Dyne-G217

This fanfiction article, Dyne-G217, was written by Ahalosniper. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission.

This fanfiction article, Dyne-G217, is currently under active construction.

Dyne
It's impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenius.
Biographical Information
REAL NAME	Daniel Clarke
ALIAS	The Renegade
DATE OF BIRTH	December 10th, 2539
HOMEWORLD	New Alexandria, Reach
Physical Information
GENDER	Male
HEIGHT	172 cm (5’8”)
HAIR COLOR	Brown
EYE COLOR	Green
CYBERNETICS	Spartan Neural Lace
Political/Military Information
SPECIALTY	*Scout Technician
RANK	Specialist (E-4)
SPARTAN TAG	G217
CLASS	Gamma Company
BRANCH	*UNSC Army UNSC Spartan Corps
UNIT	Team Machete
AFFILIATION	UNSC (formerly)
[Source]

"Codes, bones, rules… I’m good at breaking all kinds of things!"

― Dyne-G217

When Dyne-G217 was recruited for Gamma Company, where others felt fear or solemnly accepted the responsibilities of a Spartan, he was overjoyed—for the first time in his life, he had friends, and never failed to try and prove they could count on him. Thus, it hit him all the harder when those friends turned on one another. Unable to cope with how they'd torn themselves apart, Dyne fled the UNSC without oaths of vengeance, conspirators to defect to, or a plan of any kind, in hopes of finding his missing teammate or, just maybe, some measure of happiness again. What he found instead was a frontier where people made their own rules without higher authorities to keep them in check, a city ruled by the worst kind of despots, and, of all things, a fellow Spartan: Cassandra-G006. Shown the suffering he'd always been told he prevented by following orders, Dyne came to believe for himself what so many others had been indoctrinated to: that Spartans were meant to serve as heroes, and found his own way of living up to that ideal.

Biography

Becoming a Spartan

Obscured Origins

Official records of Daniel Clarke list no known homeworld, counting him among the myriad untracked refugees of the Human-Covenant War. He, like many others, first appeared in Reach's foster care system as one of millions fleeing the Covenant's assault in the Outer Colonies. Overworked and underfunded, staff simply had no energy to track down non-existent records from glassed colonies for every child put on transports ahead of their parents. Simple human apathy, however, makes for a more convincing lie than meticulous fabrication. The truth of how he came to be there was a closely-guarded secret, kept between the ONI agent who expunged all record of his origin and Dyne's unlikely parents: the SPARTAN-II supersoldiers Isaac-039 and Vinh-030.

Vinh plummets down a tunnel to avoid the destruction of the bunker.

During the Covenant's assault on the world of Briar, the two members of Green Team were trapped in a collapsed bunker deep beneath the planet's surface. The alien zealots remained aware of their survival and began using a Scarab excavator to dig out their hated enemies for execution. Certain they'd both be killed, the longtime friends and teammates consummated their relationship, leading to their son's conception. In the meantime, however, their mission handler Erin Coney hadn't given up on them, and called on their comrades in Crimson Team to help enact a rescue. With the zealous aliens distracted to obsession with their cornered prey, Crimson managed to commandeer their Scarab and route the Covenant, then extract Vinh and Isaac before they could retaliate.

After the battle, en route to their next assignment aboard a vessel in slipspace, Vinh underwent a medical exam for unusual symptoms and discovered she was pregnant. After privately explaining themselves to Erin, Vinh elected to keep the child over Isaac's protests, and Coney arranged for her discreet transfer to a hospital in New Alexandria on Reach. Coney would obscure her absence over the following months while Isaac completed their missions solo, and Vinh gave birth to the boy she would name Daniel Clarke, using his father's pre-conscription surname. Vinh remained with him through his earliest months, until the pair's rotation called for them to return to the main cadre of SPARTAN-IIs.

For their child's protection, Erin encouraged the parents to leave Daniel in the care of a New Alexandrian orphanage, promising to monitor and keep him from the prying eyes of ONI's amoral research divisions. While Vinh was reluctant, Isaac pointed out the pair knew nothing of how to raise a child or keep his existence hidden themselves, and Dyne's mother finally agreed. While they returned to their comrades together, the decision would force a rift between the two and led them to grow apart in the coming years. Daniel, in the meantime, would struggle with the complications of inheriting Spartan genetic modifications, but survived and grew into a fast if scrawny child.

Early Life and Conscription

"I've seen stories like his a hundred times. Young lad without a family starts acting out, says it's for fun, and when he's too old for foster care, joins up with one of those ruffian gangs. Quite the pity."

― Detective Reginald Harding, regarding the runaway he routinely had to track down.

As an infant, Daniel's case was a priority for caregivers, but the constant influx of new refugees made for a steady supply of cases just as critical. With the complex medical issues Daniel experienced, he was passed over several times by foster families who opted for easier candidates. Daniel would grow up knowing only the life provided for him in the federal orphanage, and as he watched other children his age—some of whom had only just arrived—be chosen by foster families ahead of him, Daniel grew discouraged about his life ahead.

The overcrowded streets and skybridges of New Alexandria offered the young Daniel adventure beyond his dull shelter.

As the children around him left and were replaced in endless rotation, Daniel began to stop forming attachments, fearing any friends he made would soon abandon him. As he became increasingly lonely and resentful of the inadequate attention of his overworked caregivers, Daniel began to look outside his home for what he felt was missing. Developing a sharp mind, as early as four years old he'd learned how to slip outside the shelter unnoticed, though he couldn't go far beyond the skyway concourses around his home city block.

During these outings, he would first meet with gangs of urchin children who'd escaped, been rejected, or simply missed by Reach's strained social net and banded together for survival. It was with these bands, made up of everything from children his age to young teens, that Daniel made his first real friendships. When days ended, however, Daniel would always return to his warm bunk and hot food in the orphanage, something the street children resented him for. Despite being ever the unwanted tag-along, Daniel endured being the butt of jokes and even physical abuse in his desperate search for some measure of inclusion. Soon, this need for belonging drove him to consider leaving the orphanage for their lives in squalor.

"If you’re gonna pick pockets for a living, kid, I'd learn not to breathe so loud."

― Pete Stacker, first meeting Dyne.

In early March, 2544, Daniel would again try to ingratiate himself with a gang of urchins known as the Irregulars. Being mostly older children, however, the band wanted nothing to do with Daniel and challenged him to steal a military man's wallet in hopes he'd be caught and arrested. The mark they chose happened to be Staff Sergeant Pete Stacker, an ODST working for as a recruiting agent for ONI's Beta-5 Division, on Reach to secure a list of candidates. Easily noticing Daniel's attempt at thievery, he halted the attempt but only scolded and sent Daniel on his way before going his own.

Disappointed to see Daniel back, the Irregulars bluntly told Daniel he'd failed their test and wasn't allowed to hang out with them anymore. When he tried to follow them anyway, three of those closer to his age ganged up on him, meaning to hurt Daniel enough to leave him behind. To their surprise, however, another boy came to Daniel's defense, and even outnumbered they managed to fight the urchins off together. The newcomer introduced himself as Kody and, having only just arrived on Reach that day, asked if Daniel could show him what they could do for fun nearby. Ecstatic to have someone want to be around him, Daniel gladly showed Kody around New Alexandria for the rest of the day.

Touring the city and talking, the pair became fast friends and soon gave one another their first nicknames: Kodiak and Dyne. As evening came, however, they were spotted by the man who Dyne had tried to steal from earlier, who shouted and tried to chase them down. While they escaped through the back alleys Dyne had learned from the street children, he feared if the man had found him back once, he had to know the shelter where Dyne lived. Worried for his new friend, Kodiak promised he could hide Dyne if he was willing to leave New Alexandria. Realizing he had nothing there to stay for, Dyne agreed.

Sneaking into the New Alexandria Starport, Kodiak led Dyne to a hangar where a UNSC Pelican was readying to take off. Telling Dyne the dropship would meet with a larger spaceship, full of kids their age, Kodiak got them into a crate set to be brought aboard and waited to be carried away. Shortly after takeoff, however, something bumped the crate and startled Dyne enough to make a noise. The crate was opened, and the pair were discovered by none other than Stacker himself. While Dyne worried at first they'd send him back to New Alexandria, Stacker explained he'd been sent to recruit him for the same project as Kodiak, and been out all night searching for him.

Offered a part in the newest class of the SPARTAN-III program, Dyne eagerly accepted and joined the other children on the UNSC Themistocles. Over the remaining weeks of their journey, Dyne and Kodiak each tried to live up to the adventurous circumstances they'd met under, starting with figuring out how to release the door locks on their assigned quarters. They soon befriended another candidate, Carlos, who'd been among the first aboard and introduced them to many of the other children, including Morgan, whom Dyne accidentally offended, and Amber, the last to be taken.

Training and Augmentation

"I’m actually not all that concerned about the mongooses, not even my Warthog. I’m a little curious about the rest of the Warthogs, and I’d love to know why the generator building is in pieces, but what I really want to know is WHERE ARE MY GODDAMN TANKS!?!'"

― Staff Sergeant Pete Stacker, yelling at Dyne and Kodiak after a particularly large accident.

At last arriving over the classified world of Onyx, Dyne and the other children were brought to the surface by Pelican and introduced to their head instructor, Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose. Told they would be given the chance to avenge the families taken from them by the Covenant, which only confused Dyne, the candidates were then ordered back onto the dropships to undergo their first test: making a night jump with Falcon Wing descent packs. While Dyne at first balked at the test, Kodiak suggested they go first to embolden the others. Not wanting to let his friend down, Dyne jumped immediately after him with an excited shout, and the pair would later learn every candidate in their dropship passed this first trial. The next day, however, the pair were devastated to learn Carlos, aboard another Pelican, had failed to make the jump and been sent away from their new home in Camp Currahee.

Dyne ends his first full day on Onyx exhausted.

Thereafter, the trainees of Gamma Company would be thrown into a punishing physical conditioning regimen to work them into fighting shape. This included kilometers-long runs, grueling obstacle courses, and onerous strength training which exhausted the children and left them no time or energy for their own activities or free thinking. Dyne, whose previous life had been devoid of structure, found the relentless schedule especially chafing, but could muster little except complaints at first. His complaining did, however, lead Kodiak to think about ways to escape their daily exercises, and only a week in made their first attempt at slipping away from their drill instructors during a run. Having experience with delinquents from both Alpha and Beta Companies before them, the pair were caught almost immediately, but in the coming months pushed one another to keep trying.

Despite fatigue and frustration as the instructors stymied their every attempt at disobedience, they refused to let one another give up and learned from every failure. As their training developed their endurance, they learned to use the less-stringent supervision of their impromptu punishments to cache away extra rations and other resources for themselves. From the classes administered by certain officers and Currahee's base AI Deep Winter, they learned about surveillance and by the first year's end knew how to escape their locked barracks at night undetected. While these escapades left them utterly drained for exercise in subsequent days, Dyne and Kodiak took pride in retaining a measure of freedom and used the knowledge they'd acquired for their own pursuits.

While firearm safety had been among the trainees' first lessons, the first year rarely allowed them the chance for hands-on time with anything more than sidearms, while the instructors gave tantalizing descriptions of high explosive ordnance and their yields. Thus, Dyne and Kodiak reasoned, they should have been less surprised when the entire camp was awakened one night by an unauthorized fireworks display set to the climax of Pyotr Chaikovsky's 1812 Overture played over the base's loudspeaker. While the pair were harshly punished after they were caught, it wouldn't take them long to start planning their next bit of mischief.

The pair's capers would continue through most of their time on Onyx. These ranged from petty theft and joyrides in training vehicles to pranks on instructors or even other trainees they felt needed humbling as the program started encouraging intra-company competition, bringing out the best and worst in the children. These antics were invariably well-intended, however, and stopped short of causing actual injury in the case of all but a few accidents. The moral distinctions present in their schemes would unfortunately be lost on their instructors in the face of how much collateral damage they were prone to causing, from sensitive equipment and ordnance to training vehicles and even facilities.

Perhaps worse was the pair's capacity to enable others. Other problem children soon emerged in Gamma Company, from kleptomaniacs to the simply lazy, and the pair became their suppliers. If a trainee wanted something, Dyne and Kodiak would usually be able to get it for a price. The caches they'd established hid stolen material and held onto contraband the other trainees didn't want confiscated. Even items from off-world appeared in those the staff uncovered, which was only learned late in Gamma's training had come from the pair's tampering with outgoing logistics requests. While many instructors warned of the effects their functioning black market would have on the Company's results, their ability to halt it without discharging most of the candidates involved⁠—something LCDR Ambrose would never permit due to the program's underperforming recruitment numbers⁠—was limited. Ambrose, for his part, praised Gamma's resilience to their crackdown, remarking their ingenuity against such challenges boded well of their potential.

Personality and Traits

Mental Report

"We laugh in the face of danger. It's just some days danger can't take a joke."

― Dyne

Despite years of arduous training for a war in which he'd likely be expendable, Dyne retained a cheerful attutide and mischievous streak which could be a detriment to friend and foe alike. This would show itself in combat as a habit of taunting enemies, luring them into ambushes with surprising effect. However, his resistance to authority was ill-suited to a military environment, and often earned him extra calisthenics in training. While this spoke to the failure of his training to initially break him down for indoctrination, Machete's subsequent years surveying worlds for recolonization kept Dyne's breaches of protocol to isolated and inconsequential incidents.

Relationships

Morgan-G018: "In your dreams, Dyne."

Dyne-G217: "I can dream of you?"

―A conversation aboard the UNSC Themistocles.

Weapons and Armor

• Mark II Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor
  The SPI armor was developed specifically for the SPARTAN-IIIs, and while it lacked energy shielding, its use of photoreactive texture panels granted the wearer camouflage abilities nearly on par with Covenant active camouflage technology. Dyne wore a suit of Mark II SPI throughout his training, and though a Mark III iteration was slated for development for Gamma Company using feedback from Beta, it was never produced. Machete used the SPI in the field for the first few days of the Battle of Earth, but soon replaced it with prototype MJOLNIR.
• MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor, Mark V(B)
  As the initial production model of the Mark V, the [B] variant armor was the first human armor system to incorporate energy shielding reverse-engineered from Covenant technology. After the Mark V's design was finalized, however, these prototypes were recalled and stored under Ryu Base in Japan for eventual scrapping. After the Battle of Earth, however, Lieutenant Erin Coney illicitly allowed Team Machete access to the storage facilities to assemble and claim MJOLNIR suits of their own to replace their flimsier SPI. The armor Dyne assembled included a complete set of Multi-Threat plates and an MP helmet. As all the parts had been repainted orange and white upon return to storage, the colors were adopted as Machete's team livery and remained as they were through their years of use.
• BR-series Battle Rifle
  Reliable and highly-accurate in burst, Misriah's standard-issue battle rifle had become a staple in armories of every branch save the UNSC Army by 2552. Dyne used the weapons to great effect from mid and long-range, quickly eliminating unshielded infantry thanks to the weapon's relatively high rate of fire.
• M7 Submachine guns
  Dyne chose to use pairs of submachine guns in closer combat because of their versatility and extreme rate of fire, keeping him from becoming overwhelmed even when facing large groups. Dyne was known to use his SMGs as makeshift tonfas in hand-to-hand combat, giving him an unorthodox fighting style that allowed him to get the upper hand on unsuspecting opponents.
• Renegade Suit