| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Johnathan Kasuga (春日・ジョナサン, Kasuga Jonasan), service number 89471-68231-JK, is a staff sergeant and an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper serving in the UNSC Marine Corps. He is one of the primary protagonists of The Unsung War as a member of the featured squad, Three-Alpha-Six, where he serves as rifleman and heavy weapons operator. His large size and strength have caused him to be mistaken for a SPARTAN-II supersoldier on numerous occasions, and allows him to wield larger and more powerful weapons and directly engage Covenant forces in melee combat.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
An Earth native, Johnathan grew up in the suburbs of Old Los Angeles, where he grew tough and learned how to fight at an early age. His youth was fraught with one conflict after another, the schoolyard rowdiness of children eventually giving way to gang battles in the decrepit street. For all of his toughness, Johnathan at least had the self-respect not to be a thug, and so became almost a street vigilante for his neighborhood.
Of course, this would not endear him well to the gangs roaming the streets. As the years passed, his reputation in the neighborhood grew, as did the gangs' animosity with him. This culminated in a rare cooperative effort by both gangs when they raided his home, killing his mother, father, and younger sister, and leaving Johnathan for dead. Neighbors who were appreciative of his long efforts to keep the apartment complex safe quickly called emergency responders, but the vast majority of the gangs escaped before police arrived. Those few who didn't were killed in the ensuing firefight.
Upon recovering from his wounds, Johnathan took his father's old MA5-series assault rifle--modified for civilian use by removing its automatic fire setting--and proceeded to spend the next three weeks leveling justice. Curiously, police never caught up with him until after all of the gangs were either dead or fleeing the county entirely. No regional prosecutors would even think of handling the case, however, and an 'incident' during transportation between detention centers would see the young man slipping police custody entirely.
Of course, what had happened was the police officers--familiar with his neighborhood and well aware of the young man's circumstances and nature--personally delivering him to the nearest UNSC Marine Corps recruiting office and vouching for the troubled young man. He was quietly and quickly signed up and shipped out to Reach for basic training.
Service in the UNSC[]
Johnathan had just completed his advanced infantry training when word of the loss of Harvest to alien forces made its way back through the ranks. Without hesitation, he immediately requested to his training sergeant that he be assigned to the task force planned to take back the planet. Having missed the boat of the CMA Heracles battlegroup--and thereby avoiding a premature death--Johnathan was folded into Admiral Preston Cole's battlegroup.
Riding out the Second Battle of Harvest aboard the UNSC frigate Say My Name, Johnathan was deployed to Harvest's surface with the remaining Marine forces available between the fleet. His life for the next five years was that of constant warfare, participating in twenty-six surface engagements against the Covenant, earning a Bronze Star with 'V' device for valor and promotion to lance corporal. In one frantic, close-quarters engagement that saw his entire platoon wiped out around him, Johnathan killed a sword-armed Sangheili soldier in melee combat, then promptly used its corpse and the bodies of his fellows to hide from the remaining Covenant and escape their notice.
With the arrival of relief forces spearheaded by the UNSC Spirit of Fire in 2531, Johnathan was rotated off-planet and spent several years as a military training instructor and infantry school instructor on Reach and Earth. He didn't see battle again until 2545, having been stationed on Draco III as an instructor when the Covenant arrived. Again, his entire allied force was wiped out except for him, forcing him again to hide amongst the dead and watch as the Covenant brutally slaughtered the defenseless civilians. When the SPARTAN-II Blue Team arrived to annihilate the Covenant force, Johnathan picked his moment to rise up and exact his own revenge, wielding an M41 LAAG that had been blown off its Warthog mount as a hand-held turret to mow down the Covenant forces.
Joining The Squad[]
After returning to Earth from Draco-III, Johnathan entered the ODST Corps, where he was immediately reassigned to the planet Reach. Despite his new assignment, the memories of his battles had changed him, where before he had been brash, impatient, and quick to action, he was now taciturn and pondering, evaluating a situation before leaping into battle. He did not see action with his new unit, however, as he was transferred into the 3rd Marine Special Operations Division prior to the Fall of Reach, the second member recruited to Three-Bravo-Six, serving as something of a mentor for squad leader Alysia Fei, despite her having seen more combat.
During the Lingshen Recovery mission, he engaged a Brute captain in hand-to-hand combat after his weapon was destroyed in order to keep the Brute from killing Lingshen. Though he did not defeat the Brute, as it was killed by squad sniper Cynthia Rivale, Johnathan remains one of the only non-Spartans on record to be able to threaten a Brute in close-range.
Training and the Second Battle of Earth[]
As Three-Bravo-Six received its new training, Johnathan took the fact of magic in stride, willing to put faith in there having been more to his survivals at Harvest and Draco III than just dumb luck. At some unspecified point while the squad was in Mundus Magicus, Johnathan entered into a provisional contract with Cheryl.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Pactio (Name Unknown): Johnathan's pactio artifact by way of a provisional contract with Cheryl. His artifact, Telum Fortis (lit. Steadfast Blade) is a multipurpose artifact, featuring two forms that have been demonstrated in the narrative so far. The first is a large tower shield taller than he is that has been shown to negate a large amount of Covenant fire from the direction it is facing. The second form is a large cannon that is similar in dimension and attack power as a Scorpion's main gun. A line of dialogue between Johnathan and Cheryl indicate that there may be a third form that is capable of powered flight, but has not yet been demonstrated.
- Physical Ability: Johnathan possesses superior levels of physical strength, enough so that he was able to kill a sword Elite in hand-to-hand combat early in his military career, and fought a Brute captain to a standstill later on Earth. His advanced combat training under Naru Urashima has not yet revealed how increased his physical strength has become.
Johnathan in Other Media[]
Along with the rest of 3/A-6, Johnathan appears in the forum-based alternate universe Halo role-play Project: MYTHOS that follows the basic storyline of the Human-Covenant War while adding mecha technology from Full Metal Panic and the various Gundam series. With the exception of magic not existing in the MYTHOS universe, the history of Johnathan is essentially the same.
Appearances[]
- Project: MYTHOS
- The Unsung War (First appearance)