Halo:Trapped In A Wonderland

by SuperIntendant

Prologue: War Is Not A Game. Or Is It?

Oh man, I'm so excited to get started with this. I won't hold you back with a long drone about myself so enjoy!

Prologue: War Is Not A Game, Or Is It?

Heavy boots clanked against metal decking as Spartan A-042 darted between pieces of cover to avoid the constant onslaught of the combined fire-power from three red Spartans as they peppered his position with an MA5D each. They had the high ground and A-042 just knew he needed to reach the nearby man-cannon so he could dispatch them up close with his T1-Energy Sword.

The Spartans had been deployed in another war game shortly after returning from their last successful mission on Hades VI and the effect was showing as everyone’s technique was sloppy from the mission. Everyone's but his. He was currently hidden behind some pillars on the holo-sim arena designated 'Wraparound' and he could hear the gush of the alien launch device as though it were beckoning out to him. While he was pinned the red Spartans decided to have some fun with him.

“You can't camp there forever 42! You have to come out sometime.” The other reds snickered and shot another burst at his position while 16, the original caller, reloaded her Assault Rifle and pulled the bolt back with a satisfying 'clunk'. They would of put some grenades down there but they had wasted them on some earlier targets and were currently just trying to hold down the position for the duration of the match.

“Up yours 16!” 42 called back as he primed a T1 APG-Plasma Grenade and gave it a blind, underarm throw around the cover with his left arm. The Grenade soared through the air and stuck to the barrel of 16's MA5D.

“Shit!” She yelled and dropped the weapon over the edge and into the abyss while her team-mates dove away from her in either direction. 42 took this as a chance to make his move and dashed from cover with a Hard Light Shield projected from his left forearm and his Energy Sword held tight in his right hand. He leaped onto the man-cannon and shot through the air towards the position of his pre-occupied foes. He landed with a heavy 'THUD' and instantly lunged for the first Spartan in his way, who was Spartan E-242. The Spartan dropped to the floor, wordless as he was impaled on the double pronged blade. It wasn't as though they could actually feel the pain though, it was just a virtual reality, hologram simulation. 242's corpse disintegrated as his conscience was transferred into a new holo-shell body to be re-deployed onto the map. 42 wasted no time and rolled forward and plunged the blade into S-171's gut before lifting him into the air and pile driving the corpse to the floor. He spun round to face E-016, only she wasn't there. His intuition kicked in and he spun round with his Hard Light Shield leading the way as he did a one eighty and blocked two shots from 16's Magnum before swinging the blade upwards and cutting the side-arm in half. 16 could only stare at her severed weapon in disbelief as 42 swung his sword through her neck while shouting 'Triple Kill'!

Her head bounced on the floor and the familiar sound of a game coming to an end blurred through the holo-deck's speakers with the sound akin to a foghorn. 42 smiled and picked up 16's head with his left hand as it, himself and everything else around him disintegrated, revealing a large metal room that stretched on for a very long distance in each direction but behind him, as he was standing on the prep-platform where people would wirelessly interface with their holo-doubles. He let his pose droop to a more comfortable stance as he watched everyone around him remove gear and casually talk to each other.

“Hey, 42!” 42 could only mumble under his breath as 16 approached him removing her helmet and flicking her ponytail over her shoulder.

“Anyone there. I thought I said hi 42?” She stopped in front of him and peered inside his visor, scrunching her eyes as though it would give her x-ray vision to see his expression.

“I would prefer it if you called me Aidan, Katherine.” 42 spoke out with a tone devoid of any emotion. She really could grind his gears when she wanted but he kept that a secret as he spoke through grating teeth.

“Oh yeah, sorry. I just wanted to congratulate you on that little stunt you pulled at the end. Won your team the match.”

Aidan looked up at the large screen-display above the bulkhead while pulling off his helmet to reveal healthy, white skin, black hair and auburn eyes. Surely enough there was an almost identical score of 50-49. Had that stunt of his failed then he would of cost his team the match and half of their monthly food rations out on the field as had been agreed by the two teams while preping for the match. Katherine rubbed her neck and pulled a high-protein, nutrient bar out of her tactical soft case.

“Guess I should start paying you off now.”

Aidan took the bar and broke it in two, handing one half to her as he stuffed the other half in his mouth. He nearly choked when he realised it wasn't a protein bar and instead was an incredibly sweet cereal bar she had obviously snuck into the wrapping. She was about to thank him for getting half of it back when she noticed him nearly choking on the stuff.

“Hey 42, you alright?” He gave a rough cough and looked at her.

“Yeah... was just a little surprised to get a cereal bar in my mouth when I was expecting a dry nutrient bar. Where'd you get this stuff?” She gave him a seductive but fake wink before turning around and walking off. Aidan hoped she was joking about the wink at least. The last thing he wanted was getting his ass grinded by the Captain for having a fling on the ship when it was totally her coming onto him. Once she left the room with the rest of her trio some other blue Spartans walked over who he instantly recognised as some ex-ODST's he had served with in his old platoon, '501st Fire Chimps'. They had been good friends but his new career was severely impacting his social routine with them so they had to stay as good buddies rather than best mates. While pretty much every other Spartan on this ship acted as their own platoon, Aidan and a few others were so good in initial testing for the Spartan IV's that they were selected to become lone-wolf, kill teams that would go behind enemy lines, split up and then cause havoc to various critical objectives in covenant hands. This was the reason most of the other Spartans were tired and run down. While they had just come from a light ground engagement he had been up on the ship, on standby for any stealth or infiltration mission they required. His most successful mission was when he had been tasked with destroying a Super-Scarab being built on the planet Tartarus. He hadn't completed the objective conventionally. Sneaking in to the base in which it was being constructed he snuck aboard the vessel and commandeered it. Suffice to say he was promoted after that for not only had he completed his objective but he had also gained the UNSC a large portion of unlocked Covenant tech which was stashed aboard. The Super-Scarab was carted away by ONI spooks but they allowed the team to keep some spares of the new Covenant weapons as a little thank you gift for the bounty of technology. The first of his buddies stepped in front of his and gave him a friendly shake by the shoulder.

“Hey man, nice moves out there. I saw em' on the match replay. Getting' a little bit heavy on the Riot Shield tactics though.” He said as he removed his helmet revealing a stubble covered face with a happy but haggard look on it.

“But if you hadn't of done that I would have had it covered anyway”. Said another blue Spartan stepping forward. “I was on fire with the Rocket Launcher. Almost got a... uhmm. What do you call them again Aidan? Killtrocity, that’s it.” At that moment one of the ensigns stepped through the bulkhead and turned to face Aidan.

“Sir, the Captain has a special mission for you and the other Kill Team members. Suit up and meet them at the drop pod bay, ASAP. Mission details will be on a data pad in your room.” He gave a crisp salute then turn on his heels and walked out. Some other Kill Team members heard this and left the room in the ensigns wake. He nodded at his friends and left the room as they started talking to each other some more.

Arriving in his room which he shared with two other Spartans who weren't here he saw a glowing data pad laid flat on his bed. Picking it up he scanned the contents of the text but there wasn't much to read up on. There was just a brief description of a covenant target that needed 'sorting' on a planet that was marked as 'classified'. There was also a brief outline on the kind of gear he would need to pack. The main point of said segment was basically pack heavy, it was going to be a long mission. They estimated around a week of sneaking across a Covenant controlled planet to reach the target from any feasible landing zone for the pods. They were also to be dropped from slip-space in modified drop pods while the rest of Infinty's crew would be on the way to another mission that had been designated as urgent. Aidan sighed and started attaching parts to his base 'Gen-2 Mjolnir Armour' such as a tactical soft case and some extra pieces of camouflage netting to keep him hidden when not using Actvie-Camo. Opening his fairly large locker he pulled out one of every armour-ability module and put them in his tactical soft case while attaching his own personal Energy Blade which he had pulled from the cold, dead claws of a Zealot he had killed in hand to hand combat. He kept the rest of his suit simple and obstruction free and kept his default, dull blue paint job with a few rough white stripes here and there. Closing the locker he began heading down to the drop bay to get the rest of his weapons from the armoury. The mission didn't surprise him much on the lack of details, for the data was filed as a spook document, that never meant anything good.

So let me know what you think and I will love to read your opinions and improve upon your criticism. On another note... wow, wrote this up in 2 hours, that's pretty quick for me.

Comments

[TheAssumingMage]

Halo 4 isn't even out yet but you seem to have quite a bit of intel on it
How?

[Rough Spirit]

nice story so far keep it up

[anonymous brick]

709889
their is a lot of stuff released about halo 4 even though the game isn't out yet, just look up "halo 4" on youtube.

[Ninja Locust]

are you... A SPY?!?!

[Agent Everfree]

709889 Ha Are kidding i know too much about halo 4 well being a beta tester kinda is cheating

[DerpedRainbow]

Gen-2? Are we going back to Reach time?

[Kozak]

While the spartan IV's have to stay sharp after a mission, a spartan II can take a month long vacation and still be effective just ask master chief.

[MiiaTheLamia]

Why do I think this is going to be a 'slipspace drive failure' plot device?

[faren455]

42 is abit to skilled for someone I haven't had a chance to learn to respect. You need to break up the text into paragraphs, and a marker for scene changes wouldn't hurt either (to add emphasis). I did like the interaction between 42 and 16 though, it flowed smoothly that they are both friends and rivals with a healthy respect for each other.

It is also Important to not brag about things your character has already done. I hate that people do this all the time. Unless you have written out in a prior story and are referencing that, or that it is important for the story later on in the plot, leave it out. It makes it hard to appreciate anything he does in the story when you already brag about what he does better. (If I was was a soldier against bad writing, this would be my red baron.)

'Arriving in his room which he shared with two other Spartans who weren't here he saw a glowing data pad laid flat on his bed.' (this line here bugs me, I think it is either supposed to be two sentences or had become cluttered)

I hope this is a comment of a helpful nature, and improves your writing later on. (unless you already fixed them in the later chapters )

[501st Party Brigade]

501st Fire Chimps huh? Ya I met them they where pretty tight as a unit, except Dave That know it all ass.

[VunderGuy]

"Oh man, I'm so excited to get started with this. I won't hold you back with a long drone about myself so enjoy!"

Ya know, just because I respect that you have the decency and common sense to do that where so many authors (even the good and/or decent) don't, even if it turns out I don't like your story, I'm still keeping it on my favorites. It's just...unbelievably refreshing for me to finally see that from someone.

Thank You.

[Nopony in Particular]

Aw....I was hoping Spartan A-042 would be Douglas. He's just an oc. A complete BAMF but not who I was expecting.

[Not so Elite]

This is good work man

[LuckyTucker678]

Awesome

[Fueled By Desperation]

I was just reading through and I noticed a very small typo that you may wish to correct. Actvie-Camo was accidentally typed instead of Active-Camo. Just trying to help.

[CCC]

A nice start. However, in the prologue, there are a few grammar issues that are personal pet peeves of mine.

The first is "would of". I have seen this more and more often recently, and I find it somewhat troubling; the correct phrase is "would have". I noticed this several times in the prologue.

The second pet peeve is that you appear to have got consciousness mixed with conscience. The conscience is the moral sense of right and wrong; the self-awareness, that is, the mind of the person, is "consciousness". (Unless you meant to imply that the holograms were steered only by the Spartan's sense of right and wrong, of course).

Aside from those minor issues, you appear to be off to a very promising start.

[Dredgen]

Please add some spacing in the paragraphs, that really hurt my eyes

[The Traveler12]

The only problem I see right now is in your grammar: punctuation, specifically your use of commas, is lacking. On a positive note, I really like that you're adding in functional armor attachments from Halo: Reach on top of Generation 2 armor.

[Lord Shaxx]

Oh. My. God! BEST INTRO EVER! This has got all the stuff from War Games pat down, no grammar errors, and you've even got the revelant names from the games! This is going on my priorities list!

[Chadbunger]

YES! finally a good intro to a halo/mlp crossover thank you!
although it would be nice to make the armor more badass,and black always black.

[Moonight]

Rainbow dash, why