BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SPARTAN TAG 117 HOMEWORLD Eridanus II BIRTH DATE March 7, 2511[1] CURRENT STATUS Alive, listed Killed in action on October 27, 2558[8][9] VOICED BY * Steve Downes (Main) * David Wald (Halo Legends) * Alex Puccinelli (Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn) PHYSICAL INFORMATION GENDER Male HEIGHT * 208.3 centimetres (6 ft 10.0 in)[2] (without armor)[3] * 218 centimetres (7 ft 2 in)[4](In armor) MASS * 130 kilograms (290 lb)[4][3] (without armor) * 451.3 kilograms (995 lb)[3] (in armor) HAIR COLOR Brown[5] EYE COLOR Blue CYBERNETICS Spartan Neural Interface AI Cortana (2552-2557) The Weapon (2560) AFFILIATION AND MILITARY INFORMATION AFFILIATION UNSC Navy RANK * Master Chief Petty Officer[Note 1] SPECIALTY Commander and Assault BATTLES Insurrection * Operation: TALON * Raid on Camp New Hope Human-Covenant war * Battle of Chi Ceti * Harvest Campaign * Battle of Circinius IV * Battle of Jericho VII * Raid on the Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence * Battle of Sigma Octanus IV * Fall of Reach * Battle of Installation 04 * Operation: FIRST STRIKE * Battle of Earth * Battle of Installation 05 * Battle of Installation 00 * Many other battles Post-War * First Battle of Requiem * Raid on Ivanoff Research Station * New Phoenix Incident * Raid on UNSC Argent Moon * Battle of Meridian (2558) CLASS Class I: 2525 [Source] • [Talk] This article is about the SPARTAN-II. For other uses, see John. This character also appears in the TV show. For information about the TV version, see Master Chief. Graphic Halo

Halo Alpha has a collection of quotes related to John-117 on its quotes page. Our duty, as soldiers, is to protect humanity. Whatever the cost. JOHN-117[10] Master Chief Petty Officer John-117,[Note 1] more commonly known as Master Chief, is a SPARTAN-II commando of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command. He is the protagonist and main character in both the Halo trilogy and Reclaimer Saga. With over thirty years of active duty service, he has become one of the most decorated war veterans in the United Nations Space Command, earning every known UNSC medal except the Prisoner of War Medallion. ADVERTISEMENT Biography Childhood and Spartan-II training They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research. Watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong, swift, and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw but me. Can you guess? Luck. Was I wrong? CORTANA John-117, at 6 years of age, with Halsey deciding his fate with a 21st-century quarter. John was born in 2511 and lived with his mother and his father in Elysium city on the colony world of Eridanus II. He attended the Elysium City Primary Education Facility Number 119. As a child, John had brown hair, freckles, and a small gap between his front teeth. In a dream during cryo-sleep aboard the UNSC Pillar of Autumn , John recalled that his mother "kind of smelled like soap," and that she had "large eyes, a straight nose and full lips."[11] The would-be UNSC Marine Lieutenant Parisa was a childhood friend of John's who John once saved from drowning at Lake Gusev; John thereafter promised to marry and protect her. Parisa's father shot a photo of the two soon after that Parisa kept as a memento long after she thought John had died.[12] John was also friends with Ellie Bloom and Katrina during his childhood. Some nights, John would lay in grass fields with the girls and the three of them would look up at the stars together.[13] Dr. Catherine Halsey identified John as an ideal physical and mental candidate for the 150-strong preliminary pool of the SPARTAN-II Program when he was six: he stood a head taller than the majority of his schoolmates, had greater physical proportions, and possessed greater strength, superior reflexes, and an aggressive drive for success. When Dr. Halsey and Lieutenant Jacob Keyes visited Eridanus II in 2517 to study him, they were impressed with his intellect and luck. In a final test of his viability as a candidate, he was asked to determine which side an old coin would land on. He watched the coin as it flew in the air and caught it before it could land, correctly stating which side was face-up and which was the side of the eagle. John was the first candidate Dr. Halsey and Lieutenant Keyes studied. Later that same year, John and 74 other six-year-old children were "conscripted": they were covertly kidnapped from their homes and replaced with flash clones, all of which would later die of neurological problems stemming from the imperfect cloning process, covering up the kidnappings. John, along with the other candidates, was taken to the planet of Reach. Dr. Halsey informed them of the SPARTAN-II Program and how they would be "the protectors of Earth and all her colonies." The next morning John discovered his service tag, stitched into his training uniform, and his new name: John-117. John began a new life. He trained with other Spartans under Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez. For eight years he learned history, military strategy, weapons and received physical fitness training. Early on, he bonded with Kelly and Sam, who would become two of the few close friends that he would ever have. File001

John, at 14 years of age, undergoing Spartan-II Augmentation. He is neither the smartest, nor the fastest, nor the strongest of the Spartans. But he is the bravest, and quite possibly the luckiest. And in my opinion, he is the best. DR. CATHERINE HALSEY TO CORTANA John quickly proved himself to be one of the program's top candidates during his training. Both Dr. Halsey and Chief Mendez identified him as one of four emerging leaders within the Spartan-II group, along with Kurt-051, Jerome-092, and Frederic-104. Dr. Halsey most strongly expressed her belief in John by stating that he had the skills and natural ability to lead the entire Spartan-II group. However, Mendez disagreed and instead believed that Kurt would fulfill that role.[14] When the Spartans were eight years old, they were sent on a training mission in which they were dropped over a forest located deep in one of Reach's snow-filled mountain ranges and expected to get safely to their extraction Pelican dropship. The children also had instructions to leave the last child arriving behind lest they receive painful punishment; John-117 knew, however, that he could not do that. After telling the Spartans where to meet, the Spartans looked to him as their leader, a role he was initially surprised to receive but eventually accepted. When the group came upon the Pelican, it was guarded by armed men. Those men were actually UNSC Marines but were not in uniform; the Spartans therefore mistook them for a hostile threat. John showed early acumen in critical thinking and tactics, not wishing to take for granted that guards would be friendly toward them. He came up with a plan to take the men down, capture the dropship, and ensure the safe extraction of every team member, as he made sure he was the last person aboard. To do so he ended up hijacking the dropship with the help of Déjà and beat down the men with stones, causing severe injuries among the Marines. Chief Mendez was visibly displeased by John's having attacked his Marines and leaving no-one behind, but both Mendez and Halsey recognized John's initiative and promoted him to squad leader. Thereafter, despite other Spartans' rising in rank and at least a couple rising to lead their own teams, he remained the de facto leader of the Spartans as a whole. John's leadership skills were correctly observed: the result from their mission clearly solidified his role as the overall leader of the Spartan-IIs. He also became the established leader of the Spartan-II Blue Team. John-117 fighting ODST team

John-117, at 14 years of age, fighting a group of ODSTs on the UNSC Atlas. At the age of fourteen, John underwent the dangerous SPARTAN-II augmentation procedures. These procedures killed 30 and physically disabled 12 of the Spartan trainees. John was one of 33 Spartans who survived the process unscathed, while the rest who could still operate were moved to positions in the Office of Naval Intelligence. At only fourteen years old, John was said to have the body of an eighteen-year old Olympic athlete; the augmentation process hastened their reflexes, increased their strength, enhanced their eyesight, and rendered their bones nearly unbreakable. After their augmentation procedures, John and the other Spartans were transferred to the Atlas in order to recover in a microgravity environment. Four ODSTs confronted John during his first visit to the Atlas' gym; their sergeant then ordered the five of them into the boxing ring. In the ensuing fight, John killed two of the ODSTs, and left the others severely injured, an incident which quickly blossomed into major resentment for the whole SPARTAN Program throughout the Marine Corps. According to Major Antonio Silva, "people who invented John" orchestrated this incident in order to test the Spartans' augmentations.[15] Early military career John-117 received armor

John-117 wears his armor for the first time. I think that if anything good can be said to have come from all of this, it's that everyone who went through it can know that their struggle wasn't for nothing. When you have a young man who can rise up from something like this and do what John has done... he honors all of us. DEON GOVENDER In 2525, John was given his first mission against insurrectionists in the asteroid belt of his home Eridanus system. He was shot in the side without heavy injury while leading his squad to capture United Rebel Front leader Colonel Robert Watts. The mission casualty list was 11 dead rebel soldiers and an unknown number of rebel civilians. John received a Purple Heart.[16] John wearing his Mjolnir Mark IV armor, holding a MA37 Three months thereafter, John and his Spartans were briefed on the massacre that had taken place on Harvest shortly after first contact with the Covenant. The UNSC Commonwealth , under the command of Captain Wallace, soon brought the Spartans and Dr. Halsey to the Damascus Testing Facility at Chi Ceti, where they received the Mjolnir Mark IV Powered Assault Armor. When a Covenant vessel, the Unrelenting, attacked the Commonwealth, John and the Spartan-IIs engaged in their first battle with the Covenant. The Spartans used thrusters to launch from a Pelican dropship. Each Spartan carried a HAVOK Nuke[17] to destroy the Covenant ship. Only John, Sam, and Kelly reached the ship. They entered it through a hull breach from a MAC round from the Commonwealth and succeeded in completing the mission and destroyed the Covenant ship, but a breach in Sam's armor from Covenant retaliation fire from Covenant forces prevented him from leaving the enemy vessel; he made the most of his misfortune by ensuring that the ship exploded. Sam's death profoundly affected John: it proved to him that the Covenant could be defeated, but only at the cost of many lives. In early 2526, John, now a Petty Officer First Class, and eleven other Spartans were employed to strike back against the Covenant as part of Operation: SILENT STORM. During this time, John met Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson who acted as a mentor and friend to the young Spartan while John often clashed with Colonel Marmon Crowther who dismissed John due to his age. Following the Battle of Seoba, John gained Crowther's respect and the two worked closely together to attack the Covenant base at Zhoist and against Insurrectionist elements within their task force. Shortly before his death, Crowther made the unprecedented move of promoting John from Petty Officer First Class to Master Chief Petty Officer, an unheard of three-rank bump.[18] John during the Battle of Circinius IV. In 2526, a Covenant attack on the Corbulo Academy of Military Science sparked the Battle of Circinius IV. The UNSC had suspected the safety of the planet for several days and garrisoned it with Marines and ODSTs. The Academy was destroyed almost as soon as the attack began, but Blue Team was able to deploy to the surface undetected mere hours later. John fought to the Academy ruins and protected the cadets by fighting off Covenant forces while waiting for evacuation by Kelly-087 and Frederic-104. He first met Thomas Lasky, who was a young cadet at the time.[19] Main article: Raid on the Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence Master Chief Petty Officer John SPARTAN-117 wearing his Mark IV armor

Master Chief Petty Officer John SPARTAN-117 wearing his Mark IV armor

John as the operation kicks off. In 2544,[20] John, along with Fred-104, Kelly-087, Solomon-069 and Arthur-079, participated in the Raid on the Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence to rescue Dr. Catherine Halsey. The UNSC deployed a prowler stealth corvette to transport Spartans who would infiltrate the Covenant fleet as it was forced to exit slipspace in order to traverse a stellar magnetic field. The Spartans were given ten minutes to complete the rescue mission or be caught in the annihilation of Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence, likely only possible through the use of a prototype NOVA Bomb. The team infiltrated the fleet with OF92/EVA "Booster Frame" fighters, which were designed for ship boarding actions. Solomon detected Catherine Halsey's beacon from a Covenant CCS-class Battlecruiser that had its hangar bay shields down. John-117 intuitively voiced his concern about this irregularity but chose to disregard it. Solomon infiltrated the vessel with cover from Kelly and quickly discovered the source: a Covenant antimatter charge.[21] Kelly escaped the immediate detonation due to John's warning, but Solomon was vaporized. A further scan resulted in positive readings from all enemy vessels from which John deduced that Catherine was held on the Covenant flagship at the heart of the fleet. The Spartans then successfully fought their way through the Covenant's Seraph formations, and sheared through the massive vessel's hangar bay energy shields with a large barrage of explosive ordnance, gauss cannon rounds, and their own Booster Frame's as projectiles to infiltrate the Covenant CAS-class assault carrier, the Resplendent Fervor. Upon entry John, Kelly and Fred protected themselves with a Bubble Shield. The clearing smoke revealed surrounding Covenant forces in the hangar bay.[21] With three minutes remaining, John and the Spartans sprinted through the collapsed Bubble Shield and down the corridors of the vessel, effortlessly slaughtering Covenant infantry as Frederic-104 breached doorways with a Spartan Laser. Ambushed by Sangheili Energy Swordsmen, Frederic locked the nearest doorway behind John and Kelly to engage them with combat knives alone. The Supreme Commander Luro 'Taralumee initiated a scuttle of the rear of the ship to escape the Spartans. Forced to leap from the section disconnected from the Assault Carrier, Kelly grabbed John's hand and threw him forward using inertia to increase his speed toward the escaping ship but thus threw herself back into space: John reached the ship.[21] After rescuing Catherine Halsey from her cryonic stasis pod, John encountered Sangheili Major Thel 'Lodamee, who deflected John's barrage of assault rifle fire and challenged him to an Energy Sword duel. Thel disarmed John and kicked him to the ground, but he was forced out of the duel when his Fleetmaster separated the lower section of the Assault Carrier to kill the Spartan, thereby pulling Thel back into the upper section; both combatants survived unscathed. John and Halsey descended into the ship and commandeered a weaponless Covenant shuttle craft. A Seraph formation attacked them on exit, but a Seraph commandeered by Fred and Kelly annihilated the enemy fighters and recovered John and Halsey along with fire support from their prowler. John's teammate's deaths deeply saddened him: the operation saw more Spartan-IIs killed in action than any before the Fall of Reach. John vowed to become stronger and never allow such a loss to happen again.[21] John served in over 200 campaigns against the Covenant Empire over the next 27 years. These included the Harvest Campaign,[22] the Battle of Jericho VII, where he and a handful of Spartans destroyed a force of over a thousand Unggoy, and the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, in which John and his Blue Team detonated a HAVOK Nuclear Warhead to clear Covenant forces from the city of Côte d'Azur. By summer of 2552, he had received every medal awarded by the UNSC except the Prisoner of War Medallion: Covenant forces usually take no prisoners, and John would not allow himself or any other Spartan-II to be captured by the enemy. Fall of Reach Main article: Fall of Reach MJOLNIR Armor

John in his Mjolnir Mark V Powered Assault Armor. Catherine Halsey Providing Chief with Cortana

John meeting Cortana for the first time. The Fall of Reach, though brief, was of great significance for John. Here, he received the Mjolnir Mark V Powered Assault Armor, which improved his strength and reaction time more effectively than his older Mark IV suit. He was also introduced to and partnered with the AI Cortana, who would become a close friend and ally to him. In the first test of their partnership, the two were put through a practically suicidal test in an attempt by Colonel Ackerson to get rid of John. John refused to cheat the test and was determined to win it by Ackerson's rules. Despite nearly being killed, Cortana and John's teamwork had them pass the test in an early show of the incredible partnership the two would come to develop. After Reach came under attack by a massive Covenant armada, the majority of the Spartans, led by Fred S-104, went to the planet's surface to protect the Orbital Defense Generators which powered the planet's twenty Orbital Defense Platforms. John, with Linda and James-005, were sent to Reach Station Gamma to destroy an unsecured NAV database on board the UNSC Circumference . If the Covenant obtained the database, they would discover the location of every human world, including Earth; the location of Earth by then was still a closely guarded secret. The NAV database was destroyed, but Linda and James were ambushed by Covenant Sangheili; James was lost in space, and Linda was critically wounded. John saved four other Marines on the station, including Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson. The team returned to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn and was placed into cryo-sleep as the ship landed on, then fled Reach and, following the Cole Protocol, jumped into Slipspace with coordinates deduced by Cortana from constellation data retrieved earlier, in hopes of leading the Covenant away from Earth. Defense of Earth and humanity Installation 04 Main article: Battle of Installation 04 John-117 with Captain Keyes and Cortana on the Pillar of Autumn. Once the ship had arrived safely at Installation 04, the crew realized that the UNSC Halcyon-class light cruiser UNSC Pillar of Autumn had been followed through Slipspace by around a dozen Covenant ships, who ultimately engaged the Autumn and sent several boarding parties to board the ship. Captain Jacob Keyes ordered John to be woken from cryosleep, and tasked him with ensuring the escape of Cortana (who was the ship's AI), while he crash-landed the Pillar of Autumn on the unidentified ring.[23] HM Illustration 117onI04

John-117 examining the Halo ring after exiting the Bumblebee. John escaped the Pillar of Autumn on a life pod, and rallied Marines to fight against Covenant forces stationed on the ring. Cortana found out that Captain Keyes had been captured and was held prisoner on the CCS-class Truth and Reconciliation, by way of hacking into the Covenant battlenet. John joined the strike team that was sent to rescue Captain Keyes, where he learned that "Halo" was a super weapon. The Captain gave John new orders, to locate the map room that pinpointed the location of Halo's Control Center. When John was finished, he was dropped off in the first of three snowy chasms leading towards the Control Room. During the long trek, he encountered Fire Team Zulu and they assisted him in securing the first and second chasms. Initially, fighting on Halo was between UNSC and Covenant forces, but after Covenant forces had unwittingly released an ancient parasite, the majority of both forces were infected, and the fighting shifted to combating the new enemy. Flood infestation of Installation 04 Do you have any idea what that bastard almost made you do? CORTANA Yes… activate Halo's defenses, and destroy the Flood, which is why we brought the Index to the Control Center. JOHN-117 John-117 was sent out by Installation 04's Monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, to retrieve the Index, an activation device for the Halo ring that John-117 is led to believe would destroy all Flood forms within a large radius.[24] Upon John's return to Halo's Control Room, Cortana revealed that Halo's true purpose is to destroy all sentient life forms in the galaxy to starve the Flood, not to kill the Flood themselves. John was then forced to disrupt Halo's firing system by disabling Halo's Phase Pulse Generator in order to delay the Monitor's plan.[25] MC-343-HCEA

John-117 and 343 Guilty Spark. John soon joined the three-sided combat among the Covenant, the Flood and the Forerunners' Sentinels. Soon after, he tried to rescue Captain Keyes, but was too late. Captain Keyes had been transformed into a Proto-Gravemind Flood form. After infiltrating the Truth and Reconciliation, John managed to retrieve the Captain's neural implants, which he used to activate the Pillar of Autumn's self-destruct sequence. He then proceeded to the hangar of the ship and stole a Banshee.[26] John and Cortana barely made it back to the Autumn with the Banshee only to discover that ship was crawling with both Flood and Covenant alike. After the self-destruct sequence was aborted by 343 Guilty Spark, he proceeded to manually overload the fusion reactors, which would subsequently destroy both the Pillar of Autumn and Installation 04.[27] After successfully destroying the fusion reactors on the Pillar of Autumn, John-117 used a Warthog to reach the extraction point where Pelican Echo 419 would pick him up. John-117 reached the extraction point, only to witness the Pelican crashing into the Autumn's hull after being shot down by a pair of Banshees. John quickly diverted his escape route towards the ship's hangar bay, which housed a Longsword fighter.[27] Only a handful of UNSC forces survived, including Lieutenant Elias Haverson, Corporal Locklear, Warrant Officer Sheila Polaski, then-Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson,[28] Private First Class Chips Dubbo, and then-Staff Sergeant Marcus Stacker. Journey to Earth and Operation: FIRST STRIKE Main article: Operation: FIRST STRIKE Fight on Ascendant Justice

John-117 fighting aboard Ascendant Justice. After the destruction of Alpha Halo, Cortana and John-117 fled through space in the Longsword they had escaped in. He discovered three cryotubes floating nearby, one containing Linda-058, and retrieved them. Soon after, the Covenant's flagship Ascendant Justice came into the system along with a few cruisers, some of which had possibly escaped Halo's destruction and called the flagship to Threshold. A nearby Pelican dropship, which had docked on an asteroid floating among Halo's debris field, fired at the cruiser to distract it. After a successful escape from the Covenant battle group, John linked the two vessels and brought its passengers aboard the Longsword. The crew of the Pelican then helped John in capturing the Ascendant Justice; the human survivors then traveled to Reach to look for surviving Spartans. John eventually located some of his fellow Spartan-IIs on Reach, along with Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Dr. Catherine Halsey. They returned to the ship and linked it with the UNSC frigate UNSC Gettysburg . They began to travel toward Earth and soon discovered a base belonging to the Eridanus Rebels, led by Governor Jacob Jiles. After receiving some repairs, Dr Catherine Halsey surreptitiously leaves with Kelly-087 to an unknown location aboard Governor Jacob Jiles personal ship, at the time docked with the UNSC Gettysburg /Ascendant Justice. The remaining UNSC forces were forced to abandon the rebels in the face of a Covenant assault, and made their way toward the Covenant refit-and-repair station, Unyielding Hierophant, where an enormous fleet was poised to invade Earth. Just before the slipspace jump, Corporal Locklear inadvertently commits suicide while distorting the Forerunner Crystal, recovered by Dr Halsey from underneath the ruins of CASTLE base. Halsey gave it to the Corporal shortly before her departure, intending him to destroy it rather than let it fall into the hands of the Covenant. John faced a dilemma regarding the combat data on the Flood which Dr. Halsey had given him: providing the standard data set to Lieutenant Haverson would protect Sergeant Johnson from possible experimentation by ONI. However, providing him the complete data, which contained reference to Sergeant Johnson's escape from the Flood due to his Boren's Syndrome, would result in Johnson's death.[29] John and the few remaining Spartan-IIs: Linda-058, Grace-093, William-043, and Fred-104, focused on finding a way to stop the Covenant from reaching Earth, the location of which had been discovered. They decided to destroy the Unyielding Hierophant. The Spartan-IIs infiltrated the station; after spending eleven hours on board, they arrived at a temple, where a copy of Cortana warned them of the Jiralhanae guards stationed at the temple. Linda took a sniping position, and the other four Spartans entered the temple. They were ambushed by Jiralhanae, and John was nearly killed, but the team managed to kill their attackers. Grace, however, was killed by three Jiralhanae Shot rounds. John activated the fail-safe on her armor, denying her compromise by the Covenant. The team sabotaged the generators in the Unyielding Hierophant; as they escaped through a side door, the fail-safe on Grace's armor activated, disintegrating a Covenant lance. John, Fred, and Will were quickly spotted by three Banshees, but their Sangheili pilots were killed by Linda's sniper fire. The Banshees were then captured by the Spartans. John doubled back to retrieve Linda, who killed four more Banshee pilots who were attempting to kill John. They then escaped by destroying a glass atrium, and arrived back at the UNSC Gettysburg . Vice Admiral Whitcomb and Lieutenant Haverson piloted the Ascendant Justice straight toward the Unyielding Hierophant. Whitcomb discussed the battles of the Alamo and Thermopylae with John, then prepared to fight the Covenant off while the Unyielding Hierophant's fusion reactor detonated. Each of the 500 Covenant ships maneuvered next to the Ascendant Justice. The Admiral and the Lieutenant were killed when the fusion reactor exploded, annihilating 486 ships of the Covenant fleet, leaving only around a dozen intact; these ships later joined the Prophet of Truth's rebuilt fleet in the attack on Earth. John left after witnessing Whitcomb's and Haverson's sacrifice, and arrived at Earth with the last members of his team, Linda, Will, and Fred, as well as Johnson and Cortana.[30] Battle of Earth Main article: Battle of Earth Sir, permission to leave the station? JOHN-117 For what purpose, Master Chief? TERRENCE HOOD To give the Covenant back their bomb. JOHN-117 MC-Core-H2A

Master Chief detonates the Covenant's bomb in their own ship, drastically turning the tide of the Battle of Earth. Aboard Cairo Station, John received the Mjolnir Mark VI Powered Assault Armor and attended an awards ceremony with the newly promoted Lieutenant Commander Miranda Keyes and Sergeant Major Johnson. The ceremony was interrupted by the arrival of the Fleet of Sacred Consecration, initiating the Battle of Earth. John successfully repulsed Covenant boarders from the station. Upon discovering a Covenant Anti-Matter Charge on board Cairo Station, John fought his way through waves of Sangheili, Unggoy, and Yanme'e until he reached the bomb and allowed Cortana to access and deactivate it by transferring her back to his suit. Afterwards, she chose to rejoin him despite his offer for her to remain on the station. He used the charge against the Covenant by launching himself and the device, via decompression of one of the station's launch bays, towards an Assault Carrier. A timely strike by Longsword interceptors opened a breach in the warship's hull, allowing John to direct the bomb into the ship's fusion core. He then proceeded to use the blast from the bomb to launch himself back into the UNSC In Amber Clad .[31] MC Altered Photo

A photo of John-117 in New Mombasa edited by Benjamin Giraud. John was then deployed to New Mombasa, East African Protectorate aboard the UNSC In Amber Clad . In an attempt to board Solemn Penance, both of the strike teams' Pelican dropships were shot down by a Scarab. John and the surviving Marines on his team fought their way to the other Pelican's crash site. After rendezvousing with Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Stacker at Hotel Zanzibar in Old Mombasa, John-117 destroyed Covenant units along the shore of the city as he chased the Scarab.[32] Upon arriving at the edge of Old Mombasa, John received a Scorpion Tank from Sergeant Major Johnson.[33] After fighting through numerous highway tunnels and suburbs, John reached the city center, where Marines under the command of Staff Sergeant Marcus Banks were pinned down by Covenant forces. With the assistance of the Marines and a large stockpile of weapons, John boarded the Scarab and was able to destroy it and the Covenant forces protecting it. John was then transported to In Amber Clad to intercept the Prophet of Regret's flagship. When the flagship started to enter Slipspace, Lieutenant Commander Keyes was granted permission to follow it.[33] John and all on board In Amber Clad were brought to Installation 05.[34] Installation 05 Main article: Battle of Installation 05 MC-Regret-H2A

Master Chief on Installation 05 hunting down the Prophet of Regret. Forced to act quickly once at Installation 05, John deployed groundside in an SOEIV along with several Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. This team was tasked with locating and assassinating the Prophet of Regret. Cortana informed John of Regret's intent to fire Halo as soon as possible. He tracked the Prophet of Regret to a temple in the middle of a lake, but not before witnessing hundreds of Covenant vessels coming out of Slipspace, followed by High Charity. He quickly dispatched the Prophet of Regret, and escaped the temple shortly before it was destroyed by an overhead cruiser. John jumped off the edge of the structure and into the lake below. Losing consciousness and being unable to swim in the lake, he was captured by the Flood's central intelligence, the Gravemind. Shortly after, Thel 'Vadamee, the Arbiter, was also captured. The Gravemind appealed to the common interest that the Flood and humans share: preventing the Halos from being fired. John agreed to help, so the Gravemind tasked both captives with locating the Index, and sent them to the two most likely locations. John was sent to High Charity, interrupting a sermon by the Prophet o