User:Spartan 075/Matt-075

"Like torrential rains we will drop, like a great flood we will wash over the enemy, and we will make them drown in their own blood."

- Matt-075 Circa 2552.

Matt-075 was a Class 1 SPARTAN-II, of the UNSC Navy Special Warfare Group. He was widely known throughout the Eridanus system as the Spartan who jumped feet first with the best of them. He perished during the Fall of Reach.

Physical Description
Matt-075 had short blonde hair and blue eyes. His face was lightly tanned, with a small scar on his cheek. His right arm was replaced by a prosthetic one after having it cut off by a Covenant energy blade, when an elite zealot ambushed him and pinned him down during his campaign against the Covenant on Arcadia.

Childhood
Matt was born into a middle class family in 2511, he was born on Hat Yai which was one of the outer colonies that was on the fringe of UNSC space. His father was a Marine sergeant for the UNSC, but was called back to active duty when Matt was two years old. Almost a year later Matt's mother received word from the commanding officer that his father had served under, Matt's father had been KIA by rebel insurrectionists who had attacked a small UNSC outpost on Reach. His mother worked as a colonial administrator who kept track of the ships that docked with the colony on a daily basis for any number of reasons. Since the death of Matt's father, his mother had to work twice as long, and take double shifts just to provide food and shelter for the two of them. It was when Matt was around the age of four that his mother fell ill and eventually died from Anemia, since he had no relatives that anyone knew of whom could care for him, Matt was placed in a small orphanage where he spent the next three years of his life until a chance encounter with the woman who would throw him into the most ferocious war the UNSC had ever seen.

It was around the time that Matt turned six in 2517 that Doctor Catherine Halsey paid the run down orphanage a visit. She asked to see the children, and was led to the yard where she observed the group of sixteen children that Matt happened to be in who were playing baseball. One of the bigger children whom had immediately caught Halsey's eye, hit the ball with such force that it flew onto the orphanage roof. One of the younger boys volunteered to go and get it. Doctor Halsey had wondered how they children planned to get the ball off of the three story building, she watched as the young boy climbed slowly up a lattice that was nailed to the wall and reached the roof withing minutes. After finding the ball on the roof the boy looked around trying to find a way to get down with the ball in his hands, the boy then moved quickly toward the other side of the roof where no one could see him for a few moments. Almost immediately the boy came shooting out of a vent on the wall facing that yard, after landing on his butt he then proceeded to dust himself off and was greeted by the crowd of cheering children who had their ball back.

It was at that moment that Doctor Halsey knew she had found a boy who had the potential to become a fearless Spartan in her program. After the group dispersed and returned to their game, Doctor Halsay pulled Matt aside and asked him if he remembered anything about his father, Matt shook his head and told her that he could only remember that the bad people had taken his daddy away from him, and that his mother cried a lot because of it. Doctor Halsey paused, then asked the boy a different question, "Would you like a chance the make the bad people pay for what they did?" Matt questioned his own ability to do anything about the rebels, but after some reassurance from Halsey he agreed. With her research on the boy complete, Doctor Halsey immediately went off and made arrangements to have Matt kidnapped by ONI and have him shipped off to Reach for training.

SPARTAN Training
As he progressed through his SPARTAN training, Matt was regarded as a brilliant tactition. It was noted by Dr. Halsey during her observations of a field exercise that he was quote, "Very prudent in his actions, he is able to take any tactical advantage no matter the size and use it to it's fullest potential to turn the tides of a battle." When paired up into teams, Matt took heartily to the task of outwitting the many instructors that tested the cunning of he and the other indoctrinated children. SCPO Mendez came to doctor Halsey on a personal note and told her that he quote, "Didn't like the way that boy looked at him." he explained that there was always this hint of skepticism in the boy's face.....but every time he confronted Matt, he only showed the senior officer the utmost respect.

During the period of augmentation in 2525 Matt seemed to be restless after being drugged, while this wasn't uncommon he would talk in his sleep and call out to his parents. Mendez knew that even though the Spartans showed no sign of it, some of tgem truly did miss their old lives. The old instructor walked over to Matt and sat down next to him, he held the boy's hand and slowly Matt drifted off to a quiet slumber. Although Mendez still gave Matt a gruff look every once in a while, he occasionally smiled when he watched Mattt run courses thinking to himself what a fine soldier the boy was turning out to be. When time for his coronation came, SCPO Mendez personally pinned the SPARTAN insignia on the boy's chest and told him, "You've done well son, I expect a lot out of you from now on." Matt snapped a salute and gave Mendez a small, almost unnoticable smirk before joining his fellow Spartans once more.

Later on in his years he made the decision to recieve his HEV training from the best place possible, an ODST academy where he trained night and day alongside the rugged special forces units in the uses of an HEV pod. Though he remained part of the SPARTAN-II project, he became more widely accepted by the ODSTs as he dropped with them in training exercises. After completing the training regimen he stood alongside the men who had become like brothers to him and was presented with a Helljumper insignia which was branded upon his torso armor. After the training he kept his ODST variant helmet and donned it when in combat due to a sort of sentimental attachment he felt toward it, this action inadvertently earned him much respect from the ODSTs he fought alongside which in his opinion, was never a bad thing. He was also awarded the nickname "Hopelessly Romantic" by many ODST's he trained with due to a fraternization code violation which was given to him by Dr.Halsey when she discovered his "friendly visits" to a female ODST's quarters during his off-duty time. (Of course, if asked Dr.Halsey would deny such violations by her SPARTAN-IIs entirely.)

First Battle for Arcadia
Matt had a substantially long service record with the UNSC in the times before his wounds forced him to sit out many important ops. A great deal of time before the covenant had turned their armies towards Reach, Matt had served aboard the UNSC vessal Armstrong when the covenant had attacked a resort planet known as Arcadia. He was tasked with civilian evacuation, as well as countermeasure operations against the invading covenant along with Red Team Spartans Jerome-092, Alice-130, and Douglas-042 who were currently serving aboard the UNSC Colony-class cruiser Spirit of Fire. It was during the civilian evacuation that he and the small squad of Spartans engaged a covenant strike team attempting to destroy civilian evac transports.Matt was caught off guard by an elite zealot who had joined the fray and consequentially lost his arm for it. He survived the encounter only because of Alice-130 who had seen the elite wound Matt-075 and prevented the killing blow by firing a hail of rounds from her AIE 486H Heavy Machine Gun into the Sangheili's torso.

When Captain James Cutter of the UNSC Spirit of Fire gave the order to give chase to the crippled Covenant strike force that had began to withdraw from the planet, Matt hesitantly made the decision to stay behind with the remaining UNSC forces to retrieve immediate medical attention while the Spirit of Fire and her crew pursued the retreating covenant forces to a >/// CLASSIFIED ///< outside of known UNSC space. Before they left, Matt made sure to thank Alice for saving his life, and said his farewells in one phrase: "Bene rem gere.....good luck." Matt's near-death encounter changed his attitude drastically after that day. He lost his gentle idealistic views on the war and adopted a more crude personality that pushed him to do nothing more than live to see the end of it.

Raid on the Glorious Inheritance
After the wounds he sustained at Arcadia healed, Matt was reassigned to a new mission that required SPARTAN assets. Matt was picked up from Arcadia by the UNSC frigate Aegis Fate, there he met with some old friends from the ODST training academy at which he had spent some of his earlier years. The mission the crew was tasked with was nothing glorious to say the least, but imperative to the war effort with the Covenant. A UNSC Destroyer named "Boreas" had been caught off guard by a surprise attack from a Covenant corvette which had ambushed the ship on it's way to the colony of New Harmony. No ships were in the immediate vicinity to support the Boreas, and Fleetcom had only just recently received a distress call that had come from the besieged destroyer.

UNSC Fleetcom had picked up a brief transmission from the ship's captain before she went dark, the message was as follows:

===================================================================================== BEGIN TRANSMISSION

"This is an emergency distress call to all UNSC forces receiving, UNSC Boreas has been boarded by Covenant forces and we are losing control of the ship. Shipboard AI has been neutralized by an unknown enemy program and all attempts to manually enact the Cole Protocol have failed. Request immediate torch and burn units on site ASAP, it's in our best interests that the covenant DO NOT get the location of Earth!"

*Plasma fire as well as ballistic weapons can be heard firing in the background*

"Captain they've just broken through the third security line, we need to leave NOW!"

*A sigh can be heard*

"Son they'll just blow up any pods attempting to flee the ship, there's going to be no escape from this."

*A slide is pulled back on a gun*

"I....I see....it's been an honor sir."

*Emergency alarms start suddenly*

"This is UNSC Captain John Welsh......may god have mercy on us all."

END TRANSMISSION

=
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Fleetcom had received the transmission two days prior to the Boreas' silence. It was understood by all on the Aegis Fate, that there could be no mistakes on this mission. After a short jump through slipspace, the Aegis Fate arrived nearby the Boreas' last known location. It was there that they sighted a large purple giant known as "Glorious Inheritance", which had the now partially destroyed Boreas in it's grasp.

Onyx
It was around 2531 that Matt was "Procured" yet again by ONI, in this chance encounter however, Matt was reassigned to a secret station on Onyx. There he learned just how grave the war with the Covenant was looking, and of the UNSC's need for more expendable super-soldiers. He was put under the authority of Lieutenant Kurt Ambrose, one of the Spartans that Matt had trained with who had also been abducted by ONI. During this time period Matt and Kurt worked vigorously to train the many new indoctrinated children who were collectively sent to Onyx under the authorization of >/// CLASSIFIED ///<. Matt had his thoughts on the new "Mass produced suicide Spartans" however, he kept such sentiments between he and Kurt. When Matt's mental state of health came into question by >/// CLASSIFIED ///<, Kurt spoke in his favor saying: "Sometimes soldiers can get emotional scars from a war, it's a sad fact that Spartan-075 is one such soldier. But I know that Matt has attained a strong will to survive from his encounters, and he can pass this ability off to these new children so that they can live long enough to get the job done.".

In his time as an instructor Matt had seen many impressive children undergo the Spartan-III regimen, but none more so than Kat. Many times he vouched for her when she got the urge to hack into the occassional ONI database and was given a violation for insubordination. He saw her potential as a soldier and allowed her a few more pardons than most of the other children in her training group. One thing Matt did for her that she particularly enjoyed was hearing the stories he'd tell her before bed about his encounters with the covenant. To Kat, he was the closest thing she had to family after indoctrination. Matt was not present for the battle of Onyx years later however, Kurt had felt that he was no longer a necessary part of the operation due to the lack of new indoctrinated children coming in and felt that he would be needed elsewhere. Matt was reassigned to a station on Reach with some of the survivors of both Alpha and Beta company, who's companies were all but annhialated during both operations >/// CLASSIFIED ///<, as well as operation >/// CLASSIFIED ///< .The survivors were thrown together to form a cohesive fighting unit and sent to Reach along with Spartan-075 in order to bolster the ranks there. He was one of the lucky few to make it off the planet before >/// '''WARNING! "KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN" FILES ARE RESTRICTED AND ARE AVAILABLE ONLY TO OPERATORS WHO HAVE ONI TIER ONE CLEARANCE! ANY FURTHER PURSUITS INTO DOCUMENTS PERTAINING TO "KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN" WILL RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OF THIS USER!''' ///<

Fall of Reach
After a psychological evaluation Matt was reassigned years later to Reach along with the shaken Noble Team. It was during this time period that Matt grieved over the loss of so many Spartan-III's he had trained, and come to know individually. During the Covenant invasion on the planet Reach, Matt had assisted Kat and the rest of Noble Team in many of their operations to undermine the covenant strike force. In his final hours Spartan-075 played a large role in the city of New Alexandria. When the order was given by Colonel Holland to evacuate the city prior to it's inevitable glassing, Spartan-075 Joined up with a defense force comprised of a platoon of the 105th, as well as many marines that were assigned to city wide evacuation. His task force was to halt the covenant ground forces from reaching the city and taking out key defenseve points.

Although the covenant had done so successfully with troops dropped in via phantoms & spirits, Spartan-075's task force held off a surmountable enemy force. After a long and ferocious battle, Matt was left fighting a Sangheili Field Marshal who had joined the fray due to his countless loss of troops. In the ensuing fight, Spartan-075 was cut in the torso by the Field Marshal's Energy Sword when his shotgun had jammed after being fired constantly in the battle prior to the duel. He survived the blow only because of the ODST chest plating he kept under his HP/Parafoil gear. Though the chest piece had been cut clean in half, it had managed to stop enough of the blade as to prevent any fatal injuries. Finally, using his prosthetic hand Spartan-075 broke the battered Field Marshal's wrist and plunged the astounded Sangheili with it's own blade. After retreating to a ruined structure nearby, Spartan-075 activated his distress transponder and treated himself with some Bio foam.

As night fell, Pelican dropship Kilo 812 that was headed for the nearby dry dock had picked up Spartan-075s distress beacon and came to investigate. The soldiers onboard found Matt propped up against a wall and immediately assisted him in getting aboard the Pelican. They wasted no time in departing for the dry dock which held the last UNSC frigate Aegis Fate that was awaiting clearance of a few Covenant corvettes that were raining plasma down upon any and all human ships attempting to flee the city. En route to the docks, the Pelican was hit by anti-air Shade turrets positioned upon the rooftops of nearby skyscrapers. The dropship was able to limp a few more miles before going down about 10 klicks away from the Aegis Fate, with a wounded pilot and only a few soldiers still alive after the crash Spartan-075 had realized that holding out for rienforcements at the crashsite was impossible. Radio contact with the frigate wasn't an option due to Covenant jamming devices that prevented any small scale transmissions from getting through. Due to a severe gash in his leg from some of the Pelican's debris upon impact, Matt was unable to walk. He ordered the troopers still able to stand to make their way toward the dry dock on foot while he defended the wounded pilot.

Roughly an hour later the troopers arrived at the Aegis Fate, they relayed their story to the frigate's captain Valerie Rouge who personally knew Spartan-075. She dispatched a group of ODSTs in an attempt to retrieve what was possibly one of the last remaining Spartan assets on Reach. The ODSTs took a falcon and proceeded to make their way to the crashsite where Spartan-075 was found lying in critical condition. He was able to fight off a small squad of jackals from a nearby building with some frag grenades, and a plasma pistol he had scavenged off of a dead grunt. The ODST's helped Matt into the crew compartment of the falcon and made a hasty retreat back to the frigate. During the flight back to dry dock, Spartan-075 went into cardiac arrest due to all of the blood he had lost from his wounds. The medic onboard immediately applied cardiopulminary resuscitation and managed to pull the Spartan from the brink of death. Immediately upon landing aboard the fleeing frigate, the falcon was met by an emergency medical team that escorted the dying Spartan to the medical bay. Once there they attempted to stabalize the Spartan for medical procedures, however the medical bay was ill equipped with compatable donor blood for a transfusion and the medical team could do nothing more than sedate the Spartan to numb the pain.

Upon hearing the news that her old friend was onboard her ship once more, Captain Rouge immediately left for the med bay leaving the orbital ascent in the hands of her second on the bridge. Upon arriving in the med bay the Captain was relieved to see her old friend back among friendly faces, rather than being left to die amongst the wreckage. When she sat down on a chair next to the operating table on which Spartan-075 rested on, he gave her the traditional Spartan greeting of putting two fingers on his faceplate. The Captain smiled in response and held Matt's hand, she then asked him how he was feeling. Matt was able to grunt out a small laugh and responded saying: "Well could be worse....you know, once upon a time I didn't believe that anybody had the potential to be a hero. But I guess there's a hero in all of us.....isn't there?" Before the Captain even had the chance to ask what he meant, Spartan-075 flatlined in front of her. The Captain squeezed the hand of her old friend one last time and whispered to him: "Requiesce in Pace, mi amice" A Latin phrase she had heard him speak softly to an ODST who was killed as an Elite Shipmaster's hostage. After taking one last look at Spartan-075 the Captain returned to the bridge and watched as the city Matt died trying to protect burned until it was nothing more than a memory.

Memorial
While many Spartans were listed officially upon the Great War Memorial on Earth for their unyielding fight for humanity, the battalion of ODSTs from the 105th who served aboard the Aegis Fate during the Fall of Reach honored Spartan-075 in their own way. The battalion adopted a new emblem that represented Matt's personality, as well as sending a small number of ODSTs who personally knew Matt to the memorial to give their final respects in a 35 shot salute in his honor. Captain Valerie Rouge thought that it was only proper that he be remembered aboard the Aegis Fate, who's name means: one who is doomed to protect.

Quotes
''"Take a look around you gentlemen, we're all that the UNSC can afford to protect the millions of innocent people that live here. Which means that each one of you is worth at least a thousand or more lives.......keep that in mind when you think about being a hero on my battlefield." -Matt's briefing to his troops before his final battle.''

''"In war......making a mistake can cost you dearly. I learned that lesson the hard way, the day I lost my right arm was the day I realized that our reputation as invincible soldiers is just that......a reputation, made to give common soldiers some small hope of humanity's survival as a race. The outlook of this war is grim I know, were professionally trained soldiers.........but we're spread few and far between, we're also only human. So if you take anything out of what I just told you, let it be to overcome the urge to be a hero, if you do so then you might just live to see the end of this war." -Matt's lesson to Kat during her training through one of his many stories.''

''"Gunny, you had me at twelve gauge." -Matt's thoughts on his preferred M45 TS Shotgun during weapon selections.''

''"You're joking right? Sir, with all due respect do you know the life expectancy of a UNSC pilot? I can tell you right now it's not very long. I'll grab a seat in the back though thanks, I think that female trooper over there has been sending me some fun looks, and i'd hate to miss an invitation like that!" -Matt's reply on being asked to fly a pelican dropship full of Marines on their way to a beseiged Arcadia from orbit.''

''"You know they say that most optimists die by drowning in half-full cups." -A very blunt comment that was given by Matt to a trooper who was convinced he'd kill so many Covenant that he'd be hailed as a hero.''

''"It's just......it's just the way he looked at me during that mission. You always could tell when he was looking at you, it would be ever so slight....but there it was nevertheless. If ever he came under suspicion of being a traitor, you would need only look into his face to see the truth. It's as if you can see straight through his beautiful blue visor into his heart. I only wish he'd lived long enough for me to tell him that..." -Captain Rouge's response to Doctor Halsey's questions about Matt when she came to retrieve Matt's body for burial.''

Trivia

 * While many SPARTANs such as Jorge learned languages such as Hungarian, Matt was the only SPARTAN that learned to speak in Latin.
 * To this day Dr. Halsey still laughs to herself when asked if the hormone suppressants worked perfectly to keep young SPARTANs focused on their training.
 * UNSC service records show only a handful of SPARTAN corpses were recovered for post-war burial, Matt's being no exception.
 * Though the grudge between ODSTs and SPARTANs ran deep, Matt was an inspiring example of peace between the two factions for neither group dared fight while Matt was present out of respect.
 * Engraved in the side of Matt's shotgun was the phrase: "Nvnc avt Nvnqvam." which is Latin for 'Now or Never'.
 * A dozen or so small cuts were noticed in Matt's prosthetic arm. While initially thought to be simple wear and tear from combat, they were discovered to be the number of elites he had killed with the prosthetic piece.