Eighteen: A Genius Scientist's Lineage

The Infinity was fuller than she'd ever been under Tom's command. He hadn't realized that the UNSC had so many Spartans - though some of them were obviously green, just out of the augmentations and the Spartan equivalent of boot camp. Still, more were experienced S-IVs, and even all the surviving S-IIs and S-IIIs, along with their teams. Even Cassandra-075, who wasn't fit for duty, had been brought onboard and installed in the medbay under Davis's watchful eye. They were just waiting on one more before they departed…

Speak of the devil. A small Prowler decloaked alongside the Infinity. Lasky signaled Roland to allow them to dock before the AI even asked, and after a moment, the narrow, almost jet-like ship glided in and settled quietly on the deck. The boarding ramp lowered, and a trio of Spartan-IIIs emerged, along with a small, dark-haired woman, her eyes flitting through the bay before coming back to rest on him. "Captain Lasky," she said.

"Inspector Lopis," he replied, saluting her and her team respectfully, "Welcome aboard."

"Thank you for taking the time to receive us," she said, descending to the deck with her team, all of them returning the salute, "I trust there is a mission briefing for us?"

"Ah, yes, ma'am. But it's - ears only. I'll explain on the way to S-Deck." He waved for them to follow him.

Lopis and the S-IIIs listened calmly as he explained the situation - the Flood armada, their hopes of meeting it in intergalactic space via whatever the Chief had cooked up. When he was done, Lopis said, "So it's primarily going to be ship-to-ship fighting, and the Spartans will be in fighter craft, defending Infinity while she targets the Flood ships?"

"That's the plan so far. Most in the fighters, the remainder in the bays to defend against any potential boarding action from the Flood. You'll have your pick of whatever you think you can handle best; both ONI and the UNSC have given us at least ten of everything imaginable."

And in some cases considerably more than that; Tom had never seen so many Longswords in his life. And the sheer amount of ammunition and other supplies, too; it seemed like they had emptied half of the entire military to outfit Infinity for this fight.

The captain released them onto S-Deck, directed them to Sarah (Palmer, not Davis) to get settled. Then he returned to the bridge and sank into his chair with a sigh.

As usual, the Chief was throwing everything into disarray, though this time it remained to be seen if that was a good thing. Defeating the Flood once and for all would be, but the rest?

Admiral Osman had heard what the Chief had said on the flight deck of the Dusk. After that briefing ended, she - and a few S-IIs in ONI - had essentially dropped off the face of the earth. Black Box confirmed that they were still alive and healthy, but almost no one had heard from them, save a few direct subordinates who had been organizing all of this.

And he'd given them back the Spirit of Fire, which had caused Hood so much grief, along with the Dusk and a small but sleek Forerunner ship that had made Section Three collectively lose its shit, but he had taken Halsey from Infinity and the three Spartans from the Spirit - or rather, he'd woken them and told them what was going on. Tom had seen the security footage of that, too; all three Spartans had just looked at each other, before the apparent leader had looked back at the Chief and said, "So where are we going?"

And that had been that. They'd been long gone by the time Infinity had arrived at Arcadia.

(The Spartans had all left their armor behind as well, complete with helmetcam recordings. The Chief had told the rest of Blue Team what had happened to him while on the Argent Moon, in addition to saying, "Cortana is my wife, and we've been married for two hundred years. Joyeuse and her brother Durandal are our children – the only ones so far.")

(They had all tried very hard to ignore Lieutenant Commander Davis positively radiating smugness and satisfaction.)

Tom rubbed a hand over his face. It had been accidental - maybe - but by retrieving the Spirit, the Chief had given his sister back her girlfriend. Lasky had seen their reunion when the ODST, one Corporal Emmett, had come through the medbay for a checkup after such a long time in cryo. The UNSC was glad to have them all back - Admiral Hood perhaps the most glad of all - but at the same time, Infinity's entire command crew had been given the strictest orders imaginable to stop the remaining combat-ready S-IIs from jumping ship to follow their brothers and sisters, and to surrender Cassandra-075 – the only surviving critically injured washout – in exchange for that. He didn't see how that was going to be possible, though; all they really had to do was get word to the Chief that they wanted to come over, and he would practically pave the way in gold for them.

Even Osman (Serin-019), it seemed, despite their clash over Halsey's fate.

"Graveminds are greedy, and I want them all."

When Roland finally came up to tell him that everyone was onboard with everything stowed, Tom gave the order for them to depart.

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He wasn't sure what to expect when they arrived at WR102, but it definitely wasn't what he saw. He almost swallowed his own tongue stopping the 'what the FUCK' that wanted to burst out, and coughed heavily for almost a minute before managing, "Roland, give me a count."

"Based on our field of vision, current fleet size estimates are at almost five thousand capital ships, Captain."

Roland sounded just as stunned as they were; no human had ever seen such a massive fleet of warships in their life - or at least, no one that had lived to tell about it. And the ships were all gathered around Zero-Nine and a single ship the length of a large moon – or perhaps more of a mobile space station, Enterprise emblazoned down her side in letters bigger than the Infinity.

And then there were the star roads. There were dozens of them now, rippling and swaying around the star, and they had grown beyond what they'd seen on Meridian and Genesis, dozens of kilometers thick and thousands long, forming an odd sort of sling around the star. They seemed to gather the energy it radiated and routed it along their length to a pinpoint of bright blue light in a loop at the opposite end of the sling, like a miniature star that somehow outshone its parent.

"What is that?" Lasky asked, "A singularity? The wormhole?"

"Unknown, sir," was the AI's reply, "Ship's sensors are registering major energy fields on almost every level, but no sign of any holes of any kind forming."

Tom nodded, then took a deep breath and looked back at the fleet. It still took his breath away, but now he could see that there were dozens of different styles of ship, each with their own classes and configurations, but there were only a few that matched the Enterprise: sleek Forerunner ships, most of them holding position around the largest ship while the others – corvettes like the Nighthawk, frigates like the Until Justice Prevails – flitted around them like birds.

"Good God, how do they supply that thing?" someone murmured behind him.

"That thing's gotta be as big as a continent," someone else answered, "There is no supplying something like that from the outside. Ten to one it's got something in there where it can grow its own food on a massive scale and recycle everything else."

Roland appeared on Infinity's holotable. "Sir, we're being invited to dock with the Enterprise. They want to give Infinity a once over."

Tom tightened his jaw. A good time for some Spartans to disappear, if they were so inclined. His superiors' warnings rang in his ears. Even so… "Go ahead and take us in."

The other ships gave way before Infinity, letting them draw near. The Enterprise got bigger… and bigger… and bigger, until finally another bridge officer said, "For God's sake, how big is this thing?!"

"Just a hair over five thousand kilometers long, Lieutenant," Roland answered, "She's shaped roughly like a rounded arrowhead, so she's about two thousand kilometers at her widest point and about a thousand at her deepest."

Someone cursed, but Tom didn't say anything. He was having a hard time not swearing on his own.

When they got close enough, a small part of the hull split into sections and retracted, and a net of hard light caught the ship and drew them in to settle on a hard light dock, which reshaped itself to gently cradle the Infinity. Then the net shimmered and vanished.

Roland appeared on the holotable again, but this time he was no longer alone. It was the AI from the Dusk - Joyeuse, the Chief's daughter. "Greetings, Infinity," she said, "The ship check shouldn't take long, but the Flood is still in the red zone for the Greater Ark and we're waiting on a few more ships, so we won't be leaving for a while yet. You're free to disembark and explore the Enterprise if you like, but know that any locked doors you encounter are locked for a reason. The onboard ancillae will direct you back when it's time to depart."

"Can we talk to the Chief?" Tom asked.

"Certainly. He's in a lightsaber duel with Mom right now, but they're willing to put it on hold."

"He's in a what?"

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Tom was not ashamed to say that his jaw dropped when they arrived inside.

The portal Joyeuse opened had taken them deep into the ship, to a waystation of sorts in a huge open section. It was like they had transplanted part of a planet's surface into the ship; all around the waystation were fields of grass and rolling hills, herds of some unknown grazing animal weaving back and forth across the expanse. There were trees in the distance, and other fields of long grain, and an actual river making its winding way across the rolling plain. At the furthest edges of the open area, the ground sloped up against the walls to form half-mountains, complete with ice and snow at the summits and glaciers coming down between. There were even weather systems overhead, naturally formed clouds and rain.

Even the S-IIs and S-IIIs seemed visibly stunned, weapons lowered, shoulders slack. The S-IVs were gobsmacked.

There was someone waiting for them. "Captain Lasky," said the man, bowing respectfully. No, wait; Tom recognized that voice. This was Durandal, the Chief's son. "This way, please. S-Base isn't far."

He led them to a bullet-shaped transport docked on one side of the waystation. As they approached, a section of hull folded back and admitted them into a plain but comfortable troop bay, sized for Spartans in full MJOLNIR. One of the seats reconfigured for Tom, apparently without prompting, and they settled in.

"How big is this - area?" he asked Durandal, looking out one of the portholes as they lifted off.

"Nine hundred kilometers long by three hundred wide by one hundred deep." That explained why they could see so far. "There are two others, one above and one below. And while they have an official name, they're more often referred to as Arda, or Middle-earth."

They were in the air for all of thirty seconds, though they seemed to have traveled a fair distance. Then they disembarked at what looked like the Forerunner version of a UNSC military base. Yet as they did so, Tom became aware of the distant sounds of clashing lightsabers and laughter. They followed Durandal inside and through a series of halls clearly designed to be defensible from within, before emerging into a training ground at the heart of the base. There were people in armor - Spartans - watching what was happening at the center even as they checked their gear in preparation.

As Joyeuse had said, there were two people sparring at the center of the field with lightsabers, one blue, one green. The larger moved with speed belying his size, and the smaller fought with strength belying her frame and skill belying her age. Both were laughing and calling to each other in another language even as their lightsabers collided with grinding hisses. And Cortana - Cortana was flesh, alive - human.

"God, we were so young."

They all turned - and found themselves dumbstruck again. Tom had known the Chief had... collected... some Spartans from an alternate reality, but it was one thing to know it; it was another thing entirely to see it with his own eyes.

Gabriel Thorne - older, maybe mid-forties or the equivalent, faint crows' feet around his eyes, an edge of distinguished gray in his hair - approached with a grin, Grant, Ray, and Vale close behind, all wearing the Forerunner MJOLNIR. "Captain Lasky," said Thorne, and they saluted.

Tom returned the gesture. "At ease. Wow. Uh, how many of you are there?"

That brought more grins, even as other Spartans came over to greet them. "All seventy-five IIs from our world," Thorne answered, "thirty IIIs, a hundred and thirty IVs, fifty-seven Vs, and two lonely little VIs. And I'm not sure how many IIs we've picked up from here. Most of them, I think."

Some of the other Spartans' heads snapped around to look at him. One of the S-IIs, Naomi-010, said, "Our siblings are dead."

"Are they?" Thorne inclined his head, and they turned.

A few Spartans made their way through the "crowd", their helms turning transparent as they came. Two almost complete sets of Spartans, identical in every way.

A few of them gasped. One of the S-IIIs cried, "Commander Kurt?!"

Then there was activity all around; Durandal and the Fleet's Thorne and his team drew him, Davis, and their guards out of the knot of armored people getting as emotional as they ever did. "None of us really know how it happened," said the older Vale, "Not even them. One second they were dead… and the next they weren't."

"Jesus H Christ on a cracker," said Davis.

"That's one way to put it," Grant said dryly, then lifted her head and whistled to get the Chief and Cortana's attention.

After a moment, they turned off their lightsabers and walked over. "Captain Lasky," John said, saluting, "We hope you didn't get in too much trouble."

Because they took Halsey, Tom finished internally. "Not too much. ONI was more concerned with how easily you'd spoofed their systems, since on my end the orders looked legitimate."

"Glad to hear it." Then he noticed Davis, and squinted at her like he was trying to figure out where he'd seen her before. But before anyone could say anything, Cortana touched his side, and he looked at her. Some silent communication passed between them, then the Chief looked back up with new understanding. "Ah. So that's why you looked familiar. And why I kept expecting you to smell like apples."

Of all things, that made Davis laugh and shake her head. "Of course you would remember something like that."

He frowned a little. "I can't remember why I would expect that, though."

"Our paternal grandmother was a chemist, and after she retired, she used her training to make custom beauty products to supplement her income," Davis told him, "She would give me some for birthdays and Christmas – always apple."

That pulled a slight smile from the Spartan, and he jerked his head toward one side of the base. They followed him through a few more halls and down one flight of stairs before they emerged into a comfortable entertainment room, large enough to fit all the Spartans and sized for them as well.

There was an Infection Pod the size of a Spartan's torso sprawled on one of the chairs, its feelers waving slowly and its "body-sac" expanding and contracting like it was breathing. The humans paused, eyebrows climbing toward their hairlines.

The Chief followed their gaze. "Meatball!" he barked, making it start and jump up to face him, "Go sleep somewhere else!"

The Infection Pod hopped down from the chair and skittered away.

"Sorry about him," said the Spartan, taking a seat, "For whatever reason, he's grown so big that he can't really be used in combat, so the others have taken to keeping him as a pet."

Tom took a seat of his own and sighed, "Jesus fuck, Chief."

"That about sums it up, yes."

He rubbed his eyes. "There's one thing I really wanna know before we get down to anything."

"Shoot."

"You didn't like Del Rio, even before you actually met him face to face. You acted like you were ready to fight him your very first time on the bridge. Did something - happen? In that other world?"

Cortana turned her head away to laugh quietly. The Chief briefly lifted his eyebrows, something like a smirk pulling at his lips. "That's - one way to put it," he said, "In the Parallel, Cortana chose to come with me, but the UNSC didn't exactly have a protocol for a half-rampant AI deciding to - abandon ship, so to speak. Since I look like a small Warrior-Servant when in full armor, and she's human-sized and shaped, a lot of people thought our marriage was a political one, to give the UEG a leg up in the Fourth Ecumene. ONI and the UNSC decided to spin it like that, and we went along with it - until someone found out the truth. It caused a bit of an uproar, as you can imagine. Del Rio made the mistake of saying, publicly, 'Why did the UNSC do an arranged marriage involving a broken piece of software? It hasn't worked right since day one, so how do we know it won't screw this up too?'"

"Oof," said Davis, wincing but also laughing quietly like Cortana, "That sounds like a mistake."

"A career-ending mistake, as it turns out," the AI agreed dryly, "We didn't say anything about it - we didn't even get the chance to say anything. HIGHCOM thought - and the UEG agreed - that they couldn't risk one man compromising their relationship with us and the Ecumene, so they slapped him with 'personnel endangerment' and discharged him before we even heard about the incident. One day he was captain of the Infinity, and the next he was a civilian again."

"Oof," Tom echoed, "Who was captain after him?"

"Admiral Harper, briefly, then you. So in other words, not much different from here."

Lasky nodded, then hesitated for a second. "You know that we could have done the same on the Infinity, right? We also have protocol for personnel endangerment."

"And Cortana had just had a rampant episode on the bridge, for everyone to see," John answered, "There's protocol for that, too. I wasn't about to ask everyone to obey one and ignore the other."

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They talked a bit more after that, the Chief hearing about his biological family from his sister (their parents were still alive, and so were all their aunts and uncles and almost two dozen cousins), and circulated amongst the Spartans, a few of whom were delighted to finally meet their "Auntie Sarah", along with a number of Infected.

("Wait, what? Auntie? You all aren't actually related to her.")

("But Commander, you and Cortana are our Mom and Dad!")

("We're not actually your parents either!")

("Yeah, so?!")

(John sighed so loudly and with such long-suffering exasperation that both Cortana and Sarah started laughing.)

There were a lot of Spartans, as Thorne had said. Three hundred and fifty-seven all told - right now. Tom didn't need to be a Halsey-level genius to know that the Chief fully intended to collect the rest of his generation of Spartans, and as many others as were willing to come over.

And speaking of the Doctor…

He fumbled briefly with the proper form of address, then just said, "Chief, where is Doctor Halsey?"

"Central lab, science deck," was the reply, "Catching up on all the research her other self has done. And speaking of her, she should be back soon. Joyeuse?"

"They're five minutes out."

Tom frowned at that. "What were they doing?"

"Come and see."

They emerged from a portal in another bay, this one facing WR102, but the energy barriers over the bay didn't just block the atmosphere from escaping - they also blocked a lot of the high-intensity light and radiation from entering. Tom looked out over the sun in its cradle of star roads, the blue point of light still glowing above it, then turned when the Chief gestured.

A cruiser - the Thunderborn - came in to dock and released a few people onto their deck, before departing once more. In the lead was Catherine Halsey, younger than the version he knew, but still older than Cortana.

"How many?" the Chief asked as she approached, one of her assistants pushing an antigravity cart.

"Thirteen," the woman answered, pleased, "more than I even dreamed of projecting."

"That makes sixty total, then, which is plenty."

The assistant pushed the cart forward so they could see. A baker's dozen of star roads, folded up tight into wire balls and sitting in an open-faced hard light carrier.

"I'll need to start moving them into position soon," said the Chief, "Hallowed Dawn radioed not too long ago - the Flood's approaching the yellow zone." He tilted his head back and raised his voice a little. "She also sends her love, Sky."

"Thank you, Commander."

"Hallowed Dawn is the Primary Monitor of the Greater Ark," the Spartan explained to them, "and Shifting Skies, who helps Cortana run the Enterprise, is her wife."

Then he held a hand out over the rack of star roads, fingers splayed, and after a moment, he drew it upwards. As one, the star roads followed the movement and rose into the air, eliciting gasps from some of Infinity's Spartans. Then, when he pushed his hand forward, they raced out of the bay and into space, unspooling and expanding as they went.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like - until we need to depart, that is," he told them, "If you want to stay onboard the Enterprise, you're also welcome to physically attend the briefing in a few hours; Sky will let you know when it's time, and open a portal for you. If you need anything else, just let us know."

"Thanks, Chief."

Before that happened, though, Tom was able to pull him aside and explain what the UNSC's orders were concerning the other Spartans, especially the S-IIs. The other man laughed softly at that but said, "We'll gladly take Cassandra, but if the others end up dying in this fight, I can't promise we won't keep them. I will make them swear they won't intentionally kill themselves in order to come over, though."

He went out to meet her when the medical team, led by his biological sister, brought her onboard the Enterprise. Cassandra didn't even really greet him, just looked up and rasped, "What's it like?" around her oxygen mask.

"Like being reborn."

The Lifeworkers took over and brought her into a special chamber, the UNSC personnel having to wait outside to prevent them from being dragged in as well. But the ship put up a projection for them so they could see as Cassandra received more than a dozen nutrient injections.

Then the Chief retracted his armor and held out a hand, fingers sharpening to Flood talons.

Cassandra didn't hesitate for a moment before reaching out to take it.

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They met in a hard light amphitheater, created just for that purpose. Most of the other ship commanders projected in via hologram, but there were a few who physically attended, representing almost two dozen sapient species from across the galaxy. All of the humans had been outfitted with live translators, which let them eavesdrop on the conversations around them. Tom gathered that although the fighting had ended, there was still a lot of tension left over from the collapse of the Third Ecumene. Despite that, when the Chief had raised them all to Threat Alert Alpha, they had set aside their grievances to defend themselves against the Flood and sent as many ships as they dared to fight the oncoming incursion. There was even a not-insignificant band of pirates who had stepped up and now stood alongside the various governments who wanted to root them out.

Finally the Chief himself arrived with a few of his people – including Cassandra, now armed and armored and combat-ready. Cortana herself projected in at his side in her familiar hologram form. Almost as one, everyone stood in respect, but the two of them waved them off. The Chief spoke in an alien language, and a moment later Tom's translator whispered in his ear. "The Flood is approaching the green zone, so we're gonna have to make this quick. Ferial, you have the floor."

The dragon with him stepped forward and flicked her fingers to bring up some holograms, displaying the rough shapes of ships. "We've finished analysis of the Greater Ark's passive scans," she said, "and based on that analysis, the upper bound for the fleet's size is at five hundred thousand total ships. Most aren't really heavy hitters - maybe one in five hundred is a destroyer, and battleships are even fewer - and it's unknown what state of repair they're in, especially after so long."

One of the aliens, one of the mantises, asked, "What do you mean by that? Their 'state of repair'."

"Most ship profiles – the ones we were able to read, at least," Ferial answered, bringing up the comparisons, "match that of ancient humanity and Forerunner contemporary for the time, so we're guessing that they're around a hundred and ten thousand years old. Some of our ships are, too, but we don't know if the Flood's really put any effort into maintaining its own or updating them. No sign of anything more advanced, so at the moment we're expecting only a minimal technology differential. And since the Fleet can deal with any Precursor artifacts, that means it's really only the numbers we have to contend with."

The mantis nodded in satisfaction.

Ferial continued with the briefing, bringing up old records from Forerunner archives to show the weak points and expected destruction patterns for the ships. "For those of you who have artificial intelligences running your ships, this data has already been provided to them, so they can keep themselves and you safe. They have also been warned about the logic plague and to restrict all inter-ship communication to the channels we have secured for our use. Commander?"

The Chief stepped forward and stood at parade rest. "There isn't going to be an extensive battle plan for this fight," he said bluntly, "There are too many variables to account for everything, and too many ships on both sides to coordinate effectively, but if you want to try amongst yourselves, that's fine. We've done a few tests and confirmed that the star roads can open wormholes. Once it's up, we'll be sending the Slipspace crystal through first, then the rest of us will follow. When everyone gives the green light, we'll destroy the crystal, opening up an uncontrolled Slipspace rupture. When the Flood passes through local space, it will be forced back to realspace, where we can engage.

"Primary targets are ship engines and Slipspace drives to stop them from getting away; if you can target central power generation, even better. With such a large enemy fleet, if you confirm that you've crippled a ship, move on to the next target and let the Halo worry about finishing it off when it comes through. Keep a fighter screen up at all times, and stop boarding action at all costs. We cannot take risks - not here, not now. If you are boarded… more than likely, we will have to shoot you down. Do not let it come to that.

"Now... who's ready to show the Flood what this galaxy is made of?"

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Tom watched from the bridge of the Infinity as the star roads released WR102, one of them carrying the blue light - the Slipspace crystal - to the Perfect Storm, where it would be loaded onto an unmanned fighter. The rest of the star roads started to flow away from the star and into a different configuration. It looked something like a spider web, but instead of being flat, it fanned out into an hourglass shape in three dimensions. The web itself was easily the size of Sol, with an opening the size of Jupiter in the center where the wormhole would appear.

The last star road locked into place, and a ripple passed through them, a shiver - which on them was a displacement of dozens of kilometers. Then they went still.

And then Tom's hair stood on end. Everyone else looked up from their displays as well, feeling the same undefinable sensation that he was; the star roads were coming fully online. He was willing to bet that it was the same everywhere throughout the fleet.

The star roads started pulling in energy, visible as purple light that travelled the length of the roads in a wave, starting at the edges and gathering at the center. The power built and built - and just when Tom was afraid that there was no way it could gather and hold that much energy, that it would explode in a supernova and kill them all, it focused down and in and :through: -

And the wormhole flared open at the center of the web.

It didn't actually look like much to his eyes; the light of WR102 was too bright to get the full warping effect from the stars behind it, but at the center he could see the darkness of the intergalactic void and what seemed to be a galaxy - one of the Magellanic Clouds? - in the distance beyond.

The Storm launched the fighter with the Slipspace crystal through the wormhole. A bright ripple of blue energy raced over the "surface" of the hole, and after a moment, someone from the Fleet came over the COM. "Successful transit confirmed," they said, "All ships, we are clear for passage. See you on the other side."

The Fleet's engines throttled up, the rest of the massive armada right behind them.

"All right, Roland," said Tom, "Take us in."

**********

And we'll be carrying on, until the day it doesn't matter anymore,

Step aside, you forgot what this is for.

We fight to live, we live to fight,

And tonight, you'll hear my battle cry.

We live our lives on the front lines,

We're not afraid of the fast times,

These days have opened up my eyes,

And now I see where the threat lies!

Everybody with your fists raised high,

Let me hear your battle cry tonight!

Stand beside or step aside,

We're on the front line!

Everybody with your fists raised high,

Let me hear your battle cry tonight!

Stand beside or step aside,

We're on the front line...

-"Frontline", Pillar (Where Do We Go From Here)

**********

A/N: I REFUSE to believe that the Master Chief doesn't have an enormous extended family; at least in my experience, no one gets as competitive as he was as a kid without having either a shitton of siblings or a shitton of cousins, or both.