Limits Chapter 1: Landfall, a Halo + Justice League Crossover fanfic

11-14 minutes

A/N: A wacky idea I just cooked up… not really refined, but I wanted to get it out of my head.

Young Justice and Justice League amalgamation.

Borrows heavily from my ME/Halo Xover stories.
Yes, there is gene therapy involved. So… the Spartans have become larger, the twos especially.

XXxxXX

UNKNOWN LOCATION, 40 YEARS AFTER HUMANITY'S ASCENSION TO TIER 1

Commander John-117 or as his file say, Commander John Neil Richards, everything had changed so much since Parangosky sold out Halsey. Insurrectionism grew, rebellions expanded, until all that was left of the UNSC, were the Inner Colonies.

John had been tasked with assassinating the leader of the United Rebel Front, the group responsible for the destruction of Wessex on New Hampshire, the death of eight ONISAD Operatives, and the death of Linda and Kelly. Infiltrating the URF Base was the easy, but John never expected to encounter him again. The traitor as the Spartan would call him.

A few meters away, Soren laid cover in mud. He seemed to have gotten his hands on a crude powered exoskeleton, possibly made from reverse engineered Promethean Armor, combined with the HRUNTING Mark III.

Moving both his arms, John pulled himself up, and let the rain cascade down his greenish grey GEN5 Armour. He ignited the plasma/hard-light wrist blades on his arms, and slowly walked towards Soren. The mud, squelched beneath his feet. John wasn't too sure where they were, after he and Soren fought, both of them had been hurled into a Slipspace rupture.

The Chief prioritised, kill Soren first, and then find a way to get back home. Without warning, Soren moved. He hurled launched himself at John. But the perfect Spartan-II sidestepped the defected hit nothing but air.

"You're strong," John taunted, "but I'm faster."

Years of war, years of infighting, the Spartan-II was at his limits. John lost so much because of Soren's misguided idiocy. He had lost so much to Parangosly's fucked up morals. Kill Soren first, then Serin, and finally, Parangosky.

But right now, Soren's death was all that mattered, all that John bothered to care about. Years of training, years of mental conditioning, years of indoctrination, just, faded away. He wanted to kill Soren so badly, because not only was it his mission, it would serve as closure that the few remaining Twos will have one less threat to worry about.

"Still eating from the same hand, John?" Soren sneered.

The Spartan didn't bother answering. He locked gaze with Soren, looking for the greatest weakness in the heavily battered and scorched HRUNTING armour. With his weapon cells depleted, John was forced to rely on his melee weapon, a hard-light longsword, coated in super dense cobalt plasma.

Lances of electricity spiked up and down Soren's armour as he took a fighting stance. He shifted his shoulders, and launched himself into the air again. His fighting style was brutal, heavy punches and kneeing, little of it resembled Spartan training.

John, being the faster one, swatted the attacks aside, before diving in with his blade. The weapon glanced off Soren's shields, causing them to flare gold. Eventually, the shields winked out, and unlike the GEN5, the HRUNTING did not possess dual layer shielding. The plasma burned through the metal armour, causing the hydrostatic gel to boil and ooze out of the opening. Soren grunted in pain as molten metal fused into his skin. But at least he had just backed up far enough for John's sword to cleave a small part of his flesh.

XXxxXX

WASHINGTON DC, EARTH, SOL SYSTEM

Why can't there be just an easy day? M'gann M'orzz sighed. The Martian was beginning to notice a pattern, every time the Senior Justice League members were off world; something had to go wrong on Earth. Sure the Young Justice Team could handle things, they were adults now, but still, whenever the senior members left, something had to happen.

In her Miss Martian persona, M'gann stood at the edge of the contingency perimeter at the park. The torrential rain that poured down over the soldiers gave them a menacing look. Ever since Earth began to reach for the stars, military forces began upgrading, US soldiers were no exception. They wore digital grey livery, full body armour and enhanced detection systems. All of them had trained their weapons at the centre of the park.

Deciding to take a closer look, M'gann phased into intangibility and floated into the sight of incident. Stealth drones flew overhead, recording the savage fight that was taking place. She phased through the trees with water cascading down their leaves, and finally, came across a blackened opening within the formation of trees.

She couldn't help but gasp by what she saw. They were humanoid in shape, but they were far too big to be human. The smaller one was over eight feet tall. It wore or military greenish grey armor that was without a doubt, awe inspiring and fearsome. Whenever the entity moved, the armor plates would overlap one another; it revealed little of the black body suit, which was arranged into a muscle suit structure.

The larger one, close to nine feet in height, was wearing cruder, bulkier armor; nonetheless, it was just as menacing. As the M'gann closed in on the unsuspecting armored entities, she could sense that they were male, but even more shockingly, was that the smaller one, had the number '117' engraved onto his chest plate.

They can't be human! They're too big!

Wisps of ionised air were dampened as the rain pulled them away. The electric clash of the sword against the sparking forearms nearly drowned out the rain's chorus. Their armour looked battered and scorched, and they were moving too fast to be human.

Eventually, the smaller one scored a hit. M'gann expected to see the larger one be cut in half, but instead, a golden spark ignited a few centimeters higher.

Energy shields! Personal energy shields! The Martian's mind screamed. She quickly became tangible again to contact the rest of the Young Justice team. Only Wonder Girl was available, but that would have to do.

To M'gann, it felt like hours until Wonder Girl arrived, and when she did, the Martian had retreated to a safe position.

"Whoa, they're big," Cassie said, her blonde hair soaked by the rain. "But they shouldn't be a problem."

"Back me up," M'gann said, "in case something goes wrong."

She wanted to know the Origins of these people, and got the feeling that a shady government organization would interfere.

"You know the government is going to throw a fit if you take these two away, right?" Cassie warned.

Both of them knew that these entities had very human yet alien qualities.

"Then tough," M'gann replied, "aliens are our jurisdiction."

…

John quickly slashed Soren's legs, the defector stumbled and fell. As the Spartan-II prepared to give the killing strike, he felt a sharp sensation in the back of his mind, before being embraced by darkness.

XXxxXX

WATCHTOWER, IN ORBIT OF EARTH

It seemed that whenever the Senior Members were gone, something wrong always happened. It was like some sort of sick and twisted omen, something that Diana picked up on. So whenever she returned to the Watchtower after the senior members had left, she knew there was a pile of paper work that Mr Terrific was handling, and a lot of exhausted leaguers.

The dull bluish grey halls and the vast view over the Earth did little to soothe her nerves. She stopped by the monitor room, only to realise that Bruce wasn't there.

"He's in the interrogation room if you're wondering," Mr Terrific said.

"Uh, thanks," Diana said. That man is too smart for his own good.

Using the elevators and another stroll through the near empty hallways, Wonder Woman finally reached the main holding area. Inside the observation room, stood the Dark Knight in his latest array of high-tech equipment, and his mentee, Nightwing.

Diana found it funny that the absence of light made Bruce look demonic and menacing, while it gave Dick Grayson an aura of hope, youth and kindness. A stark contrast considering that the two were trained in the same arts.

"What's going on?" Diana asked, her cape fluttering behind her. She decided to wear one to signify her seniority and that the mantle of daily protection had been passed onto Wonder Girl.

Batman turned to face, but she noticed his expression softened. "A few hours ago, there was an incident and Washington DC. Two unknowns appeared in what is described as a Slipstream Space Rupture, and started to fight each other."

Diana walked up to the viewport, and gazed at the two inert, fearsome armored entities inside, illuminated by bright ceiling lights. They were held securely in place by restraints designed by Batman.

"Anyone hurt?" Diana asked casually.

This time it was Dick who answered, but Bruce didn't seem annoyed by it in the slightest. "Aside from them, no one. Unless if you count pissed off officials and 'reporters'," he used the quotation gesture when he referred to the media, usually, it was aimed at Godfrey. "No one was hurt."

"We've been getting some angry calls from government officials I haven't even met," Bruce explained, "they're not too happy. But thankfully we have people on our side. We're not in breach of anything."

"I hope not." Diana spotted the door in the containment cell open, it was Miss Martian, J'onn's niece. Even he considered her to be extremely powerful, and that was saying something. "What is she doing?"

"She brought them here," Dick said, "she and Wonder Girl."

A small smile curled up on Diana's lips, it was nice to know that her protégé was becoming more independent. It would mean her workload would lessen.

"And she's going to probe their minds," Bruce said calmly.

"What?" Diana yelped in shock.

"She's just as powerful as J'onn," the Dark Knight elaborated, "she'll be fine."

Diana relaxed a bit, she trusted her old friend's judgment. "So what do we know about the two in there?"

"Not much," Dick said, shaking his head. He moved away from the console and eased himself into an armchair. Bruce remained standing. "Green has a number tag, one-one-seven. Nothing much about grey."

Wonder Woman took a closer inspection. Her eyes widened when she comprehended how tall they were. M'gann had enlarged her size, making the entities look human size.

"I was surprised too," Bruce said, adding a side comment to what Diana was thinking. Being the Greatest Detective, he could easily read anyone's body language, which also meant he was unbeatable in poker. Good thing he didn't play though.

…

Unconscious minds were easy to tap into. They offered little resistance to a person who had M'gann's magnitude of power. She decided to enter the one they called 117.

Pulling up a chair next to the unconscious being, she plopped herself onto it. Her brown eyes flared into a powerful green glow as she searched for his mind. Upon finding it, she entered… and was horrified by what she saw.

An unconscious mind proved no resistance, all of its memories and knowledge was there for the taking. M'gann felt overwhelmed by the centuries of memories that assaulted her. They sped too fast for her to assimilate them correctly, but soon, she stabled herself. Her world stopped spinning, and the mind of 117 reorganized itself. Blue lattices of patterns pulsed across the mental realm, and finally, the Martian could see his first memory.