Editing John-117/Silver

{{quote|no=four|q1=Dr. Halsey. Status report.|Dr. Catherine Halsey|q2=Returning from 23 Librae planet Madrigal… with [[Kwan Ha|a single survivor]]. Covenant disarmed, one escapee.|John-117|q3=And your neural lace metrics, any anomalies?|Halsey|q4=I saw things...when I touched the [[Keystone|object]].|John|Dr. Halsey debriefs Master Chief on the [[Operation: DEFIANT GLASS|Battle of Madrigal]].{{Ref/Reuse|Contact}}}}

Following the debriefing, Silver team had an encounter with the rival Cobalt team, who complained about being sent to do "cleanup duty" at the Visegrád comms relay while Silver team "got all glory", though the Master Chief warned Cobalt to take the mission seriously after witnessing what he did at the Sanctuary relay. John kept trying to explain himself to Ackerson, who kept deflecting the topic and instead inquired about Dr. Halsey's experimentations on him and the other SPARTAN-II's, in particular the insertion of Cortana into his mind, to which he expressed concern and sympathy. John reiterated that he was feeling fine. He decided to walk the streets of Reach City, bumping into Admiral Parangosky in a secluded corner. However, she told the Master Chief that she was no longer with ONI, having taken the fall from Halsey's scandals, but would be willing to listen if Ackerson continued to distrust him. Before parting, Parangosky provided John a device to contact her when the need arises.

Coming to odds with Ackerson and suspicious of a cover-up regarding Cobalt Team, John revealed to Kai something that he had not told Ackerson: that he had also seen Makee alive and well with the Covenant. Aside from that fact, he continued to insist of his findings to Ackerson, who revealed that he had already interviewed Corporal Perez, who "did not corroborate" John's story. Furious that the one other eye-witness had apparently betrayed him, the Spartan tracked Perez down to her family's apartment and demanded to speak with her. She attempted to turn him away, but her mother, thinking John was a "boy Talia had brought home", invited him to dinner, where John reluctantly interacted with their family. When Talia left dinner due to the awkward situation and her cousins making jokes at her expense, John found her outside on the rooftop, where she finally admitted to not telling Ackerson the full truth due to feeling guilty for being the sole survivor in her squad. John comforted her and gave her advice, then tracked down flight trajectories for all Spartan Teams, realizing Colbalt's mission to the [[Visegrád Relay]] was highly classified and likely involved the Covenant when he saw no results show up for Cobalt.{{Ref/Film|Id=Sword|TV|Episode=[[Sword (TV Series)|Sword]]}}  

Upon reaching the relay, Silver Team was apprehended by FLEETCOM and disciplined, with John's suspicions "disproven", as a flight path now showed Cobalt being sent to a different planet. They were to be suspended from combat missions and John was to be relieved of duty until taking a mandatory psychiatric evaluation, with Keyes relaying the message personally, telling him that he argued with ONI and Ackerson against giving him a court martial. Riz and Vannak left John alone, and Kai tried to reason with him to reconsider what he had seen, but when he continued to insist on what he had seen and attempted to invoke his rank, even she left him. On his way to his evaluation, John picked up his signal to Parangosky, then knocked out his ONI escorts before escaping. Upon meeting up with Parangosky at a ramen restaurant, he divulges to her his suspicions, but she warned him not to go against ONI and to play along with their charades. John furiously realized that Parangosky never truly left the agency, and when he stood up to leave, several men in the background also stood up, but Parangosky motioned them to let John walk away, but not before warning him she could no longer help him if he continued going against ONI. John then met up with Perez's mother, who explained that she had gone to a church to pray. Upon John seeing her there, Perez, seemingly the only person to believe his experiences on Sanctuary, revealed that she had translated a message from the [[Arbiter]] [[Var 'Gatanai]], explaining the Covenant's intent to destroy Reach in the name of "Great Journey". Shortly after, explosions rocked the planet as the invasion of Reach began.{{Ref/Film|Id=Visegrád|TV|Episode=[[Visegrád (TV Series)|Visegrád]]}}