The Life is a Halo Fan Fiction dealing with the life of one Francisco Castillo, better known as Frank. It starts off with Frank joining the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers and making it through boot camp. After he's done with he is deployed to fight the Covenant. His first mission ends up going not so well with Frank and his team having to make an emergency orbital jump to leave their crashing ship. Frank is the only survivor of his squad.
Soon after Frank meets Pavel Klaus, whom he becomes fast friends with. From that point on the duo starts earning their paycheck and kicking alien ass. The story is, paraphrasing the author, what you would get if you grabbed an extra from the Halo series and gave him the spotlight in a television series as opposed to a film. It covers over nineteen years' worth of war in nearly 230 chapters. It's a pretty humorous fan fiction (albeit one that has gotten darker with every passing chapter) with well-done action sequences that don't usually go over the top. Written fairly realistically (as realistically as you can get with ScienceFiction) it gives a different perspective on the Halo Universe.
It can be found here.
Provides Examples Of:
- A Day in the Limelight: So far there have been a few full chapters from different point of views. The first one was appropriately titled A Day In The Limelight and featured Pavel as the narrator. The second chapter featured UNSC Army Ranger Yevgeny Nezarian, narrating events happening in parallel to a previous chapter.
- Alien Invasion: What'd you expect?
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Frank wakes up after being made into a prototype S-IV and notes that every bone in his body feels like it has been broken repeatedly and that his entire skin gives off the impression of being raw and dipped in lemon juice as well as several other painful analogies. Oh, and his head hurts too.
- Author Appeal: Why else would there be so many attractive female characters in the cast?
- Author Catchphrase: 'Stay strong' is featured at the end of many chapters.
- Badass Bandolier: Caboose wears those.
- Bonus points for having shotgun shells on them.
- Badass Bystander: Astrid, the girl from Chapter 102 runs across the battlefield to get help for her injured mother.
- Battle in the Rain: While there hasn't been a particularly memorable example, the author makes us aware that it is raining on quite a few battles. It makes for a dreary atmosphere in an action-packed, relatively humorous fanfic.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Mikah Black, one of the nicer ODSTs is said to have beat a squad mate to within an inch of his life in order to get them to respect their new commanding officer and his friend.
- BFG: The M102 Sledgehammer railgun is this in spades. Managing to take out Locust walkers with one or two shots.
- Boxing Episode: There's a full chapter dedicated to showing just how Badass Frank has become and also serves to showcase one certain Avery Johnson.
- Broken Bird: Lately a lot of characters seem to show shades of this. Not even the main characters are exempt from this.
- The Cameo: Several. So far we've had a few Spartan-II Is (Carter and Kat), some minor Navy officers, Sergeant Johnson, and the one and only Master Chief.
- The Captain: Frank is behaving increasingly like this, although his past as an enlisted soldier and NCO make it hard for him.
- Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Frank and Pavel try to invoke this on occasion, but it actually turns out to be more like Captain Rock and Sergeant Smooth seeing as Frank is an asshole and Pavel is actually kind of nice.
- Chekhov's Skill: Grass is noted as being an exceptional pilot in most UNSC craft for someone that doesn't actually do any flying. The skill comes in handy when the pilot of the Pelican the team is on is killed and she has to land it. She crash-landed upside down, but still, saved the team's lives.
- Chunky Salsa Rule: The descriptions of headshots are lovingly detailed and take up to one paragraph just to describe just exactly how the alien's brains splattered the wall behind it.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Chapter 81. Frank somehow manages to airdrop a tank from a fast-moving starship in order to save his squad.
- Darker and Edgier: The later chapters have been a lot more cynical as Frank realizes the futility of it all.
- Door Stopper: The story ended with 1,622,859 words total. Over. One. Million. Six. Hundred. Thousand. Words. To put it into perspective, it's longer than the entire The Lord of the Rings series by about five times!
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Gabuka.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Played straight and then subverted in Scarecrow's death. He uses a galling gun like an assault rifle before he is brutally killed by a needle explosion.
- The Elevator from Ipanema: This fanfiction has had several scenes when the characters have to take an elevator. So far, every single elevator scene has had a muzak arrangement playing in the background. There's usually lots of Lampshade Hanging from the characters involved. In fact, Eliza, the AI, started playing elevator music on all the ship's elevators with the intention of invoking this.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: Since the protagonist is an ODST this comes up sometimes.
- Mildly Military: The UNSC Inconvenience is seriously lacking on discipline.
- Military Brat: Frank grew up as one.
- Mood Whiplash: Several filler chapters are humorous and soft. The action-heavy chapters are often Darker and Edgier. They still have some humor, but the change is sometimes a little bit sudden.
- Mythology Gag: The number seven pops up quite more often than it should.
- This conversation about what would happen if zombies joined the war.Pavel: Maybe the zombies would get out of control and we'd be forced to work with the Covenant to save our asses.Frank: Like that could ever happen.Pavel: The zombies?Frank: The working with the Covenant.
- This conversation about what would happen if zombies joined the war.
- Neck Lift: Frank has this done to him by an elite at the end of Chapter 132.
- No True Scotsman: While not actually a present trope in the fic, there is a direct reference to it. Bumblebee, a Scottish character affirms that he enjoys Whiskey more than Scotch and Snark calls him out on that by proclaiming that he is no true scotsman.
- Oh, Crap!: Too often to keep count.
- A recent example is the time when the ODSTs on a Covenant corvette realize that it is falling back to the planet and they can't stop it. Hilarity Ensues
-
One-Scene Wonder: The rocket launcher marine. he was popular enough to come back as permanent squad member Robert Agnarsson. - Only Sane Man: The way that Caboose behaves sometimes makes it seem like he believes himself to be that. He's not entirely wrong either.
- Rank Up: Frank has been promoted all the way to Gunnery Sergeant and went to OCS in order to become a lieutenant.
- Painting the Medium: There have been a couple of instances were Frank realizes that he had written down something wrong by how the other character says it. Merges with Leaning on the Fourth Wall.
- Pavel: Catherine was the girl, liked to be called Kate.
Frank: Kat? You mean Cat.
Pavel: That's what I said.
- Pistol-Whipping: Referenced when Frank is being interrogated by an Insurrectionist. He gets hit with the barrel and then delivers this line.
- Frank: You'd have better luck hitting me with the handle.
- Pretentious Latin Motto: Referenced when Frank carves phrases in latin on his new armor.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!. Frank gets pissed at his men:
- You're Helljumpers. Act. Like. It!
- Screw the War, We're Partying: Any chapter that involves partying.
- Stealth Pun: Beta Rho Omega System. Bros.
- Tomorrow, a new chapter of my life started.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Frank gets called out by Commander Albaf on Chapter 107. It's not pretty.
- The Squad: Reaper Squad
- Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: Occasionally
- The Unfair Sex: An inversion when Pavel's girlfriend cheats on him, she is portrayed as a bitch. When he sets himself to sleep around with as many women as he can before actually breaking up with her Pavel is portrayed sympathetically.
- Virtual Soundtrack: Used every now and then. Two examples that stand out are Iron Man by Black Sabbath and To Glory by Two Steps From Hell.
