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It’s a well-known fact among the Corps that John-117--AKA the Master Chief, sometimes known as the Last Spartan, but never John Spartan--is the single luckiest goddamn person in all of existence. Of course, he would say he isn’t. He (the infuriatingly humble bastard) would say that any appearance of luck on his part would be due to the efforts of the soldiers around him to ensure the success of the mission.
Said soldiers would then point to every single thing he’s ever done as proof to the contrary. 117 would say that getting into those situations to begin with wasn’t lucky, and they’d say that the fact he survived was.
It actually began to balloon into a rather heated debate on Infinity, all things considered. Running from the Created meant the crew took whatever they could for entertainment, including debates on luck.
But he didn’t expect it to balloon into this.
“Come on, Chief!” The Weapon smiled, bouncing on her toes. “You have to be curious too!”
“Not really.” The Spartan muttered, refusing to look at her out of the corner of his eyes.
“Poor soul, he’s in denial.” Kelly teasingly muttered, tilting her head and fluttering her eyelashes.
“What, like you and Fred were the morning after our excursion to Argo Station?” John asked in response.
“That,” Kelly hissed, “Never happened.”
“What do you mean?” The Weapon asked in response. “I have footage of it. You and 104 were quite vigorous-“
“Delete that shit.” Fred glared.
John sighed, leaning and gesturing. “Look, I appreciate that I’ve done some… extraordinary things-“
“Suicidal things, more like.” Linda retorted.
“-but I’m not… ‘born lucky.’” John replied, as if the idea was preposterous. In his eyes, of course, it was.
“Actually,” An aged voice spoke up, munching into an apple, and all four turned to look at Doctor Halsey, who’d somehow snuck in on them, “Typical probability shows a noticeable skew in John’s favor.” She told her Spartans informatively, pointing for emphasis. “In ninety-nine percent of situations, events always work out to John’s favor. The other one percent are events that have a zero-percent chance of working out for him.”
Linda slammed the table, gesturing. “See? Scientific proof!”
John shook his head. “Anecdotal evidence is no evidence at all.”
“Hmm…” Halsey muttered in consideration. “We could test it.” She proposed.
“Test it how?” John questioned, trying to remind them that the idea of testing luck was preposterous.
Halsey looked to the Spartans in consideration. “We are going to be stopping off at the Vegas Quadrant…”
All of them looked to John… and he shivered.
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That next morning…
“Oh…” A man grunted, clutching his head, feeling the hangover pounding at it… and the warm body next to him. Jumping out of bed, Fred made a tremendous racket, “Ah!” He gasped in alarm. “Veta! Look, you’re a nice woman, but I’m seeing someone!”
“Huh?” Kelly, blinking sleep out of her vision, leaned up. “Fred?” Her eyes narrowed, “What’re you doing in my room?”
“Your room!?” Fred spluttered, grabbing another blanket, and covering himself. He was wearing pants, but that didn’t change the facts that he’d been avoiding an awkward encounter with Kelly, only to wake up in the same bed as her. “This is my-“ He spluttered again, dashing into the bathroom. “I’ll be out in a minute!” He yelped, sealing the door.
“Fred!” Kelly banged on it. “What the hell is going on!?”
Fred ignored her for the moment, wiping his face. “This is bad, this is bad, this is bad…” He mumbled, before noticing something odd as his hand moved. Looking down at it, he saw a platinum band around his ring finger.
“…Fred?” Kelly spoke up, “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this ring, would you?”
Fred paled, spinning around and opening the door. “Ring?”
“Yes,” Kelly looked down at her hand with a frown, “It has 191 on it.”
Fred frowned, looking at his. “191? The hell is that supposed to mean?”
Kelly inhaled sharply, swallowing. She pointed at herself. “087,” Then she pointed, “104. Add those together, and you get…”
“Oh,” Fred looked down at the ring, slowly nodding. “So, these are our rings then.” He went quiet for a moment, eyes widening. “Our rings!?”
Kelly looked at him, mortified. “We were in the Vegas Quadrant… you know how easy it is to get married there?”
Fred looked back, the expression on his face an equal measure of bemused and shocked, with quite a lot of embarrassment. “…blame Halsey since it was her idea to go?”
Kelly quickly nodded in agreement. “Blame Halsey.” She chewed her fingernail. “We should see if we can find the others from that night. Maybe they can-“
Kelly was suddenly cut off by a furious bellow, not muffled by Infinity’s walls.
“WHO DID THIS!?” John, of all people, roared.
Kelly and Fred both looked at each other for a split second, before they decided unanimously to get out there.
Little did they know, they’d find themselves stepping into Hell.
The Weapon stood in a very physical, very human body, covered head to toe in dried blue paint, with welts on her skin from where the material was causing an allergic reaction. She stood, sniffling, clutching John’s side for protection, like a scared little kid in over their head.
Linda, quite furiously, was waving around a duffel bag handcuffed to her wrist. Buck’s face was covered in bruises, and Halsey was looking at her clone arm in horror, gazing upon the tattoo proclaiming it to be the ‘ONE-PUMP FINISHER’ in abject disgust.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Roland appeared on a terminal nearby, gesturing furiously to quiet them down. “What’s going on down here!? I’m getting noise complaints filed from five decks up!”
“Roland,” Halsey ran over, gripping the terminal, wincing as the fresh tattoo stung, and she idly noted she’d need to cut the damn thing off again, “Something happened in Vegas last night. What happened?”
Roland looked at all of them, before a wicked grin took over his face. “Oh, I get it. You guys are having a Hangover moment!”
“Roland…” John rumbled, as the Weapon protectively held herself against him, her eyes watching everyone like a scared cat. “Calm, calm…” He spoke to her softly, and she calmed somewhat, still clinging to him like she was feral.
“Well…” Roland grinned, looking up. “It’s quite a story…”
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“I look… ridiculous.” John mumbled, shaking his head. He was wearing clothes… civilian clothes. One of those suits people wore to casinos trying to look like high-rollers.
“Aww, don’t be like that!” The Weapon, literally hanging off his arm courtesy of a clone-body with an AI port jammed into the back of the head, patted his arm, smiling. “Think of it this way! It’s a mission you can fulfill without being shot at!”
“I like being shot at.” He defensively muttered as they strode into one of the many, many casinos in the space station. “It adds pizzazz.”
“…I think maybe you get shot at too much.” She poked him, and John shook his head.
Moving into the glitzy building, John prepared himself for a long night.
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Linda looked around the casino floor with crossed arms and a sour look on her face. The space was too open, there were too many sight-lines, and everything was so loud it was hard to tell what the fuck was going on anywhere.
“Bored?” A voice asked, and Linda jumped, turning to find Doctor Halsey standing there, eating from a food tray in her hands.
Linda breathed heavily, looking at the old scientist with utter bafflement. “How the hell did you get there without me noticing?” ‘There’ being the corner directly behind Linda.
“I’m the Doctor--just accept it.” Halsey replied, poking her food with a fork. Linda grimaced.
If Halsey was calling herself by title, that meant she was in drunk and egotistical mode. Fun.
Linda crossed her arms, looking the woman up and down. “I thought you weren’t coming with us.”
“Yes, well, that was a clever lie to get John off my back while I do something incredibly genius and make use of the opportunity he’s unwittingly given me.” Halsey quickly explained, sounding quite bored to be real.
Linda frowned curiously. “And what’s that? The incredibly genius thing you want to do.”
“Rob the casino, naturally.” Halsey nonchalantly answered, looking Linda in the eye.
“…what.”
“I’m taking a breather.” Halsey replied, “I reattached a severed arm on my own, invented a new form of calculus, came up with a grand unifying field theory in the bath, and now I need to unwind by doing something simple, so I’m robbing the casino. Care to join me?”
“In robbing the place?” Linda asked in response, and Halsey shrugged. “Why would I do that?”
“Because Fred and Kelly are too busy getting sloshed and John and the Weapon are testing his luck, quite literally.” Halsey answered.
“….how long will it take?” Linda inquired.
“Conservative estimate,” Halsey checked her watch. People didn’t tend to wear watches anymore, but Halsey really wasn’t allowed to have a phone. Not after the last incident where she did something to it and it wound up causing Infinity’s systems to develop sentience and declare the crew parasites before the Weapon and Roland managed to calm it down with a lullaby.
That was a weird day.
“Twenty minutes.” Halsey looked to Linda, shrugging. “Just follow along with my lead, I’ve got a plan.”
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“Hypervodka…” Fred appreciatively looked at the glass in his hand, sipping at it. “Not bad.”
“I-It’s very intox… INtox… inTOX…” Kelly slurred, swaying. “Drunkening.”
Fred looked at her, worried. “How many did you have?”
“Four.” Kelly hiccupped, looking around. She gasped, pointing unsteadily. “Look! ‘s a chapel… Less go get wedded.”
“Married?” Fred repeated, blinking. “I’m not that drunk yet…”
“Pluh… pleeeeeease?” Kelly begged. “Your me best mate. It’s gotta be you. If it isn’t, it’s gotta be John, and everyone knows he has a crush on the blue lady that lives inside his head.”
“You don’t need to marry anyone!”
“I doooooooooo though.” Kelly leaned into him. “If I don’t, ‘m gonna die alone… I don’ wanna die alone, that would suck. Please marry me, Fred? Pretty please with buckshot on top?”
Fred looked to the chapel, and flagged down the bartender for another hypervodka. He’d need it.
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John sat in front of the slot machine, watching as the slots rolled by, making all manner of delightful noise, before stopping, beeping.
“A jackpot.” The Weapon noted, happily looking at him. “On your first try, too! And you say you’re not lucky!”
“It was a fluke.” John refuted, putting the money away. “Watch,” He pulled the lever again, “I-“
The slots stopped in the jackpot again, and he blinked in disbelief.
“Impossible…” John muttered.
“Look at that!” She beamed. “You are lucky!”
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“Doctor,” Linda radioed, “Doctor Halsey, I’m right above the entrance to the vault.”
“Good, good,” Halsey replied into a radio, as she ran some wires over to a pump, “You might wanna prepare yourself, this could get rather… explodey.” She grabbed the top of the rod, and pushed it down, before an enormous explosion shook the place.
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“Agh!” The explosion threw Buck to the floor, and the crowd scattered in a panic, trampling his wonderful face.
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John’s head snapped up, as everyone began to scream in a panic, and he grabbed the Weapon, slinging her over his shoulder.
“Okay!” The Weapon gasped, looking around in confusion, before seeing Fred and Kelly dancing outside the chapel, so drunk out of their wits they didn’t realize the place was turning into a warzone. “GUYS!” She bellowed, grabbing their attention. “Come on!”
Kelly scowled, clutching Fred’s hand as they began to follow. “Stupid not-blue Cortana… mean cause you lost your color… gonna fix that…”
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Doctor Halsey huffed and puffed as she ran up to the vault, spinning on her feet and running to keep up as Linda passed her by.
“You didn’t tell me you would set off explosives!” Linda hollered as she ran slow enough for Halsey to keep pace, while carrying a duffel bag of stolen money.
“Yes, well, I wanted to keep you on your toes!” Halsey replied as sirens began to sound. “Oh, dear God, it’s the rozzers!” She raised her voice. “I can’t go back to prison, I can’t! I’m a felon, I’ve done time already, do you know what they’ll do!?” Halsey blinked, suddenly putting handcuffs around Linda’s hands and the strap of the bag.
“Hey, what the hell!?”
“Just keep running, you’re doing great!” Halsey threw over her shoulder as she ran off.
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“…whereupon, after Halsey got a tattoo to celebrate the successful execution of the heist, everyone returned to the ship in one piece.” Roland finished explaining, “The Master Chief wasn’t quite sure how to safely remove the Weapon’s data chip, so he let her bunk in his room for the night, Fred and Kelly snuck in and painted her blue-“
“Sorry.” Fred gave a cringing smile at the AI, and she growled in response.
“And Linda managed to evade the police.” Roland finished up. “I think that’s everything.”
“Well…” Halsey professionally cleared her throat. “Let us all agree to get things back in order, yes?”
“You handcuffed evidence to my wrist and left me for the cops, fuck off.” Linda growled.
John sighed, turning to the Weapon. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Like a kid being led along by a parent, the Weapon allowed John to guide her, even as she continued to glare at Fred and Kelly.
“…there could be worse honeymoons, I suppose.” Kelly hummed, looking to Fred, before grabbing his hand and leading him to the mess hall.
Roland watched, flickering out, before he got an order from the Captain:
NO more unsupervised shore leave.