated resources were then ferried off world aboard two Paris class frigates, UNSC Into The Night, and UNSC Albatross. During the evacuation, the landing sites would come under heavy attack by Covenant forces once the alien force had discovered the importance of this group. Alongside Marines, Army Troopers, and even armed sailors and civilians, the Spartan was able to hold back these attacks long enough for the frigates to escape. A final bombing run from Longsword fighters launched from the frigates allowed the rear guard to escape to the vessels aboard pelican dropships. 
The group arrived back on Earth, and with help from the data from both Atla and Spartan Black, the MK-6 was finalized and put into service. Sierra-404 however would not be issued MK-6 until after the war. Due to a production delay, he was not able to receive it before being deployed to Mars. The covenant invasion of Sol, then prevented him from receiving it there. He would fight to help defend Mars while wearing his old MK-5 Mod, and even as the planet was overrun, would continue to lead a hold out resistance on the planets surface until UNSC forces arrived from Earth and retook the planet where a wounded, but still fighting, Spartan-404 and approximately 2000 UNSC military personnel would be relieved. Upon his return to Earth, he, alongside the other surviving Spartan personnel, received a heroes welcome. His MK-5 was in quite bad condition, having suffered heavy damaged. Visor broken, multiple breaches, plasma scoring, warped plates, and a multitude of other damaged systems saw his armor immediately replaced with the MK-6 he was not able to receive earlier. 
While the MK-5 mod was originally marked for scrapping and recycling, due to the euphoria of winning the war and popular demand, it was instead stripped of all functional components, decommissioned, and put on display in the Human-Covenant war memorial and museum in its battle damaged state, being the only genuine Mjolnir suit ever put on display in a public location.
Mark-404 would make similar modifications to his MK-6, utilizing a silver visor and paint scheme, up armoring the chest (CQB variant) and helmet (Mk-6), adding munition and equipment pouches, adding a trauma kit to one leg, adding a tech specialist pad to one arm, and adding a kukri to the back of his waist armor. He helped test the GEN-2 platform, though was disapproving of it, quite openly showing his disdain for the platform which he believed was, "a cheap imitation of lesser reliability and durability when compared to Generation one Mjolnir, which has underperformed at every turn. It is a blatant trade of lives for money." As such, he remained in service with his MK-6 until 2556, when he was all but forced to switch over to the GEN-2 platform.
During this time, while he has worked with Swords of Sanghelios forces in several joint ops, he still has a notable animosity towards them, prevented from turning into hostility only by formality and discipline. After being briefed of the lie of the Great Journey and the Great Schism, he has come to be more understanding of his former foe, lessening his hatred towards them, though still far from dissipating it entirely.
The Spartan would be involved in the testing of early GEN-3 prototypes, and would be equipped with one as the Created launched their attack. Unfortunately, he was on Earth at the time, and was trapped there as Cortana used a Guardian to siege the world. While he rallied UNSC ground forces and did organize a local resistance against the AI after the destruction of Sydney, he was eventually captured and was held prisoner by the created. During his captivity, Cortana would use him as the subject of taunting messages sent to human resistance groups in attempts to demoralize them. He managed to escape in December, 2559, stealing a vessel and escaping Sol with a number of other freed UNSC personnel. As of March, 2560, he was serving with UNSC resistance forces. He was equipped with proper GEN-III Armor, which he promptly modified inline with his previous armors, even having EVA thrusters installed. Note that the up armoring of his MK-VII helmet forwent the armored portion that would cover the visor. His non-volatile AI partner was given a copied personality matrix to match his earlier partner, the AI Siren.
He joined the UNSC forward force to Zeta Halo aboard the UNSC Infinity. During the fighting aboard the Infinity, he encountered Atriox while helping evacuate deck 14, but a collapsing hallway separated the two before they could engage in combat. Upon arriving at the Pelicans for evacuation in hanger 37, the Spartan gave up his seat to allow others to make it out aboard the dropships, opting to hold off advancing banished troops instead to buy time. Only as the Banished themselves began extracting from Infinity, the ship now breaking apart, did the spartan decided to leave infinity via Zeta Halo's gravity well (Jumping out of the hangar and descending to Zeta Halo via EVA).
He landed on a portion of the ring with scant UNSC forces, far from any concentration of allied forces. From here, he began to conduct a guerilla warfare campaign with other survivors, growing their numbers with rescued personnel each day. Ultimately the group would consist of 4 Spartans, 73 sailors, 63 Army troopers, 19 ODSTs, 52 civilian contractors, and 49 marines; setting up base in a coastal cave system to avoid detection. The spartan and his ragtag element began to receive communications from the UNSC base set up in the crash site of the UNSC Mortal Reverie, being dubbed omega group by the de facto command center. Plans were in place to retrieve Omega group, but these fell through with the failed assassination of Banished leadership and the fall of the Reverie. During this time the group lay low, managing to scavenge equipment and supplies from across their sector to survive. Sierra 404 would continue to engage in hit and run missions, even hunting down and killing a "Spartan killer" that had been stalking omega group. While uninjured, the engagement with the elite banished soldier left the Spartan's MK-VII helmet badly damaged and almost nun-functional, leading him to replace it with a gold-visored Anubis helmet (having belonged to recon specialist Ava Parker) from the spartan killers trophy stash. 
As the last holdouts of the Reverie force were defeated, contact was lost with Omega group, and as of the return of Spartan 117, their status is still not entirely certain. Intercepted communications from the Banished battle network indicate that Omega group is most likely still operational, and possibly having grown in size and capabilities.