The Armor Wars

Deep Space, 2540s, the Human-Covenant War

"How am I doing Cortana?"

The voice of John's sassy smart-AI came on as he continued his flight path following rocketing through another Banshee and completely destroying the vehicle.

"Your suit is still at 91% power Chief" Cortana replied. John smiled under his helmet. That was a good sign. He'd already torn through a fleets worth of Covenant ships, and still had so much power to spare. At this rate, the whole Covenant would be gone before his power levels dropped below 80.

"Thank you Cortana." John replied before adding: "Just don't call me Chief from now on. Its just John"

"Very well John" Cortana responded with just a touch of playfulness.

John continued on his flight path past a couple of seraphs, putting an extra oomph into his rocket boots so he could blast forward at a higher speed. He spiraled as he flew, dodging the incoming fire from a nearby banshee that was getting bold. Using some deft maneuvering, John continued to dodge the Banshee's barrage, and wound up causing the ship to shoot one of its own in its pursuit of the Iron Man. Eventually, John grew tired of playing evasive, and suddenly flew downward, catching the Banshee off guard. By the time it went down after him, John had already used his rocket-boots superior speed to fly up and behind the Banshee and blasted at it with a high-powered repulsor blast. The blast destroyed one of the Banshee's wings and the vehicle lost balance. As it attempted to do an evasive maneuver, John fired another repulsor blast, and upon being hit by it, the damaged Banshee went plummeting before exploding in a blue fireball that the airless vacuum of space quickly smothered.

John smirked underneath his helmet as a female figure flew up beside him. She was wearing armor similar to his only with a color scheme of light blue and dark blue as opposed to his green and gray. He recognized it anywhere.

"Nice job John. You destroyed one Banshee. Just four and a half million to go!"

"Very funny Kelly. You just remember to watch your flank"

Kelly said nothing in response as she spun around and blasted a pair of banshees to pieces at the same time with two simultaneous repulsor blasts. In another rapid motion courtesy of her rocket boots, Kelly flew past John and destroyed a third Banshee that had been flying towards him.

"I'm sorry, John you were saying?" she asked with a tone that betrayed the playfulness of her words.

"I'm impressed, I am." He said. "I'm just giving you friendly advice."

"Yeah, yeah. That's what your best at, fearless leader. Now come on, the Sabres and Orbital-Drop War Machines can handle these clowns. We actually have a mission here remember?"

"Yes, yes, I remember. Lead on."

Needing no other kind of invitation, Kelly nodded and blasted forward on her rocket boots, and John followed suit, both of them blasting more Banshees and even the occasional Seraph to pieces on their way to the Covenant mother ship that was their target. All the while, John relished using his armor, and the ease with which it destroyed any Covenant fighter that came his way. And to think it all came from such humble beginnings too…well, a billionaire playboy superhero whose exploits were still talked about in history classes when John was a kid might not exactly qualify as "humble" but it was still amazing to John how far the legendary "Iron Man" armor had come since then, now both heavily upgraded and perfectly married with the UNSC's MJOLNIR armor to create the ultimate battle-suits. The ones worn by John and Kelly had the flight, maneuverability, and fancy toys like Repulsor Blasts and Uni-Beams that the Iron Man had made famous, but also the enhanced strength, durability, and protection of the MJOLNIR armor.

John and Kelly continued their flight, finally arriving at the mother-ship, which promptly greeted the two armored soldiers with a hail of plasma fire from its AA turrets mounted on the sides and bottom of the vessel. John and Kelly narrowly dodged the assault, and using his helmet's hi-tech HUD and analyzing systems, John pin-pointed a weak point in the mother-ship's hull, and ordered Kelly to direct her rockets at it. Kelly did as she was told, and John followed suit. The effect of the hailstorm of rockets hitting the side of the mother ship was nothing short of spectacular. The whole side lit up in orange fire before the flames disappeared as quickly as they had been ignited.

With an entrance now made for them, John and Kelly flew upwards, closer towards the mother-ship, dodging the plasma fire that kept coming their way. Finally, they reached their entrance, when a couple of Seraph fighters came up from behind. John and Kelly turned to confront the Seraphs only to watch as the vessels were blown away by a relentless volley of rockets and repulsor blasts from above.

John and Kelly looked up to see two more Iron Men flying towards them. One's armor was greatly reminiscent of the last known suit of Iron Man armor worn by Tony Stark, only with a different color-scheme and better weapons. The others was a more bulky suit of armor that better fit his massive build.

"Took you long enough" Kelly said.

"Sorry beautiful" The less bulky Iron Man replied. "Solomon here was a bit over-eager when it came to blowing Covvie ships to oblivion"

"I can't help but have some fun kicking ass" Solomon protested. John sighed.

"Well then come on you two, there's still a lot more Covvies to blow away. The clock's ticking and we still haven't completed our primary objective…"

"Always such a serious way of talking." the less bulky Iron Man, Fred, replied. "All right, let's move in."

John nodded, and flew towards the ship, followed swiftly by Kelly, Fred, and Solomon. The latter two unleashed a few more rockets to soften up the Covenant ground resistance within and then all four Iron Men landed, activating a temporary bubble shield as John gave out orders:

"All right: everyone enter ground-assault mode"

"Roger" was the unanimous response from the others, and with the touch of a button, all four's armor's changed before the confused and panicking Covenant alien's eyes, with their Uni-Beam's power being expended, not as a powerful blast of energy but instead full-body energy shields and overshields. As this was happening, all four Iron Men also drew their respective UNSC armaments as their HUD's took to analyzing each of the Covenant alien's stats, physical attributes, weapons, and their body's vital weaknesses.

"All right…" John said. "Let's sprint this. Don't fall behind."

"Roger!"

The Covenant aliens all produced their respective arms and pointed them at the four Iron Men just as the bubble-shield faded…

"GO!"

The four ran forward, gunning down any and all Covenant aliens in their way. A mix of proper military training, experience, and their suit's analyzing capabilities ensured that the four Iron Men always hit their enemies vital areas, which ensured that nearly every one of their shots was a kill. The only real problem was the sheer amount of resistance they were confronted with. The four Iron Men had the superior technology, but the Covenant still had better conventional arms as well as numbers. Even with both energy shields, and overshields, the four were still hard-pressed to weather a relentless assault of plasma fire and needle rounds. In spite of this though, they pressed on, cutting down more and more Covenant, until they at last closed in on their objective…

But then the ship's commander began to de-attach entire parts of the ship. This, however did not slow down the four. They simply re-activated their armor's jet boots and flew through the space and floating ship parts that now blocked their path. Finally, the four arrived at their target, and sped forward towards the package they had been sent to retrieve.

They all landed, and entered the room where the good doctor lay sleeping in a cryo-tube. John walked up to it and accessed the controls, opening the cryo-tube that contained Dr. Catherine Halsey, the ONI scientist responsible for upgrading the Iron Man/MJOLNIR armor, leading to the suits John and his team now wore. Once the cryo-tube door opened with a hiss, it did not take long for Halsey to regain consciousness and step out.

"Hello John. Kelly, Fred, Solomon. Good to see that you're all still here in one piece."

"Likewise. Sleep well?"

"No thanks to their driving yes. I don't suppose you have a plan for getting us out of here?"

"There are ships in the hangar. I'll escort you to one, then when we fly out of here. The others will provide covering fire in space."

"Sounds good to me. Let's move"

But as the group was exiting, they were confronted by a most unhappy looking Elite Major, who held an Energy Sword in hand, eager for blood. Solomon, using the machine-gun built into his wrist-armor, opened fire on the Elite only for it to block the barrage with its energy sword. Finally, Solomon gave up and lowered his arm. The Elite growled, and readied his energy sword.

"We could just shoot this bastard with a repulsor blast…" Kelly pointed out. "...or a rocket or two"

"What, and deny the split-chin his final fight? The one he's probably been dying for? Even I would be ashamed of you if you did that…"

"Very funny Fred." John replied in a sarcastic deadpan. "No, I'm dealing with him in the practical way…"

But before John could fire his repulsor blasts or rockets, the Elite lunged at him, furiously embedding his Energy Sword into John's armor, the plasma blade going through the chest piece like butter as Cortana's voice came on: "WARNING: Chest piece compromised, power levels at 25% and falling…"

"SHIT!" John shouted, trying to force the Elite off of him before the alien completely ran him through with his energy sword…

Fred moved in and jammed one of his signature combat knives into the alien's neck. The Elite howled in pain before Kelly drew her shotgun and blasted away at the Elite at point-blank range, knocking him to the ground and killing him instantly.

"Ah, we make such a good team…" Fred said fondly as he looked at Kelly. John, meanwhile staggered, struggling to stay standing.

"Are you OK?" Halsey asked as she placed an arm around him.

"Yeah…armor's toast but the sword didn't go too deep past that. A little bio-foam over the laceration and I'll be fine…"

"All right then. Let's get to the hangar and get out of here"

And so the group raced towards the hangar, and as Halsey and John loaded onto one of the Covenant ships and took off, Fred, Kelly, and Solomon activated their rocket boots and took off right behind. They didn't have to fight off the pursuing Covenant forces long before a massive UNSC ship uncloaked before them and helped to destroy the last of the Seraphs that were chasing them.

"Welcome back Iron Men…" The captain said over the comm. channel…

John smiled satisfyingly underneath his helmet. Another successful mission. And due in large part to the versatility and power of their suits. Coupled with their good training, it wasn't very surprising that they had been so regularly successful against the Covenant. The bastards still had a strong-foothold, and worlds had still been left glassed, battles and lives lost in almost equal amount, but at least there were some successes to be had. And a small part of John couldn't help but feel that it could have been a lot worse, imagining for a brief second, as he had before in his nightmares, a Human-Covenant war in which they didn't have Tony Stark's technology to aid them…

When the group finally boarded the vessel, John staggered off to the med-bay with Dr. Halsey at his side. As he looked over his shoulder, he could see Fred and Kelly with their helmets off, sharing a kiss with one another. John smiled. He had always seen how close Fred and Kelly had been. Her relationship with John had not quite developed to the degree that was needed, so she found happiness with Fred instead. They were the big couple on the squad, even though the brass did have oft-ignored rules against military fraternization. But Kelly for one was never much of a by-the-book kind of soldier. And Fred was little better.

And as John finally arrived in the med-bay, he was thankful that they could be together, maybe, in the midst of this, and that there was some hope for humanity in this bloody war…

And all thanks to a man named Tony Stark.