Kane-098



"You want inspiration? Read a poem."

- Kane, talking to Lysander-Y050.

SPARTAN-099, also known as Kane-099, Sierra Zero-Nine-Nine and Codename: ARCHANGEL by ONI, was a SPARTAN-II Commando of the top-secret Project SIGMA. Kane served as the Commanding Officer of one of the teams, Sigma-Alpha for the final months of the, fighting through both the Fall of Reach and the Battle of Earth. Kane Specialised in 'Lone Wolf' Sniper operations, his skills roughly on par with one of his Reach-trained counterparts,. For most of the war, Kane served as the second in command of his team, participating in dozens of campaigns and secret operations against the Covenant.

After the war, Kane went on to train Yankee Company of the SPARTAN-IV Program, before returning to active field service in 2579 after a decade of training young Spartans. He then served in the Office of Naval Intelligence's SPARTAN Unit, along with most of the remaining SPARTAN-II's and III's, as second in command under Elena-071. Kane went on to serve in some of the bloodiest battles of the First Galactic War leading the SPARTAN-IV's during the climactic Battle of Minerva in 2599 and ending the war. One of the few remaining SPARTAN-II's, Kane, Marco-025 and Elena-071 were given the option to retire as the 27th century began, but refused.

Kane went on serving with the unit for several years, though after the defection of Marco-025 to what was considered by ONI to be an insurrectionist group in 2609, he was unsure if he could continue fighting. Eventually, by 2615, Kane had assumed a non-combat role as the Operational Control of Wulf Team. It was he who planned their insertion into the Insurrectionist HQ during the Second Battle of Reach, knowing full well that the primary objective was to eliminate his old comrade, Marco.

Following the mission's ambiguous end (Both Marco and Maynard-X112 were presumed dead), Kane went back into active duty, fighting alongside UNSC forces against the incursion made by the enigmatic 'Dark Ones' into the solar system, eventually defeating them, and their General in a prolonged battle over Mars, a joint UNSC-Rebel-Sangheili fleet destroying the foe after a prolonged fight.

However, Kane was badly injured in the battle, a wound to his spine by Jack causing him to lose the use of his legs. He finally retired from UNSC service in 2619, and immediately began work on an autobiography, titled: Behind the Visor: A Spartan Life. Kane wrote many more books over the following years, and attended many memorial services on planets he had once fought on. After the 'death' of Marco-025 in 2626, Kane withdrew from public life, keeping in contact with Kate-X500, Marco's niece, and Martin-A136, to whom he had been a sort of mentor to.

Kane-099 passed away peacefully in his sleep on April 1st, 2701, at the age of 191. Hours before his death, he remarked that he would be the only member of Sigma to die without a large explosion. He was buried on Earth, and a statue was erected posthumously in the Museum of Humanity in his honour. He was long remembered as one of the greatest warriors of the 26th and 27th centuries, and considered a legend among future SPARTAN generations in the military.

Early Life and Training
Kane Hollister was born on the inner colony world of Harpa, in 2511. For most of his early life, Kane was brought up by his mother, Marion, in Andama, the colony capital. His father, Frederick King, was a soldier who made sporadic visits to his family over the years, noticing his son's advanced development for his age, having superior strength, endurance and mental prowess. It was this that first brought the attention of the child to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Kane was one of the 150 preliminary candidates chosen by for the SPARTAN-II Program, but was among the 75 not conscripted. However, Doctor Calvin Roe of the Office of Naval Intelligence formed Project SIGMA, which would secretly abduct twenty of Halsey's passed-over candidates to form a secret cadre of SPARTAN-II soldiers, under the close observation of ONI.

Kane, along with 19 other children, was conscripted and taken to a secret base on Earth, where they were trained. Though Dr. Roe did not have the same resources as Halsey, the 'Sigma Spartans' were put through many of the same trials. It was mainly by being given Halsey's notes by ONI that Roe's project stayed on track, finishing in 2525. During this time, Kane experienced some difficulty in making friends, though both Jacob-076 and Fenn-145 encouraged him greatly. Kane and ten others survived the augmentation procedures, the other nine candidates supposedly dying in the process. two more candidates, Jack-085 and Ahmad-126, fled shortly after, one killing himself, and the other disappearing. Upon the outbreak of the Human-Covenant War, Kane became the second in command of Sigma, often leading portions of the team during missions.

The Human-Covenant War
Kane fought throughout the war against the Covenant, participating in hundreds of missions, though not all were against alien adversaries. Kane was often chosen for top-secret assassination missions, occasionally being paired with Wulf-041. Otherwise, Kane would usually operate with Jacob-076 and Fenn-145. Distinguishing himself as a superb sniper, Kane would rarely get up close and personal with the enemy, preferring to eliminate his targets at a distance. In 2550, while on a separate mission, Jacob-076 and Amy-133 were killed. This had a profound effect on Kane's life, having lost his best friend. Kane would become slightly less introverted following this, making an attempt to socialise more with teammates, becoming good friends with Jax-007. In 2552, during the Battle of Harpa, Kane's home planet, two members of Sigma, Master Chief Petty Officer Fenn-145, Sigma's commander, and Nef-015, were killed. Sigma, down to five members came under Kane's leadership. Kane stayed in command of Sigma throughout the year; the responsibility being new for the SPARTAN. Another member of Sigma, Resk-063, was killed in July, and the team were redeployed to Reach.

On Reach, Sigma met up with two SPARTAN-III Teams: Upsilon and Tau, who had been formed to 'fill in' the gaps in Sigma's roster caused by the five deaths in the last two years. This would be short-lived, however, as all but three of the twelve Spartans would be killed during the, along with Wulf-041, another SPARTAN-II team mate. Kane was able to lead the survivors aboard the UNSC Bright New Day and escape the planet as it was overrun by Covenant forces. In the following days, after fighting in the latter part of the Loss of Hope and throughout the Battle of the Zenith Complex, during which he met an old friend, Elena-071, Sigma arrived back at Earth just as a Covenant fleet was attacking. Sacrificing their frigate to destroy an attacking Covenant ship, both Sigma Team and Whiskey-04, who had been defending the ship on Reach, got to the planet via drop pod, landing near Moscow, Russia. Following the ensuing battle, in which Alex-A121 lost an arm to an air strike, the Spartans were relocated to ONI Pillar Base, where they received their MJOLNIR Mark VI armour.



Kane led Sigma through the final weeks of the Human-Covenant War, though the SPARTAN-II team played a relatively minor role during the Battle of Earth compared to that of John-117. At the end of the war, the three survivors were present at the hillside memorial in Kenya on the day of the official ceremony presided over by Lord Hood, though they departed before it began. The three survivors of Sigma were placed into ONI's Spartan unit.

Post-War
Following the end of the Human-Covenant War, Kane was put to work on a number of classified operations by ONI, mostly dealing with Covenant holdouts or the occasional Insurrectionist leader trying to cause trouble in the rebuilding colonies. In 2555, Kane was called in to work with Elena-071 and an ODST team led by Ash Mitchell on a secretive mission, Operation: ASHES. Their primary objective was to infiltrate a Covenant-run base on Schönheit, a world that had been glassed a decade previously.

Skills and Abilities
Throughout training, Kane distinguished himself among the other trainees for being an uncanny marksman, having keen eyesight and quick reflexes even before his augmentations in 2525. Afterwards, his skill only got better, becoming the designated marksman of the SPARTAN team. He usually operated alone on missions, not requiring a spotter, though he was occasionally paired with his best friend, Jacob-076, who often came close to rivalling Kane in terms of marksmanship. Even in later years, Kane's sniping skills never diminished, continuing to excel in his job even as a centenarian.



Kane's personality, being introverted even for a Spartan, would lead to him preferring 'Lone Wolf' missions, being able to operate on his own for extended periods of time without support. However, this would often come out in team missions, where he would go off alone without the support of his comrades. In 2552, after the death of Fenn-145 and Nef-015 during the Battle of Harpa, Kane took command of Sigma. This proved as a turning point for him, becoming much more vocal as he took command. He proved a very competent leader for the next year, developing a closer bond with his surviving teammates.

Outside of sniping, Kane was, like his fellow Spartans, proficient in most forms of warfare. Though he preferred infiltration missions, he could lead a direct assault just as well, and was quite skilled in hand to hand combat, utilising rapid punches and strikes to incapacitate his enemies, seeking to end fights quickly, being noted for being extremely quick, even for a SPARTAN. The fact that he remained as one of the most talented Spartans in Sigma was largely due to his heritage, being the child of two SPARTAN-I's before his conscription into the project. While his personality often led to him deliberately remaining away from the top rankings in training, some, such as Richard Mack Senior, believed that he could easily be the best in Sigma if he put his mind to it.

Personality
"Oh, there's a person in there somewhere. It's finding that person that's the real problem."

- Jacob-076 speaking to Marco-025.

Kane was generally quite unsociable, even among his own team. He preferred to be alone and was often seen as quite rude to others in training. As a result, he had few friends. The only person who successfully got through to him was Jacob-076, who challenged him to a shooting competition early in training. Though Kane beat Jacob hands-down, the two became good friends, the latter encouraging him to open up more to his fellow trainees.

As with most Spartans, Kane had some difficulty in interacting with regular UNSC personnel, whose reaction times and movement were sluggish compared to his own. He often appeared to ignore or treat other soldiers with disdain, though he would protect them with his life if necessary. His true feelings and emotions were kept hidden from all, though he would rarely act out of anger or sorrow. One example of this would be when he fought Pierre-127 in 2555 after he was taunted over Jacob's death. He would only talk openly with close friends, namely Marco-025, Jax-007 and Elena-071 in the aftermath of the Human-Covenant War, generally being rather laconic in his speech to others.

Trivia

 * In the original plan for Sigma Team's story, Kane and Jack's roles were switched, the former going rogue and being hunted down, though this was changed over time.
 * Due to his parents both being members of the ORION Project, Kane is both a Spartan 1.1 and a SPARTAN-II, something that gave him a slight advantage over most other candidates in training.
 * Before coming to Halo Fanon, Kane was a main character in one of the author's many planned machinimas, his personality being greatly different there to his written one.

Literary References

 * Halo: Last of the Brave
 * Halo: Mercy Kill
 * Halo Fanon Survival of the Fittest Season 4 (Non-canon)
 * Overwatch (Short Story)
 * Back Then (Short Story)
 * ''Last Rites (Short Story)
 * Halo: The Howling Dark (Upcoming)