Daisy-023

Daisy-023 was a Spartan-II commando of the UNSC Special Warfare Command who participated in campaigns to take back  from the. Her short career as a Spartan was unique in that she was one of the few S-II trainees to escape from and discover that they had been replaced with, and the only trainee not to commit suicide or develop psychological problems as a result. She died in 2530 while attempting to evacuate Marine personnel from hostile territory. She was listed as MIA for propaganda purposes by the UNSC and her brain was used to create the smart AI Amaranth.

Childhood
She was born Daisy Spencer in the city of Fairfields on the UNSC colony Sargasso, to parents Jon and Amy Spencer. They were a well-to-do family who owned a large house surrounded by lavish ornamental gardens. Jon Spencer, a successful businessman who sold leisure aircraft to Sargasso's wealthy elite, ensured that his young daughter grew up with plenty of toys and parental nurturing, and even hired a private tutor to oversee her education rather than sending her to one of the local schools. She was special to both of her parents because it had taken them years of medical treatments and procedures on her mother's part to even conceive a child. Thus the first few years of Daisy's life were filled with love, happiness and security.

Daisy was an intelligent child despite her sheltered environment and it quickly became apparent that she was capable of learning far more than what was appropriate for her age. She easily advanced through studies fit for children years ahead of her, and her parents made plans to send her to one of Sargasso's most renowned private schools, the Holman-Grey Institute for Gifted Children. However intelligent Daisy might have been, though, she was still prone to childish mischief, and often found ways to escape the boundaries of her home. She would venture across the bridge that led to her house and go into town, usually to admire the majestic fountain in the middle of a large square. It was this routine that would ultimately lead to her introduction to and eventual abduction by the  for the SPARTAN-II Program.

In, shortly after Daisy turned six, she was approached by a woman in a sundress during one of her trips to the fountain. The woman, Dr. Catherine Halsey, asked Daisy a series of questions, and the little girl's answers led Halsey to dub her a viable candidate for SPARTAN-II. Halsey made special note of Daisy's habit of visiting the fountain, and when the abduction team came to Fairfields, they found her at her usual spot. She was sedated and spirited away by the ONI, with a clone identical to her in appearance and possessing flash-transferred memories remaining in her place. The Spencers never suspected that the real Daisy was gone, even after the clone began to suffer from inexplicable debilitating diseases.

Conscription and Escape
"We're not gonna be your toys anymore!"

- Daisy-023 to Doctor Catherine Halsey

On September 23, 2517, Daisy was brought out of along with seventy-four other children and taken to an underground amphitheater in the Reach Military Complex, where Dr. Halsey informed them of their conscription into the SPARTAN-II Project. The revelation that Daisy would be unable to return to her parents bothered her deeply, and though the rigorous labors of boot were designed to make the trainees forget their former lives, she held onto her memories of home and family. She was sorted into a team with, , Basil-138, and Juliana-009. All seven of them expressed a mutual desire to somehow escape from Reach and return to their parents; as the years passed and their skills expanded, this desire blossomed into a secret plot to rebel against their trainers and force their way offworld. Though they never revealed these secrets to any of the other Spartans, there always existed a divide between the small group and the sixty-eight other children, who had accepted their new lives and followed orders without question. The only other teams that might have gone along with the rebellious seven were Gray and Black, but Ralph refused to let Daisy inform them of their intentions, afraid that the plan would be revealed to their ever-watchful taskmasters.

In 2525, all S-II candidates underwent multiple to improve their strength, reflexes and durability. Twenty-seven of the now-teenaged Spartans died during or after the surgeries, while twelve were rendered handicapped by unpleasant results such as deformities and Parkinson's disease. Daisy's team was one of the few to emerge with all its members still fit for active duty. Now that they had gained superhuman abilities, the dissenters prepared to enact their plan during the weeks of recuperation that followed. As soon as the side effects of the surgeries had diminished enough, Daisy and her team took some of their drill instructors and doctors hostage and demanded their freedom from Dr. Halsey. Halsey granted them this, and they quickly fled into one of Reach's thick forests to hide, taking sidearms, supplies and sophisticated earpieces that would allow them to hear UNSC communiques. A short time later, they reached the city of, where they split up and sought out ships on which they could stow away to reach their homeworlds. Joseph-122 was captured, but the others made it out; Daisy boarded a freighter bound for Sargasso and hid in the cargo hold, living off what rations she had left and utilizing her Spartan stealth skills for the duration of the two-week voyage.

Homecoming
Daisy arrived on Sargasso and quickly traveled to her hometown, eager to reunite with her family and resume the life that she desperately missed. When she reached Fairfields, she went to the fountain and was flooded with memories of the day she was kidnapped there. Irritated by the painful nature of those memories, she decided to head home, unaware that the UNSC was tracking her. As she drew closer to her goal, her excitement continued to grow, but that excitement turned into uncertainty when she caught sight of a thin, pale blond-headed figure seated in a powered wheelchair. She stood there for a few minutes, her enhanced eyesight taking in details that confused her, mainly the clone's nearly identical resemblance to herself. While Daisy was frozen in bewilderment, she received a transmission from Dr. Halsey, who was observing her from the overhead safety of a Hornet VTOL. Halsey explained to her that in order to cover up the kidnapping of so many children for the S-II project, each abducted child was replaced by a clone who would live a life in their place. The doctor then demanded that Daisy, or “twenty-three” as she called her, return to Reach, her “home.” This information hit Daisy hard and the traumatized Spartan began to approach her clone, drawing her sidearm. Once she was close enough, she leveled the pistol at her clone's head and let it remain there for several seconds, but did not fire. Daisy lowered her arm slowly and holstered her sidearm, then turned to walk away, accepting that she no longer had any place on Sargasso. Before she could leave, however, the clone spoke to her, stating that she wished to be strong like Daisy someday and handing her a small teddy bear keychain, the same toy Daisy had dropped into the fountain on the day she was taken. The Spartan took the bear and left without a word, and was picked up by an ONI extraction team soon afterward.

When she got back to Reach, she was detained in the brig for two weeks. Ralph-303, who had also been brought back, was also imprisoned there, but removed after psychological analysis determined that he was unfit to serve as a Spartan. The other two escapees who had made it off Reach, Basil and Juliana, did not return because they took their own lives after discovering their clones. They, along with Ralph, were added to the list of those who had died during augmentations to cover up the incident. Joseph-122 questioned Daisy about what she found when she went home, but she refused to tell him, thinking it best that he didn't know he had been replaced. Daisy made it clear to Dr. Halsey that she would never try to escape again and Halsey cleared her to rejoin the rest of her squad. The doctor's private notes state that she allowed Daisy to keep the bear keychain, and that Daisy never smiled again after her brief return to Sargasso. Halsey's true feelings on the matter remain a mystery, but it is clear that the ordeal was troubling to all involved.

Career
Daisy received MJOLNIR Mk IV powered assault armor in late 2525, as she and her fellow Spartans were called upon to use their “talents” against the xenocidal Covenant Empire, an alien collective whose self-proclaimed religious mission was to exterminate humanity. Though Daisy, like all S-IIs, had been trained her whole life to fight against human combatants, she quickly learned how to wage war against these new extraterrestrial enemies and was deployed in numerous missions to fight them. From 2526 onward, she served as part of a Spartan outfit on the former human colony of Harvest, participating in Admiral Cole's campaign to eradicate the Covenant presence there. She could be distinguished from the rest of her unit by the rusty-red coloration of her MJOLNIR armor, a customized paint job that helped her blend in with the ruined terrain. She kept the tiny bear keychain with her at all times, even in combat.

Death
In June of 2530, Daisy assisted a team of UNSC Marines as they fought against Covenant forces which outnumbered them greatly. She came into contact with Ralph (now a Marine) over the radio, a surprise which brought back old memories. Daisy and a Marine Sergeant reached the evac point via Warthog, but came under heavy fire from the Covenant troops closing in on the area, which resulted in Daisy being critically injured by Needler rounds. Ralph and the Marines in the waiting Pelican attempted to help her, but were all killed when the aircraft exploded. Daisy fired at the alien soldiers until her pistol ran out of bullets, then died where she lay, too wounded to get up. Her body was recovered a short time later by John-117 and her brain used by the ONI to create a smart AI, which called itself "Amaranth" perhaps as a personal tribute to Daisy.

Trivia

 * This article was created because the author liked the concept presented in Halo Legends: Homecoming, but was not satisfied with how it was presented, and therefore had to write her own version to make everything hunky-dory. Also because the author likes Metroid: Other M. A lot.
 * The AI created from Daisy's brain will serve a purpose in future fanon material. The names "Daisy" and "Amaranth" are both types of flowers; "Amaranth" means "unfading" and typifies immortality in poetry and other literary works.