User:Marc404/Mark 404

SPARTAN-404 / Sierra-404 / Mark-404

Birth name: Mark Avonn Bishop (Redacted)

SPARTAN II Commando

EARLY LIFE

Mark-404 was born Mark Avonn Bishop to Emily and Karston Bishop, with an older sister, Illia, on the outer colony of Circinius IV. In 2556 the covenant attacked Circinius, destroying its few defenses slaughtering its people and glassing the planet. Marks father was an ODST captain on shore leave at the time, and his mother was a nurse.

His mother was killed in the initial attacks, and his father gathered local forces in an attempted resistance and evacuation effort. The resistance was quickly crushed and evacuation efforts immediately soured. Karston and several marines, while attempting to get a group of civilians, including Mark and his sister, to a spaceport, the group was ambushed by a covenant dropship which deployed several grunts, jackals, and elites. The marines fought back but most of the civilians and marines were killed in the ensuing firefight. When the last marine went down only Karston was left standing, covered in plasma burns. He was grabbed around the throat by an elite who raised him off the ground with one hand, knowing what was coming, the ODST instead of struggling or fighting back, primed a grenade. The elite executed him with an energy sword, all the while, the Bishop children were watching. As Karston died, the grenade fell from his hand and exploded. Killing the elite who executed him, and surrounding alien troops. One elite was left after the explosion, though it was wounded and left without shields. Furious that it had been wounded and that its squad had been killed, it started taking out the remaining civilians. Some fought back, but were in vain.

Illia froze in terror, Mark looked around and dove for the nearest weapon in sight. Taking up an M-6G, he opened fire on the elite, killing it in three shots, but continuing to empty the entire magazine into the elite warrior. He took one of the fallen energy swords as a memento of his revenge. Shortly after taking his sister and making it to the space port with the remaining civilians, they managed to evacuate off world. They took up residence with their uncle and Aunt on Meridian. His uncle was a retired marine, and former Orion soldier. In mid-2557, Mark was kidnapped, replaced with a flash clone, and taken to Reach.

SPARTAN II CLASS II AND EARLY CAREER

Mark-404 was part of the second class of SPARTAN II super soldiers. However, SPARTAN II class 2 was made without the knowledge or consent of Dr. Catherine Halsey, and was pushed forward as an independent initiative by ONI section three. These SPARTANs however, unlike the first class, were not all kidnapped. Several of whom were conscripted orphans like the SPARTAN-IIIs. Mark-404 was not one of these. Time and dates are classified, but he was kidnapped from his uncles home and replaced with a flash clone at the age of 6. During his kidnapping, ONI agents snagged the energy sword he kept as a memento from his parents death. Here he trained under Senior Petty Officer Avery Peterson, a former trainer with the class 1 Spartans, with 85 other SPARTAN II candidates. During his training he constantly heard tales of John-117 and the first class of spartan IIs decimating covenant forces in the field. The second class also found themselves being compared to their predecessors quite often, Mark being no exception was generally compared to John 117 and Fred 104. Unlike the first class, this time only 7 trainees died during training. One of which was Juliet-399, a close friend of Marks. Her death made him question the aspects of the program and his ultimate loyalties, something which was caught onto by ONI supervisors very quickly. In the end he decided he was loyal to humanity and in turn, the UNSC, convincing himself under the idea of "desperate times take desperate measures". He trained until the age of 14, then in March, 2535, he and the class 2 Spartans underwent augmentation. Twelve more Spartans died or washed out during augmentation, three of whom were later re-trained and re-augmented. Mark-404 graduated as Master Chief Petty Officer 1st class and as the de-facto leader of the class 2 Spartans. He had proven himself during training as a deadly close quarters combatant, excellent marksman, skilled technician, skilled pilot, and brilliant tactician.

In August 2535, Mark-404 was deployed on his first mission, leading a four man fire-team, Spectre, against insurrectionists who refused to stand down, even in light of the covenant. While details of this mission are sparse, it is said to have ended with the insurrectionist mining colony being destroyed when their colony's' nuclear reactor inexplicably went into meltdown. The Spartan team wasn't even seen entering or leaving the target. For the next few months, Spartans of class 2 were deployed against insurrectionist threats, leaving sites ranging from nuclear craters and crashed ships, to installations filled with shot up bodies, but no signs of the assailants. On several instances, Teams led personally by spartan-404 left stations devoid of any signs that life was once there, no bodies, no blood, nothing. Just an empty installation where everyone disappeared into thin air. He soon became known simply as 'the shadow spartan" by his ONI superiors, with several jokes about his service number referencing this. The most notable one of these references is error 404, spartan not found. In late 2535 Mark-404 led several small skirmishes and strikes against covenant targets. The class 2 Spartans throughout 2536 found themselves being deployed ever more often against the alien threat. During 2536, three class 2 Spartans died in combat. During that time, the spartan also engage a unit of the Sanghelli, Silent Shadow. Mark-404 and the other Spartans eliminated that squad, with Mark-404 taking one of the red energy swords as a trophy and using it in combat for the rest of the war.

MILITARY CAREER

The remaining class 2 SPARTAN IIs found themselves organised into a full company of 69 members, called ghost company. Mark-404 was placed as its commanding officer, being promoted to Lieutenant Commander in the process. Mark-404 led the first full scale operation and campaign against the covenant the class 2 Spartans would engage in, operation RENEGADE. Jesper V came under attack by heavy attack in December of 2536. They found themselves thrown into the one-sided defense of the crucial mining colony. In addition to defending the colonies in a defensive campaign, they also had to go on system wide asset denial missions to keep forerunner and sensitive human data out of the covenants hands. Several times during this Mark-404 took command of local defenses to repel covenant waves. After several months of fighting and the deaths of two class 2 Spartans, the colony was lost in a Pyrrhic victory for the covenant; the glassed the worlds and sent humanity on the run, but could not attain any sensitive intel on the UNSC, nor any forerunner artifacts to speak of. March 3rd, 2537 the UNSC Kindred Defiance was launched. Assigned to it were the SPARTAN IIs under the command of Mark-404. However with Spartan II class 1 numbers dropping one by one, Spartans were drawn from class twos ranks to help make up for losses in the now highly public and legendary Class Is. Halsey was under the impression that these class II spartans were spartan IIIs. For the next two years, The Kindred Defiance and its spartans went on mission in UNSC space attempting to counter attack the covenant. Mark-404 leading multiple successful missions. Some who saw Mark-404 and his spartans thought that they were angels or ghosts of fallen soldiers risen in the form of Spartans to smite the enemies of humanity; this was due in part that the spartans would suddenly appear, slaughter hordes of covenant, then disappear almost as suddenly as they had appeared on the battle field. In late 2539, after Kindred Defiance underwent a refit, They were deployed on a one year mission deep into the heart of covenant space. Here Mark-404 was off the leash, unrestrained, and terrifying the covenant on their home turf. Mark-404 led hit and runs on key covenant facilities and ships yards as well as sabotage missions. From time to time covenant stations would suddenly go dark, only to be found with all occupants either mysteriously gone, or slaughtered in the blood flooded hallways. The covenant came to fear Mark-404 and his Spartans. Some dissenters within the covenant ranks believed that this was divine punishment for the genocide of humanity and began causing small heretic factions to form. In April 2541, the Kindred Defiance returned to Reach; 6 more Spartan IIs had died. In place of the fallen class 2 members, select KAT-2 Spartan IIIs were chosen to supplement the ranks of the now 37 strong Ghost company. Mark-404 and his Spartans then went on to fight multiple defensive operations and campaigns against the covenant. Every loss in his unit would supplemented with a new Spartan-III. He fought in part of the Harvest campaign, fall of Arcadia, fall of Jubilence, The Campaign for New Titan, Operation HAMMERHEAD, and 27 other  full campaigns and 247 other engagements from 2541 to 2547.

In August 2547, the war was looking bleak. Operations like RED FLAG and others which meant to strike the covenant home worlds were starting o come into the works, however certain preparations needed to be made. Spartan-404, Ghost company, and the UNSC Kindred Defiance set out on operation, SPYGLASS; a two year operation two map out covenant space, find their colony worlds, military strongholds, wreak havoc in their lines, acquire covenant technology, and if possible, kill covenant leaders. During this two year campaign, Mark-404 slaughtered thousands if not several million covenant troops. Destroying staging grounds, stations, etc...

It was during this time that Mark-404 became infamous among the covenant, for using a red energy sword against covenant troops, on multiple occasions besting sanghelli warriors in battle with the weapon.

Mark-404 was also directly responsible for the death of 6 minor prophets and 2 major prophets. He was also indirectly responsible for the death of another 17 lesser prophets and 3 major prophets. During this time they encountered the covenant holy city, High Charity and took a few "pot shots" at it before fleeing. At the time, the Spartan incorrectly deemed high charity as a staging ground for covenant forces rather than a mobile home-world.

In October of 2549, Kindred Defiance returned to UNSC space for resupply. During its time docked on Reach undergoing refit and repairs, Mark-404 learned how much worse the war was going. Ghost company was also issued the very first iterations of MARK-IV MJOLNIR. With his last objective completed, Mark-404 was then deployed on a number of high risk operations, over half of which were deemed suicidal, even for spartan-IIs. He participated in the defense of many other colonies, but each was eventually glassed as the space battle was lost in orbit each time. During these missions he led fire teams, two man head hunter units, and occasionally, with brutal efficiency and unarguable results, he went solo. With his excellent service record as both a team leader and a lone wolf, in 2550, Mark-404 was issued the first MARK-5B MJOLNIR set. He made use of a drab and red color scheme with a black visor. Initially he used an armored up default helmet with a tactical array attached to it, then a MK-5 helmet, and finally a prototype MK-6 helmet. In 2551, he was issued the first prototype of MJOLNIR MK-6. In 2552, Mark-404 and the other spartans of ghost company were preparing for the now ready, operation RED FLAG. The were to operate seperately from the class I Spartan IIs. However the operation was halted when the covenant invaded reach and Ghost was reassigned to help defend the planet. Mark-404, going solo, leading his fellow Spartans, and sometime leading marines, went on strings of missions with great success on the planets surface; and at time in orbit.

When Tribute was attacked, he deployed several of his fire teams to tribute to the the defense though these teams were never heard from again.

In the final days of the Fall of Reach, Spartan-404 and the remnants of Ghost company went on a multitude of torch and burn ops as well as defending evacuation centers for both civilians and military personnel, but at a heavy cost to the spartan group. As Mark-404 was finishing up a asset denial op, thirteen Spartans from Ghost were then deployed on a priority one mission by ONI in the final hours of Reach. Their objective, halt covenant ground forces approaching Azod shipyard, and buy time for the Pillar of Autumn to retrieve a Cortana fragment and escape. Minutes after the Autumn launched, the last of the spartan detachment fell to the onslaught of the covenant. Their bodies were eventually discovered by a lone Noble 6, Spartan B-312, who proceeded to make his final stand among the graves of his fellow soldiers.

Mark-404 and the remaining Spartans of ghost proceeded to randevu at the Kindred Defiance, Mark-404 picking up a non-responsive, but alive Spartan II James-005 after he was sent spiraling into space. Upon reaching the Defiance, Mark-404 saw he only had 17 Spartans left. Unable to pick up fire team grim, still on Reach, and having lost all contact with the fire team deployed to Tribute, Mark-404 opted for the badly damaged Kindred Defiance to retreat. However, issues with the Slipspace drive prevented them from escaping via FTL travel. Mark-404 had the Kindred Defiance fly into a nearby asteroid field and engage its remaining stealth parameters allowing to pass off as wreckage to any covenant who noticed it. On board the damaged vessel, the remaining Spartans, crew, and personnel went into cryo-stasis; and remain there as of 2562.

STATUS

MIA (Missing in action) aboard the Kindred Defiance. Presumed dead.