This is based off of the story from an old Halo 3 machinima called Desolation (which for the life of me, I cannot find anywhere on the Internet, I think it might have been deleted).

I'm going to reconstruct the story, partially from memory (please note some of these events are likely out of order and/or missing something) but also with some added details and dialogue.

I do not own Halo or the machinima this story is based on.

Episode 1

Awakening with a throbbing headache, ODST private Philips sat up to find himself next to a crashed Pelican in the middle of a narrow canyon. Dressed in his custom painted ODST armor (consisting of an orange stripe painted on the top of his helmet and on each of his shoulders) Philips made a quick system check and found that most of his gear was intact, but he couldn't raise his squad on the radio.

Groaning in pain, he struggled to his feet, grabbing his BR55 battle rifle in the process. Finding himself close to a stream, Philips ran over to the water's edge, ripping off his helmet, scooping up refreshing water and downing it in massive gulps to soothe his dehydration.

Midway through his drink, a tingling at the back of Philips' neck alerted him to a presence that was standing right behind him. A figure clad in pale green armor was standing right behind him, but when Philips spun around to look, the figure was gone.

Confused, Philips put his helmet back on and took stock of his surroundings.

"What happened? Where am I?" The question lingered in the air before it all came back to him.

Earth had been hit. The Covenant had made landfall at New Mombasa. The UNSC Say My Name had been the ship to launch a counter attack of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers at a Covenant Assault Carrier hovering over New Mombasa.

Unlike most of the ODSTs who had been deployed in SOEIV drop pods, Philips and his squad had been deployed in a Pelican, to serve as a backup supply carrier. The pilots were a couple of crazy bastards, sending the bird into a nose dive from orbit, putting it within a kilometer from the Covenant Carrier. This proved to be their undoing as the Carrier made an in-atmosphere slipspace jump to god-knows-where, pulling the Pelican in with it.

Due to the lack of a slipspace drive, the Pelican reverted to realspace in orbit over an unkown world with damaged engines. 'That explains how we crashed here,' Philips thought, 'but not where everyone is.'

Scouring the crash site for his squad mates, Philips was surprised to find that there was no trace of them. It was rather eerie. "Doc?" He called out, "Michael? Captain? Where are you?"

Silence greeted him. Walking around the Pelican, Philips felt the same sensation of being watched yet again. The figure in green armor was standing on top of a hill observing him, but as soon as the ODST turned in that direction, he had disappeared yet again. Feeling disconcerted, despite the lack of any sort of visible threat, Philips pondered on what he should do next.

Choosing to explore further from the crash site, Philips came across a cave near the Pelican's engines and went exploring through it. He quickly found something that he wasn't expecting.

"Floodlights?" This was surprising, considering that the valley the Pelican had landed in was completely deserted. At any rate, why would they be sitting in a random cave? Guided by the lamps, Philips found an exit to the cave, but as soon as he stepped back into the sunlight, his head started pounding. Groaning Philips fell to his knees, when all of a sudden, the world took on an orangish tinge.

Everything in his vision had blurred in this color. Standing up, Philips checked his VISR system, but he found it nonfunctional, which was odd considering it had been working fine several minutes ago. The most shocking development however, was that Philips was no longer alone.

Standing near the canyon wall were two figures locked in a heated conversation. One man dressed in thin purple armor was holding a shotgun at a man dressed in similar armor, only his was colored in a dark blue sheen.

The purple figure was spouting off really weird accusations, while the blue guy was telling him to calm down. The purple figure responded, "You killed them. I won't let you take them from me." before firing his shotgun into the other man's chest, killing him.

Philips had watched the whole thing, deeply unnerved by the events unfolding around him. The orange tint created a rather surreal display, and given the headache he had just experienced, the ODST was wondering if this was some kind of dream or vision. It was at that moment that the purple figure noticed him.

"You? Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Philips' training kicked in as he raised his battle rifle and pointed it at the man's head. "Sir, you need to drop your weapon and stand down." He commanded. The figure softly laughed at this order and started walking towards the ODST.

"You're with them, aren't you?" The man babbled, causing Philips to realize that this guy wasn't interested in talking things out. This man was a threat, one that needed to be put down. Philips pulled the trigger... and nothing happened. Reflexively, he pulled the trigger again, only to have the same result. Looking at his ammo counter, the soldier was alarmed to see that he had no rounds left, but he had a full magazine a minute ago!

"Shit."

Meanwhile, the shotgun guy was still rambling, "You're trying to kill me. You killed them all, didn't you?" The man was a few feet from Philips, who noticed the military grade shotgun leveled at his chest.

"Sir-" Philips was interrupted by a flash of light and blinding pain as the man put a shotgun shell into his chest. Coughing and falling into a crouching position, Philips put one hand over his chestplate and was alarmed to find that his glove came back soaked with blood.

Turning back to look at the man in front of him, Philips uttered, "You Bastard."

The man's voice took on a disturbingly demonic tone as he responded: "Stay away from us." before slamming the butt of his shotgun into Philips' helmet. As the ODST hit the ground, the orange tint from his eyes disappeared as did his attacker.

Grunting, Philips sat up and looked around in confusion. Everything was back to its normal color and the world looked no different than it had before.

"Wha-what just happened?" He asked confused. Retrieving his battle rifle, he found that the ammo counter now read 30. He had apparently fired off a couple of bursts from the gun. But how?

"I remember having bullets, but-ah, this doesn't make any sense."

Putting his hand to his chestplate, Philips was surprised to find that the armor was completely unmarked. The ice cold pain that had been seeping through his chest had disappeared and even his glove was completely clean.

"No wound. No blood."

I need this to be myself
It feels like I need some help
It's too late to save myself
Or it's just in my head

Now it's got a hold of me
I don't think I can make it through this
Now it's got a hold of me
The less I do the more it makes no sense

Now it's got a hold of me
I don't think I can make it through this
Now it's got a hold of me
The less I do the more it makes no sense

That was episode 1 of the series. Episodes 2 and 3 were the other episodes I've seen and as such I'll be following them as closely as I can remember. After that, I'll make up the rest of the story down the road, so this may turn into a crossover at some point.

The song is "Angels with Dirty Faces" by Sum 41. It played at the end of the first episode so I decided to put it here.