Chapter 1

Chris Boyer walked into his house and moaned softly. Chris was a fifteen year old student in high school with black hair that was in need of a trim, he had just come back from taking his math final exam. Not that he thought he had done poorly on it but that it had been very difficult, and his phone service was down again, curse Charter telephone service. He needed to study for three more exams tomorrow, he needed a stress reliever, he needed to play Halo 2.

He dashed down his basement stairs, threw his binder and books down onto his bed, switched his Xbox on, and grabbed his favorite wireless controller. The usual start for Halo 2 came up, Chris always left the disc in. He picked the starting level, no use playing the ending levels when he was this worn out. He went through the level as he normally did shooting elites and grunts. He quickly finished the first level and went onto the second.

This level was his favorite because, despite the annoyance of the stupid hunters it was fun to fight on what would be a futuristic Earth. He waited for the loading to stop, suddenly his cat, Thomas, jumped off Chris and the back leg claws dug into his leg making him drop the controller. He looked at the screen, was that thing still loading? Oh well, he decided to start counting seconds because he had nothing better to do for a pre-loader.

"Ten... eleven... twelve." Chris closed his eyes and continued, "thirteen... fourteen... fifteen." He opened his eyes to look at the screen. It was gone, his first thought was, Crap, dad is gonna kill me. But then Chris saw that this wasn't his house at all. It was a street, and he was laying behind what appeared to be a shield of iron, like in the wars, but there were no wars like that in Missouri. He sat up. He saw a group of men running around and shooting guns in the air. One man saw him and ran towards him.

The man looks like a marine. But citizens didn't dress in armor, what the heck is going on? Chris thought. This looked similar to the common city with huge buildings and everything. But why where guns firing? And was that... a plasma blast that had just gone past him? This couldn't possibly be normal. He could've fallen asleep and been moved in his sleep this had happened before, but why outside and why plasma blasts? Chris took another look at the man, he was sightly tall holding a gun. That meant he was with the military. Chris saw that he was holding what appeared to be... a battle rifle from the Halo 2 game. Those weren't real were they? But Chris knew as he put two and two together that the only reasonable explanation was that he was somehow sent into the year of 2552. Although that didn't seem reasonable at all.

Then the man called out, "Move civilian! Here. I'm get you to your family in the shelter. What's your name?" Chris thought about telling the man his real name he gave the name that he gave to all other Halo players as a screen name. After all better safe then sorry.

"Spartan 106." Chris said lowering he voice. He saw his mistake a second too late.

"Wow! A Spartan! I mean I thought all except 117 died during the fall of Reach. How'd you get here?" Chris thought quickly. He couldn't say he wasn't a real Spartan because this man might kill him now that he had said so. So he gave the best excuse he had.

"I was sent there on an underground mission before the mission on Reach but something went wrong and my communications were lost and my suit got breached too many times so I was force to get rid of it and act like a civilian to until I was somehow found." The man considered him.

"How long have you been down here?"

Chris thought and answered, "A half-year or so."

The man bought his story. "Ok, this is Kyle sir, I have found a man who claims to be Spartan 106. His story makes sense, calling in a drop-ship to take him back to headquarters." Soon a ship came by and Chris hopped in. The drop-ship took off and carried him away from the battle. The pilot didn't speak, Chris remained equally mute. He soon saw a huge ship come into view, and gave a shape intake of breath. He was dropped off in front of an official looking man who Chris took to be his commander. He snapped to a sightly sloppy salute.

"As you were Spartan." The man said. Luckily Chris had seen enough movies to know that he was now supposed to stand still and listen.

"Your story seems to check out so we are going to get you into my ship get you used to with a newly modified suit and put you back down here in an four hours." The commanding guy said. Chris was dumbstruck, his story actually checked out?

"Yes sir, thank you sir." Chris said. He was led into the ship and then into an armory, although he wouldn't have seen it as such if he hadn't played so much Halo. He saw several cyro-tubes and what he recognized as the energy shield test. A man who was called Gregory made him lay down in one of the cyro-tubes and he quickly fell asleep and woke, remembering no dream, not that he ever did.

"Move around a bit. Get a feel for it. Then come over to the energy shield test." He was apparently talking about Chris's suit training as getting used to it. Chris looked down at his hand and it was coated in green armor. Great, they put him in a Spartan suit, perfect. Well at least they wouldn't think he was a kid he switched the voice masking on. He hadn't spoken to Gregory so he wouldn't know. Chris was then carried by three others onto a field. There he spent the three hours Chris learned how to use the suit. It was actually terribly complicated and he got badly hurt more than a few times. He finally met up with Gregory in the armory again. He then jumped up and down a few times, and ran around a bit, still not entirely used to the suit's functions. He then walked over to the energy shielding test and stood waiting.

"Ready sir?" Asked Gregory.

"No," Chris answered. "But punch it anyway." A high pitched beeping filled Chris's ear, followed by the steady hum of the shields.

"All readings normal, now to see about the weapon systems." Gregory then handed Chris a M7 sub machine gun and walked him over to a targeting system. He told Chris to fire at the target when ready. He open fired on the "enemy" and struggled to hold the gun steady. In his year he was not a great shot. But in the year of 2552 all he had to down was pull the trigger and keep a steady arm and the suit's targeting systems did most of the rest.

The commanding guy came in. "How does he look?" He asked.

"Everything shows normality sir." Gregory answered. Chris was then led to a M12 LRV Warthog.

"Two marines will lead you to Spartan 117, cover his movements." Chris nodded and hopped in the right side sit. Normally he drove the Warthog but he didn't know where he was going so he let the marine drive. The trip went pretty smooth most of the areas that they visited were filled with dead bodies because of the Spartan 117. He saw two hunters up ahead and his grip on his battle rifle tightened.

"This is as far as we go sir." The lead marine said. Chris nodded and ran forward shooting at the hunter. He rolled to the left came up kneeling and got in a few nice head-shots. Chris picked up a plasma grenade and launched it unto the hunter midsection, and ran hard in the opposite direction. He turned around as he heard an explosion and saw blue plasma. He turned to the second hunter and found several marines and Spartan 117 shooting it.

Chris saw the beast fall and walked up to John. "Spartan 106 reporting for orders sir." Chris heard whispers circle through the marines. Some of awe, some of indignation.

Sparten 117 said, "Another Spartan, how did you manage to escape from Reach in time?" Chris told his made up story that he had told the marine. and walk along side John who questioned him often. Which cause Chris to come up with new explanations. They soon ran into a large group of enemies. Chris killed a grunt by bashing it in the head, then slammed the butt of the battle rifle into an elite's gut before shooting the thing in the head several times.

At first Chris thought that killing would bother him but he found that killing a grunt was like a worm or a frog, well one that shot back at you anyway. He continued to fire at the elites and grunts until he heard a click. His ammunition clip was out. He quickly grabbed a new stock and began to insert it, but an elite came speeding towards him in a ghost. Suddenly John jumped on the Ghost kicked the beast out then shot it.

"Watch yourself." He called to Chris. Why did John have to catch him at that moment? He was doing fine before that. No time to worry about it now, Chris ran forward killing several enemies. He soon ran forward to find John standing next to another M12 LRV Warthog. Chris then made what was his first really big mistake. He hopped in the back turret seat. Automatically a marine came up and looked at him.

"Sir, that's my position with Spartan 117." Chris looked at him the man. Was he actually suggesting that a Spartan relive his position? Chris turned but not being used to controlling the M41 LAAG2 gun in real life he accidently pointed it at the marine. The man panicked and shot Chris twice. Chris, acting on instant of survival shot the man with the machine gun. The marines looked at him.

"Spartan 106 has gone crazy take him out!" He knew those words meant death. He leapt out of the gunner sit and ran jumping over bullets.

"Stop! Cease fire!" Then Chris heard the explosion of a rocket launcher. He turned and saw John holding the weapon.

"Now listen or I'll fire this at you." John spoke in Chris's defense about how the marine had shot him twice so Chris had been acting out of defense. The marines let Chris come back but they no longer followed his orders without John's consent and never lowered their weapons. Chris walked calmly knowing they wouldn't shoot him, well not now at least, but he couldn't slip up like that again. He hopped in the side sit, Spartan 117 took the driving position, and a new marine took gunner.

The Master Cheif drove through the beach until they ran into another barricade of elites. Chris shot down as many as his limited view allowed. Then Spartan 117 drove on to what Chris considered to be an underground highway. Chris leapt out of the Warthog and grabbed a Ghost that was laying down. Immediately two elites came for him, suck up aliens had set a trap. Chris frantically tried to find the backup control. He punched a random button and the Ghost sped up using it's boost to splatter the two enemies.

Chris sped up ahead figuring that the others would catch up and he could give them a bit of front cover. Soon three covenant Shadows came into view. Chris jumped from his Ghost to the Shadow took out an energy sword he had stolen from an elite and slashed through the exterior to the engine room, he then placed a plasma grenade on the computer leapt out of the room and onto the next Shadow. He looked back and saw the first Shadow blow up. Chris then repeated the process twice and waited for the Master Cheif to arrive. Soon he did and Chris hopped into the right side of the transport and John drove on. Chris suddenly saw the huge spider walker thing that the covenant owned.

"It blew right through us," One female marine was saying. "Rockets, grenades. Didn't do a thing." Then he heard Cortana call in for a Scorpion tank. Soon enough the tank came by. Master Cheif hopped in and three marines hopped unto the sides Chris took the last unused position. Spartan 117 drove the tank down a street blowing up Ghosts and and Banshee and went into another underground highway. All the two Spartans were then sent to do was jump on the spider thing with precise timing grab a rocket launcher and some ammo then fight down to the main control systems blast them with the rockets, then steal a Banshee and fly off and land near a Pelican ship and get back unto the main ship to prepare for another mission, and they had 5 minuets to place a bomb that was currently ticking. Yeah not really something that could be done with one hand behind your back.

Chris's battle rifle had long ran out of ammunition so he was holding his M7 SMG instead. The needed rocket launcher was on his back as his secondary weapon. Standing on the bridge he was waiting. He had to time this right or he take a very long fall. He saw the ship below him and leapt off. He landed in the middle of the ship which was not where Chris would've preferred to land.

Around fifteen elites were surrounding him. He grabbed a plasma grenade and hurled it unto one of them. The elite being so close to it's fellows died along with three of the others. Chris shot two more until they died, then jumped up and landed behind one monster. He bash the beast in the back of the head then shot down three others. Then he was forced to duck down behind a large crate and waited for the shields to recharge. Then he ran into the fray again, launching a frag grenade and firing took down four more. The last elite bashed him in the gut, Chris was stunned for a split second then he grabbed the monsters arm twisted it and flipped over it head. Holding the thing's right arm behind it's back Chris shot it in the head.

The Master Cheif was battling on the slope and told Chris to get into the control bridge and blow it up. Chris leapt down and kicked to door to the controls open he took out the rocket launcher and blasted two of the panels along with four grunts. Then he blew up two of the control figures and five more grunts then set the bomb. He checked the time. He had just thirty seconds left Man time was moving fast right now.

"Sir, we have to leave now!" Chris shouted running out of the doorway. John nodded and leapt into a Banshee and flew away. Chris ran as fast as he ever had in his life. Tough he wasn't quick enough. An elite grabbed the last operating Banshee and flew off, circled around and fired at Chris. Chris jumped out of the way waited until it got close enough to hijack. Then he leapt from his hiding spot and grabbed a wing of the ship. He then caught a glimpse of the ground below. Around twenty miles below. A certainly fatal fall. He had to either pull himself up and kick the elite out or fall and try to land on a human ship. Chris looked up into the snarling elite's face and made his choice.