A/N

Howdy y'all. This here is my second fanfic ever. At least, second that I've deemed good enough for public viewing.

Anywho, before you start to read I should warn you that this is a little AU.

On the HALO side of things, Sgt. Johnson LIVES! Why? Because I like the guy too much. And he's immortal. He did survive Halo being blow up (in the Legendary ending), so I figure Spark's laser would just be a spark (HA) compared to that. And a few more personal ended up on the ass end of the dawn too. This is just so I have something to work with though.

On the Avatar side of things, Aang is a little older. He was 14 when he got frozen. Not much different there, just thought the story would have been better if he weren't a little kid. Also, he killed Ozai. No spirit bending crap. Sadly, that also means I can't use Zuko's mom as part of the plot. *sigh* Oh well.

Other than that, enjoy.

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Five years.

Five years since the Ark and the flood.

Five years of drifting in space, waiting for something.

Something appeared.

The limited sensors on the rear section of the Forward Unto Dawn finally picked up an image of a habitable planet. The monitoring program activated the start up sequence for the shipboard AI.

After five years of sleep, Cortana awoke.

Cortana turned her attention to the planet that the ship had discovered. In the habitable zone, atmosphere seems to be oxygen/nitrogen mix, gravity estimated at 9.6 n/kg.

Cortana used the remaining engines on the ship to adjust course to head toward the planet. It would take about fifteen hours to reach it. In the mean time, she had to wake everybody up.

Out of the original crew of over a thousand personal, only ninety-eight remained alive after the ark. A dozen of them were engineers that had worked on the Dawn and the rest were marines and ODST's.

And of course, The Chief.

The thawing process took about an hour. Once everyone had assembled in the mess hall, the only intact room that had enough room, Cortana relayed the situation to everyone on board.

"OK everybody, here's the situation," began Cortana. "We're drifting in space with only six months of supplies and a planet that is capable of supporting life a day away. What we need to do is figure out how we can survive until someone can pick us up."

The assembled crew members sat in silence. Johnson was the first to speak up. "Seems we should set up a base camp where ever we set down the Dawn and work our way from there."

"That's the thing. We only have half of the Dawn. If we can get her to land it'll be rough." Cortana shook her head. "We can't count on anything making it to the surface intact."

One of the marines spoke up. "Why don't we just take down everything we can with the pelicans before we let the Dawn crash. We got the fuel right?"

"No, we only have enough for one return trip to space. Taking everything would take at least five trips. We could get most of it down if we used the drop pods and life boats."

"Well it's settled," spoke Johnson. "Everyone, load up all the lifeboats with what ever you can fit in there. Hook as many vehicles to the pelicans as you can. We get what we can down then salvage what we can after the Dawn get down."

It was a mad scramble, but by the time they arrived and began to prep for atmospheric entry, everything had been packed into the pelicans and lifeboats.

Chief took a seat in one of the pelicans. Five of the pelicans were carrying warthogs and the other three were carrying scorpions. All of the remaining lifeboats, twenty in total, were filled to capacity with whatever could be stuffed into them. Chief was on one carrying the scorpion, as he was the only one who could pilot one solo.

He looked out one of the front windows as the Dawn entered the atmosphere.

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Aang lay on the ground. It had been three years since he had defeated the Fire Lord, and still peace had yet to come to the land. Really it was not too surprising. After a hundred years of fighting, nobody was about to start hugging and kissing. About half of the Fire Nation army had openly rebelled and started a separatist movement too.

Most of the Earth Kingdom still wanted revenge for the hundred years of conflict. Most only attacked the separatists but some just killed all Fire Nation indiscriminately.

Aang turned his thoughts to less unpleasant thoughts, like the woman laying on the ground with him and the friends whose company he shared. The young avatar and his friends lay out on the on their way to Ba-Sing-Se watching stars and swapping stories of the past. Only Toph and Zuko were absent, both on active duty settling the conflict.

"Hey Aang, do you think that there could be other people out there looking at the stars like us?" asked Katara.

"I once asked Gyatso that once. He said that a hundred thousand years ago, humans walked among the stars and lived on thousands of other worlds."

"Do you think we'll ever meet anyone from another world?"

Aang was about to answer but was interrupted by Sokka. "Of course not. There's no air up there to breath."

Just to be contrary, "I think there are, and I think we'll meet them one day," shot back Katara.

Suddenly, a star fell through sky and impacted somewhere to the west.

"Ok, I'm sure that's just a coincidence."

"Sokka, when have we ever been that lucky?"

Linebreak

After the Dawn broke atmosphere, the remaining crew waited in orbit for a few hours while the ship's internal diagnostics determined if it was worth the time to salvage what they could. It was.

Within an hour, all of the survivors had landed within spitting distance of the Dawn.

The crew waited about twelve hours for the ship to cool after its reentry and caught up on some sleep while they were at it. A short inspection of the ship began once it was cool enough to open the doors. They had just about everything that they could need to surface on this planet for about three years. Or almost everything.

"Sergeant Major, we have a problem," reported on of the maintenance crew.

,

Johnson sighed. He was too old for problems. "What is it?"

"The water supply. It must have leaked out while we were all in cyro."

"Um, I think I might have saw a river about twenty clicks north of here when we came down."

"OK PEOPLE LISTEN UP," shouted the Sergeant over the camp. "We need to get some water from the river to the north of here or y'all are going to have to lick your uniforms clean. Find some tanks we hook up to the tanks to haul the water back here, and do it before you start to smell. Otherwise you're gonna have to lick each other clean too."

The Sergeant had never seen troops move so quickly.

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Later that day, Johnson and his group, about twenty in total, were making their way to the river that had been spotted earlier. With them were about fifteen scorpions that had been rigged to haul metal crates modified to hold water. The rest of the remaining crew was busy making the Dawn habitable again.

So far, everything had been going smooth. Within fifteen minutes they had gotten to the river and had begun filling up the tanks. Ten men had the privilege of staring at the water pumps while the other nine and Johnson were looking around the nearby landscape for anything that could be useful.

One ODST, by the name of Ramirez, who was looking around was not too happy to be doing nothing. Other than some big damn trees and a big damn forest there aint nothing around here. He shook his head and was about to go back to the main group to report the nothing he had found when he thought he heard something. Ramirez increased the sensitivity of his helmet's microphones. Sure enough, there was someone screaming.

Lots of someones. In addition there was the sound of some sort of animal.

Ramirez moved in the direction of the noise, swearing to himself that he would personally beat the life out of whoever was dumb enough to get mauled by a wild animal. Just my luck to save some dumbass who can't tell a bear's ass from a bare ass.

Ramirez caught sight of something though trees. There was a village on this supposedly uninhabited planet. What got his attention however, was the massacre in the village. Men, women, and children were all being cut down by soldiers in red uniforms. If he had not been focused on the flames immolating the civilians, he would have found it strange that the only other weapons were swords and sticks.

"Sarge, come in!" he called over the radio.

"What is it," snapped Johnson. "If I have to save your ass because your being attacked by a wild animal-"

"Negative. We have a bunch of civilians being slaughtered over here."

"Ramirez, if you're trying to be funny-"

"No."

"… what do the hostiles look like and what is your position?"

"Hostiles are wearing red armor and some have a weird flame thrower weapon. Location is a village 500 meters east of the main group."

"Alright everyone. To that location double time!"

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It was a good day to fly. The air was clear, the sun was shining, and they were close to the Hei-Bi forest. He had heard that it was growing nicely and the nearby village had grown into a large town. Aang was in a particular hurry to get there and see how the forest was growing back since he had last seen it.

That, and Sokka was complaining that he hadn't had a chance to buy some meat for a while.

Sokka's stomach grumbled again. "Hey Aang, how much longer till we're there?"

"Don't worry, we're almost there. I can see the village from here and… hm. HOLD ON!"

Aang pulled Appa into a dive right for the village.

"What is it?"

"Fire Rebels."

Sokka and Suki immediately grabbed their weapons. Within a minute they had reached the village.

Sokka, Suki and Katara jumped off the bison and ran toward the sound of conflict. Aang pulled Appa's reigns up and flew him toward the nearest group of Fire Rebel forces. Ten tons of furious bison bore down on them like a bolt of divine fury. From atop Appa, Aang unleashed actual divine fury in the form of half ton boulders and slashing ribbons of wind.

A distance away, Sokka was doing his best just to say alive. He was currently facing off a group of three fire-benders. None of them were masters, but they could still burn him to a crisp with ease. Sokka rushed the nearest on and struck him with his sword. The blow was only a glancing blow and did little more than scratch the rebel's armor. Sokka couldn't swing fast enough to attack him again so he used his body to shove the fire-bender away from him.

This had the effect of causing the rebel to be in the line of fire of his ally. As the first man screamed in agony, Sokka rushed the second and swiftly stabbed him through the heart. He went down without another sound.

Quickly Sokka turned and slashed at the third. The third man tried vainly to step back, but that was his mistake. The side helmet would have prevented the blade from cutting him and was padded sufficiently to stop any head injury. However, the open front of the helmet offered little protection as both of the man's eyes were cut out.

In panic the man threw as much fire in every direction in front of him as he could. He couldn't hit Sokka, but Sokka couldn't get close enough to put the rebel out of his misery. Sokka saw Suki sneaking up be hind the man. She swiftly cut the man's throat. He crumpled to the ground as the life flooded from him.

They turned to see another group of rebels, nearly twenty of them, with murder in their eyes. They all rushed toward Sokka and Suki with the intent to kill.

There was a loud ratcheting sound coming from the tree line and rebels started to drop. Blood and flesh exploded from their bodies. From the forest ran a being wearing black armor that completely covered it. Even its helmet was black with a silver visor. It carried in its hands a device that shot forth flames and created the most deafening cacophony. It was as if a spirit of death had come down to reap unholy vengeance upon the land.

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As soon as Johnson approved the mission, Ramirez rushed into the village guns blazing. He saw one kid in blue take down three of the soldiers in red with nothing but a sword. Ramirez also saw that he wasn't paying attention to the eighteen other reds behind him. Ramirez didn't miss them. He opened fire on the group. Without even trying to aim, five of them went down within seconds. He drew his sidearm and emptied it at the group killing two more and wounding another.

In those few instants, every eye in the village turned toward him. Ramirez dropped his pistol and began to reload his assault rifle, running for cover behind a building. For nearly a second, though it seemed like an eternity, there was absolute silence. Then one of the reds shot a burst of fire straight at Ramirez, who barely made it behind one of the buildings to reload.

Finished with his reloading, Ramirez turned around the corner and began to fire bursts at the reds. The reds responded with shooting blasts of fire towards him, forcing him to take cover again.

Ramirez reloaded his rifle with a full clip. He crossed himself, offered a quick prayer to Mary for safekeeping, and ran right for the group of reds with his rifle on full auto.

The first red was unlucky enough to receive several rounds of AP rounds to the chest. His blood flew everywhere, causing the rest of the group to pause in shock. That brief second of hesitation cost them dearly. Ramirez rushed into the middle of the group and emptied his clip at them at point-blank range. Four dropped to the ground with chunks of flesh blown clean off.

The remaining five tried to use whatever fire weapon they had but couldn't hit him. One was smashed in the face with an assault rifle and struck another similarly with his elbow as he ran past the man. Ramirez pulled his combat knife from its sheath and slashed at a third.

He kept running until he was again behind. Hurriedly, he again reloaded his rifle. He tried to look around the corner but almost immediately shot at with fire.

He started to walk around the other corner of the building. As he turned the corner, Ramirez was tackled from behind. His rifle was knocked away and hit with a ball of fire. All the rounds in it went of, destroying the gun and sending bits of metal flying.

Ramirez grappled with his opponent until both of their hands were tied up. He looked into the face of the man he was grappling with. The man had pale skin and brilliantly yellow eyes that brimmed with anger. Ramirez was about to head him when his opponent breathed a stream of fire right in Ramirez's face.

Ramirez was basically blinded. His visor was starting to melt. One part gave way and fire washed over his face. Ramirez threw his head forward on instinct and struck his opponent in the face.

The entire visor of his helmet glowed red. He tore it off and threw it to the side. The right half of Ramirez face was burned completely black except where the burnt skin had come off with his helmet. His right eye was entirely useless and his left kept being obscured by the blood flowing into it from his injuries.

Ramirez pulled a grenade, popped the pin, and let it fly.

The soldier in red simply ceased to exist.

As the dust settled from the explosion, the sound of gunfire could be heard across the village. Ramirez went to find the other marines in to get a weapon to keep fighting, third degree burns or no.

Then he saw why the enemy soldier had been behind the house. In front of him was a small child covered in horrendous burns, still in the arms of her dead mother.

"MEDIC!"

A/N

Damn! That's the longest chapter I've ever written. 2600 words. Anywho, I hope I wasn't too gory with the details at the end there for a T rating.

Sorry for any bad grammar or spelling mistaks.

I always like to hear your opinions so please review, critique and/or flame.

Also, IMPORTANT QUESTION! Should the people of the avatar world speak English or not? English would help the story get written faster but no English would be realistic.

Also, don't read my other story. It's pretty bad.