The air was thick and dusty, most places in the badlands were like this, but few were under active Combine bombardment. Dave grimaced behind his cover, the Combine gunships had already cut down a good portion of the Resistance operators working out of this abandoned town and now the dropships had deployed a platoon of soldiers that had quickly began killing the rest. Mikey had already been destroyed by one of the soldiers with a pulse rifle and Jared hadn't fared much better against the shotgun troopers. The only luck they had was the lack of hunters, but that didn't help much when nearly a hundred soldiers were suppressing the building he was in. He retreated towards one of the inner rooms, where their base commander screaming into a radio.

"Where is our backup?! The Combine's already killed half of my men!"

"We've already sent it out, he should be there in another minute" came the tinny response.

"He?! You've sent one man?! How is one guy supposed to kill a hundred soldiers!?" Dave almost worried the commander was gonna ruin his voice, if the threat of Combine death wasn't so much greater.

"Don't worry, he can do it. He's done crazier" again came the response.

"Listen here, this outpost funnels supply to over five separate bases, if this falls we-"

The commander's continued tirade was cut off as a massive explosion soon rocked the Combine back lines. The amount of fire hitting the house lessened immediately, seeming like half the soldiers went to check on the new threat. Dave ran to his previous position, hearing more gunshots and explosions in the distance. Several more dropships began to come down with extra troops.

"Guess that's the backup" he said to himself.

The commander quickly ran up behind him and said "No one can draw the Combine like this. Who the hell is out there?"

A memory passed Dave's mind, him overhearing a group of Resistance fighters talking about a commando they had raid Combine bases. They said he had a suit of green armor, damaged but still better than anything the Resistance could scrounge up. It almost looked like a robot they said, with a golden visor for a face. He didn't need numbers or stealth attacks to beat the Combine armies like the rest of the resistance, he just grabbed whatever weapon was nearest and ripped through the enemy like it was nothing. Cleared out entire fortresses by himself. A lot of people thought he was some rouge superweapon, but Dave knew the Combine would never let the "Green Machine" slip through their fingers.

"I think I kn-" Dave murmured under his breath before a much closer blast silenced him, though this one sounded more like a figure breaking through a wall. He barely took in another breath before seeing a soldier get thrown through a window, quickly being followed through the adjacent wall. There he was, the "Green Machine." In less than a second, he already fired three shots from a magnum revolver, each going through the head of a soldier. He blitzed through the enemy lines, killing Combines with headshots or just punching through their chests. At point he grabbed a trooper, snapped it's neck, and used his pulse rifle to gun down the rest of it's squad, all in one smooth motion. Dave could hardly believe what he was seeing.

The commander recovered his wits faster. "You the commando the Resistance sent?" he yelled over the din of battle.

"Affirmative. Are you the commanding officer here?" came the curt reply.

"Yeah. You got to get to the warehouse, that's where we've got our supplies stored, even if we're still alive if those are scrap we're useless here."

"Understood" and then he was off.

The Master Chief ran fast. Defend the commander, secure the supplies. Part one was already done, and it looked like the Combine's increasing pressure on the second. Two dropships touched down next to the still manned warehouse. Chief quickly grabbed a grenade from a nearby corpse and flung it at the first dropship, killing most of it's disgorging crew, the rest being finished off with an MP7. His enhanced hearing already picked up the payload of the second ship. "Hunters" he whispered under his breath.

Chief quickly ran around the building, seeing the first hunter firing it's railgun at some Resistance troopers in a window. Standard weapons wouldn't work, he needed something heavier. So Chief unsheathed his combat knife and charged. The hunter quickly noticed him and fired, each round narrowly dodged as he closed in. Chief stabbed the knife into the hunter's eye before delivering a hook with his second arm, quickly grabbing the beast and stabbing it again and again until it was dead.

Quickly moving into the building, Chief was quickly suppressed by three hunters while another three fought the Resistance. He feigned a retreat before throwing a grenade though a window and jumping through another one. The three suppressors quickly shifted their aims, but in that time Chief had already smashed one of them under himself. He let his shields tank the fletchettes before throwing his knife at the second hunter and then ducking into cover. The knife hit it directly in the eye, blinding the synth and causing it to began firing wildly, while the third one began to run at the Chief's cover, attempting to ram him, only for the Chief to jump over it, grab the blinded hunter, and turn it on it's own companion before killing it with the retrieved knife. They were good, but they were no match for a Spartan.

He could already hear the rest of the creatures getting ready to attack him, so he quickly scanned the room for supplies, spying a crate market with rocket launchers. Darting over to it, the Chief took out a launcher and fired it at the first hunter, killing it. The second hunter fired it's railgun at him, Chief quickly rearming himself with a new launcher to kill it. But by the time he fired, the third synth charged into him, smashing him to the ground. Chief reared back his fist, but it was quickly pinned by the hunter's leg. It was about to fire it's gun point blank, only to be speared through by a molten piece of rebar, letting out a clicking sound as it died. Chief shoved it off and saw a Resistance soldier wielding one of those homemade crossbows they favored so much.

"So, you're that Green Machine everyone's talking about?" he asked.

The Chief stood up "Yes. Are there any other troops around here?"

"No, you killed the last of them. You know, when I first heard the rumors, I though the others were exaggerating, but after all those hunters, I think they were underselling you."

"Noted. I'll secure the rest of the town" the Chief responded while grabbing an assault rifle from a nearby crate.

"You do that. Sucks to be the Combine today" he chuckled.

The Master Chief ran out to clear the rest of the outpost. It was a rough few months, stuck on an alternate Earth after the Ark, but his duty was clear. His duty was to defend humanity and if he had to work alongside insurrectionists to do so, so be it. Atleast Cortana got a kick out of the technology at Black Mesa East, stuff the humanity of his world hadn't even begun to tap into. But here was were he served, on the battlefield, against the enemies of man.

Author's Note:

This will likely be a oneshot. I don't have any plans of continuing this story any time soon. Please give any criticism you think could make the story better.