I danced back, flailing my shield in front of me to deflect the flurry of plasma bolts. The ground in front of me glowed from heat impacts.

BeastBoy charged forward as a thickly armored anklyosaur, shrugging off plasma charges like hurled socks. He smashed into the mass of elites, scattering them like bowling pins. All, however, where protected by bright flaring shields

The white armored one with the glowing blade stabbed into BeastBoy's leg, eliciting a pained groan from the dinosaur. BeastBoy fell to the ground and morphed back, clutching his leg. The elite raised his sword to finish him...

...and the blade was knocked out of his hand by a well aimed starbolt. He turned his tentacled face to look at what hit it, and a flurry of blasts splashed over his shield. He shouted in his alien language and fell back.

I took my chance. I ran forward pistols held straight out, firing repeatedly. Each of my shots however only caused a flare of shield, and drew their fire back on me. I dodged furiously, but I was still hit in the left arm.

It was at this point that I figured out how that soldier died from his burns. On the surface they were only superficial scorches, but the heat penetrated. It only gave you first degree burns, but it gave you burns all the way to the bone. My muscles were toasted and my blood cauterized in my veins. Thankfully it was very localized, the surface burn was large but the inner burn was slightly smaller than a bullet.

I clutched my burned arm and set myself to regenerating. While I did that I rushed forward with my claw.

One of the red armored ones had his back to me, big mistake. I kicked his shield, causing it to wink out of existence and followed it up with a fist to the spine, assuming these things were vertabrates. He fell down so I think they are.

BeastBoy was back up and violently assaulting the remaining elites as a triceratops. The elites were shooting him up good, to no real effect, his hide was just too thick.

Starfire was facing off with the white armored one, who I assumed was the leader. He had gotten back his sword, and was wielding it along side a plasma gun. Starfire kept punching and blocking with starbolt-charged fists, but she was at a disadvantage.

I decided to help out. I broke into a crouched sprint, claw out and shield charged. I reared back my hand to slash, but this guy was leader for a reason. He saw me coming at the last possible second and rolled low, coming up between my legs, and punching at my chest with his sword.

He made contact, sliding his glowing blade through my torso all the way to the hilt. I flew up into the air from the impact, almost passing out from the pain. Almost.

Before I had even slid off the swordI tore my shotgun out from the holster with my left hand and pressed forward, planting it against the back of his neck. I pulled the trigger and was blown back by the explosion.His shield winked out from my assault.

Starfire blasted him back with an optic blast that sent him careening into one of the street lights next to the street, denting it at an odd angle.

As soon as it was able my gun started belching out explosive shells at the remaining elites. Two more fell to my gun before it clicked dry, and three to Starfire's bolts. We would have beat up more, but we ran out.

I reloaded my shotgun and called out "Everyone okay?" as I looked at yet another hole in my coat.

"I am none the wear for the worse" said Starfire in her cheery, perky tone.

"It's none the worse for wear Starfire, how about you BeastBoy?"

"DUDE, THIS IS SO AWESOME!"

This took me aback. "What?"

"This dudes, we're in Halo!"He shouted, arms wide gesturing at everything around us."We just kicked the crap out of a bunch of elites, do you know how cool that is! Oh man, Cy's going to be so jealous." He said with a devious smirk.

"Well, I"m glad your excited BeastBoy, but we still need to find a way out of here."

"Yeah I know but, man is this sweet!"

"Now answer my question. Are you hurt?"

"Nah, just a scratch."

"But I saw you get stabbed."

"My wounds translate by size, that stab wound is just a tiny little pin prick now, see." He rolled up his pants and showed the tiny red dots that were a vicious stab wound just a little while ago.

"...Cool."

Starfire touched down next to us. "Friends we must make haste. I believe more foes are almost upon-"

An enormous shiny purple craft rose up suddenly tore over the building tops with a warbling roar. It tilted itself at a sharp angle and leveled itself at us.

"-us" Starfire quietly finished.

"Everyone stay perfectly still, maybe it can only see movement." BeastBoy quickly said, and for some reason we all listened.

a moment.

It leveled three turrets and began pouring bolts of flaming plasma at us.

"DAMMIT BEASTBOY, THAT WAS A MOVIE NOT A VIDEO GAME!" as I bolted for cover.

"Hey, it was worth a shot!" he shouted before he morphed into a falcon and soared out of it's firing arc.

"No it wasn't you filthy buzzard!" I dove and rolled behind the ruined hulk of the jeep, closely followed by a stream of plasma from one of it's turrets that then began to blacken and scorch my cover.

I poked my head up and fired off a few shot from my Glocks. I might as well of attacked a tank with a stick. Starfire was having slightly more effect, actually damaging a purple plate with a stream of eye laser while hovering just out of the arc of it's turret.

Unfortunately that meant that all three turrets were aimed at me. I could feel the heat start to build up in the jeep, soon I would be hiding behind a pile of melted slag and the thing would have a clear line on me.

It was at that point that BeastBoy saved my life. He fluttered above the vehicle -phantom, that's what it's called- as a pigeon, and then morphed into a mammoth, right on the thing's nose end. It pitched forward, actually making contact with the ground and snapping off one of the turrets in a spray of sparks. BeastBoy slid off and morphed back into a pigeon and darted away.

The phantom righted itself, the bright white thruster on it's underside flared bright, and it spun, more of a barrel roll really.

The gunners were damn good, each of them actually getting off a shot a Starfire while it was flipped. She dodged, but got clipped nonetheless. She fell to the ground like a sack of bricks.

As soon as the Phantom recovered from it's flip, something fell out of it's engine thruster, a red armor clad elite. I then realized that the Phantom wasn't an assault vehicle, it was a troop transport.

The red elite was only the tip of the iceberg. Hordes of... things started tumbling out of the shaft of light that I had mistakenly thought was a thruster. There were elites, and other things. Little trolls with pointed back packs I heard BeastBoy call Grunts, and little dinosaur monsters with bright energy shields called Jackals. It was kinda creepy.

The lead elites made a bee line for Control Freak's unconscious form. Oh shit, I forgot about Control Freak, that fat dirty bastard. I jumped over the half melted jeep and dashed for Control Freak. By the time I got there Control Freak was surrounded.

I blind sided one of the elites, snapping his neck with a powerful jump kick. I lashed out with my claw and caught another just below the eye, downing him as well. I was only on the ground long enough to kick off and slam into another one. I had killed three of them in as many seconds.

At this point, I didn't care about taking lives. My nerves were on edge, and I was really pissed off. And fuck if I was going to let my only ticket home get carted away by his tentacle faced butt-buddies.

One opened fire on me. I weaved between the shots and ran up to him, I grabbed the mouth of his plasma rifle and crushed it, and before he could react I plunged my claw into his face. A spray of fire from my left. Without looking I whirled, using the Elite's corpse as a shield. Plasma impacted his frame like rain as I ran for more solid cover.

Suddenly a shaft of light erupted out of his side, missing me by scant millimeters. I peeked over my shield's shoulder and saw a jackal with a curious looking rifle pointed at me. He fired again and a long beam of light shot from it, this one only burrowed a quarter sized hole in my coat tail.

A large number of sudden explosions went off in the Covenant ranks, as dozens of green bombs exploded around them, one taking out the sniper-Jackal. I looked up and saw Starfire machine-gunning starbolts.

Several Elites worked themselves together and started a concentration of fire on the artillery alien, but they hadn't fired for more than a second before they were scattered by a Velociraptor in their ranks.

I flicked my eyes to my right, and saw a pair of Phantoms moving in over the water. It was at this point that I also saw the giant cruiser floating about a mile and a half away that was obscured by clouds before. I gaped at it for only a second, but a second too long.

I saw movement off my right, and instinctively whirled my shield around to protect myself. I blocked a projectile and shot with my Glock, nailing a Grunt right between the eyes. Little bastard snuck around.

There was a light coming from my right, I looked down and saw a bluish-white thing attached to my shield. It was steadily growing brighter.

All I could was half mouth an obscenity before I knew no more.