So, while in the middle of writing another pilot idea, another one popped into my head. Yet again another Halo idea. As a few of you have seen previously, the intro for this story is ripped from that first ODST idea I had, the ResidentEvil2 (remake) one which was subsequently copied to that Familiar of Zero one as well. I sort of like this opening as a blank slate to start whatever shit I want to. Mainly because it allows me to get into the meat of the idea more than anything else.

But what is this idea? Basically, ODST drops into the world of RailDex and becomes a private investigator with nothing else better to do in Academy City where his pod crash lands. My intention is that this story will have a double mystery. Part one of the mystery is that our ODST protagonist is hired to figure something out (I'll figure it out by the time that part gets written), and the second being Judgement, Mikoto, Touma, and friends having to figure out who this certain investigator is. At least that's what I hope to accomplish.

Title: A Certain Futuristic Investigative Soldier

Summary: When you drop into an unknown situation, you have to adapt and adapt quickly. That's what UNSC ODST Corporal James Campbell had to do when a mission went awry and is now stranded out of his own time. Now a private investigator with a certain set of skills, he delves deep into Academy City's depths to solve mysteries that not even city officials wish to touch.

Rating: T+ - M, you never know where it's going to go. I don't intend to have any on-screen sexual content, however, off-screen may be fair game depending on what I want to write. There won't be any "inappropriate" relations of a certain older man and younger women that could easily be his nieces. But that's just my take.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my copy of MS Word and my desktop. The RailDex universe belongs to Kazuma Kamachi and those he licenses it out to, Halo belongs to 343i, Microsoft, and Bungie. This idea solely is my idea. See the foreword for the full disclaimer.

XxXxXxX

Prepare to drop.

Three words that all ODSTs hear right before performing the closest thing one can do to descending into hell itself: dropping in a pod from high orbit to slam into the ground and assault enemy forces to either establish a beachhead or to take out high priority targets in hostile territory. For some ODSTs, those words filled them with dread. After all, not everyone makes it every time to the ground in their pods. After all, even with excessive-quality checks, manufacturing defects can still exist and heat shields fail. Even with the full technological advancements made by the UNSC in the last hundred years, mistakes happen. For others in the ODSTs, it was all about the adrenaline rush. It was all about going through one of the most thrilling rides of their lives. It was said that there were two types of people in the ODSTs: the elite marines of the UNSC, and those that were crazy enough to do it.

For ODST Corporal James Campbell, the Drop was a gamble. Like a fine game of poker, or Russian roulette. It was all the same at the end. You place your bets and the House gets to decide whether you win or lose. So far, the House had decided that he gets to win. Yet again he'd be loading bullets into the revolver, spinning the cylinder, and pulling the trigger by getting into that pod.

James looked over his pod and saw the two weapons inside needed for his mission: an M7S submachine gun and an SRS99 anti-material sniper rifle. Completing his kit was a single M6/SOCOM magnum, the deadly 'friend' of the ODST. The mission profile? Infiltrate an Innie outpost, take out the leader, signal for extraction. Easy. He and his squad would be dropped deep behind enemy lines and would have to move closer. Scuttlebutt was that the Innies were squatting in an alien ruin. No one knew anything else.

He hoisted himself into his pod and secured any weapons or articles that could become hazardous if left unattached or unsecured. All of his weapons were stowed away and was ready to drop. Well, as ready as one could be. The hatch closed and sealed his pod with a pressurizing hiss. The segmented hull cut the bay off and opened below him revealing the planet's surface below. Above his head on a console were four LEDs that were currently unlit. Once his pod moved into position, the LEDs lit up red. There was a beep as the countdown for the pod launch was initiated. As it did, one LED turned off. And so, it did for three more beeps. Finally, there was an extended beep where the LEDs all turned green and his pod accelerated towards the planet.

A rangefinder on the screen displayed the current altitude which was steadily decreasing at a fast rate. Dropping from high orbit was risky business, but the Navy needed to keep their presence relatively discreet. He and his squad adjusted their trajectory to hit the optimal LZ. They reached low orbit and broke through the clouds. His chute automatically popped to slow him down to not be a deathly impact. It was then that James noticed the silvery structures that were alien. Humans didn't build these and it sure wasn't the Covvies either; it was something else. There was some kind of cryptic beauty to the spire that was the center of these structures.

The admiration of these structures didn't last long as the ground forces noticed their approach and started to open fire at the pods incoming towards their position. Rockets and gauss rounds sped past James' pod as untrained and poorly calibrated weapons were his only saving grace. He looked at the rangefinder, he was still a thousand feet from the ground. Static started to cause the hairs on his arm and back of his neck to stand on end. There wasn't anything in the pod that would cause that. It was only a shout that came over the battle-net that explained what happened.

"Slipspace ruptures!" was shouted over the radio.

James was then suddenly surrounded in pure darkness. He was battered in every which way. To everyone on the battlefield, he was dead, another KIA in a bloody civil war. It would be after a bloody battle resulting in a loss from the Insurrectionist Movement that the structure was revealed to be a Forerunner structure with a defensive grid of Slipspace generators. However, James would never know this. James? He would be dropping into something completely different.

High above Academy City, the fireworks of the Daihase Festival prevented anyone from noticing the falling star approaching their fine city. Except, it wasn't a falling star, it was a drop pod. The pod streaked into the underused Industrial District and smashed through concrete and steel rebar in a loud crash, a crash that was covered up by the ongoing fireworks show. It was 10 pm when the fireworks show started and it went on for almost an hour. When it ended, Academy City was eerily quiet. The closest person to the crash site was a mile away, and even those that would normally be close were off of work because of the Daihase Festival. Gasses escaped from the pod as the hermetically sealed hatch was released. The hatch then exploded outward, embedding itself in a nearby building.

A man clad in black armor crept out of the pod, a submachine gun pointed out in defense, ready to fire on anyone that appeared to be a threat. Seeing that he wasn't under fire, he hefted himself out of the wreckage of the pod, taking his weapons out and made his way to the nearest street. Looking around and seeing that the street was deserted, he moved quickly into the shadows and vanished. To anyone that came across the wreckage, any identifying marks were unreadable. It would be later swept away by the Academy City higher-ups and never spoken about outside of rumors.

XxXxXxX

One year later…

James Campbell adapted well to his situation's circumstances, as all ODSTs should. He discovered that he was somehow both in the past and in a parallel universe to his own. After all, humanity didn't create a megacity off the shore of Japan that was a hub of technological advancement and development of ESP abilities in the mid-twenty-first century. If it was, the UNSC wouldn't have had nearly as many losses considering the abilities he saw on display. But as part of the mantra of Bear Grilles said, 'adapt and overcome'. And adapt and overcome he did. It didn't take much to overcome the City's cybersecurity grid and falsify documents for him. He used his real name because there was no reason in using an alias in a reality in which he didn't exist. He made sure to include in his credentials that he was a private investigator, which wasn't hard to do considering all he needed was a license; which also wasn't all that hard to get considering all he needed to do was pass a test.

As for weapons? Well, he didn't tell anyone that he had a high powered 14.5x144mm cartridge spewing cannon hidden in his office nor the silenced M6s/SOCOM or the M7s that were also hidden, the latter of the two on his person. When one participated in undercover operations to catch Insurrectionists in hostile territory, you learned very quickly how to hide your weapons and how to avoid checkpoints so that you weren't searched. He had been subscribed to various message boards hosted in Academy City for odd and unusual activity. Recently he had found someone reporting an increase in robotic dogs wandering the streets in recent weeks. It didn't take much when keeping his ear to the ground to discover that Baba Yoshio, a student of a low-level school in terms of ESPER abilities, had been patenting various robotic models with the city's higher-ups sponsoring him.

Baba was not a humble person. There were various forum posts of him bragging about how his machines were better than people, how they would replace all the 'trash' of society. He didn't sound like the most likable of people, but he was smart, that much was certain. The first thing that he prepared in the off chance that he encountered this character was some localized EMP generators. They weren't anything that wasn't out of the UNSC armory, but it was rarely used due to tactical reasons; that being that Covenant tech was EMP-proof on the small scale. Yes, it would mess with their localized communication equipment, but nothing on the scale of a Covenant invasion would hold. Humans, on the other hand, were more viable targets for EMP tech; although it was rarely done during the Human-Covenant War. The range was pretty small, around one hundred meters in radius, but was enough to mess with most sensitive equipment.

Today was the second day of the Daihase Festival, a weeklong event in which the entire city shut down and they opened their borders to allow the family of students to visit as well as the city's schools to show off projects that they've been working on to the world. It was one part traditional Japanese cultural festival and one part World's Fair. The previous year that James entered Academy City, because of all the tourists he was able to slip unnoticed through the crowds even armored as he was at the time. In fact, there was a whole line of thought of his skepticism of the city's security protocols considering that this was a city of students and anyone competent in forgery like he was, could break their way in and stay without being badgered about it. There was something in the air today, it felt off. The last time James felt this way, it was minutes before the Covenant found Earth. Minutes before an alien force hellbent on annihilating humanity showed up on their doorstep. The odd calm and unease in the air weren't felt by anyone else but him at this moment, but he felt that something was going to go down. That being the case, he hid his M6 on his person and went about his business, or lack thereof because no one had approached him requesting him to find something or someone.

He was walking along what would be considered a waterfront when he heard something in the distance. It appears to be a Satcom dish that fell over. However, those don't just fall over and there weren't any announcements of controlled demolitions to get civilians to shy away. He understood that people liked to see buildings fall and that there was something oddly satisfying about a controlled demolition, but no announcement? That was new. He cautiously made his way towards where the Satcom dish fell. It was a park with an island in the center, bridges were the only way onto the island. The waterway appeared to be the same one that he had been walking down originally.

At the center of the island there appeared to be a young woman, specifically a teenager in one of the school sports uniforms. Something happened and she fell over and stopped moving. The other person, a young man around the same age, started to approach her with a gleam in his eye that he had seen in the occasional UNSC marine who cracked and was about to take it out on someone who accidentally spilled his coffee one too many times. The boy then started to kick the girl with a sadomasochistic glee that he would assume only belonged to ONI interrogators. Without waiting, he pulled his M6 out and started to fast walk over the bridge. His footsteps were eerily silent as his trained feet were to do. He was able to make it in a few seconds across the bridge just as she had reached to grab the hem of the boy's pant leg. He only responded by kicking her in the face, knocking her out cold.

"Wow, real brave kicking a downed opponent," James caught himself commentating.

The boy looked up in shock to see the built 'gaijin' who seemingly snuck up on him. Although, if James was to actually sneak up on him the boy wouldn't be able to see the bullet entering his skull. James saw out of the corner of his eye the silver dog robots. One had a long tongue tentacle extended and it started to look at him. James immediately identified it as a weapon. One didn't build robots like this for anything other than one thing: war. He flicked off the safety on the M6 which was currently obscured by James's trenchcoat and current footing. James knelt next to the girl and checked her pulse; she would live but only if she got help soon.

"Who are you?" the boy demanded.

"A concerned citizen who saw the destruction of public property," James replied dismissively. His tone was very factual and straight to the point. "But what should I find but a boy kicking a girl who clearly isn't in the best of shape." He turned his gaze towards the boy. "Perhaps you're the one that destroyed it and decided to assault another concerned citizen," he alleged. He knew that this was a carefully constructed lie. He knew who the girl was, after all, how couldn't he? She had been plastered on the TV less than an hour ago as being Kongou Mitsuko from the prestigious Tokiwadai Academy. She's an ESPer of the wind control variety.

"No, she's the one who destroyed it," the boy shifted blame.

"Really, now?" John replied as he stood up to full height. "That then asks the question of why she had to take down a Satcom dish." He made direct eye contact with the boy, he flinched as if before a predator. "Perhaps your mechanical mutts assaulted her."

"Kill hi-!" the boy yelled out his command.

Without even flinching and the robots appearing to move in slow motion as their motors and servos twitch, he drew his M6 and placed twin rounds in the closest robot dog with the pistol's signature whisper-quiet rounds exiting the barrel. They both landed in the head of the robot within a few millimeters of both entry points. The robot dog slumped to the ground. It never got a chance to move away from its starting position. However, this inactivity wasn't long to last. The rest of the robot dogs started to act. James's eyes crossed the newly baptized battleground. There were seven remaining robot dogs. One-shot its tongue at him, he sidestepped it left so it passed his right side. He grasped the tongue and yanked the dog towards him with surprising speed; it appeared that they were made of lightweight materials. He proceeded to place a round in its skull and allowed it to sail past him into the water.

Six left. Two started to circle him in a pincer maneuver while the other four started to charge him. Without wasting time, James fired four more rounds into the robot dogs. They slumped to the ground with sparks coming out of their carapaces. One of the two circling him jumped at him. James ducked down and used the upward force of his standing up to shotput throw the dog into the water behind him. The last one leaped at him, but he couldn't get his M6 lined up for a shot. It crashed into him with an abnormal about of force which betrayed the weight of the robots themselves. He was knocked on his back and grabbed onto the muzzle of the robot dog and kept it wrenched shut. His other hand reached behind his back and pulled out his combat knife. He stabbed it into the robot dog's neck and proceeded to stab the knife into the head where he suspected the CPU was. He rolled to the side and kicked the robot dog into the water as well, just to be safe.

James proceeded to pick himself up as well as his dropped pistol. He looked right at the sadistic boy and the boy trembled. He started to run, but James fired a round right in front of his running path; the semi-armor piercing, high explosive round caused the dirt to explode upward at him. This surprise happened to make the boy stumble back onto his rear. James ran at him and grabbed him by the scalp. He pulled the boy's head back so they were looking eye to eye.

"You know, people usually don't like having drones attack them. In fact, they may retaliate," John said as emotionless as he could. He saw the boy eye his pistol. "Like it? Whisper quiet, fires a 12.7mm semi-armor piercing, high explosive round and is perfect for killing things that you don't want getting back up. A staple for special operations soldiers." He saw the boy's eyes widen. "So, I'm going to ask really nicely and only once. What did you do to that girl?" He saw the hesitation in the boy's movements. "I know many ways to get information out of people. In fact, I know three right now that I can do with a pencil."

To be continued…?

XxXxXxX

That's all I have for this one. This sort of felt like it ended on a cliffhanger, that's mainly because I couldn't figure anything else to add to it at this point in time. I feel like more could be added, but I can't think of anything else. In the end, this is another one of those ODST fics that I've come up with here and there. I don't have much more to add nor anything in terms of notes. I can say that this was influenced by the most recent season of A Certain Scientific Railgun T.

See you in whatever I decide to do next.