Finishing the Fight



Halo: Finishing the Fight is a crossover styled story taking place in an alternate ending to Halo 3, where the remaining members of the Forward Unto Dawn's crew (The Master Chief, Cortana, Commander Keyes, Sergeant Major Johnson, and the Arbiter) escape the destruction of the Halo array with their lives, only to get sucked through a Negative Space Wedgie in the process, and wind up literally crash-landing into the Forgotten Realms universe (sometime between The Icewind Dale Trilogy and the Legacy of the Drow Series).

Before long, the crew meets the natives of Faerun, and find themselves drawn ever deeper into the conflicts of the local world. As tensions mount, and armies are mustered, the Dawn's crew is forced to pick a side and make their stand, while trying to make sense of who brought them to this strange world, and more importantly, why?

Halo: Finishing the Fight is, as the author put it, "the result of what started as a series of postulated "what ifs" among the author and his friends after a night spent consuming too much root beer while playing games, and listening to far too much Immediate Music to possibly be healthy." It has since grown to a 700+ page work of fanfiction involving (the author hopes at least) passable attempts at blending military science fiction with high fantasy, alternating between the two different elements trying to understand one another and Orcs and Dark Elves being shot in the face with 26th century assault weaponry. The story was completed on 19th of January, 2011, and is available on two major sites. The first is at the Creative Writing Forum of Spacebattles.com with the full forty-six chapters, while a slightly more polished and proofread version can be found at Fanfiction.net, which currently has thirty chapters.

"Johnson: "The next person who teleports in here is getting a belly full of uranium.""
 * Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence:  has learned how to become a god.
 * Anti-Magic: One of the new toys Cortana creates is a grenade that releases this.
 * Arm Cannon:  have a 30mm cannon attached to the left forearm and a flamethrower on the right.
 * Also, the Hunters in canon have these, so the ones in this story have them too.
 * The Atoner:
 * Also,
 * Badass Back: One drow makes the mistake of trying to interfere with  and gets thrown into a wall for her trouble.
 * Badass Boast: A few.
 * Badass Grandpa: Sergeant Johnson is in his 80's and still kickin' ass
 * Gazap the Grunt commander has been in the army for 30 years, and survived 3 engagements with Spartans (both are incredible achievements by Unggoy standards).
 * Battle in the Rain: '“Yeah, all we need is a torrential downpour and the trope is complete,” Cortana said.'
 * Berserk Button: Go ahead, drow, kill one hunter. I dare you. The other one will be killing you extra hard shortly.
 * Better to Die Than Be Killed:  kills himself rather than let Triel Baenre extract information from his head.
 * Big Brother Instinct: John seems to be developing one of these towards Neeshka.
 * BFG: The Rhino main cannon, Spartan Laser, and.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: It is noted that some of the drow's allies have biology so different that nerve gas will have no effect on them.
 * Bullet Time: One of the powers of  is controlled time dilation. Spartan time and haste spells also create this effect.
 * Canon Immigrant: Numerous characters from all over the Forgotten Realms' expanded universe make appearances, not least of whom are Neeshka and Drizzt, who share main character status with Chief and the crew.
 * Chunky Salsa Rule: This fic invokes the trope liberally.
 * Click Hello: Inverted. The UNSC and Neo Covenant are pretty jumpy when it comes to people teleporting into their ship. Mephasm and Helm learn this first hand.


 * Cliffhanger

"The Spartan's fist connected with the bronze codpiece that it wore, and a resounding 'gong' echoed through the room. The Tiefling's mouth dropped open as the piece of protective equipment crumpled inward and collapsed under the fury of the blow. The Glabrezu stumbled backwards, its eyes crossing slightly. It collapsed to its knees, its lower arms clutching at its wound. Then it howled in agony as its brain finally finished processing what had happened to it. It was a scream, Neeshka noted with a smirk, which was quite a few octaves higher than she believed the wolf demons were capable of. This was followed a by a moment of whimpering, before the Spartan turned his weapon upon the creature."
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: Done to.
 * Combat Pragmatist: The MC and co emphasize that this is how you have to fight.
 * Complete with nightmarish videos from the Human-Covenant war to show why they think this way.
 * Continuity Nod: When MC is told that, Johnson tells him to wear something nice for the cameras, as back in Halo 2.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Chief vs anybody. On the other hand, we are talking about Master Chief.
 * Then we get to a serious aversion when MC runs into, who can take anything thrown at him - including possibly Forward Unto Dawn's MAC - and keeps coming.
 * David Versus Goliath: Chief  would be the Goliath against lots of other things, but is still out-beasted by.
 * Doesn't Like Guns: Drizzt is this in spades (mainly because such weapons make his Implausible Fencing Powers utterly obsolete). He does carry and use firearms as the story progresses, but with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Usually.
 * This actually comes from the fifth Drizzt book, where he lays out many of the same problems regarding the idea of guns becoming widespread. Ironically, said book occurs before this story comes in.
 * Which is ironic, considering the need for repetitive drill, that the arquebus made necessary. His concerns there were valid, and even in Real Life it still took five centuries for firearms to completely replace melee weapons as a main weapon in warfare.
 * Do with Him as You Will: Chief does this to the captured leader of a Luskan raiding party, handing him off to the barbarians whose loved ones the raiders took for slaves.
 * Dual-Wielding: The Arbiter does this with plasma swords before Halo Wars made it cool.
 * Dungeon Bypass: It wasn't exactly a dungeon per say, but the UNSC raids Luskan's Hosttower from the top down by blowing off the top third of the tower with one shot from a Rhino's MAC cannon.
 * Elves Versus Dwarves: A pretty epic example, when
 * Fix Fic: Somewhat minor. Keyes and Johnson survived, and Guilty Spark was saner in this story's version of Halo 3's events.
 * The author's dislike for the Drow however is palpable as he subjects them to every kind of overkill imaginable (he admits as much in one OOC post).
 * Foe-Tossing Charge:.
 * Gangsta Style: From the 21st chapter: "Nekar, stop holding that pistol sideways, you are not here to show off!"
 * Genre Blind: The UNSC characters meet various elves and dwarves, and not one of them ever thinks of Lord of the Rings or Santa Claus and his elf helpers.
 * Goomba Stomp: Chief does this to a Tundra Yeti in the fic's first fight scene.
 * Groin Attack: "Pwent retaliated with a spiked gauntlet, smashing the Elf at about eye level. The Master Chief almost winced as he realized both where the Gutbuster had struck his foe, and that his opponent happened to be a male. The Dark Elven warrior screamed in agony as blood went everywhere."
 * "Twinkle punched through the mail, through the padding underneath, and down until it emerged from the Elf's groin."
 * The Chief's epic takedown of a Glabrezu.

"Johnson: The irony here is thick enough to cut with my combat knife."
 * Healing Factor: Demogorgon has a pretty powerful one.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * He's Just Hiding: The reactions to the above. Helped by the fact that the passage in particular doesn't actually say exactly what happened.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: When, several drow are thrown into their own torture implements.
 * Hyperspace Arsenal: Accomplished via abusing Bags of Holding for fun and profit.
 * Invincible Hero: Swings back and forth. Whenever Chief is facing something that can't possibly hurt him or even penetrate his armor, it's usually balanced out by him trying to fulfill some other objective, like protecting a much squishier character. He does however blaze through golems, demons, and wizards without stopping. It takes  to cause him trouble.
 * The UNSC as a whole however play this trope much straighter. Most of their opponents can't touch them (for obvious reasons), and any potentially clever tactics they come up with to turn the tables  always seem to get undone within minutes.
 * The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: Averted, as while little the drow have can seriously dent MC's shields, he isn't standing around letting them have free hits either.
 * Magic From Technology: Literally. Cortana is having a field day devising new uses for Faerun's local magical artifacts (the above-mentioned Bags of Holding, for instance), and the author has indicated that her ungodly INT and WIS scores (the only real requirements to use magic in D&D) could make her one of the most powerful spellcasters in the entire setting.
 * A running bet on Spacebattles has it that by the end of the fic, or the sequel, she'll become a new goddess of technology
 * Mook Horror Show: The perception of the Spartans as seen through Covenant eyes, as well as the newcomers as seen through the drow and their allies.
 * More Dakka: Happens here and there.
 * Mr. Exposition: Usually Cortana or Johnson explaining to the natives how modern weapons work. Often doubles as Shown Their Work as Aratech has clearly made the effort to research the weapons he describes.
 * Mythology Gag:
 * And, seeing how it's based on Halo, a Bungie property, there are multiple references to the number seven.
 * Johnson plays the Mjolnir Mix version of the Halo Theme over his speakers to ease pre-fight tension.
 * No Sell:  easily stops a spell that supposedly can damage even the strongest demi-liches. Also, the full power of the deities can shrug off spells that would shred their avatars.
 * Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Played with. While the Halo characters tend to be fairly unusual, even in their own universe (Johnson, A SPARTAN-I and ODST, the Master Chief, a SPARTAN-II, and Orna Fulsam'ee, an Arbiter/Acstetic), the "normal" level technology of the UNSC is a massive force multiplier for those fighting the Drow.
 * Not So Different: The Arbiter Ascetic notes how the drow are similar to what the Covenant used to be.
 * Not So Stoic: see the second Tear Jerker entry below
 * One of Us: The title of the second chapter is "Observations, Plans, and a Xanatos Gambit".
 * Out of the Inferno: Done to great effect by the Chief, walking out of the after effects of a blast orb with his shields crackling visibly.
 * Outside Context Villain: Inverted. Chief and co. are Outside Context Heroes.
 * Papa Wolf: Mephasm to Neeshka. So very much.
 * Person of Mass Destruction:
 * The Plan: Helm/ is very good at this.
 * Precision F-Strike:
 * Ret-Gone: A spell used by
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge:  Dwarves also do this.
 * Rock Beats Laser: Averted - and hard - in pretty much every battle.
 * Also rather amusingly inverted on one occasion, where Briza Do'urden is barely halfway through gloating about her newly summoned Earth Elemental before it gets annihilated by a Spartan Laser.
 * Rousing Speech: Johnson broadcasts one to pretty much all of the allied forces as they're gearing up for the final battle.
 * Running Gag: The locals keep mistaking the Arbiter for a demon.


 * Sequel Hook: The UNSC will be establishing a colony on Faerun's moon. Helm is going to deal with the remnants of the Covenant Loyalists.  is still out there.
 * Ship Tease: If you squint, you can see traces of Chief/Neeshka sometimes.
 * From Neeshka maybe, but having known nothing but war for his entire life Chief is very much a Chaste Hero.
 * Not to mention the fact that the Chief ultimately sees her as a sister (much like his fellow Spartans)
 * Although there is Cortana to remember...
 * There are also small, but noticeable teases between Drizzt and Dove.
 * Shoulder Cannon:  have a Gauss Cannon mounted on their left shoulders.
 * Shout-Out: "I had seen them punch through stone walls and soldiers empty entire power packs at them and hit nothing but air."
 * “What kind of a sick, demented individual sent you out here? I was told we would be fighting men, not children!”
 * Say hello to my little friend!
 * "Antioch Grenade"
 * During the retaking of Mithril Hall, Johnson and Drizzt encounter a Drow who spins her scimitars around in a fancy display. Drizzt is about to go fight her, but then Johnson just shoots her.
 * The five elements of the assault forces are: Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword.
 * The plan is even called Operation Overlord
 * When Helm is fighting  and shows his final form, it is depicted as uncannily similar to the Archangel Tyrael's, complete with tentacle/tendrils of light as wings.
 * The ONI agent
 * "There are times when a Lord's life does not count."
 * Spanner in the Works: The UNSC are this to the Dark Elves' Evil Plan to conquer the realm. Just As Planned as far as Helm/ is concerned...
 * Spared by the Adaptation:
 * Sword and Gun: The Arbiter Ascetic uses both a SMG, later a needler, and a plasma sword to fight a Balor.
 * Take That: One thrown at the source material. Johnson and Keyes reminiscence about her rescuing him from the Prophet of Truth, and both share a laugh about how Keyes was sensible enough not to
 * Teleport Spam: Used by.
 * There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Tanks, gunships, white phosphorus, and  Later on, they are talking about using nerve gas.
 * Scratch that, it's now been used against the Drow. Bring on the squick.
 * Master Chief
 * In a more literal case, the "Antioch Grenade" homes in on, and attaches itself to a target, disintegrates them, the explodes with enough force to level a small house.
 * Time Marches On: Unfortunately for this otherwise well-written story, the Halo Canon has moved on slightly.
 * Villain Teleportation: Some of the enemies use teleportation to get into the defences of Mithril Hall.
 * War Is Hell: The description of the carnage on Azure Twelve is horrifying, both in- and out-of-story.
 * We Have Reserves/Zerg Rush: The drow employ this in their assault on Mithril Hall, and how! Casualties mount in the millions before long. Later,  use this too.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Averted with Lady Alicia who after the group meets Master Chief and sees their 'spelljammer' disappears only to show up in the epilogue
 * , at the end of the Luskan battle. She's also shown
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: "One of the first lessons that Lek'golo were taught in combat came to mind: nothing is indestructible if you apply enough force."
 * Why Won't You Die?: Lolth asks this of  when they fight.
 * Why Won't You Die?: Lolth asks this of  when they fight.