1200 HOURS, NOVEMBER 6, 2554 (MILITARY CALENDAR)

UNKNOWN HALO INSTALLATION - UNKNOWN COORDINATES

It had been a few days since Tysiac's rather drastic and dramatic landing on the Ring. During that time, he had yet to encounter anyone responsible for his near death. The skies above remained as picturesque, his suit's motion tracker wasn't picking anything bigger than a bird or wild animal roaming around. And the ship wasn't picking up anything that wasn't related to comms. Though the sight of seeing the ring's arm eclipsing the sun was quite something during his third day on the Installation.

While it was the first time he had seen such a thing, the sight of a focused beam of sunlight land on the other side and pointed towards a particular spot far from him brought a lot of questions. It made him curious and questioning on why the Forerunners would make such an event for the inhabitants of the ringworld, or if the Monitor of this Installation was indirectly leading him somewhere.

It wouldn't have been the first time that sort of thing occurred. Some of the Monitors on the few Halos that the UNSC and ONI encountered had expressed quite a large amount of happiness in encountering their "Reclaimers". They would drop coordinates on where to land their ships, ranging from the massive Marathon-classes to Prowlers. Then they would point out where the Control Room was, where the Index was located, and where whatever remnants of the Flood or whatever they were containing were in and what to avoid. Though the most common thing they've asked was what happened to Installation 04 and its Monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, as well as why their Installations went on standby and what happened with the Ark.

Returning his mind back to the light show, Tysiac wondered whether that beam of light was pointing out the location of either the Control Room, or where the Index lay. It could've been a method of silently telling him where to meet the Monitor. Then again, it would've been easier to establish communications with him, or even teleporting to Tysiac or vice versa. That, or it could be a moment where the inhabitants would learn who built this Ring or learn of the other Installations, or perhaps even know who the Reclaimers were that the Forerunners crowned humanity with.

On the other hand, due to the religious fervor that had been all over the comms during his momentary recon, the heads of whatever was leading it would've hidden and lied about the knowledge. Typical religious leaders of power being reluctant to let go of their power...

Either way, the event didn't last for long. Soon enough, sunlight began shining from the other side of the ring's surface, and his day of hunting fish and finding edible animals to hunt continued. So long as a hostile presence was on this Ring, he didn't want to risk moving too far into unknown territory.

He couldn't stay on the ship forever, however. Not with that beam of light, which he marked its location on where it had landed and had it recorded into the Last Word. His attacker still had sent no hostile forces by the land or air, but that likely wasn't something to stay that way forever, either.

During the first few days of his stay, Tysiac began investigating some of the wreckage. Unless he wanted to dive back into the water, all that he could find was that they were blocky, rusty, and quite large. The material of it all was familiar, the composite of metal that UNSC ships were made of was present and in relatively fair condition. However, without anything to identify and without the USNC logo or the name of the ship on any of it, there wasn't he could do but brood.

The sound of chatter suddenly reached his enhanced hearing, followed by the sound of the foliage rustling. He quickly began moving into cover, yanking back the makeshift fishing line that he had cast, and laid it on the ground. He gave a silent curse inside the sealed helmet over the fact he forgot to equip the Active-Camo that oh so happened to be left aboard Last Word, and did what he could to minimalize visual recognition between the light coming down on him and the foliage covering him.

The motion sensors started to light up. A trail of three was coming towards the clearing... Which would be... Right between the Last Word and him... 

'It's a group of three,' Tysiac reasoned his misfortune, 'hardly an issue. But let's see who the locals are before we start anything.' With that in mind, he settled down with the rifle aimed down, but kept it in a position where he could readily bring it up in a heartbeat.

The chatter began to become more coherent as their approach grew louder. Soon enough, the first thing that Tysiac saw was blue armor in the mimicry of MJOLNIR armor. A slight recognition of the Mark-VI made the man have a brief thought that it was another Spartan before he saw the creature wearing the armor itself.

As the creature came out of the foliage and into the clearing, two more followed it, stopping at least ten meters away from his position. Tysiac was quick to activate a recording program for a later report to ONI, as he did his best to be immobile and hidden as possible while he studied the creatures.

The only way Tysiac could describe these creatures were tall, furred mix of mammal-reptilian and bipedal, and most predominantly they were both in different shades of blue. The first local was as blue as its own armor, with what seemed to be one of the local animals riding on its back and had long, thin tails with a tail bush matching their hair on the top of their heads. Its feet had long nails, almost in a similar manner of claws.... Was that a collar with a bell around his neck?

It leaped into the clearing on all fours with the equivalent of a cheerful smile. The other two followed, standing on two legs, their digitigrade legs showing how easily they could switch between different ways of walking. The second was much smaller and had turquoise fur, while the third and last was somewhat blue, though it appeared to be losing that color for an increasing amount of white fur across its body.

The height difference between the creatures was more noticeable now, as the palest one stood far above the other two. If the Spartan could give a guess, he was well past two meters in height. This could put the newfound species at an average with how tall Spartans are, though from the look of it, Kurt-S051 and the Sangheili would tower over them.

Then, the turquoise creature opened its mouth and nearly startled Tysiac into moving as he spoke, "Oh man, check it out!" The creature, its voice certainly male, perhaps a young adult because of his choice of shoulder-length hair, hopped up over one small mound and to the top of some wreckage and spoke back, "I bet these are Predecessor ruins!"

That was coherent English. Coming out of an unknown and sentient species...

The paling creature, an eerily familiar make of a sniper rifle strapped to his back, grumbled back, his voice a slightly deeper tone with a bit of a growl to it, "Looks like a hunk of crap, whatever it used to be."

Deeper Blue gave a slow noise of awe as he commented, "It's so green! I didn't know the Preschoolers were eco-friendly!"

This... wasn't what Tysiac had been expecting or considered a welcoming surprise. None of the three seemed aware of his presence or his arrival, but they were armed and armored in militant gear that increasingly irritated him because it looked like UNSC equipment. What exactly was the reason their eyes had to be that big as well?

The Deeper Blue suddenly jumped up from all fours and looked around, his eyes wide as he seemed to be either hearing or smelling for something. He turned away from the other two and immediately began bounding on all fours as he said, "I hear something!"

Tysiac briefly braced himself as he wondered if the alien had heard him. It might've been him being startled by them talking. His rifle raised slightly as he prepared for a fight before seeing the Deeper Blue start running off away from the Spartan's position. Unfortunately, whatever that "something" was, it was leading him directly towards the Last Word's location. Now, with an additional problem, Tysiac started making his move as quietly as he could, leaving the foliage whenever the three couldn't see him to avoid making noise from the bushes and grass.

The Deeper Blue came to an immediate stop just at the prow of the ship, looking down at a small batch of plants as the other two joined him. If he had gone further into the forest, he would've first hit one of the landing gears and possibly trigger the active camouflage to deactivate.

Soon enough, Tysiac began hearing a noise as well. The suit picked a sort of metallic tapping noise as he came to a stop near some trees and found a new hiding spot. He magnified a portion of his line of sight on his helmet and aimed it at where Deeper Blue was sniffing. Almost embedded and coiled around the tuft of grass and some weeds, there was a piece of metal. It was vibrating hard enough to shift both the grass and dirt, emitting the tapping sound that brought the three aliens closer to see.

Tysiac started checking his ammo. Unfortunately, he hadn't packed anything non-lethal or any of the Lockdown-Paint rounds. After spending three days expecting armies or squads to show up looking for him, he didn't consider the possibility of a non-hostile encounter.

"What's with that tapping?" The young turquoise asked, bringing Tysiac back to reality from his memory-dwelling.

"Maybe it's morris code?" The pale one asked, making Tysiac give a silent and unamused huff on misnaming Morse.

"Geez, who uses that anymore?"

The Deeper Blue elected to add his... eccentric input, "Maybe it's a distress call! From a tinsel! Like in the bedtime stories!"

Young Turquoise gave a deadpan look at his friend and asked, "Don't you mean "damsel in distress," dumbass?"

"But what would Sandy Claws want with a damsel?"

Tysiac elected to stop losing his brain cells and stop wasting the recording space as he began sneaking closer towards the Pale One, who immediately interrupted the Young Turquoise's attempt at an innuendo, "Can it, Tucker. If it is someone calling for help, we should check it out. Might be what we're looking for."

The name made Tysiac come to a sudden stop at the name. The eerie feeling had been growing in his gut from listening to them, and now it was becoming near unbearable. Something was running too many coincidences with these three, and now was a delightful time to find out just what the hell he ended up landing on. Both 'Tucker' and the Pale One were arguing with each other as the Deeper Blue kept sniffing the noisy metal rod before he began to dig at it as Tysiac started coming closer. He had already made it halfway across the clearing and was within jumping distance before the Deeper Blue came to a stop and looked around before seeing the Spartan.

Electing to shock and subdue the other two before the Blue could warn his friends, Tysiac bolted from his crouching and made an immediate tackle towards the tall Pale One, picking him to be the one most likely to cause him issues.

Tysiac wasn't intending to harm either of them, but considering the height and weight of these aliens and how he had next to nothing about them, he couldn't take risks. The Pale One and 'Tucker' quickly turned around to see the Spartan charging towards them, causing them to yell in panic before Tysiac caught the Pale One by his neck and brought him to the ground Holding the alien's neck with one hand, Tysiac twisted around and pointed his MA5D rifle single-handedly at 'Tucker'.

'Tucker' immediately surrendered with his claws in the air as the Deeper Blue didn't seem to understand what was going on as he asked with a childish naivety, "Are you the Green Giant that makes those veggies?"

The Pale alien started to struggle and freak out, though Tysiac didn't focus on him until he was exerting more strength than the Spartan anticipated. The Pale alien very nearly threw the man off before the Spartan released the creature's throat before delivering a gut punch into the Pale alien, making him gasp and wheeze. Tysiac swiftly exchanged using his hand to hold the alien down to pinning his chest with his armored boot before he demanded, bringing the rifle around towards the alien's head, "Stay down."

"Geezus!" 'Tucker' yelled, making Tysiac briefly look to check what the creature was doing before looking back at the Pale One.

After a few moments of success, mostly Tysiac ensuring the three weren't about to try anything, he told them, "You. Turquoise. Put the rifle on the ground. Blue, sit. As for you," the Spartan nudged his rifle at the Pale One as the other two began complying, "You're dropping the rifle when I let you up. Consider it a moment of Twenty Questions at gunpoint."

"F-Fucking asshole." The Pale One grumbled before Tysiac turned on the MA5D's flashlight briefly, acting as a gentler and quiet method of warning him, "OW! Fuck! Okay! Fucking Christ!" He recoiled from the bright light in his eyes and brought his arms up to protect and rub his eyes as Tysiac slowly got off of him.

After a quick insurance of taking away their weapons and staring at the alien for somehow knowing a certain religious figure's name, Tysiac slowly lowered his rifle, though he kept it at the ready in case either of the three started making a run for it, "Good. Now, my first set of questions; You'll answer them as best you can. The quicker you give them and not try to hide them, the less aggression and fewer resources I'd need to use in order to get them. So: What species are you three?"

The Pale One didn't seem eager to answer outside of just giving a grudging glare of anger towards the Spartan while 'Tucker' started to answer for them, "C-Chupadores, or Chupas. What the fuck are you, though? And how'd you sneak up on us so fast for being short?"

"TUCKER!!" The Pale One nearly shouted at him, "The fuck you doing?!"

"Church, we kinda don't have an option since he's got the guns, and you got dropped faster than my ex!" The Turquoise retorted.

Tysiac's eerie feeling was growing across his gut before he asked, "Names, rank, and military." 

Both 'Chupas' looked back at him while the Deeper Blue started chiming in, "I'm Blue! I don't stink and I don't think I know anything about a mill fairy!"

"Caboose!" Both aliens scolded the Chupadore that was still walking on all fours as Tysiac's eyes widened in shock as he realized what exactly he was looking at.

In no circumstance was this just coincidence and chance... Slipspace incidents were never usually to anything about dimension traveling throughout UNSC history. Neither did the Last Word experience any malfunction to cause something of the sort during his travel to this growingly weird as hell ring world.

Taking a risky chance, Tysiac stated, "Private Leonard Church, Private Michael J. Caboose and Private First Class Lavernius Tucker. Isn't it?"

Both aliens stopped and swiveled their heads to look at him in shock, suspicion, and fear. The Pale One, now named and so recognized as Church demanded, "H-how the fuck did you just..."

'Tucker' immediately gave a shiver as his fur began puffing up a little as he said, "Ok. Now I'm scared, because that is fucking creepy as hell."

'Caboose' interrupted the newly identified alien and said happily, "Oh my god! The Jolly Green Giant is friends with Santa! I knew it!"

Tysiac didn't immediately answer, his focus on disregarding the inane statement and lowering the rifle. He wouldn't need it due to what information ONI had about them, including their unusual antics. Being scary and competent was enough to keep them in line, given how one Freelancer was capable enough to do the same. Project Freelancer and the Simulation Troopers under codenames "Reds" and "Blues". Though...

"Church" from what remained of Dr. Leonard Church's files over Project Freelancer was supposed to be listed as an A.I. So to see another "Church" in flesh and blood was... uniquely curious to him. There was also the prospect of playing biology with these "Chupadores", but business before pleasure.

There wasn't much else that Tysiac could recall on the spot, mostly because the shock and realization of the three aliens in front of him hadn't worn off yet. Tysiac spoke up, "Magic. What is the name of this ring world?"

'Caboose' gave a gasp, his eyes widening like a child seeing a toy as he said, "Magic? I love alien magic! Can you make a coin appear out of my tail? WAIT!" He nearly shouted as he thought for a second, "What color do I like? WAIT. What's my favorite - "

Tysiac interrupted him as the metal tapping continued, "That metal is asking to be dug up. How about you help it so it can give you a cookie?"

It immediately brightened the alien's day as he gave a gasp and went back to work on digging. 'Tucker' chuckled as he watched 'Caboose' obey so quickly, "Shit, that's a really good magic trick."

"The ring world's name?" Tysiac insisted. He had been staying at this lake for several days and now, with at least two coherent aliens as his means of getting answers, he was losing patience and time. There was much to do and much for ONI to see.

'Church' gave a growl as he admitted, almost in the mood of having the answer pulled out of his fanged teeth, "It's called Sirca. Could I have my rifle back?"

"No. You'd poke your eye out with it before hitting anything." Tysiac answered shortly. 'Tucker' burst into laughter and almost fell to his knees as 'Church' gave the best glare of death he could at the Spartan a...s he moved along, "Explain these 'Holy Wars' that your local radio station keeps spamming."

The sight of the two Chuapdores giving exasperated groans was enough to tell Tysiac about their opinions. Tucker was the first to answer for him, "It's just this big fucking war of Blues fighting Reds for territory domination around Sirca. Whole point is to capture the capital base. We celebrate, the priests do their preaching, we might get some girls, then everybody fucks off somewhere until the next one gets declared."

A loud growl came from Church as he ranted, "Okay, I've had enough of this bullshit! I'm not here to keep playing interrogation with some short robot. I got other things to do and - Fucking Caboose! Stop digging, we're looking for a way underground not a goddamn dog bone!"

Mentally filing the Chupadore Church under 'highly temperamental', Tysiac chose to prod them for whatever brought them here, "What are you looking for here? And is it just you three?"

"Yes! Just..." Church nearly began rambling before giving a groaning sigh, "Anything ab - " He suddenly trailed off as his eyes locked onto something at the lake. Tysiac briefly turned his head to see what he was looking for, finding nothing, he pivoted back to the alien with a bit of confusion. Then the Chupadore resumed speaking, murmuring, "I... think I know..."

And with that, Church began wading into the lake, his eyes never looking away from whatever was there. Caboose was the first to complain and call after him before jumping in after him, leaving Tucker and Tysiac on the shore.

"Care to explain?" Tysiac asked, getting a shrug from the alien.

"Fuck if I know, roboto! But I ain't going after them. My stop from the crazy train is here and I'm getting off!" Tucker complained, folding his arms as he began rambling about innuendos that Tysiac honestly didn't care to listen to as he checked the recording. It was still running and there was still plenty of space left.

A sudden, animalistic growl came from Tucker's left side in the forest. The Chupadore froze and turned to look in a panic while Tysiac brought his rifle up. He nearly put it down in exasperation at the sight of an animal that seemed to take the idea of "Tigerlily" far too seriously. At the very least, it didn't look like it was interested in attacking.

Tucker was the first to run for the water, "Fuck it! All aboard the Loco-loco!!"

Tysiac gave an annoyed noise as the Tigerlily creature was quick to turn its head and watch the Chupadore run into the water. Being left alone and the animal's attention being brought on by Tucker, the Spartan nabbed the two rifles and attached them to his magnetic back. Ensuring that they were secure enough, Tysiac walked in after the three. 

The Spartan's uneasy feeling had vanished. But now, a strange and deeply uncomfortable sensation replaced his uneasy feeling. Determined to discover what "Church" was so invested in, he plunged into the lake. With his expectations of a hostile welcome gone, he could only hope for answers.

Red vs Blue © Rooster Teeth. Halo © 343 Industries. Concept by Myshu, assisted by The Department of Chupapology.