"Fred, Kelly. Let's go. Linda, set?", John-117 asked. He looked to his teammates, who were putting weapons and equipment into metal wall lockers. Although they were 14, they looked up to 17 or 18 years of age. Kelly-087 finished first as per her usual routine, and being the fastest of the group helped. Ever since what had happened a few months ago, the team worried about her, as she had been the slowest to recover. Despite that, nobody could argue with the results and her amazing speed had only benefited from that.

Although everyone was still a bit clumsy in adjusting to how their bodies had changed, once she had recovered she had went back to being graceful almost immediately. Fredric-104 finished up second, his military fatigues and boots clean after he had changed from the last combat practice. Although they were only looking for supplies, John saw the large, gnarly combat knife sticking out of his boot. Linda-058 finished last, the deconstruction of her sniper rifle taking time as she made sure it was properly taken care of. She stood stoically and nodded to him as looked at him with her emerald eyes. She nodded purposefully.

"These are getting tougher, and the stuff we found to help in the last simulation was confiscated. Plus, what were they wearing?", Kelly asked them. "Could be some sort of armor, exoskeleton maybe. Either way, we still won.", replied Fred. They all filed through the door, heading out. They had found some abandoned storage and military research tunnels, which is where they got some of the extra equipment they used for the last exercise and where they were headed now in order to scrap together whatever is other kids in the SPARTAN program knew this, but were staying back to cover for them in case any trainers came around.

They opened up one of the heavy air ducts that ran through the underground tunnels in which their training and housing had recently occupied. From their they shuffled through one-by-one, as their recently augmented bodies barely fit nonetheless. After crawling a few feet they turned to the right, continuing in silence. Despite having been taught to have an excellent sense of direction and situational awareness, they had been crawling in the dark for a while, and the tight corridors had become repetitive, with only a few intersections which were passed. Luckily, they had improvised last time and once the sound of fans had faded away they had switched courses, pushing their bodies vertically up a shaft.

Once they had gotten to the top they got to the metal grate leading outwards, Kelly looked to John, since he was their team leader. He nodded silently, knowing too much noise might travel through the ducts, and who knows who could end up hearing it. She easily pushed the grate open and pulled herself out, onto the floor of the massive storage level. Although it was mostly empty, the racks that lined the outer walls remained, holding a few mismatched crates that the Office of Naval Intelligence had forgotten, or chosen not to bring out of this place when the SPARTAN program moved in.

"Alright then, Fred take the ones on the right, Kelly on the left, I'll take front. Linda, your listening duty.", to which they dutifully nodded and went about their work. After searching through the first two, which contained files, he found some nylon rope which could be used in a multitude of ways. He turned around and placed it in the box of things that were collected by his teammates. He went back to continue his work in the dark facility, when he realized it wasn't dark. Linda noticed it too, and Fred followed. They looked to where the light was from and saw Kelly holding the lid of a box with her left hand, and holding the box itself with her left. A warm glow flooded her face and the ceiling above her, as she stared wide-eyed into it.

John looked at the box and saw it's label: "ONI:Section Three-Project; [CLASSIFIED]. Military Calendar: [CLASSIFIED], Project head: Eagle Eye", the rest had been professionally blacked out. Kelly motioned them forward, and as they gathered around they peered inside to see the strangest sight they had ever laid eyes upon.

A glass case sat at the bottom, airtight. Within it was the real treasure though. A glowing crystal floated lazily within it's center, and slowly spun in the air without support. It seemed to illuminate all the darkness within their vision, until that is, Kelly reached for the glass case. John was about to stop her but it was too late. As soon as her finger made contact with it, the crystal within stopped spinning, and a light started projecting from it's bottom, scanning around it upwards until it made contact with where the appendage lay. The crystal flashed brilliantly and started to spin rapidly.

"Think it's time we close this box, agreed?", John asked. It was bad enough messing with experimental tech, but if they got caught with this the consequences could be dire for his team, an he couldn't allow that. His question needed no answering as the four stepped back slowly. In the end, it was futile as the room was engulfed in a burning orange.