Simon-G294

Simon-G294, known as Mordred later in life, was a SPARTAN-III of Gamma Company and was the first active-duty Spartan to desert and take up arms against the UNSC. As an orphan living off the scraps of the city he grew up in, Simon learned to fend for himself and gained a tenacious will to live that guided most of his actions. After being hospitalized by a dog attack, he was sent to an orphanage where he was approached and given the offer to volunteer for the SPARTAN-III program. Hoping to secure a better future for himself, Simon agreed and was taken to the planet Onyx to train as a child commando for the UNSC. Although he quickly secured an unwanted reputation as one of the worst-performing candidates in the program, Simon's determination and cunning made him useful to the squad he was assigned to Team Jian, the squad he was assigned to. Genetically augmented and deployed into combat at the age of twelve, Simon's first few missions with Team Jian were all successful. However, during a mission against Insurrectionists near the end of the Human-Covenant War, a botched operation left two members of the team dead and saw Simon abandoned on the rebellious world of Mamore. Believing that he had been left for dead by the UNSC, Simon fell in with a group of child insurgents and eventually became one himself.

Fighting as a child soldier in a planet-wide insurrection against the UNSC, he would eventually gain the attention of Redmond Venter, a high-ranking officer in the Humanity Liberation Front. After learning of Simon's past, Venter would make him his personal bodyguard, using the the traitor Spartan's abilities to both forward the HLF's war against the UNSC and help him rise in prominence amongst his rivals within the HLF. While working with Venter, Simon would meet Diana, an Insurrectionist "smart" A.I. who eventually took a liking to him. As the fighting intensified and the HLF began to lose the battle, Simon was spotted by another SPARTAN-III who identified him as a traitor to ONI. After leaving Mamore Venter took Simon to an asteroid Insurrectionist base, which was later attacked by UNSC forces.. Betrayed and left to die by the Insurrectionists, Simon was aided by Diana, who helped him reach a ship with a working Slipspace drive. After a confrontation with his former team leader, Simon and Diana escaped in the ship and vanished into Slipspace with an injured Cassandra-G006 in tow. Forced into many years of cryo-sleep when his ship's Slipspace drive malfunctioned and left them adrift, Simon set down on the colony world of Hekate for a short period of time before parting ways with Cassandra and landing himself and Diana amongst a crew of pirates. Following a short but harrowing period serving under a Jiralhanae chieftain and an apprenticeship to a Sangheili blademaster, the embittered young traitor would eventually become a mercenary operating under the pseudonym of "Mordred", selling his services out to anyone willing to pay for them.

Urchin and Recruit
"You know nothing of Javert/ I was born inside a jail/ I was born with scum like you/ I am from the gutter too!"

- "Confrontation", from Les Miserables, the Musical

Simon was born on the Inner Colony world Constantinople in 2538. His mother was a dirt-poor prostitute who had already half-killed herself with alcohol and drug addictions, and she died shortly after giving birth to him in the slums of the city they lived in. Simon's early upbringing was at the hands of several local dregs, who helped feed and look after the young child. During this time, Simon was not known by any name; his mother had neglected to give him one and the few people who looked after him were not themselves interested in coming up with one for him. The first person to ever take ay real interest in this nameless urchin was a young local girl named Rachel. While not herself an orphan, she and her father were also trapped within the city's poverty-stricken slums. Rachel taught the urchin (whom she called "Stray") how to survive in their passively hostile environment. When "Stray" was around five or six, Rachel was shot and killed during a local gang skirmish, and though the boy was too young for this loss to truly traumatize him, it still left a lasting impression on him. He began to scrounge for food on his own, and was constantly digging through trash bins behind shops and restaurants for edible scraps. This period of impoverishment taught him a primitive philosophy of self-sufficiency and also made it hard for him to trust others (other urchin children like himself tended to either steal the food he found or drive him out of their own scrounging "territory"). Although the difficulty of finding food left him weak and malnourished, he continued to survive on his own until a vicious encounter with a stray dog hiding in a garbage bin left him badly mauled. The dying boy was discovered by the local police and, after being treated, was sent to an orphanage.

Although the orphanage's staff worried that the new child's lack of any sort of regular social background might make him dangerous to be put around other children, they were mistaken in this regard. The boy (named "Simon" by one of the caretakers) was not a sociopath, although he did prefer solitude to the company of the other children. However, he was far behind all of the other orphans in terms of education; he could barely read and had no experience with any of the fields taught to children his age. While he was intelligent enough to quickly grasp the remedial classes that were taught to him, he also caused problems by stealing and hoarding food and pilfering other items of interest from other children.

While not particularly happy in the orphanage, Simon appreciated the certainty of food and shelter he provided. However, he was ultimately dissatisfied with it because it did not give him any certainty to what would happen in his future. The only thing he could really hope for was that he would be adopted, something that unfortunately did not occur often in that area. It seemed that he would be sheltered and educated until he was of age before being given back to the streets in order to fend for himself.

This bleak future changed in 2544, when Simon was "interviewed" by an ONI lieutenant who had been dispatched to recruit applicable candidates into the SPARTAN-III program. Although not entirely taken in by the lieutenant's talk of honor and duty (these concepts were still relatively new to him), Simon was enchanted by the thought of enjoying the security of both a brighter future than the one currently in store for him and the idea of once again securing what he saw as a sustainable food source. Simon agreed to be recruited into Gamma Company and was shipped to Onyx for training.

"The Brilliant Failure"
Simon's arrival on Onyx alongside over three hundred other candidates for the program was met with a test that the man in charge of the program's training division, Lieutenant Kurt Ambrose, had utilized with great success during the initiations of the Alpha and Beta candidates: a jump from a high-flying Pelican dropship at night. Simon's first temptation to defy orders due to his own fears came at this point, and it was only through luck that he was not kicked out of the program: as he was preparing to give up and step away from the edge of the Pelican's open troop bay, he tripped and plummeted towards the ground. Only a hasty opening of the parachute he'd been issued saved him from a messy death on the surface.

Along with the others who had passed the test (out of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma companies, Gamma had the lowest amount of washouts from the "jump test"), Simon entered into an intensive training program that sought to turn the young children into skilled special warfare operators in much less time than that used by the SPARTAN-II program. At first, while the program focused principally on physical conditioning, Simon was indistinguishable from the other candidates. His life as an urchin had made him naturally fast and agile and he was noted by his trainers for having a high amount of endurance for lengthy exercises such as distance running. However, as the program entered into combat training it became clear that he was many times less suited for combat operations than his peers. While physically there was nothing wrong with him, he lacked the same amount of motivation possessed by the other trainees. Most of these children had been orphaned during Covenant attacks and were driven to succeed and become better warriors by the hope of revenge upon the alien aggressors. Simon, on the other hand, had volunteered based upon his own self interest and was not so much interested in excelling as he was in not being washed out of the program. Furthermore, having had no personal experiences with the Covenant and knowing what he knew of them based only on propaganda and training vids, he did not fully grasp the depth of humanity's need for capable super soldiers like the SPARTAN-IIIs.

While not necessarily lazy, Simon did not put as much effort into his training as the others did and it showed. Before long he had gained infamy as being one of the worst-preforming members of the company. Sparring matches almost always ended with him on his back, weapons he wielded tended to miss their target or jam due to being improperly loaded, and equipment he operated often wound up useless in the field or broken. His tendency to often go off by himself and an innate desire to be left on his own did not help matters, as they distanced him even further from his fellow trainees. However, in spite of these deficiencies Simon rarely ever "died" during combat exercises. He had an innate knack for knowing which places were safest to hide or take cover in, something that helped him escape from tight situations he got himself into due to his own failures.

Simon was widely acknowledged as being the worst trainee in the program, lacking almost any useful specialty to add to a team's capabilities. He did possess one true saving grace though, which prevented him from being dropped from the roster entirely: a sense of cunning and deviousness lacked by the other candidates. Unlike his peers, who were extremely smart and skilled tactically, Simon was more than willing to do anything it took in order to accomplish the objectives set in place by whatever exercises Lieutenant Ambrose and Gamma Company's drill instructors put to them. He employed "underhanded" tactics that the others felt uncomfortable using against their fellows, such as faking surrender (when surrendering was allowed by the exercise), playing dead (during exercises that utilized the anesthesia-inducing tactical training rounds), and even bribing some of the less conscientious trainees into "allowing" his own team to win with extra food from his private "stash" (Ever since coming off the streets, Simon had always been paranoid about not having enough food to eat. Therefore, he developed a habit of stealing food and hoarding it away in various places. He rarely ate from these stockpiles and the food stored there often went bad, but he felt safer knowing that they were there if he needed them.) While he was often reprimanded by various DIs and occasionally Lieutenant Ambrose himself, who asserted that such tactics would never work on the real battlefield, Simon believed that he was learning a different lesson from the tricks and cheats he employed during exercises: how to utilize whatever methods were on hand and available to him in order to survive and win.

One particularly egregious example of Simon's devious streak occurred during a team-building exercise shortly before the S-III trainees were organized into permanent teams. Placed in groups of four and pitted against each other while armed with training weapons loaded with TTR rounds, the Spartan candidates were scattered throughout one of Onyx's many woodland training grounds. The appointed leader of Simon's team, one Ralph-G299, was ill-suited for the role and constantly got the team into impossible situations due to his aggressive and poorly thought out tactics. When he refused on several occasions to take better advice from his subordinates, Simon shot him in the back with several TTR rounds and turned command of the team over to a shocked Vincent-G270, who wound up leading them much more competently. Simon was severely punished once the exercise was over (the point of randomly assigning team leaders was as much a way to teach the subordinates how to operate under poor officers as it was a means of giving every candidate a leadership experience) and he made an enemy of Ralph, but gained a newfound respect, small though it was, from his peers.

Team Jian
"I don't believe this! After all my high marks and exercise wins, I get stuck in command of the team with the resident adrenaline-junky, the girl who's always starting fights, the kleptomaniac, and the total loser! What did I do to deserve this?"

- Jake-G293 upon being placed in command of Team Jian

After two years of performing combat exercises with randomly assigned teams and leaders, the Gamma Company trainees were divided into five-man teams, each with its own pre-assigned team leader based upon statistics gathered during previous leadership exercises. Simon was never even considered for a leadership role and indeed he did not want one; he was content to follow any leader who did not make rash, suicidal choices during battle. He was assigned to Team Jian under the command of fellow trainee Jake-G293, who was known as one of the best-performing individuals in the company. However, the other members of the squad were not so exemplary. Mary-G130 was feared amongst the other trainees for her short temper and had been disciplined on several occasions for starting fights. Terrence-G150 was also a troublemaker, but for different reasons: he enjoyed stealing things, be they large or small, and had been disciplined by both his superiors and his fellow trainees for his thieving ways. Ralph-G299 was, like Mary, a fight-starter and already bore a grudge against Simon for the incident during the leadership exercise. Jake was less than pleased to be assigned to such a ragtag team (Team Jian quickly gained the nickname of "Problem Squad"), and at first group cooperation was substandard.

All five members of the squad had, like all other Gamma trainees, been trained and conditioned to accept decisions from their superiors that they disagreed with and carry on obediently with the tasks at hand. Unfortunately, Jake was the only member of the group completely committed to this maxim. The first several exercises Team Jian was put to resulted in abysmal failures, as it was constantly being outmaneuvered and outpreformed by both drill instructors and other teams. Although each of the team's members, including Simon, did put some effort into performing better as a team, their collective flaws and weaknesses always seemed to doom efforts to improve to failure. At one point, even the stalwart Jake began to lose hope of ever improving.

Ironically, it was a catastrophic failure that put Team Jian back on the path to success. An exercise they had to perform was a live-fire obstacle course studded with booby traps and patrolled by DIs armed with TTR rounds. Although the booby traps, which were all explosives of some kind, had their potency severely limited to avoid actually killing trainees, they were still highly dangerous. For the purposes of this particular exercise, all of the traps were highly visible but almost impossible to bypass without exposing oneself to fire from the DIs. Therefore, the teams had to work as a unit in order to cover each other from DIs while also properly disarming the booby traps. Team Jian made it about midway through the course before being pinned down by multiple DIs. While the rest of the team supplied covering fire, Jake instructed Simon to disarm the latest booby trap. Unfortunately, the combined noise of shouting and gunfire spooked the jittery Simon as he struggled to disarm the weapon, and he accidently detonated it instead. The resulting explosion caught him full in the chest at close range and came very close to killing him. He spent two weeks in critical condition in the training facility's medical wing, and although he emerged without any permanent damage to his combat capabilities, Simon's chest would bear a spiderweb of distinctive scars that stretched across and around his torso for the rest of his life.

Following the disasterous obstacle course mission, each member of the team blamed themselves for what had happened to Simon and vowed to redouble their efforts to perfom better as a team. While they mentally punished themselves for imagined failings, Simon had to face the reality of the situation: he had almost died because of his failings as a soldier. At close to ten years of age, he began to be intensly afraid of dying during training and during the combat deployments against the Covenant that he knew were to come. Although this fear drove him to better cooperation with his teammates and a more dedicated attitude towards his training in general, it also made him realize just how short of a life expectancy he might possibly have when deployed in the field. This realization made him bitter towards the military and towards the UNSC in general, and when each of his inner musings about this fact ended with the admittance that he had, in fact, volunteered for the program, this made him even angrier.

A further addition to his growing bitterness stemmed from the stories the trainees swapped during their downtime. Most of the children had been orphaned by Covenant attacks, but the stories they told were filled with fond remembrance for life before tragedy had reshaped everything. Rather than making Simon grateful for the fact that he had not had to experience the same pain as they had, these stories instead made him resentful of the fact that everyone around him had been able to experience the joys of having a real home and family. Remembering his daily struggles to survive on the streets of his home city further widened the gap between himself and the other trainees and deepened his resentment of the fact that he would probably die without ever having the pleasant experiences the others could fall back on. When his negative emotions became too overpowering, Simon found hobbies outside of training to lessen their burden. He took up writing and kept a diary through which he could vent his thoughts and frustrations.

"You're a sneaky little bastard Simon. I like that in a teammate."

- Terrence-G150 to Simon-G294

Although his inner resentments gnawed almost constantly at Simon's mind, he did his best to ensure that they were at least put to productive use. He used his bitterness at his inferiority to the other trainees as a means of galvanizing himself to train harder than he ever had before. Although he remained towards the rear of the overall skill pool, he also came to be more appreciated by his teammates. While Jake dissaproved of Simon's devious tactics, he could not deny that they were quite useful in some situations and it was because of this "wild card" that Team Jian managed to secure occasional victories during exercises against other teams. Ralph would always dislike Simon, and the two did their best to avoid each other as much as possible without hindering their team's effectiveness. On the other hand, Mary and Terrence did appreciate their unusual teammate. Mary enjoyed his devious nature, and the two often collaborated whenever Mary wished to pick a fight with another team. Terrence, who was always getting into trouble for stealing odds, ends, and the occassional piece of expensive equipment, found in Simon a willing accomplice in many of his "heists". Simon was more than willing to risk punishment in exchange for more food for his stashes (which could now be found in almost every part of the training facility), and often helped Terrence plan out nightly raids. The bonds Simon formed with his teammates proved to be an even greater incentive to perform better at his training than his internal resentments, and as Team Jian grew closer together he came to consider his squadmates (aside from Ralph) to be true friends, the first time in his life that he had actually admitted to such a relationship. However, this closeness made him much less responsive towards people from other teams, and Team Jian as a whole gained a reputation for being very reserved and withdrawn when dealing with those outside their squad.

One non-Jian trainee that Simon acknowledged, at least inwardly, was one Cassandra-G006, a member of Team Kopis. She, like Simon, had poor ratings when it came to combat exercises but had made up for this shortcoming by becoming one of Gamma Company's few medical specialists. About a year before Gamma Company's augmentations, Simon developed a small crush on her, which he was not bold enough to express openly and thus kept private. He did make the mistake of telling his secret to his teammates, and it became a common article of derision during playful banter.

Augmentations and Graduation
"Sometimes I don't get it, this need to survive no matter what. I've never experienced anything in life worth clinging on to, never possessed and lost anything worth seeking out again. All things considered, I should be more than prepared to lay my life down for the cause that we're being trained for. But maybe that itself is the reason I want to live so badly. Maybe I just want the chance to be able to experience everything I've had to miss out on."

- Passage from Simon's diary.

As the time approached for Gamma Company's graduation, Simon continued to improve but unfortunately also continued to be surpassed by the others. Although he had grown used to the constant embarrassments that came with losing every sparring match and being considered by others to be more of a hinderance than a help, he still fostered the bitterness that had developed within him during earlier parts of training, bitterness at both lacking any experiences even beginning to approach those of a normal life and the superior skills of those around him. Nevertheless, he continued to struggle at getting better and was motivated not by any sense of loyalty to the UNSC or humanity but by his determination to make himself strong enough to be able to survive on the battlefield.

When the time for Gamma Company to receive a series of chemical augmentations that would improve their combat abilities and complete their transformation into Spartans, Lieutenant Ambrose, himself a recipient of such drugs, gave every member of the company a chance to opt out while their was still time. He feared that the drugs might have critically adverse effects on the recipients, as they had with the SPARTAN-II candidates several decades prior. Still fearing that he would die in combat, Simon seriously considered quitting while he still had the chance. However, the bonds he shared with his teammates compelled him to stay on, and he and the rest of Gamma Company were taken to a medical facility, the UNSC Hopeful. There they were injected with the following chemicals: While the first four of these augmentations had been carefully researched and improved upon by top military scientists over the course of the SPARTAN-III program, the last one was not. This was a new feature, introduced by Ambrose himself because he felt that the Spartans would need them in the missions they were to undertake, and its administration was illegal. Although it would prove useful to the Spartans in the months to come, it also threatened to make them irrational and violent if not properly kept in check. In order to prevent this from happening, the ONI "handlers" assigned to brief and monitor the deployed SPARTAN-IIIs regularly administrated drugs to their charges that countered the negative effects of the illegal augmentation.
 * Drug 8942-LQ99: A carbide ceramic ossification catalyst to make skeletons virtually unbreakable.
 * Drug 88005-MX77: A fibroid muscular protein complex that boosted muscle density and strength.
 * Drug 88947-OP24: A retina-inversion stabilizer drug. It boosted color and night vision capabilities.
 * Drug 87556-UD61: Improved colloidal neural disunification solution, which in turn decreases reaction time.
 * Drug 009762-OO: A mutagen that alters key regions of the subject's frontal lobe. Enhances aggression, strength, endurance, and tolerance to injury. Kept in check by antipsychotic and bipolar-integration drugs.

Following their augmentations, Gamma Company was shipped back to Onyx, where they spent a short period of time adjusting to their improved bodies and perfecting their use of the newest models of the Semi Powered Infiltration armor. Once this phase was complete, Lieutenant Ambrose and the ONI officers involved with the SPARTAN-III program began preparations for Gamma Company's deployment against the Covenant. In the meantime, every squad in the company competed against each other for "top honors" in a series of training skirmishes using non-lethal stun rounds. Although Team Jian did not make it very far in the competition, they still did much better than what was expected of the "mongrel squad". When all but three teams had been eliminated, the rest of Gamma Company departed Onyx and readied themselves for war.

Early Deployments
"It was fast, it was noisy, it was chaotic. There was blood all over the place and it got to the point that I wasn't even thinking anymore, just sitting back and letting instinct to all the work for me. We all thought battle would be just like the exercises back in training, but it wasn't..."

- Simon-G294 remembering his first experience on the battlefield

Defense of the Ides of March
Following the successful mission on Persephone IV, Team Jian was rotated to a UNSC destroyer, the Ides of March. With prowlers in short supply and high demand, ONI could no longer afford to take all of the stringent security precautions with the SPARTAN-III program in the past, and that meant that exposing the child super soldiers to regular military personnel was considered an acceptable risk. Although Jian mainly kept to itself and kept its contact with others to a minimum, Simon still found excuses to eavesdrop on Naval and Marine personnel as they discussed their civilian families back home. He enjoyed hearing these conversations, which helped fuel his idealized dream of a normal life outside the military. The Ides of March was also transporting Jian's fellow S-III squad Team Kopis. Although his teammates teased him about the crush he had had on Cassandra-G006, Kopis's medical specialist, during training, SImon did not use the redeployment as an excuse to flirt and instead stayed within the close confines of his own squad. Although Jian was friendly with Kopis and Jake shared a friendship with its leader, Vincent-G270, the introverted team had almost as little contact with Kopis as they did with the regular military.

After completing its patrol near Covenant-controlled space, the Ides of March began to return to the Inner Colonies. However, it was ambushed by a small Covenant ship before it could enter Slipspace. While the attacking ship had little in the way of weapons, its stealth systems allowed it to sneak up on the human destroyer and destroy its point defense systems before dispatching dozens of Jiralhanae-led boarding parties onto the ship. The ship's marine security forces were quickly overwhelmed, as were most of the naval crew. As the few remaining marine and navy personnel barricaded themselves on the ship's bridge, destroying all navigational data in the process, the two SPARTAN-III teams volunteered to make their way to the ship's engineering core to try to get a distress call out. While Team Kopis occupied engineering, Jian split up to cover different corridors leading to engineering.

"Uh, guys? I've got lots of, uh, hostiles, I repeat, lots of hostiles closing on my position. It's getting too hot, I'm pulling out!"

- Simon-G294 lying about his situation in order to retreat

Alone and guarding his assigned corridor, Simon began to have a panic attack regarding the unseen Covenant enemies. Fearing that he would be ambushed and killed, Simon reported that he was under attack and received Jake's permission to retreat back to Kopis's position. However, a few minutes after he did this a large Brute pack attacked the engineering room. Although Kopis had taken precautions when Simon had retreated, they had lessened their guard somewhat after Simon's phony attackers had failed to appear. With most of Team Jian engaged in their respective corridors, Kopis was forced to battle an overwhelmingly large amount of hostiles with little cover and only Simon to supplement their team. Simon was downed early into the battle, when a Brute chieftain attacked him with an energy sword. The chieftain slashed through Simon's visor and across his forehead, missing his skull by only a fraction of an inch.

Although Kopis put up a staunch resistance, they were rapidly overwhelmed by the Brutes. When the smoke cleared, there were only a three combatants left standing: Vincent, Cassandra, and the sword-wielding Brute chieftain. Vincent and Cassandra attempted to bring down the hulking chieftain, but Vincent was decapitated and Cassandra was forced to reload before she could penetrate the chieftain's armor. Simon, barely conscious, opened fire on the chieftain with a pistol, buying Cassandra the time she needed to reload and finish off the chieftain. The rest of Team Jian finally arrived to the scene of the massacre. Cassandra, stunned by the deaths of her teammates, still managed to pull herself together in order to treat Simon's head injury. Team Jian would successfully hold the engineering deck until a nearby UNSC patrol responded to the distress signal and drove the remaining Covenant off the ship.

When Simon awoke in a ship's infirmary, he had miraculously suffered no brain damaged from his close shave with the energy sword. However, the weapon had left an ugly scar on his forehead, which he would later keep perpetually covered by bandages. After learning about what had happened to Team Kopis, he was shocked and appalled, especially after seeing the grief-stricken Cassandra. While this shamed him into striving to be a better fighter, he did not admit what he had done and no one was ever the wiser. Furthermore, the incident only increased his resentment of the UNSC, which he saw as being ultimately responsible for Kopis's death and Cassandra's suffering. When Cassandra was rotated into Team Jian to serve as a sixth member, Simon actively made an effort to reach out and connect with the quietly grieving Spartan, although he maintained his usual stoic and reserved demeanor while doing so.

Mission to Mamore
With the Covenant's military war machine now locked in a brutal struggle with the UNSC's fleets and armies over control of Earth, every eye in the galaxy was fixed upon the Sol system. However, some of the more stubborn Insurrectionist factions were not content with sitting back while the battle for humanity's survival played out. While some conducted guerilla campaigns of their own against the Covenant, other more opportunistic factions took advantage of the UNSC's weakness to make whatever gains they could, no matter how temporary these gains might be. Several such factions chose to base themselves on Mamore, a colony world that had been increasingly racked by rebel conflict as the 26th century wore on. Although the first organized rebellion on Mamore had been crushed over a decade earlier, this had only bought the planet some respite before more rebel factions began to make their moves against government authorities. Now, with no organized military support left to aid its peacekeeping effort, Mamore's planetary government had all but collapsed in the wake of a planet-wide uprising sparked by the UNSC's lack of success in the war against the Covenant.

While most of Gamma Company was rushed back to Earth to aid in its defense, Team Jian was diverted in an ONI Prowler to conduct a quick mission on the embattled planet. ONI had received intelligence that several nuclear weapons were being held by a faction of Insurrectionists on Mamore, and it wanted to both prevent the rebels from keeping such dangerous weapons and to secure the weapons for the UNSC's use in the ongoing battle for Earth. The mission was simple: intercept the convoy that was transferring the bombs to a more secure location, retrieve them, and return to a waiting dropship for dustoff. With no friendly authorities to rely on and the possibility of an attack at any moment, the Prowler would not wait any longer than two hours for Jian to return with its objective.

Once they landed and determined the course that the targeted convoy would be taking, Team Jian split into two groups. The first, containing Mary, Terrence, and Simon would open fire on the convoy and slow it down so that Jake, Ralph, and Cassandra could retrieve the nukes and retreat to the dropship in a Warthog LRV. The ambush team would then do the same in their own Warthog. As planned, the ambush group attacked and disabled the vehicle that ONI's informant had tagged as carrying the weapons, then turned on the rebel soldiers assigned to guard it. While Jake's team fought their way to the truck and quickly retrieved all of the stolen warheads, Mary led Simon and Terrence as they laid down a hail of covering fire. With most of the convoy's guard dead or fleeing, the retrieval team had no difficulty making off for the dropship. But as the ambush team moved to do the same, they were startled by the appearance of a rebel-operated Hornet along with several trucks filled with Insurrectionist soldiers. Although Terrence managed to down the Hornet with several well placed sniper rounds to its cockpit, their Warthog was destroyed and the three Spartans were forced to flee on foot towards the dropship.

With Mary and Terrence covering him, Simon requested over the radio that the dropship come pick them up where they. The pilot refused, stating that since the nuclear weapons were on board, he could not risk landing in a hot zone. At that moment, the dropship was discovered and ambushed by more Insurrectionist soldiers, preventing the other members of Team Jian from returning to help their beleaguered squadmates. Pinned down in a ravine, the three members of the ambush team were forced to abandon their attempts to reach the dropship as they fought to repel their attackers. Simon's radio was knocked out by a glancing blow to the helmet, and as he attempted to recover he saw Terrence gunned down by a lucky shot from a rebel soldier. As he and Mary struggled to flee once more, Mary was shot several times in the back. Still, she urged Simon to keep running as she herself put up with her wounds and did the same. Through a mixture of luck and tenacity, they both managed to evade their pursuers. With both of their radios knocked out during the firefight, they could only hope for the best as they hurried towards the dropship's landing zone.

Before they could reach it, Mary collapsed from her wounds, which had been more serious than she'd let on. As she died in Simon's arms, he saw a distant Pelican rise and begin to vanish into the night sky. Less than a minute after it had taken off, he lost sight of it completely. He was alone and abandoned in the middle of rebel territory.

Among the Rebels
"I'd been through a lot before then, of course. The training back on Onyx wasn't exactly a cakewalk and neither was life before then. But Mamore is where I really grew up. Mamore is where the old part of me died and a new part was born."

- Simon-G294

Fully believing that he had been intentionally left behind by the UNSC, perhaps due to some discovery his superiors had made about the incident on the Ides of March, Simon resigned himself to being marooned on a colony that was both recovering from recent Covenant incursions and in the midst of a planet-wide insurrection. Knowing that he lacked the ability to survive in such an environment by himself, Simon hid his armor and weapons in a nearby cave. Returning to the scene of the firefight, he scavenged suitable (if blood-stained) clothes from the corpse of one of the dead rebels and began to make his way towards the nearest population center, a small town called Cary. Upon arriving in Cary, Simon quickly discovered that the town was completely overrun by gangs of rebels who, although lacking the leadership that most occupied Mamorian towns were under, managed to prevent the few UNSC forces remaining in the area from gaining much of a foothold. Not trusting anyone, he relied on his early life experiences to live by himself for several days on Cary's dusty streets. As the days wore on, Simon's anger at the UNSC for abandoning him in enemy territory soon turned to full-blown hatred as he began to blame the military government for everything that had happened to him. On his fifth day alone, he met Emily, an orphaned girl who had become a soldier for the insurgents and was leading a small band of child soldiers, reporting to one of the rebel gangs that was attempting to secure control of the town for themselves. Impressed by the way a hungry Simon managed to overpower one of her gang members and secure a rifle for himself, Emily offered him a place in the group. Just as he had with the UNSC many years before, Simon joined not for idealogical reasons but because he wanted a more certain place in life. In the coming weeks, he would discover that the "incompetence" he had suffered during his time in Gamma Company had only been a hindrance when he was compared with his fellow Spartans and crack Covenant troops. Compared with the poorly trained insurgents who ran Cary he was a masterful fighter who soon impressed even adult rebels with his tenacity and enhanced reflexes.

Although he could have usurped Emily's position as leader of her gang (which the adult insurrectionists affectionately called "The Rat Pack"), Simon did not want any leadership position, especially one in an environment that was still alien and unfamiliar to him. He was wracked with doubts about being linked with the Insurrection. Although he now hated the UNSC, he still remembered all of the news stories that he and the other members of Gamma Company had been shown during their training that depicted all of the horrible acts of terrorism that Insurrectionists had committed. Furthermore, he had serious qualms about being part of an organization that had killed two of his friends. However, his uncertainty was offset by the openness with which he was received and accepted by the members of the Rat Pack gang. Most of them had led similar hard lives and they were eager to have such a "skilled" fighter join their ranks. Under Emily's direction, he learned about the subtle background politics that ran the anarchy-ridden Mamore. Although the various factions that had risen up against the planetary government were all technically united under the Insurrectionist banner, they were very disorganized and many behaved more like criminal gangs than political revolutionaries. Infighting over recruits and weapons was the norm, and Emily led the Rat Pack to do odd jobs for any group of insurgents who wouldn't turn away help from children in return for the food and equipment they needed to survive in the universe of constant violence that was Mamore.

As the weeks began to turn into months, Simon began to see Emily and the Rat Pack as a new family to replace the one he had lost when he had been marooned. As Emily's chief "lieutenant" he began to grow more accepting of his new status in life: no longer a special forces soldier, he was instead just another mongrel child who was scrambling to survive amidst the fires of war. Although it reminded him unpleasantly of his life before the SPARTAN-III program, he threw himself into the day to day affairs of survival, as it helped to hide the pain he still felt from the loss of his friends and his pangs of hatred for the UNSC.

United For War
As Simon roamed with the Rat Pack on the streets of Cary, he began to notice a change in the behavior of the Insurrectionist factions occupying it. Unbeknownst to him, the Second Battle of Earth had finally reached its conclusion, resulting in a victory for the UNSC and its newfound Sanghelli allies. The Human-Covenant War was over and humanity was finally able to begin rebuilding its shattered colonies. But while this was good news for humanity as a whole, the leaders of the larger Insurrectionist factions on Mamore knew that this meant they could expect a UNSC military intervention before long. In preparation for the battle to come, the different factions were suddenly scrambling to eliminate the remnants of the planetary government, secure UNSC military hardware, and solidify their followers. This meant that many of the smaller factions were eliminated or absorbed into larger ones, which quickly united amongst themselves with pledges of cooperation and mutual support. The region of Mamore that Cary was located in fell under the jurisdiction of a relatively minor faction called "Mamorian Freedom League" which had managed to survive by remaining largely removed from the previous bouts of infighting. With very little in the way of advanced military hardware, the Mamorian Freedom League had to settle for recruiting as many fighters as possible in order to maintain its autonomy as an independent group. Cary was one of the first towns it targeted for major recruitment, and before long Rat Pack had been completely incorporated into the organization.

Unlike the Rat Pack's members and most of the adult insurgents, Simon was much more aware of how efficient the attacking UNSC forces would be, especially when pitted against the poorly equipped rebels. Not wanting to draw attention to himself as a superior fighter, he submitted to the training that the more experienced fighters gave to both the new adult recruits and child soldiers in their ranks. In the meantime, he did his best to quietly convince the children in Rat Pack that any battle against UNSC forces would amount to suicide. His efforts, however, were met with disbelief, if not outright hostility. Many of Rat Pack's members, Emily included, had been orphaned during UNSC attacks on local Insurrectionists, and even the ones who did not have the UNSC to blame for their misfortunes had been brought up in an environment that was extremely hostile towards the UNSC. Simon eventually abandoned his efforts to change their minds and even contemplated fleeing and surrendering to the UNSC. But he found himself unwilling to leave behind people he had come to consider to be his family, and he remained with them in the hopes that he could somehow prevent them from experiencing the full fury of the coming conflict.

The Mamore Insurrection
"The Second Mamore Insurrection came as a shock not only to the military leaders charged with crushing the Mamorian Insurrection but also to humanity as a whole. With our numbers so ravaged by the Great War, many had believed that the Insurrectionists would lay down their arms and abandon armed conflict as they helped our species rebuild. But the years of fighting sparked by the second insurgency showed that this was not the case..."

- A UEG textbook on the Second Mamore Insurrection

"I had lost everything that had been mine in the UNSC, but found a new home and family to take their place. And then, before I realized what was happening, they were obliterated right before my eyes, leaving me with nothing but more hate and sorrow than I had ever thought possible."

- Simon-G294

The Calm Before the Storm
The UNSC's campaign to eliminate the Insurrection from Mamore would officially begin five months after the end of the Human-Covenant War when a small Naval task force arrived in system with orders to eliminate all signs of Insurrectionist spacecraft, prevent any further rebel aid from reaching the planet, and gather reconnaissance on the positioning of Insurrectionist forces on the planet's surface. In the meantime, the various factions scattered throughout the planet had come to terms with each other and were more or less united under the banner of the Insurrection. As their propaganda machines began to double their efforts to recruit more fighters from Mamore's population to bolster the rebels' already substantial (if poorly equipped) forces, the leaders of the various factions scrambled to prepare defenses for their own regions of the planet. Mamore was one of the few worlds that the Insurrection had truly held on a planetary scale, and the rebels were determined not to lose their "bastion of freedom". Although public support for the Insurrection was high, the news of UNSC ships in orbit was effective at raising some doubts about the Insurrection's ability to hold on to its gains. Nevertheless, new recruits from a population sick of UNSC ineffectiveness during the Human-Covenant War continued to swell the ranks of the Insurrection.

From where he was in the grand scheme of things, Simon knew very little of these developments. As members of the Mamorian Independence League, he and the rest of Rat Pack helped construct fortifications around Cary, which would be one of the the MIF's central base of operations in the region. The bonds he had formed with Emily and the other Rat Pack members were now just as strong as the ones he had had with Team Jian, which had been built up over years of time spent together in training and in combat. The communal lifestyle made necessary by the group's reliance on each other for support and survival made Simon's previous habits of self-isolation impossible. Furthermore, as Emily's second in command when it came to group decisions he had a responsibility to direct the other children, who looked up to him for his seemingly superb combat skills. It was up to him and Emily to keep the group together while also attracting as little attention from the other MIF soldiers as possible.

A month after the initial task force had arrived in orbit, more ships arrived to supplement it. These carried a task force of ODSTs and regular Marines, who were to land on the planet and assault several rebel hardpoints, secure landing zones for further UNSC forces, and establish bases of operations over multiple regions. The battle for Mamore, dubbed Operation: UNION by the UNSC, had begun.

The Defense of Cary
For the first few weeks of the operation the area Cary was in did not see any enemy incursions. Simon and his fellow Insurrectionist soldiers were kept on constant alert, constantly scouting for signs of UNSC troops. Occasionally vehicles carrying wounded or bedraggled Insurrectionist troops from other regions would arrive in the area, their occupants telling stories of well-equipped UNSC forces overrunning rebel position after rebel position. Seeing his predictions of a one-sided slaughter in favor of the UNSC coming true, Simon began trying to think of ways for him to arrange for his friends in Rat Pack to surrender. In the meantime, the MIL had its forces construct even more defenses in the farmlands and plains surrounding the fortified towns. In spite of constant propaganda from the MIF's leaders espousing their cause's superiority and their own invulnerability, fear began to spread even amongst the most determined rebels. Simon, for his part, began to wonder how his life could have taken such a brutal turn even as he tried to comfort his friends.

"How did this happen? How did I end up here, so far from where my home used to be?"

- Simon-G294 during a moment of self-doubt

When the war did come to the MIL's doorstep, it was met with a determined resistance by several skirmisher units of infantry and light vehicles. By this point more UNSC Marines had arrived on-planet and were conducting traditional campaigns against the dug-in Insurrectionists. The troops battling with the MIL forces were mainly composed of armored battalions sent to eliminate the main bastions of resistance while infantry regiments followed behind to conduct mop up operations and occupy important landmarks. Although the MIF insurgents fought stubbornly against their attackers, their second-rate weapons and equipment were no match for the UNSC military, even in its weakened state after the Human-Covenant War. Despite all of their fortifications and soldiers, the Insurrectionists were driven back to the large town centers, where they hoped that the civilian populations would prevent the UNSC from utilizing its heavy air support. In the meantime, more skirmishing units were sent out to conduct guerilla actions against the advancing units. Amongst these ambush teams were the members of Rat Pack, and with them Simon.

Rat Pack's first taste of combat against the UNSC came during a large ambush against an armored patrol of Scorpions and APCs. When the patrol reached a small abandoned town and deployed infantry to help sweep the dilapidated buildings. The Insurrectionists struck then, unleashing a flurry of bullets and grenades on the surprised Marines. Although several enemy soldiers were killed and one of the Scorpions was disabled, the rest took cover and began to return fire, immediately inflicting casualties on the MIL troops. It was then that several members of Rat Pack, Simon included, were sent dashing out to plant satchel charges on the Scorpions and APCs. Although their smaller size managed to bring them close to the vehicles without being spotted, the Marines pinned them down before they could reach their targets. It was then that, while providing covering fire for his retreating comrades, Simon killed his first UNSC serviceman with a shot through the man's neck.

This was not Rat Pack's first ambush, but it was their last they would undertake without receiving casualties. Although the training she had received from older soldiers had made Emily a capable leader during combat, they were still facing heavily armed UNSC troops with little to no armor to speak of besides the clothes on their back. Over the course of the next few weeks, Rat Pack would both gain and lose members as it fought to slow the constantly-advancing Marines. Child soldiers from other areas were taken in by the group as it took losses during ambushes and holding actions. As he saw more and more of his friends die, Simon became less and less squeamish about firing on and killing Marines. While dismissing all admiration he received from his friends, Simon experienced very few regrets as he applied the training the UNSC had given him against its soldiers. Eventually, in spite of innumerable engagements of varying sizes, the rebels were driven back to the walls of Cary, the town that Simon and Rat Pack called their home. Simon spent his thirteenth birthday taking cover in a small dugout with the rest of Rat Pack as the drone of approaching UNSC vehicles grew ever louder in their ears.

Last Stand and Tragedy
"This battle, comrades, is a crusade against tyranny and a quest for freedom. We shall strike down the servants of the imperialists who dare take up arms against this bastion of freedom. Do not submit to the imperialists! For it is through your sacrifices that we shall pave a road leading out of these dark times, one that will take us into a new era of peace and freedom! Mamore is but a stepping stone to this goal, the first of many worlds that we must free from the grasp of the imperialists! Victory is but a moment away, but it will only be ours if we are willing to do whatever it takes to grasp it!"

- One of many Insurrectionist propaganda recordings, often broadcasted during battles like the one in Cary.

The first UNSC armored units arrived at dawn the following morning. Most of Cary's non-rebel inhabitants had already fled the approaching violence, meaning that the unit's commander was given the go-ahead to launch a full assault on the town. After the first attack was halted by a storm of anti-armor rounds, the Scorpions in the unit were ordered to bombard the town from afar while the infantry were loaded into APCs and air support was called in on some of the more fortified rebel positions. By mid-morning, much of Cary's outer limits had been reduced to rubble and the unit launched another attack, which succeeded in breaching the town's weakened defenses. Although Scorpions and APCs were juicy targets in the town's cramped streets, the Marines deployed around them were more than capable of fending off ill-coordinated attacks on the vehicles. Nevertheless, heavy MIL resistance slowed the attack's progress down to a crawl. Emily and Simon led the Rat Pack through rubble and body-strewn streets and alleys as they darted from one ambush to another. They and the other rebels managed to inflict heavy casualties on the attacking forces in spite of their material disadvantage. However, Simon and Emily could only watch as their home was obliterated by the cannons of the Scorpions and their friends were cut down in storms of machine gun fire.

Although it was more than clear that they were fighting an unwinnable battle, the MIF's remaining leaders refused to retreat or surrender and gave orders over their failing communications systems that all insurgents were to remain in the town and fight to the death. Faced with certain death if they continued fighting, the remainder of Rat Pack finally agreed to Simon's pleas that they flee the town while they could. But on their way to the city's perimeter they found themselves faced with a reinforcing squadron of Scorpions that had been assigned to patrol the area in order to prevent rebels from escaping into the surrounding countryside. The group finally collapsed as the remaining children panicked and scattered in their attempts to escape the tanks. Simon was forced to watch as all that was left of his new family was cut to pieces amidst the ruins of a town he had come to think of as his new home. Emily was the last to fall, apparently killed when the building she was taking cover in was obliterated by a Scorpion's main gun. With all of his friends dead and most of the other rebels in the town killed or captured, Simon fled through the streets as he was pursued by both Scorpions and Marines. Alone and surrounded on almost all sides, with nothing to protect him aside from the rifle he carried, Simon had only two things that could save him: his training as a Spartan and his augmented body. Dodging through the rubble and firing blindly at any UNSC soldier who got in his way, the desperate young rebel relied on his speed and reflexes to get him past the Scorpions and APCs that dotted the streets of the now-captured town. He was lucky to only be hunted by a small portion of the total forces occupying the town; most were too busy tending to wounded and guarding prisoners to participate in a manhunt for a lone insurgent. But in spite of all his speed, luck, and cunning, Simon eventually found himself cornered by a Scorpion tank. With nothing left to lose, he charged blindly at the vehicle, leaped onto it, and skewered its machine-gunner with his rifle's bayonet. Then, activating the driver's canopy's emergency releases and killed the driver as well. Manning the battle tank, he accessed the UNSC's communications channels to find the path of least resistance, then took it. He managed to make it almost completely out of the ruined town before being noticed and fired upon by other Scorpions. He fled away from the scene of the battle without engaging the other vehicles, but failed to make it very far before his captured tank was severely damaged by shots from his pursuers. Abandoning the vehicle, he once again fled on foot and managed to evade capture or death. Alone in Mamore's wilderness once again, with only a rifle and the filthy clothes he wore on his back, Simon collapsed in exhaustion and despair, too stricken by grief to even acknowledge his close brush with death.

The War Goes On
"Now what am I supposed to do?"

- Simon-G294

The battle for Mamore continued to rage across the planet. Small organizations like the MIL were hardly seen as obstacles by the UNSC commanders, who used their destruction to demoralize the larger, more equipped factions while also encircling them and cutting them off from supplies and reinforcements. But while the UNSC was enjoying massive success in a traditional military campaign, it was still suffering from continued guerilla attacks in areas that had already been declared "secure". Faced with hostile populations and refugees in many areas, the UNSC forces where having a harder time dealing with the aftermath of "victory" than they had anticipated.

But all of this meant nothing to Simon. After fleeing from the ruins of Cary, he erected a small memorial to Emily and the other members of Rat Pack using an abandoned assault rifle as a marker while carving their names into a stone with his own rifle's bayonet. The next morning, he began traveling down one of Mamore's dusty roads in the hopes of encountering a UNSC patrol that he could surrender to. From there, he would show them the UNSC barcode tattooed on his neck that would identify him as a special warfare operator. He could then make up any story he liked to alleviate suspicions his superiors might have about his tardiness in reporting back in. As he traveled down the road, he encountered a platoon of marines providing security for a pair of Scorpion tanks as they advanced on an objective. But rather than turn himself in, Simon found himself compelled to hide from the oncoming troops instead. Confused by his loss of nerve, Simon only understood his confusing emotions after the marines had passed him by. Having seen the wretched lives his new friends lived on a UNSC colony world, fought by their side against the UNSC, and seen them die at the hands of UNSC troops he had come to hate his former government as much as they had. Unable--or unwilling--to return to the UNSC and his past life, Simon found himself with few viable options aside from joining up with the nearest Insurrectionist forces and continuing the fight that his friends in Rat Pack had been so determined to participate in.

For the next month, Simon would once again take part in ambush after ambush, doing his best to harm UNSC forces in any way that he could. Without having to help support Rat Pack, his speed and training allowed him to actually get close enough to plant satchel charges on the vehicles he was sent after by whichever group he was fighting with at the time. He would wind up amongst different rebels all the time, as it was not uncommon for whole ambush groups to be wiped out by the UNSC forces during their attacks. Simon, however, would always be kept alive by his continuing desire to survive no matter what the cost. The most bloody engagements he was involved with were a series of frontal infantry assaults made by close to one thousand rebels. Having kept a marine outpost under siege for close to a month but running low on food and ammunition, the leaders of the besieging forces organized their men and led several "human wave" attacks on the outpost. These attacks were almost entirely ineffectual and ended after a single day of repeatedly failed charges. Simon participated in two of these, but his survivalist instincts compelled him to remain towards the back of the crowd and to flee when things became completely hopeless.

Redmond Venter and the HLF
"Nicely done, kid! I see that this lovely little planet's been teaching you well!"

- Redmond Venter's first words to Simon, who had just ambushed and killed a marine sniper team

Simon continued to help wage the ongoing war against the UNSC in spite of the marines' expansive victories on the ground, which made victory for the rebels seem less than hopeless. He was driven to fight mostly because he could not bring himself to return to the UNSC and because whenever he tried hiding and waiting out the fighting, he was plagued by guilt about his dead friends. Still bearing the scar on his forehead from the encounter on the Ides of March, Simon had begun to lose faith in his own ability to control his destiny and was starting to believe that it was better to allow other people's goals and desires to guide his actions. Suffering from what some might call an identity crisis, he tried giving the fight against the UNSC his all but was always held back by his fear of death and penchant for self-preservation.

Approximately two months after the deaths of his friends and the destruction of Cary, Simon was on his own again after the small group he was with was gunned down by a lone marine reconnaissance sniper team as they scouted out a ruined town. Still carrying the same low-quality assault rifle he'd been using since the war on Mamore began, Simon stalked the team throughout the rubble, carefully closing the distance between himself and them without crossing their sightline. After entering the dilapidated building they were using for cover, he surprised and killed the sniper and his spotter with a sustained burst from his assault rifle. To his shock, another rebel emerged from his cover in the rubble outside the ruined building along with a small group that included both adult rebels and child soldiers. They too had been investigating the town, and when the snipers opened fire on Simon's team they took cover in time to see him hunt and kill both marines. The leader of the group introduced himself as Redmond Venter and offered Simon a place in the rebel faction he fought with, the Humanity Liberation Front. With no reason to refuse, Simon agreed to the man's offer and joined the group's ranks.

It soon became clear to Simon that Venter's guerilla force, which consisted of far more fighters than the handful he had been accompanied with during their first meeting, was no run of the mill Insurrectionist faction. Rather than remaining confined to one region of Mamore, Venter insisted on taking his forces to wherever there was a sudden surge of violence, using a combination of trucks and disguised footpaths to get his fighters from one place to another. Everywhere they went, Venter would set up small base camps, usually in abandoned towns or cities. There he would coordinate ambushes and raiding parties, the latter of which he tasked with bringing back weapons, supplies, and (most importantly) new recruits. These recruits usually took the form of children from local towns and homesteads; most of Venter's adult fighters were skilled enough to come back alive from engagements and those that fell were quickly replaced by other HLF soldiers from other nearby groups. Simon quickly realized that Venter's goals were extremely different from those of the other rebel leaders on Mamore. Rather than fighting to keep the planet independent from the UNSC, he was using the ongoing conflict as an extreme training environment in which he could build up a hardened fighting force that could be used by the HLF in other, more winnable battles. And the resources that he was using to build this force were the children he recruited into his group.

"Whoever lacks the strength and determination to give everything to the battle at hand is a weakling. And there is no room for weaklings in this army!"

- Redmond Venter

Direct participation in ambushes and raiding parties was not a task that Venter regulated to the children he recruited. Unlike the other factions, he saw no value in sending children out to die with minimal training. Instead, he set up small training camps in every region they visited and it was in these places that he began building his young soldiers up. In addition to weapons, equipment, and tactics training, Venter and his HLF lieutenants knew that in order to forge effective warriors out of their recruits they needed to strip them of all qualms about fighting and killing. In order to do that, they constantly pitted the children against each other in arena-like brawls that were often brutal and life threatening. Rarely issued weapons for these fights, the young recruits were instructed to use anything--rocks, stones, and their bare hands--to beat their opponents. Extra food and offers of a higher status in the group were used as incentives to keep the children motivated. Simon arrived in the group several years after Venter had begun this practice (which he had started before the UNSC even arrived), and even though he had already proven himself in real combat, he was pitted against many of the toughest and most experienced children in Venter's organization. But while his opponents were more experienced and talented at hand-to-hand fighting than he was, Simon's aces in the hole were his years of Spartan training and his physical augmentations. After a week of struggling to win these brutal fights, Simon grew accustomed to the routine of constant fighting and began bringing down his opponents with ease.

After the SPARTAN-III who had once been considered the worst in his class soundly defeated all of the most skilled fighters in Venter's training program, the men in charge of the fights began pitting him against multiple opponents, some of whom they armed with clubs, stones, and even knives. In spite of the stacked odds, Simon won every fight he entered, albeit with many bruises, cuts, and black eyes. Then, when the astonished trainers stepped in to ensure that he didn't become too full of himself, he beat them as well using basic moves he had been taught during his training on Onyx. In spite of the awe he was suddenly held in even by the most hardened members of Venter's cadre, Simon refused to allow himself to become attached or open to any of his fellows. The pain of Rat Pack's loss and the innumerable deaths he had witnessed since then had reasserted the basic principle of detachment that the DIs on Onyx had attempted to instill in their trainees. Finally, after witnessing three of his best men get beaten senseless by the new recruit, Venter himself stepped in to fight Simon. After a fast and furious melee, the skilled Venter disabled Simon and pinned him to the ground, but not before receiving several cracked ribs from the determined young rebel. This defeat at the hand of an unaugmented and unarmed rebel sharply increased Simon's respect in his leader. With his training program in jeopardy, Venter removed Simon from the other recruits and accepted him into his own inner circle of adult fighters who participated in raids and ambushes.

"This is real funny, you twisted piece of shit. You're making a kid do your dirty work for you? You're turning him into a murderer and you still say your fighting for justice? That's real funny... you think you're the good guys, don't you? Well, you don't seem so "good" from where I'm sitting. You didn't seem so "good" when your bombs hit my colony and killed my wife and children. And now you're killing this kid too, with all the bullshit you're pouring into his head. Do you even see the misery you bring, the lives you ruin? Heh... you're evil and you don't even know it. And that's why we'll stop you. We'll stop you--!""

- Second Lieutenant Will Dietz to Redmond Venter just prior to his execution at the hands of Simon-G294

In Simon, Venter saw something far greater than just a skilled child soldier. He realized that there was something special about the newest addition to his fighting force, and he was determined to find out what that was. But he also wanted to be sure that he had secured the young man's trust and loyalty before he could commit him to combat and probe him for details about his past. After observing Simon during several minor ambushes, Venter realized that while Simon was devoted to fighting the UNSC, he lacked the resolve needed to do absolutely anything that was required for victory. After seeing Simon allow a UNSC medic to carry an injured Marine to safety rather than gunning them down (Despite his still-underhanded fighting methods, Simon still adhered to a few basic principles regarding war; furthermore, the medic had reminded him of Cassandra, his former teammate and crush). And so Venter devised a test for Simon that would fully commit him to the no holds barred war that the HLF planned to wage against humanity's government. Gathering his entire group together, Venter had a Marine corporal, captured during the last raid, brought before Simon and told the young soldier to execute him. Simon hesitated even after Venter strengthened the force of his order. However, after the guerilla leader reminded Simon of all the comrades he had lost to the UNSC, Simon was reminded painfully of Emily and Rat Pack's deaths and gunned the hostage down in a fit of vengeance. Although this war crime would haunt Simon for much of his life, it would break down the ethical barriers put in place by Lieutenant Ambrose's teachings and set him on a path of absolute devotion to Venter and his goals.

"In order to give your body to the cause and fully join this war for freedom, there is something you must do. And that is..."

- Redmond Venter ordering Simon to kill civilians for the first time.

Still somewhat unconvinced of Simon's devotion to the HLF's cause, Venter formulated a final test that would ensure the boy's unwavering loyalty. With the UNSC enjoying near-complete success on Mamore's battlefields, the once-strong civilian support for the Insurrection forces had been severely weakened, leading to a rise in Insurrectionist violence against the populace. Venter's men brought a mayor and his wife to the HLF encampment, accusing both of them of spying for UNSC agents. Venter had the two imprisoned inside a small abandoned hovel, then left alone inside. Giving Simon a pistol, he ordered him to execute the prisoners. Sent alone inside the hut to face the captured mayor and his wife, Simon was forced to choose between his personal morals and his desire to remain with Venter and avenge his friends. In the end, the devotion to Venter himself that Simon had been nurturing over the past few weeks came to fruition and he executed both civilians in spite of their pleas for mercy. At this point Simon resolved to devote the rest of his life to aiding Venter and the HLF in the war against the UNSC, but behind his firm resolve lay a horrific sense of guilt over what he had done that would continue to haunt him even after he finally shook off Venter's influence. This repressed guilt was only compounded when, about a month after he killed the mayor and his wife, Simon participated in an HLF firing squad that gunned down almost all leading members of an uncooperative town.

A Meeting Upon the Battlefield
By the end of their first full year on Mamore, the UNSC pacification forces had achieved widespread military success across the planet, successfully eliminating all major bastions of Insurrectionist activity and liberating all controlled regions from rebel control. It was also beginning to enjoy success with much of the local population, which had grown tired of over two decades of constant war and devastation and was now facing persecution from rebel forces for not supporting them. But regardless of its accomplishments, the UNSC still faced heavy resistance from the remaining guerilla forces who refused to lay down their arms and continued to ambush and raid UNSC patrols and field bases. And one of the most effective of these remnant groups was Redmond Venter's band of HLF fighters.

Venter's plan of using the war to produce competent fighters was finally paying dividends, as many of his young "students" were being sent into combat, where they proved to be just as ruthless and effective as he had hoped. Still refusing to play the common Insurrectionist game of suicidal attacks against superior forces, Venter instead relied upon his own tactical skills and experience as a guerilla fighter in order to take on UNSC targets. He had found a willing and loyal follower in Simon who, while cynical and brooding at times, was quite capable of achieving any task he was given. Once derided as a failure amongst the circles of SPARTAN-IIIs he had grown up in, the traitor Spartan was now a valued component of Venter's fighting force. He rarely dwelled on his past as a Spartan now, instead using his memories of Rat Pack and the near-worshipful attitude he now held towards Venter to strengthen his resolve to keep fighting. Now an experienced and capable guerilla fighter, he was one of the key reasons that Redmond Venter was becoming known as "The Tiger of Mamore" to both UNSC and Insurrectionist forces alike.

About two months after the conflict's first anniversary, Simon and two other MLF fighters were performing a reconnaissance mission against a detachment of UNSC soldiers who had been diverted from their main force to eliminate an Insurrectionist base camp. With their objective completed, the detachment was heading back to rendezvous with their main contingent. After agreeing that there was no sense or hope in organizing an attack on the contingent, which contained three Scorpions and several Warthogs, Simon and the men he was with decided to report back to Venter. Unfortunately, their own Warthog was spotted and fired upon by one of the enemy Scorpions. One of the rebels was killed outright, while another was flung from the vehicle and shot by the Marines accompanying the tanks. With nowhere he could safely run, Simon used the overturned Warthog's radio to send a distress call to Venter's bas camp before firing upon the UNSC forces from cover. Hoping to take a rebel prisoner, the leader of the detachment had his men only use their weapons to pin Simon down rather than kill him outright while they presented minimal targets for him to fire on.

After running out of ammunition for his assault rifle and realizing that help would not come soon enough to save him, Simon chose to throw down his arms and surrender to the UNSC forces. Dragged out from behind the Warthog and brought at gunpoint to the detachment's commander, who was surprised at both the youth and the fire he saw in the prisoner. While acting sullen but cooperative, Simon planned to make a bolt for freedom as soon as an opportunity presented itself. However, before one could he was confronted with an unexpected turn of events. Amongst the UNSC forces in the detachment was a single SPARTAN-III, one Lelouch-G057. Lelouch was shocked to recognize Simon from training and stepped forward and expressed his surprise. Simon, just as surprised to encounter one of his brethren on Mamore's battlefield, realized that he would have to make his move to escape sooner just as Lelouch realized the dangers of holding a hostile Spartan prisoner. Before he could warn the men restraining Simon, the traitor Spartan wriggled free of their grasp and produced a hidden knife from his clothing, which he used to kill one of his guards, steal the man's assault rifle, and flee into the surrounding woods.

Fearing an ambush, Lelouch told the commander of the detachment to hold his position while he went after Simon. Following an exhausting chase through the woods, Simon came upon an abandoned town, one of the many that had been devastated and then left to rot by the constant fighting. Out of breath and knowing that he wouldn't be able to elude pursuit, Simon took cover in a small ruined house just as Lelouch arrived in the town as well. Knowing that Simon had to be hiding in the area somewhere, Lelouch activated his SPI armor's cloaking abilities and began to slowly go from house to dilapidated house in search of his quarry.

During all his time fighting on Mamore, Simon had never faced any of the UNSC's elite soldiers, especially not Spartans. He had forgotten that, even with all the skill he had gained through over a year of constant fighting, he was still outclassed by his fellow SPARTAN-IIIs. Furthermore, he had only the clothes he war and a stolen assault rifle to aid him, while Lelouch had state-of-the-art armor and multiple weapons and grenades. To make matters worse, as Simon began to slowly drift into a panic, Lelouch began to use his armor's communications system to broadcast an amplified version of his voice that filled the area and made Simon even more unaware of his enemy's position than he already was. A skilled practitioner of psychological warfare, Lelouch preyed upon Simon's paranoia about his own ability to survive against such a superior opponent. As he moved from house to house, the hunting Spartan casually listed all of the factors he had in his advantage while also reminding Simon of the incompetence and cowardice he had shown during training. As Simon slipped further and further into a state of unthinking fear, he began to lose his ability to plan and reason out the situation, which was exactly the effect Lelouch had been hoping for. "Simon!!! I know you are afraid! I know everything about your abilities! You can't beat me Simon! No matter what you do, I will always beat you! I'm superior to you in every way! There's no hope. You know what? I often wished to have taken part in the Mamore Insurrection. There, I would've seen you and your ragged band of child soldiers. I would've taken the pleasure of killing them right before your eyes. They are worthless Simon! Pitiful urchin filth that deserved to die!"

- Lelouch-G057 to Simon-G294

But just as Lelouch had reached the alley outside of where Simon was hiding, he made the mistake of referencing and mocking all of the child soldiers who had died in the fighting on Mamore. Suddenly shaken from his fear by a grief-stricken rage, Simon once again became determined to survive in order to continue fighting in Rat Pack's memory. As Lelouch reached the door to Simon's hiding place, Simon removed his combat jacket and propped it up with some rocks and rubble in a corner before quietly climbing into an alcove. When Lelouch entered the building, he saw the jacket in the corner and instinctively fired upon the decoy. Simon then ambushed his pursuer, fleeing towards the door while spraying wildly at Lelouch with his assault rifle. Lelouch's armor saved him from most of the damage, although a bullet struck him in the forehead, cracked his visor, and knocked him unconscious. Not knowing whether his opponent was alive or dead, Simon fled the area to finally regroup with Venter's forces.

Although Simon had escaped alive, Lelouch was still alive and would report back to his ONI superiors that not only was SPARTAN-G294 not dead, as they had believed, but alive and fighting for their enemies. This prompted ONI to move Simon to their "threat list", a collection of individuals that ONI believed needed to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

Defeat and Victory on Mamore
A week after Simon's confrontation with Lelouch, the last concentrated bastion of Insurrectionist strength on Mamore was successfully eliminated by the UNSC peacekeeping forces. With most of the other HLF forces eliminated or evacuated, Venter decided that he had done all he could on the planet to further his organization's goals. Gathering his band together, Venter led them on a hasty march to a region where they were to be picked up by an HLF blockade runner that could get them past the UNSC ships patrolling the system. Simon was startled to realize that this region was the one where he and the rest of Team Jian had conducted their operation over a year prior. On an impulse move, he left the group and returned to the cave where he had left his SPI armor. Surprisingly it was still there and remained in relatively good condition as well. When Simon returned with the armor, Venter was finally able to piece together the clues about his best fighter and realized that he was a UNSC super soldier of some kind. Rather than growing angry over the revelation, Venter was delighted to learn that the legendary Spartans could be swayed to other causes and saw a world of potential in Simon.

Although the revelation that Simon was a former UNSC operative caused an upsurge of distrust in most of the HLF soldiers in the group, Venter's interest in the boy served to quiet their discontent as they reached the rendezvous point and were loaded onto the escape ship and departed Mamore. The planet would be declared completely secure two months later, although sporadic resistance would remain present on the planet for several more years.

Having finally left the planet that had completely changed the course of his life, Simon was suddenly the favored disciple of Venter. The rebel leader was eager to both learn as much as possible about ONI's secret programs and to probe the depths of Simon's potential as a soldier for the HLF, and he ordered Diana, an experimental "smart" A.I. created by the HLF, to begin formulating combat simulations they could subject him to. Diana, who had functioned as an advisor, cyber-warfare specialist, and mission planner during the entirety of Venter's campaign on Mamore, looked down on Simon and saw him only as another "meatbag" (her derogatory nickname for most humans) too dependent on the organization to accomplish anything of real value, so she focused on making the simulations as difficult as possible for him. After a month and a half of cryosleep, Simon and the other HLF soldiers were awakened when their ship docked in an asteroid base located in a rocky belt located above the uninhabited world of Actenia.

Insurgency with the HLF
After debarking on the asteroid base, Venter assumed overall command of the facility and wasted no time in formulating his plans for Simon. Having already established the traitor's loyalty on Mamore, the HLF officer set out to accomplish two goals at once. The first of these was a steady stream of the simulation battles Diana had designed that took place in one of the bases more advanced training courses. During these exercises Simon was pitted against holograms of both UNSC and Covenant troops in scenario after scenario that left him alone against odds that were often nothing short of impossible. With Diana in control of the opposing forces, Simon found himself "dying" more often than not and was unpleasantly reminded of his days as a SPARTAN-III trainee. With Diana mocking his efforts every step of the way and Venter becoming increasingly disappointed in his new disciple, Simon began to grown more and more discouraged with every scenario he lost. When he began reverting back to his old ways of focusing more on survival than on completing the mission goals, Venter started manipulating his emotions through accusations of cowardice and lack of motivation in order to bring him back to peak performance. Ironically, the times he successfully stayed alive at the cost of completing the mission earned him more respect in the eyes of Diana than the times he tried and failed to accomplish objectives.

Venter's second goal was to glean as much information as he could from the former SPARTAN-III. During the periods between Simon's resting, eating, and participation in training exercises, Venter personally debriefed him on the nature of the S-III program in regards to both the training involved and the capabilities of the soldiers it produced. He was shocked when Simon admitted to being "pretty much a failure" in comparison to the other trainees in the program and gained a new level of fear and respect for the UNSC's secret weapons when he considered the amount of damage a "failure" like Simon had been able to do on his own. As the debriefings went on and Simon divulged more information on the program, Venter began to formulate plans to forge weapons of his own similar to the Spartans that would be able to realize the HLF's goal of allowing colonies to secede from the UNSC. However, any of these soldiers that he managed to train and field would always be inferior to the UNSC's super soldiers without one critical component of all Spartan programs: the augmentations.

Lab Specimen
"I honestly don't know how much useful data I can get from just one body, not without comparable specimens to analyze as well. But I've always loved a challenge, so I'll do my best."

- Dr. Seid Al-Furud reporting to Redmond Venter after receiving orders to inspect Simon-G294's body for signs of augmentations.

Having coaxed as much information as he could out of Simon, Venter was already formulating plans to create super soldiers for the HLF that could match or at least counter the Spartans of the UNSC. But before he could even so much as begin to map out the course such a program would take, he needed the key to the entire idea behind super soldiers: genetic augmentations. Although the leaders of the Insurrections many factions were aware that the Spartans had been physically augmented in some way, they were unsure about the extent of the augmentations and all previous attempts to replicate them had ended in failure. Venter believed that he could trump these past failures with the one element that had been absent from all Insurrectionist research into augmentations: a live and willing specimen of an augmented Spartan. After determining that Simon's constant training was beginning to yield results, Venter called a moratorium on the defector's simulated battles and expressed his need for Simon to provide the HLF with genetic information on the augmentation procedures. Simon, who at this point was loyal enough to do practically anything Venter asked of him, agreed to spend some time with Dr. Seid Al-Furud, the HLF's chief geneticist. The doctor, himself a loyal follower of Venter, did not subject Simon to any severe procedures and instead did little more than withdraw tissue samples and compare Simon's body to those of unaugmented HLF soldiers. Although Simon was returned to Venter's care after only two weeks of study and was unaware that anything major had taken place, the data retrieved by Al-Furud would be the harbinger of the HLF's Knight Project.

Day By Day
Redmond Venter was not a man who appreciated heroic sacrifices for hopeless causes, and unlike many other Insurrectionist leaders he saw no reason to lash out at the UNSC as it rebuilt. Mamore had taught him far too well that even in its weakened state the UNSC's reprisals for major secessionist actions would be swift and severe. Therefore, Venter was content to bide his time and slowly build up the HLF's forces to the point that they would be able to launch a successful war of secession against the UNSC. Within his well-supplied asteroid base above Actenia, Venter felt secure enough solidifying his position and making plans to exploit the UNSC's weakened state to get his hands on many pieces of military technology left exposed by the chaos stirred up by the Human-Covenant War. However, what Venter hadn't counted on was that the leaders of other HLF cells spread throughout UNSC space would not agree with his strategy and would insist on a more proactive approach. In order to avoid a messy inter-faction civil war, Venter chose what he thought was the lesser of two evils: he began arranging for the UNSC to learn of the locations of opposing cells, which would subsequently be wiped out or forced into hiding. After a few of these "unfortunate discoveries," Venter received much more support from the rest of the HLF, which saw the losses as proof that Venter's ideas regarding the UNSC and the strategy the HLF should take.

Simon, now a member of Venter's inner circle in spite of his youth, found his faith in Venter shaken by these tactics. Although he continued running simulation battles with Diana, Venter had become a much less active participant in his development, being heavily involved in the tensions mounting within the HLF. This time away from Venter's influence allowed Simon to examine the events on Mamore in a much more honest light, and the realizations he began making started to steadily erode his faith in Venter and the HLF as a whole. He began having nightmares about the war crimes he had both seen and committed on Mamore and his memories of these events forced him to realize that the tactics the Insurrectionists had used there were much more damning than anything the UNSC forces had done during the battle. Now completely unsure of himself, Simon could not decide if his actions could be blamed on Venter or if he himself was completely at fault for everything he had done. Regardless of his internal conflict, he knew that he had forced himself into a corner in terms of whom he pledged his allegiance to. He was now known as an Insurrectionist by ONI and he had nowhere else to turn to besides the HLF. The only comfort he now had was his burgeoning friendship with Diana. The formerly hostile A.I. had taken a liking to him, although she still took every opportunity to mock her somber trainee.

Lethal Trackdown
In an ironic twist of fate, Venter's strategy of leaking the locations of HLF cells to the UNSC in order to eliminate his rivals would backfire when an Insurrectionist captured during the ensuing raids divulged the location of Venter's asteroid base to his ONI interrogators. Faced with the opportunity to eliminate one of the HLF's principle leaders and the chance to capture an Insurrectionist stronghold that promised to contain vast amounts of valuable data, the UNSC put together a strike force of elite Orbital Drop Shock Troopers and SPARTAN-IIIs to assault and capture the base with a minimal amount of damage to the facility. The HLF only got wind of the attack when a UNSC naval task force appeared over Actenia and launched precision missile strikes that quickly eliminated all of the base's shields and point defense systems. With these out of the way, dropships full of ODSTs were sent to secure landing zones within the asteroid itself.

Knowing that the troops manning the base would be no match for the UNSC's troops, Venter prepared to abandon the facility along with anything he deemed too valuable to lose. Along with Dr. Al-Furud, as much research data as he could salvage from the base's systems (which were already under attack from UNSC engineers), and several of his veteran advisors, Venter boarded a small stealth shuttle and prepared to flee the battle. When the base's crumbling infrastructure prevented him from retrieving Diana as well, Venter ordered Simon to retrieve her data crystal chip from where it was stored within the base's computer mainframe. Simon did so, desperately stumbling through dozens of firefights in order to reach the mainframe and retrieve Diana. But by this time the battle had grown too desperate for Venter to wait any longer. Upon hearing his former idol's orders to abandon both him and Diana, any faith that Simon had retained in Venter vanished entirely and he was left alone in a base that was quickly falling to the UNSC.

Confrontation
"Simon? What are you... oh no. Oh no."

- Jake-G293 after encountering Simon in the HLF base

Surrounded by enemies and with nowhere left to turn, Simon began to panic until Diana, who was not keen on dying either, informed him of another stealth shuttle still docked in one of the asteroid's hidden hangars. If he could get her inside, she could fly them both out of harm's way and make the jump to Slipspace. Since she could not interface with Simon's SPI armor, Diana could not help him as he made his way through the war-torn base in order to reach the hangar. Recognizing a child soldier that Venter had brought from Mamore amongst a group of defenders, Simon found himself participating in a desperate stand against advancing UNSC forces in spite of his urges to continue fleeing. As was to be expected, the rebels quickly fell under a hail of grenades and gunfire and Simon made to flee before the attackers arrived.

But as he retreated through an open doorway, an explosion tore through the room and bowled him over, knocking his helmet off in the process. As he scrambled to retrieve it, someone hailed him from behind. Simon turned to see a SPARTAN-III on the opposite side of the room who obviously thought he was a regular S-III. His long period of separation from his fellow Spartans and the hardships he had experienced since then made Simon unsure to react to such a friendly reception and he froze in place as two more S-IIIs joined the first. It was only when he moved again, exposing his face fully, that one of them recognized them and spoke his name. Within seconds Simon identified the speaker as Jake-G293, his former team leader, which meant that the two with him were Ralph and Cassandra. After several more seconds of hesitation on both sides, Simon retrieved his helmet and fled. The three remaining members of Team Jian, knowing that he was a traitor, pursued.

Ignoring the chaos around him, Simon fled desperately from his former teammates. Behind him, an explosion wounded Ralph and Jake ordered Cassandra to remain behind to treat him. With Jake not far behind, Simon reached the hangar and found a group of rebel soldiers preparing to board the shuttle themselves. Hearing his desperate cries for help they attempted to stop Jake but were quickly gunned down by the SPARTAN-III before they could even get off a shot. Out of places to hide and held at gunpoint by his former leader and friend, Simon urged Jake to let him go. Jake, who had been told that Simon was a dangerous asset to the rebels who could not be allowed to remain at large, refused and urged him to surrender. Sure that he would be executed if captured, Simon threw a grenade that caused Jake to dive for cover and used the time it gained him to bring his own assault rifle to bear. In the short firefight that followed, Jake was wounded in the arm and leg and Simon received a cluster of bullets in his stomach.

Jake, still on his feet in spite of his injuries, approached a downed Simon, determined to take him alive. Simon, who was kept conscious in spite of his injuries by his augmentations, pretended to be helpless until Jake allowed him to stand up. Then, drawing a hidden knife, he knocked Jake's weapon away and stabbed at his visor. The knife punched into Jake's visor and cracked it, but Jake managed to halt Simon's arm before it could push any deeper. The two then proceeded to engage in hand to hand combat. Jake expected Simon to be just as easy an opponent as he remembered him being, but Simon's lackluster skills had been honed throughout the fighting on Mamore and his exercises with Venter and he surprised Jake by holding his own. But even though Simon had improved, Jake was still able to gain the upper hand, disarming Simon and pinning him to the ground. Desperate for a weapon, Simon seized one of the fallen rifles from a nearby rebel corpse. The weapon sported a bayonet, and Simon drove it into Jake's side. When he could reach the trigger he pulled it, sending several bullets through Jake's back, narrowly missing his spine.

Aided by his augmentations, Jake too remained in the fight. He caught Simon in a stranglehold with both hands and began to choke him. As Simon ran out of air, he desperately grabbed his fallen knife from where it lay nearby and slashed Jake across the forehead with it, giving him a deep scar oddly similar to the one Simon still bore on his own brow. Jake instinctively reacted to the pain and Simon was able to escape his chokehold. With both combatants dazed from blood loss, they barely noticed Cassandra enter the hangar. Realizing that more reinforcements were sure to arrive, Simon desperately tried to end the battle by detonating a grenade and diving away. He did not jump far enough and caught several pieces of shrapnel in his left arm. Jake was injured and knocked back by the blast and Cassandra, who had been running in to help Jake, was hit by dozens of pieces of shrapnel and left unconscious and bleeding on the hangar floor.

Of the three wounded Spartans, Simon was the only one able to get to his feet. With Jake on the verge of unconsciousness and Cassandra already knocked out, he was the last one standing. He restrained himself from killing his former teammates and instead boarded the shuttle and inserted Diana's memory crystal chip into the main computer. As Diana hurried to prepare the ship for departure, Simon feared that the heavily wounded Cassandra would die before UNSC reinforcements arrived on the scene. With the deaths of her former teammates already on his conscience and his feelings for her not completely gone, Simon decided to take her aboard and treat her himself. At this point he had lost a large amount of blood and would later wonder if he had been thinking clearly at the time. Nevertheless, he brought her aboard against Diana's protests to the contrary and put her in one of the ship's four cryo tubes before the ship took off and fled the asteroid.

The Ending Day By Day
With the shuttle's stealth systems fully engaged, Diana was able to pilot it past the UNSC task force and make a Slipspace jump to the nearest Insurrectionist enclave. In the meantime, Simon temporarily staunched his bleeding wounds with biofoam and prepared to thaw and treat Cassandra. With Diana serving as an impromptu advisor, he bandaged and treated her wounds as the shuttle traveled through Slipspace. Uncertain of what to now do with his captive. Although Diana cautioned him to arm himself and restrain her, Simon refused to do either and instead worked to treat his own wounds.

Cassandra finally awakened several hours later to find Simon asleep in the chair where he had been seeing to the various scrapes and bruises he had received during her fight with Jake. A startled Diana alerted Simon, who awoke to find a battered Cassandra holding a gun to his head. With nothing on hand to defend himself, Simon was completely at his former teammate's mercy. But rather than kill him, she asked if he had killed Jake. When Simon told her that Jake was still alive, she relented and surrendered the gun, saying that she was tired of fighting.

In the awkward hours that followed, Simon and Cassandra traded terse accounts of what had happened since Team Jian's mission on Mamore. Although Simon had been aware of the end of the Human-Covenant War since before the fighting on Mamore had started, he was able to get a first-hand account of its fulfillment. He, in turn, gave Cassandra an abbreviated--and heavily edited--version of his time with the Insurrection and his reasons for betraying the UNSC. While the two were still not able to fully trust each other, the were able to rekindle some of the friendship they had shared while in Team Jian. In the meantime, Diana (who had nicknamed Cassandra "Doc" because of her role as a medic) discovered that the shuttle's Slipspace drive was malfunctioning and was in risk of overloading and destroying the ship. Making an emergency abortion of the Slipspace jump, the shuttle emerged in a sector of deep space that was nowhere near any inhabited planets. With no way to fix the Slipspace drive, they were effectively stranded until Diana could reach the nearest settlement with the ship's regular settings or until another ship discovered them. Diana advised Simon to put himself and Cassandra into cryosleep indefinitely until they encountered civilization again.

Simon agreed to the suggestion, as did Cassandra, who was already starting to think of herself as part of the ship's three person "crew" (Simon, Diana, and Cassandra) in spite of her loyalty to the UNSC and Simon's status as a wanted traitor. Both young Spartans accessed the ship's cryo-bay and entered the deep sleep of suspended animation while Diana remained active as the ship's pilot.

Against All Odds (2570)

 * Date of emergence from cryosleep: 2566

Mental Report
"I don't think you get it, Jake. You and all the others, you just don't get it. Yeah, you're all orphans, but at least you had something to start out with. Me, what did I have? My mother didn't even bother to give me a name, let alone any of the other stuff you others got. All I've ever known is hunger, fear, and violence. So yeah, I am a little selfish and yeah, I do put myself first on battlefield. I'm not throwing my life away out here, especially when I've never had much of a life in the first place!"

- Simon-G294 venting to Jake-G293

While possessing no natural mental illnesses or defects, Simon is an extremely troubled and conflicted individual. From his earliest days of fending for himself on the streets of the city he grew up in, he learned that he could only rely on himself if he was to have any hope of survival, and this knowledge would dampen his efforts to become a better team player during training. Even before being deployed in combat, he was infamous for being more worried about staying “alive” during exercises than risking himself to help his team. His lack of talent, coupled with a devious cunning that led him to come up with plans that often involved cheating in order to succeed, made him very unpopular amongst the other SPARTAN-III trainees and his anti-social nature almost completely prevented him from forming close bonds or friendships. Although he did eventually connect with the members of his team, Simon would be very anti-social over the course of his life, reaching out to only a few people and trusting even fewer.

The circumstances regarding Simon’s infamous cowardice were more complex than one might expect from first glance. Although he had always preferred to run rather than fight while on the streets, Simon was more than willing to fight if necessary. However, upon experiencing life in the orphanage and hearing other trainees’ tales of happy, normal lives with their families, he became acutely aware of everything in life that he had been unable to experience as a result of the circumstances of his birth and his integration into the Spartan program. Determined to survive in order to experience a “normal” life (or his idealized version of it), he became more and more focused purely on survival rather than combat, leading to a philosophy of self-preservation becoming ingrained in his psyche. His actions resulting from this led to dire consequences, the most egregious of which were seen when almost every member of Team Kopis was killed due to his abandoning of his post during combat. Simon's first true steps towards abandoning his cowardice occurred when he lost hope of survival on Mamore and resolved to die fighting the UNSC; the cowardice was almost completely eradicated under the guidance of Redmond Venter, who managed to overcome the traitor's fear of dying by cultivating an air of devotion towards the Insurrectionist cause that sometimes transcended even Simon's deep desire for survival. This technique was also helped along by the fact that Simon viewed Venter himself with a sense of great respect and awe. Although Simon eventually shook free of Venter's influence and abandoned the Insurrection altogether, his more cowardly instincts had been tempered, although his strong desire for self-preservation was still as strong as it had ever been. His experiences leading up to his decision to take up a mercenary lifestyle further instilled these feelings in him, especially the time he spent training with a Sangheili blademaster.

Simon is also known for being vindictive and sometimes even spiteful. During his training this manifested itself as a general resentment for those who showed up him or his team in exercises, although this trait was gradually dulled by both training and experience. However, his vindictiveness blossomed into full fledged hatred against the UNSC, slowly growing from a mere irreverence during training to a growing resentment as he experienced combat and saw other S-IIIs die in the line of duty, and finally becoming vengeful rage after the death of his teammates and his subsequent perceived "abandonment" during the Mamore operation. Following this, Simon became more and more centered around revenge as he fought against both the UNSC and the Insurrection. Although he would eventually decide that his vendettas would accomplish nothing other than getting himself killed, Simon would never be able to forgive the UNSC for what he blamed it for doing to his life and found himself locked in on-again, off-again vendettas against Redmond Venter, who he blamed for the war crimes he himself had committed on Mamore in the name of the Insurrectionist cause.

In spite of his many flaws and failings, Simon is determined to the point of downright stubbornness and will stop at almost nothing to achieve goals once he commits himself to them. Furthermore, in spite of the loyalty and trust issues he developed after deserting the UNSC, he can be very devoted to those he feels indebted or obligated to in some way and will even go so far as to risk his life for them if he feels that it is necessary. This penchant for devotion was made horrifically clear when he proved himself so loyal to Redmond Venter as to execute civilian noncombatants on his orders. On the other hand, it was also displayed through his decision to take in and treat a wounded Cassandra-G006 (though he would later regret this decision because of the suffering it ultimately brought her) and his ongoing partnership with Diana. He is tactically clever when it comes to his own positioning on the battlefield, but is no leader and is very unskilled at coordinating groups of people. Nevertheless, his intelligence and deviousness have helped him to escape potentially lethal situations, especially during his vendetta against the UNSC. Although his later training improved upon his combat skills greatly, he still relies mainly on his wits to help him succeed during combat.

With Diana
"You get the fuck away from her!"

- Simon's reaction to an enemy targeting Diana

Simon's partnership with Diana was originally founded solely on necessity, as the two of them had to cooperate in order to escape the UNSC forces invading the HLF asteroid base above Actenia. Previously, Diana had dismissively classed Simon as "just another flunky" and limited her contact with him. But in spite of this precarious alliance, Diana aided Simon when he was attacked by Team Jian even though the ambush was entirely his fault. After the engagement left Simon badly injured, Diana also provided him with medical instructions as he patched himself up, allowing him to recover from his injuries in time to stow the comatose hostage Cassandra-G006 in cryo and plot a randomized course away from the planet. Diana showed further loyalty to Simon when she conceded to his plan to surrender themselves to the Sons of the Crimson Blade in exchange for asylum, even though she herself feared what would happen to her when the Sons investigated their equipment and found her.

In a testament to how strong of a bond had been forged during their short time together, Simon spent all of his time and effort following his departure from Hekate to track down and recover Diana from a Sons of the Crimson Blade storage facility. Following this recovery they reaffirmed their partnership and began working together again as mercenaries.

Both Simon and Diana are doggedly loyal to each other, although their interactions are often just antagonistic. Diana in particular is particularly guilty of this, nicknaming Simon "Dumbass" and making efforts to mock or aggravate him at almost every turn. In spite of this, she is also receptive to his problems and is highly protective of him in both combat and non-combat situations. Simon, in turn, is extremely defensive of Diana despite their constant bickering and considers her to be one of a very small number of individuals that he can trust.

Appearance
During his early life, Simon’s head was always covered by a tangled mop of dirty black hair. When he entered the SPARTAN-III program it was shaved off so as to conform with military regulations, but after deserting he grew his hair out again as a sign of defiance. As an Insurrectionist guerilla he had few creature comforts to aid in grooming and so his hair grew out even longer, but he cut it back to somewhat regular lengths after leaving the Insurrectionist cause.

From his early days, Simon was always a thin, scrawny child even during periods when he was well fed. His training and augmentations surprisingly did little to change this trait and most people would never guess that he is a former Spartan from merely looking at him. His left arm, which was lost during his brief tenure as a pirate, has been replaced by a robotic prosthetic which he has heavily modified in order for it to act as a base into which Diana can be inserted and project herself.

Simon’s chest is covered with scars, most of them inflicted when a bomb he was disposing of during a training exercise detonated prematurely. After Gamma Company began to operate with Semi Powered Infiltration armor he began to wrap his torso in bandages, claiming that the scars chafed under the armor. He would also receive a vicious slash across the forehead from a Brute Chieftain’s energy sword during the engagement on the UNSC Ides of March. This he would also cover with a bandage, a private admission of guilt and shame for his role in Team Kopis’s destruction.

Simon rarely laughs or smiles and generally maintains a stoic expression or a scowl on his face. When he does smile it is usually when few or no people are present. His piercing gray eyes are often the only things that people can use to read his emotions, as he maintains less control over their behavior than he does with the rest of his facial features.

When not clad in his modified SPI armor, Simon generally dresses in a ragged, patchy overcoat and underclothes of similar quality. Like most Spartans, his skin is very pale from spending so much time inside his armor.

Weapons
"Never trust Simon with any kind of precision rifle; he'll just waste the ammunition for it and you have just as much chance of getting shot by him as the enemy does. Same with rocket and grenade launchers, only in their case it's easier for him to accidentally kill you with them. We just let him have something like an MA5 or an M7 and stay the hell out of his line of fire when he starts shooting."

- Jake-G293 explaining one of Team Jian's more unorthodox policies to a newly transferred Cassandra-G006

From his first combat exercises using firearms Simon was a notoriously poor shot, almost completely flunking at accuracy tests with such weapons as the M392 DMR, the Battle Rifle and the various sniper rifle systems. He performed slightly better with such mid to close ranged systems as the MA5 series assault rifle and various submachine guns and carbines, so these became his weapons of choice during his deployments with Team Jian during the Human-Covenant War. He would also use a variety of knives and pistols, favoring the maneuverability they offered him while he wielded them.

When he was fighting for the Insurrection on Mamore, Simon used the outdated but reliable AR-74, a staple of Insurrectionist forces throughout the galaxy that usually sported an anachronistic bayonet attached to the weapon's barrel. The Insurrection's heavy use of guerilla tactics during the Mamore conflict resulted in Simon becoming a much better shot than he'd been previously and he began to use such weapons as the DMR when necessary. Furthermore, he and other Insurrectionist fighters made heavy use of knives and silenced pistols, which they would use to kill unsuspecting UNSC troops during night attacks. Simon would continue to use such weapons as the AR-74 following his recruitment into the HLF and his departure from Mamore, but he was often granted access to the well-funded organization's arsenal of superior UNSC weaponry.

After leaving Hekate and spending time as both a pirate and an apprentice to a grateful Sangheili blademaster, Simon reasserted his preference for MA-series assault rifles, although the weapon's modeling and distribution had changed somewhat in the years he had been in cryo sleep. He also used knives, pistols, and explosives to a greater extent and developed a distinct combat style that centered upon possessing as many small weapons on his person as possible without hindering his own movement. One of the most striking additions to his arsenal was a slightly smaller than average energy sword given to him by his Sangheili teacher, who had it modified to fit Simon's smaller size and drilled him in its use. Although doubtful about its overall potential, Simon bowed to his mentor's wishes and kept it even after he left the master's household. Inspired by the weapon's small size when deactivated and lethal close-range cutting potential when active, Simon kept both the original blade and a spare he'd had constructed before his training had ended.

In his current capacity as the mercenary known as Mordred, Simon maintains an MA-series assault rifle as his weapon of choice (using other weapons he comes across when the need arises) along with numerous knives and sidearms--strapped to various parts of his armor--as secondaries. His two energy swords are clipped to either side of his chest, where he can access them quickly during combat.

Armor
Simon has always favored the Semi Powered Infiltration armor that was standard issue for SPARTAN-IIIs throughout the duration of the Human-Covenant War. When he was a member of Team Jian, he would often wear the armor even when off duty, enjoying the sense of security that it gave him. Following his abandonment on Mamore, he would hide his armor to avoid detection by Insurrectionist forces, but would return to the area and retrieve it shortly before leaving the planet with the HLF. The armor was badly damaged during his engagement with Team Jian on the HLF asteroid base but would be gradually repaired and refurbished by Simon over the course of his training with the pirate Mallunus. This armor was painted a dark grey and had most of its original features, most notably the camouflage system, removed in favor of several modifications that Simon--under Diana's guidance--made to it. These were mostly geared towards making the suit more compatible and accessible for Diana, and he had the left arm of the suit removed entirely in order to provide unhindered access to his prosthetic arm.

When wearing the armor in a non-combat situation, Simon would often wear a poncho over his torso, concealing the many knives and pistols he strapped to the armor.

Trivia

 * Simon harbored a particular dislike for Ash-G099, the leader of Gamma Company's Team Sabre. He saw him as a brown noser who was constantly playing for Lieutenant Ambrose's attention.
 * Even after his genetically hastened puberty, Simon grew very little facial hair and he rarely has to shave. It is unknown if this is a side-effect of his augmentations or merely a regular genetic mutation.
 * After learning that each unit could hold up to a liter of water, Simon has kept a small stash of condoms for use as emergency water bottles.
 * Simon's ancestors on his mother's side were truly world-spanning, being made up of numerous ethnicities over innumerable generations. They also had a history of military service in many of humanity's most decisive wars, but almost every individual that served during these conflicts ended up fighting on the losing side.

Related Articles

 * Team Jian
 * Diana
 * Cassandra-G006
 * Redmond Venter

Related Literary Works

 * Halo: Paths of the Exiles--Fate of the Exiles, Traitor's Path, and Traitor's Destiny
 * Halo: Against All Odds
 * Halo: High Treason

Behind the Scenes

 * Simon was Actene's first character on Halo Fanon
 * Since Actene is a terrible brow-beater when it comes to thinking of names for his characters, the name Simon was taken from The Lord of the Flies which Actene was reading at the time. Simon-G294 bears little or no resemblance to the boy from the novel.
 * As of May 5, 2010, this article has the fourth most page views out of all Spartan characters on the Wikia, with the leading three articles being SPARTAN-144, SPARTAN-013, and SPARTAN-091. It is the fifth most viewed character overall when one takes into account Kimberly Ivy Blackburn as well.
 * Most of the pictures of Simon in this article come from either the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam 00 or the Full Metal Panic! Sigma manga..
 * Simon's overall alignment is Chaotic Neutral although he displays tendencies towards the Neutral Evil and some towards the Chaotic Good alignments over the course of his story. The only time he significantly deviates from his is the period he spends with the HLF, during which he shifts towards the Lawful Evil alignment.
 * This article scored a 21 on this test, classifying it as not a Gary-Stu.
 * A growing list of tropes associated with this character can be found here.