Nice job, Uberdawg, and thanks for the feedback, Sparten. The next chapter will likely be out the door, this Friday. ;)

looks like this could be good.

Oklay, I've read teh whole thing.. but he lives in Chigagio? (sp?) [Edited on 03.29.2008 8:31 PM PDT]

Oi, lads! I've got the first chapter... if anyone will read it :( [i]Chapter 1: Beginnings[/i] Captain MacMillan sat quietly (as he always was), in the back yard of a home in the suburbs of Chicago. He looked down his scope of his M21 silenced sniper rifle into the back window of the house, watching the family’s two teenagers play split screen Halo 3 on their widescreen 35 inch HDTV. MacMillan watched this calmly at first, but soon, it began to anger him. He took his frustration out by hurling pebbles at the confused family dog, who couldn’t see him in his ghillie suit and couldn’t smell him because MacMillan had evolved past having any scent (except when he wanted to). [i]“Why aren’t these lads playing Call of Duty 4?”[/i] MacMillan wondered to himself. [i]“After all, it’s got more guns, more grenade-whoring and other cheap tactics, but a really fun multiplayer and ghillie suits… best of all, it’s got me in it, oi!”[/i] MacMillan paused from throwing pebbles at the dog to hold his breath, aim and take a shot inside the house. He hit exactly what he intended: the bottom support of the shelf above the TV, which loosed the Call of Duty 4 box. The game box tumbled down in front of the two boys, who didn’t even notice, so intent were they in their saving Earth from the Covenant. [i]“AIOI!”[/i] MacMillan angrily thought. [i]“What are they, blind, deaf Halo fanboys?”[/i] The Captain knew a more drastic measure was necessary: he immediately shot Master Chief’s caricature on the TV in the face, right in the middle of a cutscene. Both boys noticed now, and stared agape at the hole that was where their alien-fighting, butt-kicking hero’s head once was. Before they could turn around, MacMillan was half way up the street in the dark cold of the night. As he stalked (MacMillan rarely walked, but rather loped like a hunting lion, hunched to the ground and eyes roving for prey) along the street, he heard a passing car, driven by a young fellow, blaring Marty O’Donnell’s famed Halo theme song. MacMillan, faster than any snake, spat onto the car out of anger. The spit caught the tail end of the car, instantly burning through its bumper like a knife through butter. [i]“Aye, Halo… it’s everywhere…”[/i] MacMillan made his way to the local Wal-Mart. After breaking in through the air conditioning system, he went towards the hunting gear section, but as he went, a massive “BELIEVE” banner caught his eye. He stalked towards it, and beneath it, looked at the rows of Halo 3 copies that sat muted in their glass cage. His grip tightening on his M21, he heard voices nearing him, and he quickly (and inexplicably) found a way to melt into the rows of music CD’s behind him. Two men came up, both to the game rack. They looked to be in college. “Yeah, I need to pick up a copy of Halo 3 for my nephew,” the first said. “You sure he won’t want Call of Duty 4? It looks pretty sweet…” said the second, as he pointed at the Call of Duty 4 cases. “Are you kidding? Once you get that 3x Frag perk combined with Martyrdom and Sonic Boom, the multiplayer is just a freakin’ grenade-fest. And the single player is only like 5 hours long. Also, I heard that the best character in the game only is in one mission. How crappy is that? One mission!” Little did the first man know, but his last point regarding Call of Duty 4 saved his life at that moment, as MacMillan lowered his M21. After they left, both hefting copies of Halo 3, MacMillan decided to leave the store. He couldn’t take it anymore. After walking past the Halo cups, Halo plates, Halo action figures, and Halo books, he reached the back door, where the janitor was mopping up the floor. MacMillan was looking to find a way to get around him, until he saw the janitor remove a can of Halo game fuel from his pocket and begin to drink it. The janitor was on the floor in less than two seconds in a puddle of game fuel, and MacMillan made his way outside, stalking the streets again. Dejectedly, he kicked at a fire hydrant. His foot didn’t connect, as the hydrant jumped out of the ground and voluntarily flew across the street out of sheer fear. MacMillan’s anger grew and grew upon his realization that this… this Halo game was overshadowing him and his game, Call of Duty 4. Especially angering was its hero, the Master Chief. He hardly said anything, and yet these lads jumped all over him like they wanted his babies. What drew them to him? MacMillan didn’t know. But he knew he had to fix it, somehow. He ran through the options: first off, he could annihilate Bungie and anyone who ever attempted to maintain Halo’s servers again. But that didn’t solve the problem of Halo’s addictive single player. He could destroy all the copies of Halo in the world, but surely he, Captain MacMillan, the most intelligent of all men, could find a more efficient method than that. There had to be a way to prevent Halo from happening altogether… Then MacMillan remembered the Russian time travel machine the SAS had been buzzing about for years. All of the greatest scientists in the Soviet Union and China had been assembled to build the machine, and the CIA and MI6 had been working to get even a glimpse of it. The SAS and Delta Force had both conducted multiple covert raids on heavily secured Soviet scientific structures, all of which had come up empty. MacMillan had heard they were mounting an even more major raid on where the time travel machine was suspected to be, and there was a lot of evidence that it was there. If he could get a hold of this time machine, he could go forward in time and kill them: the Master Chief, the Arbiter, Johnson, Truth, Keyes, Gravemind... they all had to die. He had found his plan. [i]86 Miles Outside Smolensk, Russia[/i] MacMillan stared at the fortress that stood before him. Elite Soviet military units were stationed all around it with guard dogs, spotlights and heavy machine guns covered every facet and corner of the installation, which looked to be mostly underground. Alone, it would be a very difficult task, even for Captain MacMillan. Luckily, he wasn’t alone. A team of 30 Delta Force and SAS operatives were behind him, ready to make the raid. MacMillan had told no one of his ulterior motives in the mission, and they wouldn’t have time to find out, if everything went according to his plan. “Oi, lads, ready on my mark…” he whispered into his headset. “Open fire.” What followed was a hail of gunfire, taking out the guards in immediate site. The special operatives did their job with ruthless efficiency, and MacMillan was sprinting ahead into the base before the last Russian hit the ground. Using a crowbar he carried on his back, he pried the massive steel door open by himself by brute force and leverage, clubbed two Russians and shot three others before they had any idea he was there. The SAS and Delta Force squad filed in right after him. They progressed through the base, wiping out all opposition in their path, and eventually made it to the time machine, which was unmistakable due to its enormous size. A green beam pulsated repeatedly in the middle of massive spinning machinery, gears and other machinations. MacMillan’s team immediately had the scientists unconscious and tied up, ready to be taken back to the West and interrogated for their knowledge. MacMillan slipped to the controls of the time machine, and tuned it to the year 2515. “Well, this is where I break it to you boys, I suppose,” MacMillan drawled in this thick Scottish brogue. The awkward silence was broken when he hurled two flashbangs into the air, blinding the entire room. He sprinted and leapt into the green beam, and was treated to his own blinding white light… … When MacMillan came to, he was laying in a simple green grass field on his back. “Ehh? Whassdis?” he said sleepily. He heard voices not far off. He was instantly on his belly, at the strange voice he heard, and sweeping the area with his M21’s scope, looking for a hostile. Two strangely clad men came walking into the clearing. They were holding what looked like bulky, oversized sci-fi rifles (this didn’t surprise MacMillan at all, as he already knew that all sci-fi rifles are bulky and oversized). They were growing closer to him each second… He sprung up out of the tall grass and waved. At the sight of him, both men clumsily reached for their rifles and pointed them at him. MacMillan could’ve easily killed both, but chose to instead try to get a little bit of information. “Oi, lads! You got a minute?” he motioned to them to come closer. “DROP THE WEAPON!” one shouted, not moving an inch. MacMillan’s M21 hit the ground with a “thud”. “Aye, I’m a bit lost. Mind telling me just where we are?” MacMillan asked them as they approached cautiously, weapons still shouldered. When they got to about 10 feet away, one answered. “You’re about three miles outside Jefferson, Halych. What are you doing out here, anyway?” They both began to relax and lower their weapons, much to MacMillan’s delight, though his ghillie suit concealed his grin. “Not quite sure,” MacMillan said half-truthfully. “What planet is this, lads?” Both looked at each other, then looked back. “Elysium.” “It’s my lucky day! Would you lads like a bit of brandy to celebrate?” MacMillan asked jovially as he walked towards him, pulling a bottle of 1923 brandy out of the folds of his ghillie suit. Both looked at each other again, then looked back. “Ummm, I think we’re go—“ “OI, SUZY!” Before they could react, MacMillan had closed the last 5 feet between them and clubbed both over the head with his bottle of brandy. Not without humor, MacMillan wrote “that’s what she said” on the backs of both of their uniforms. With that, he was off to find his new arch-rival.