Chapter 18: All the Choirs

A soft sigh left Ace's mouth as she slowly arched into her calisthenics, testing her flexibility against that of her armour. She had been training with Noble Team for nearly two months now. Their training missions, of course, went smoother the longer she got used to trusting the S-IIIs to have her blind spots. Kelly had been surprisingly helpful, as well, but Ace supposed that her body's progenitor had more experience at working into different groups then Ace did. Even when she had been alive as Aloe, she tended to be hard-headed and more forcing others to go around her or her preferred 'style' back then.

A soft, shuddering breath left Ace again. You need to let it go, she mused to herself. Can't keep holding onto the hope I'll find someone or something from back then. I can't hold onto the past. I have to keep moving forward.

Aloe refused to be embittered by the loss of her world. Even after all these years, she sometimes woke up, expecting to be able to see Teddy's newest hair experiment or heterochromia, or his daughter's newest idea for a prank. And then, she would remember. Remember that there was nothing left that Ace could find. On the worst days, Ace would wonder if Aloe had just been a figment of imagination, a wildly realistic dream caused by the bizarre connection she and Kelly possessed. A developing mind could be overwhelmed by the imprints of another. Who's to say whether or not Kelly had simply been told a story and Aloe formed in her subconscious as a result?

Such existential questions are ones Ace tried to ignore. The only purpose to her life was what she chose to do with it. Giving others that opportunity, fighting against the methodical extermination of Humanity, that was why she chose to keep going. And she kept fighting. She was good at it, too. Great, even. (Sometimes, she caught her mind wandering towards those dangerous paths. A stray thought about magic. A wistful nostalgia of Aloe's life. A negligent I wonder what they would think of this. Those times, she had to refocus on something in her present. Kelly sometimes helped, but... knowing whether or not something was real wasn't quite helpful when it was all contained within your own mind.)

Ace's life was sometimes difficult for her to believe. There was nothing she could do about it, though, and why would she? She had left behind everything, and, perhaps, some would think she gained nothing. Ace wouldn't call her experiences with Eva and John Black nothing, however. Nor the time she had spent with her Hastati Squad in Corbulo. The SPARTANs of all classes, her puzzling interactions with Doctor Halsey, all were worth something. All of them were worth everything to her.

In this world, Ace didn't have to constantly look over her own shoulders. She wasn't hunted for being famous, nor was she even especially remarkable outside of her work to protect Humanity – but she wasn't working alone. She had people around her, constantly, working with her to protect everyone else. Everyone was trying their damnedest, to survive the Covenant. Not all of them were as capable as her, to be fair, but the SPARTANs were, for the most part. And the S-IIs that didn't make it out of augmentation fully intact were finally starting to weedle into key spots in ONI and the UNSC, positions that they could – and would, if necessary – use to help protect fellow SPARTANs.

Ace tried not to compare her lives at all. It was unfair to both. (And that dangerous path of, What if I had just had more support as Aloe? That, she tried to keep buried. Dwelling on what-ifs and if-onlys led only to sorrow and madness. She didn't want to go down that path.) So she focused on her current life. Ace. A SPARTAN that wasn't a SPARTAN. One content with her lot in life, at least for now.

Ace's attitude towards everything – perhaps a bit more zen and bland then anyone would have ever expected of hot-tempered, mischievous Aloe – only seemed to aggravate certain members of Noble team, however. Emile-A239 didn't seem to like that he could only provoke surface reactions from her at the best of times. Jorge had, of course, immediately stated the fact that Emile simply felt sweet on her. (Jorge always saw things like that, however. He was a romantic man, at heart, and she was aggrieved by the reminder of how soft, kind Neville had been forged into steel by Aloe's war, just as ONI had forged Jorge.) Ace didn't believe him, no matter how much he tried to insist it was the case. Even if it were the case, Emile was not... someone she wanted to be with. She didn't want to be with anyone, really. (She was too tired to try for any relationship beyond teammates, beyond friends. Sometimes people tried to press the issue, as if she had to have someone she was interested in. She didn't.)

Ace's posture slumped slightly, then she firmed her spine. Life was pain, but this was a pain she could and would bear. Being melancholic and depressed helped no one. What she was trying to do would help people, has helped people. She was doing her best. People lived because of her – and plenty of the xenophobic zealots of the Covenant died because of her.

That was Ace's mission in life – her goal: Keep Humanity from being extinguished. Sure, she could have probably left with any of the fleeing civilian ships that she had helped over the decades of working for ONI – not that ONI knew about them, per se. They had run away from all of Earth's colonies, bearing UNSC wounded, civilians, Insurrectionists, any number of human life and as much goods as they could leech from dying worlds, or uninhabited, undiscovered worlds that they came across. More than one AI had been given to them in order to help them survive, instead of scuttled as she ought to have done under her supervisor's orders.

Of course, most of the AI knew what they had to do, if ever compromised. Everyone's lives were at stake, after all, not just theirs, if the Covenant got a hold of them. Everything relating to known Humanity outposts and worlds were wiped first – then the AI would delete themselves, if possible, or do as much damage to any alien trying to access them as possible.

...Ace couldn't stop thinking about it now. About how her magic had helped her survive for years beyond what her body should have. How it had even enhanced her beyond what her body should have been able to. She supposed the only outlet her magic had was her desperate need for survival, to allow the parents of Kelly some form of... happiness. That's what she gave herself, too, to be fair. A peculiar childhood, but it was more then what Aloe had ever had.

Of course, some of Aloe's abilities were actually starting to bleed through, too. Her body wasn't as desperate to survive – her magic had by now forced as much strength and stability into the body, that almost nothing was failing anymore. At worst, she fell ill for a day or two to some local disease to whatever outerworld she had been sent to do whatever Ackerson wanted her to do.

Ace already knew she was likely far more dense then a normal SPARTAN, let alone a normal human, would be. The closest to her weight would be a SPARTAN-II, but her height was no where near that of an S-II. Her physical ability hadn't plateaued, and only continued to increase the more she had to use them in combat. At least her magic wasn't internalizing, killing her – but, then again, what would be the point of her magic ensuring her body's survival if it just killed her?

Ace sighed again, brow furrowing. Eventually, Noble would start questioning things. She didn't want to lie to them. She didn't even want to hide herself from them. Her head tilted as she ran through possible scenarios, what would happen if she tried to lie and failed, or if she simply told them the truth. Or even just told them that she couldn't tell them.

Perhaps that was all she had to do. Tell them it was classified, that she couldn't tell them yet.

Perhaps she could, eventually. Whether or not ONI approved. But trust needed to be built. And while she may trust Noble with the lives of Humanity, trusting them with herself and Kelly were vastly different things. Trusting just anyone with the fact that she was connected to Kelly was something she couldn't do. The SPARTANs no longer in the program – their brothers that supposedly 'washed out' – were moving into key positions in everything important, everything that could bring harm to the SPARTANs still in the programs. And, once this war with Covenant was over, things would be changing.

After all, the UNSC and ONI may have made the SPARTANs. But the SPARTANs would shape the future of Humanity to ensure that a circumstance necessitating the kidnapping and cloning of mere children would never happen again. They would find a way.

A/N: If you're dealing with suicidal thoughts, and don't know what to do with yourself, or don't know how to handle what you're feeling, please talk to someone. Anyone. There are numerous hotlines for every country, and if yours does not have one that you can find, please just send a message to someone you trust. You are not as alone as you might think. If you are around people that make you feel alone, please, try to find even just one person that doesn't make you feel like you're alone.