Halo RTS

Chapter 1: Arrival

I felt disoriented as I looked around. I saw that the area I was in was just a never ending blue. A split second later a message appeared in front of me.

Select character:

There were two options. Create your own and one marked; Special Edition. Not knowing what else to do I tapped the Special Edition button. Lots of keys appeared and one was labelled; equip all.

"Why the hell not" I said as I hit enter. I saw a mirror appear before me and saw the Armour of my character was blocky, but small, the suit was labeled EOD. I changed the colors till I got a nice dark blue with black secondary's and white helmet re-breathers. Looking like a bad ass I selected the start game option.

I couldn't see anything, then the word; initializing, appeared in front of my face. Then I could see, it was through a helmet but I could still see. My balance was off as was my coordination, these became apparent as I stumbled and then fell forward. Yeah that was really bad-ass, right? I thought.

"Tutorial starting" A voice said... inside my head!

"Please look up." I stood as I looked forward.

"Hello I am your AI unit. I need you to give a name to me, so that when you say it I know that you need me." It said in a monotone voice

"Are you a boy or a girl, AI unit?"

"You can choose."

"I say that you are a Female named Ray. How does that sound?"

"Great!" Said, a now, female voice. "Lets get started, shall we?" She asked. "All you need to do is take your handgun from your holster and shoot the targets. Don't worry, you aren't in the full game yet and thus won't shoot anybody." Ray said as four targets appeared on my north, south, east and west.

"What if I run out of ammo in the magazine? How do I reload?"

"Reach down and grab at your holster for the handgun and you will have another magazine appear in your hand, this goes for all reload able weapons, but the rockets reloads are always kept on the right side of your back." Okay then, I got this. I turned and faced the first target to my east and fired one shot. I swear I really felt the buck of the gun in my hands. The first shot hit the target, only on the corner, but it was a start. I spent the next twenty minuets practicing my shooting till I finally got good at it.

After that I was released into the game, where I discovered why my sister had enjoyed this so much. This game was amazing, people everywhere in this town, which I learned, was on a planet just barely being invaded by the Covenant.

I headed out of town and found myself a nice looking area to ambush some baddies, so I waited, behind a rock at the edge of the depression, till they came by. After waiting for about four or so minuets I watched some grunts spawn just below me in the area I was in. I asked Ray: "Is there still a scope on the handguns?"

"Not right now, for you there isn't, you get it later after doing the starter quest. Which, if you want I could start right now."

"Wait until I'm done with these grunts please." I asked. I didn't have the scope so I had to aim down the sights and hold my breath. I lined up the first shot and fired off two rounds. The first hit the lead grunt right in the chest and the second hit him in the head. The other grunts panicked and jumped back to back while pulling out their guns. They had two Plasma pistols and two Needlers in the group. I stood and fired another shot, which took one of the grunts with a Needler in the head and killed him. The rest then saw my and fired some rounds, three each. I rolled to the side and they all missed me. I stopped my roll crouching and fired the next five rounds out of my gun, killing all three of them.

"That's some mighty fancy shootin there, Tex." Said a voice behind me, it sounded familiar but I couldn't place it.

I spun around; weapon raised, and saw a green Spartan with a big domed helmet. "Who are you? And what's your Armour; I don't recognize its type,"

"Raynor it's me, Keltie! And it's the special edition Armour that I got, Its EVA, meant for use in space." I put my gun in its holster.

"Well hi girlfriend. Let's work together for a while, if you can work with a rookie like me."

"I'll send you an invite for a party, hit okay and then let's go." She said as a message appeared floating in the air in front of my faceplate.

"Let's rock and roll."

We spent the better part of an hour doing the first three quests from the town, and killing the occasional alien for fun, when the sun started to set we headed back into town and bought a room with two beds for the night. Agreeing that we would sign back on together we lay down, to sleep, and thus log out. But the option never showed up on my faceplate. I sat up and asked: "Keltie is there a logout button in your sight?"

"No...This is odd, it should be in the center of my HUD, but it isn't."

"I'll check the manual and see if..." I didn't get to finish my sentence as I was suddenly teleported to the arena at the beginning town's center. I stood quickly as I saw everyone else warping in, Spartans and Marines, all showing up in various colors inside the arena.

I looked and say Keltie was only a few feet from me and I ran over to her. What the hell was going on? This didn't seem part of the game. I got to Keltie's side and noticed for the first time that her helmet was removed, as was every one else's, including mine. She looked at me and asked: "What's going on? I didn't hear about this in the beta test!" Then I heard names being called out that I knew.

"Jace, where'd you go?"

"Ann where are you?"

"Wesley, stay right there I can see you!" Then I saw some people run into a group of three, I saw my little sisters scared face.

"Come on Keltie, I see Ann and them all!"

"Okay."

We were halfway across from them when a message blared from the loud speakers around the arena and a video began playing on the jumbo-tron on the pillar at the center of the Arena.

"All players do not be alarmed; I am the network administrator for Halo: RTS; and I regret to inform you that a hacker has entered a bug into the game's coding which has prevented players form logging out of this game. Anytime we try do delete this code from the game we receive a message that informs us that the only way to log out is to beat Halo: RTS; and then only those who beat the final boss will be free to go. Until this occurs, no-one can leave, we will begin to inform the families of the players of the situation." I heard a voice that spoke and said: "Teleportation activating."

"Wait no! ANN!" I screamed, getting her attention.

"Brother!" She ran towards me with her friends and just before we reached each other we were teleported.