Soldiers of Fortune/Lost, Found, Lost

On his fifth birthday, Vito Conti’s world was on fire.

Everything was a blur of voices. Barking orders, crying in pain, worried murmuring rippling around the room at every slightest sound. He couldn’t make out much - couldn’t really make out anything at all, beyond his mother saying something about seats, about space, her hand holding his in a vice-like grip. The soldier opposite her yelled something, shoved the others back - and at that moment the world shook, with distant rumbling that grew into the shrieks of buckling metal, the roar of crumbling polycrete. It took an age for everything to settle, and when it did, the hand was still tightly clasped around his own - but it no longer squeezed reassuringly when the tearful boy tugged at it.

It no longer moved at all.

On his tenth birthday, Candidate Conti’s breakfast consisted of a faceful of dirt.

Darting between cover, a burst of training rounds from the autocannons perched on the outcrop above had caught him in the legs, his training armour immediately seizing up and sending him toppling over mid-stride. Kids with sidearms going up against fortifications like these was hardly fair - but then again, neither was the war it was meant to train them for.

Vito knew exactly what had happened from the moment he hit the ground, but instinct still pushed him to try and get up, to try and stand on legs now rigidly locked in place. The rest of him was still free, though - he could look up, see his partner reaching for him-

-before she quickly pulled back behind cover, a spray of TTRs slamming into the ground where her hand was just moments before. Vito looked back down, squinting through the glare of the sun, to see a figure making his way over, cautiously, rifle still levelled at the child.

“Try paying attention, Candidate!” The instructor was a mountain of a man, and certainly sounded it. “You should recognise the firing patterns by now - should know when to wait, when to move.”

“Oh for real?” Conti shot back in protest. “Those things didn’t even hit - the splatter got me! That can’t count, Sergeant, come on!”

There was a moment’s pause, before the man let out a sigh, approaching and crouching down to take a closer look. “Alright, if you’re telling the truth, I’ll release the lock-up on your suit, but you better not be playing games here, k-”

The instructor was cut off by the sharp cracks of a pistol - two TTRs hitting him squarely in the chest, followed by another catching the corner of his helmet. Vito’s eyes followed the sound, finding themselves on Lucia, stood behind a fallen tree, pistol held out in front of her as cleanly and effortlessly as if she was shooting targets on a range.

“Well, he should’ve been paying attention, ri-?”

“Alright, just - just help me to cover before those guns start up again.”

On his fifteenth birthday, Vito-B108 was starting to tire of Lucia’s quips.

“So this is the covert option, right?” Even on his helmet’s COM, it was hard to make her out over the plasma fire streaking past them and the Warthog’s gun returning fire. “Real sneaky here!”

Of course, the easier solution was to not listen to her at all. Instead, from his position in the passenger seat, Vito’s concentration was on laying down fire at any shapes that looked vaguely hostile with his DMR, calling out to the other half of his team, on the opposite side of the facility. ''“NATHAN! Are you three planning on taking any longer? This window’s closing, fast!”''

“The others are out, but a pair of Hunters cut me off - can’t get past them, and they’ve got backup pouring in,” came the response, fuzzy with interference. “When we dropped there were Banshees on the upper platform, right? I’ll try and get to one of them.”

“Shit, I - alright, alright.” Vito paused, fumbling with the base of his helmet, patching him through to the prowler a thousand miles above. “UNSC Houdini, this is Heads-2. Tails-3 is heavily engaged and finding alternative exfil.”

“Are the charges set?”

“Yes, ma’am, but we still need a few minutes to-”

“Blow them.”

“Houdini, I say again, we still have a Spartan in the complex, we cannot-”

“And we have a UNSC Army counter-offensive on the way that needed that complex gone twenty minutes ago. Blow the charges, Petty Officer, or I will.”

A moment - then he nodded, switching channels once again. “Nat, are you in the air?”

“Not yet - this place is a labyrinth - but I’m almost at the top. Gimme twenty seconds, tops.”

Twenty seconds. That would be doable. Twenty seconds? He pulled the trigger, starts the half-minute timer. Twenty seconds for David to regain control of their Warthog, for Lucia to turn the Ghosts pursuing them into burning wreckage. Twenty seconds he spent watching that digital display counting down to zero.

Twenty seconds interrupted by another crackle on COM. “Vito?” Nathan’s voice was thin now, barely audible - and ragged, like he’d been hit, more than once. “Vito, the - the Banshees are all gone. Nothing here - I’m gonna have to head back down, find a-”

A hollow boom echoed across the hills of Paris IV.

Vito was dimly aware that the officer was talking to him and the two Spartans standing opposite, but most of the words simply washed over him, like waves crashing against the rocks. To him, the lights were too bright, the hall too clean; everything felt wrong, as if - as if he didn’t belong here. Not in this world of dress uniforms and ceremonial speeches.

''“...I’ll leave you three for now - I’m sure you have plenty to catch up on - but we’re very glad to have you onboard! Something tells me we’ll need all the expertise we can find to get Spartan Operations up and running.” ''

Vito nodded, mumbling an acknowledgement as the officer disappeared into the crowd, before turning to the other two. The lucky two.

He cleared his throat, before starting. “Well, I, uhm, it’s...”

He couldn’t.

“...it’s been a while, right? Would’ve been, what, ‘44? Way back, back before, before...”

Before what? Before Vito had jumped at the chance to be transferred from Beta Company, promised that it was to protect his team; before he proved he couldn’t even do that? Before he’d abandoned these two - and the rest of his family - to the slaughter on Pegasi Delta? He couldn’t say it.

“...well, y’know.”

He couldn’t even look them in the eye.

“Anyway, I’m, uh, glad you’re still kicking - you were always a tough pair, even way back when.” A short, sharp laugh. “Still, I need to go, at least for a bit. Quartermaster’s been on my back about the new optics again.”

He retreated, this time - not a tactical maneuver, or a withdrawal - he fled, away from the hall, through the hallways, to his own quarters. He couldn’t. Couldn’t do it, couldn’t stand around as if nothing had happened, as he was just an officer going from one desk job to the next. Couldn’t bear it, with the people there, with the people not there, with...

Well, not with anyone, now. He just sat there. Alone.

There really was nothing to catch up on. At least, not for Spartan Conti’s twentieth birthday.