Chapter Text
“What in the world is so important that I can’t have my breakfast?” Master Chief snapped at his subordinate as he was rushed groggily towards his new commander’s office.
“I think we’ve had a last-minute addition to the team, sir. Although I’m not quite sure in what sense.” Private Carson choked uncomfortably, goatee twitching, setting what he must have assumed was a fast pace, but Chief was barely strolling. Chief sighed heavily. He'd been getting mighty fed up of filler reconnaissance missions. It was a little anticlimactic after the whole drama with Gravemind.
In fact, as soon as he walked through the door and saw the commander with a girl in a dress, he had to repress the urge to groan, what was this? Because it surely was bullshit.
A beat of silence later made Chief glad for his visor and the fact that nobody generally questioned him about why he kept it on all the time. It was easy to gawk without getting into trouble when wearing a permanent opaque helmet.
She had the strangest eyes he’d ever seen, almost reflective of the surroundings rather than colour in particular, and a smattering of freckles over her nose and face that gave the impression she was made up of multi-coloured skin tones. Her hair was past shoulder length and more on the curly than wavy side, and she looked like she’d seen some sun recently if the light-red swarthiness over her cheeks was anything to go by. He didn't often see nicely sun-kissed people.
He assumed immediately that she must be an aristocrat.
“This is Doctor Ikarashi…” the commander was looking at Chief expectantly, and Chief realised he’d completely missed what had preceded the introduction.
“Uh - right,” he held his hand out awkwardly to shake Doctor Ikarashi's own.
“Please, call me Storm,” she said in a quiet voice, but Chief knew she wasn’t shy. She was observing carefully. Tricky to do through a helmet, but Chief found himself muting a cough and tilting his head inquiringly at the commander, who wandered back around his desk with a haughty, smug expression, before gesturing towards her.
“Storm will be accompanying you on your next touch down in four weeks,” he started, and Chief narrowed his eyes invisibly, “she’s a highly trained doctor in many fields, she knows how to hack into most unfamiliar tech, and… I’m sending her in under covert ops.” The flicker of his eyelid meant that these were ‘covert ops’ that Chief would most probably not have prior knowledge of before their mission started. Something he hated with a passion because it made the situation unpredictable, and dangerous.
He eyed her again.
She was small. Like how he imagined Cortana would be if she were solid.
“Uh, Commander, I know this is probably important, but don’t you think the girl should receive some training before being sent into a red zone?” he knew protesting was stupid, but perhaps if he put the fear of death in her, she might change her mind.
He was shocked when she came right up to him, breaking his sight of the commander, and smiled at him sweetly. A bit too sweetly. Like… sarcastic kind of sweet.
“Ah, Commander, I see you’ve put me under the protection of more misogynists!” her voice came out much stronger than before, and she glared at him sideways before suddenly scaling him like a tree, flipping over behind him and dragging him backwards via headlock onto the floor before he had time to close his gaping mouth against the metal shoved into his jaw from the dislodging of his headgear. He stifled an inaudible groan as his back twinged. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. And since when did little ballerinas throw him about in his superior’s office?
Chief quickly sat up but found himself spinning before getting to his feet as she grabbed his left arm, propelled his body weight against him, and flung him back down onto his stomach.
“You know,” he huffed, annoyance seeping through, “it’s all well and good attacking me in a calm environment when you have the element of surprise in your silly dress but defending yourself long enough to…” she interrupted him.
“Stop complaining, please. I’ve been on several of these missions and I’d rather get on with it, without you complaining.”
Chief buttoned his trap, scowling.
“Now, now,” the commander looked only a little perturbed, as though he expected something like this. He gave Chief a hand up and then sidled over to the woman to placate her fiery glare. He understood why people called her Storm, he supposed. “Mischa here has been trained well enough to hold her own if she gets into trouble for a while, Chief, but you will be acting as bodyguards for her. As I said, she is covert. We do need intelligence agents in the field occasionally. And it doesn’t hurt to study psychology and science of other species and their motivations either…”
“Study?!” Chief spat it harder than he intended, “Oh great, you’re a spook and a shrink for aliens?”
“Why you…!” the commander steered Mischa around in a circle when she tried to march up to him again with her fists clenched. Chief thought that was stupid. She obviously wasn’t well-trained enough to know that hitting him with fists would just break her fingers.
The commander raised his voice in exasperation. “Storm is the only one capable of bringing down that facilities mainframe now, and we also have some important data to collect, as well as biohazardous samples and deploying a tactical mole virus to hack into their mainframe! So, can it, Chief!”
“Well, where’s Igmund, why can’t he come?” Chief spewed, not seeing the flashes of rage or upset on Mischa’s face. Igmund was usually their go-to for anything like this, and he was trained almost as well as Chief himself.
“My father is… he died.” Mischa angrily frowned at the floor, not able to stop her chin from wobbling as the memory was so fresh. “He died after struggling for a while... this morning, and I’m the only one who knows everything he knew. I own his lab, I own his equipment, I own… you know what? Never mind...” She didn’t make eye contact when she started stalking towards the door. The commander dropped his hand awkwardly and then eyed Chief with contempt as Mischa muttered something about seeing them tomorrow and slunk out, leaving Chief feeling wretched.
“Oh well. Nicely done Chief. Maybe you should let me do the talking the next time you see a girl with a pretty face…!” Cortana piped up and Chief groaned heavily, sitting in one of the commander’s chairs and nodding, prepared to hear the rest of the briefing.