1220 HOURS, NOVEMBER 6, 2554 (MILITARY CALENDAR)

UNKNOWN HALO INSTALLATION - UNKNOWN COORDINATES

Falling and sinking deeper into the lake, Tysiac began looking around. The lake had already proved itself incredibly clear to him back when he was attempting to keep the Last Word from sinking. However, after finding the other aliens swimming towards one wreckage, Tysiac froze at the sight of broad and still readable words painted on the side of it.

The terrible, eerie feeling returned in full force, seeing "ORIAN" painted on the side of the wreckage. Too much was falling into place in telling the Spartan spook that there was far more going on with "Sirca" than he or ONI knew.

The Chupadore 'Tucker' was seen following the others into an open vent on the side of the wreckage, making Tysiac start to hurry across the bottom of the lakebed after the group. Magnetising to the side of the wreck and crawling through the vent, the Spartan found the group in an open and empty room with a dry walkway that led to a broken console and to a door that led deeper into the wreck. Tucker was wading in the water alongside Caboose, complaining to Church as he had gotten out and started looking around with a sort of dazed expression, "You?? What about us!? Motherfucker, we nearly drowned just now!"

"Not likely, even if it required me." Tysiac told them, making the Chupadore give a jolt and curse.

As the group began wading out of the water, Church began wandering over towards the console. Caboose started panicking at the sight of his animal friend and started chasing after it down the doorway, ignoring Tucker calling for him to wait.

Tysiac came around towards Church as he asked, "What are you looking for?"

"Just..." The Chupadore muttered, placing a claw over the broken console and failing to see anything happen. He began staring at the broken glass in a lost sense of contemplation.

The Spartan, in the meantime, stepped around the alien and around the console to look at the wall, his own emotions starting to get the better as he saw the faded and nearly overwritten insignia of the UNSC logo. He made a quick look at his HUD to ensure that the recorder was still active and caught what he was seeing.

Now. There was clearly something going on across this ring. It was already an issue finding out furred reptilian-mammals that had the same name, rank and personalities of the Simulator Troops that had been having their spot in the limelight after the War. But this? This wasn't the first encounter of these Chupadores with the UNSC. Something or someone has been running a massive interference campaign. A big enough plot was occurring that the perpetrator had brought down an entire UNSC ship and put effort into ensuring none of the inhabitants would find it or understand what they were looking at.

Looking back at the Church Chupadore, he had a bit of fabric unfolded and was looking at the same UNSC symbol on the wall.

Tysiac tilted his head slightly, "You've been looking for this symbol, haven't you?"

Church looked over to him before a soft curse left his mouth as his hands fell with the fabric in one hand, confirming the Spartan's suspicions as the man walked over to the alien.

"... There's not much I'm allowed to tell you." Tysiac said, putting a hand on the tall Chupadore's shoulder, "But that symbol belongs to the UNSC," He brought the hand down and tapped one part of his armor, showing the same symbol in a far clearer detail, "my species military branch. And from the looks of it, we both have a lot of questions about this. Some of them bigger than others..."

The louder sound of metal tapping rang through the ruined ship, gaining both of their attention before Church grumbled, "Let's go fetch those two. Fuck knows what they're getting up to, likely making this whole place collapse on us."

Tysiac didn't answer as he followed after the Chupadore. Moving down the dark and rusted halls of the now identified wreckage of a UNSC ship of unknown class, the Spartan made certain to record as much as he could to identify for the ship for ONI. Continuing down and following the sounds of voices, metal tapping and Caboose's collar ringing, Tysiac started to mull over his newfound discoveries.

"Smells stupid down here," Church muttered audibly to Tysiac before calling, "Caboose?"

"Church!" The cheerful voice of the familiar Simulation Trooper came from a nearby doorway, "Hey Church! I made a new friend!"

The pale Chupadore rolled his eyes as he exasperatedly said, "Oh god, don't tell me it's another dead ani - Oh..."

Peeking under Church's arm as it had grabbed the side of the doorway, Tysiac spotted both Caboose and a new face. This one was dressed in a sleeveless army shirt with camo-pants, and from the looks of it was clearly female as she sat up, revealing a modest set of breasts as she excitedly went over to Church, "Hey, you're tall! That's pretty hot. What's your name?" Her attention just as quickly found Tysiac and seemed just as excited, "Holy crap, a robot! What kinda tricks do you do? Do you have a sex command?"

Neither Church or Tysiac was equally happy or excited seeing what appeared to be a drunk and out of uniform soldier. Tysiac was especially unimpressed over the general unproffesional behavior, as well as mistaking him for a robot with... those kinds of functions...

After Tysiac allowed Church to be the one to make the female Chupadore both semi-sober enough to be coherent and deliver the message that no one was interested in trying to have a more... Physical interaction, the group began moving down further into the wrecked UNSC ship as she began to explain herself.

Apparently, the female was in boot camp and supposed to join one of the two armies. However, she ended up taking the wrong train before skipping whatever remaining details there were left and concluding her winding up inside the ship for "what's not a whole month ago". Just afterwards, she asked, "Hey, you don't happen to know my brother, do you? Kinda short, real fluffy, also in the army?"

Getting no's from both Church that was worried for his sanity and Tysiac who barely made sense of her ramblings before the Spartan asked, "How exactly are you surviving down here, without gear or rations?"

"Oh, there's rations!" The female replied with some disgust, "But they taste like mothballs and gym socks, so I kinda didn't bother. Beer's okay though, and I just eat whatever's lying around:" She began listing off what the Chupadore had found as if she had been in a grocery store of exotic foods, "Rats, weird mushrooms - Don't try the red ones, though. And I've gotten pretty good at catching rats, though a rat for lunch every day gets old." She giggled as she finished, "I think I've sucked the meat off every kind of bone there is!"

"Splendid." Tysiac grumbled to himself as Church reacted in the most concerned and disgusted manner he could.

Before Tysiac started to ask her if she ever taken a psych test before being thrown into this 'army', a sudden metallic rumble reverberated throughout the wreck. A sudden jolt of movement sent Church stumbling and threw the female Chupadore to the ground as Tysiac quickly looked around before hearing an approaching sound of water.

"What's happening?!" Church exclaimed.

"The ship's either collapsing or sinking. Something must've gotten loose." Tysiac surmised, "Either way, it's time to get out." He saw Caboose and his animal friend running on all fours towards them and just about saw the wave of water following after them before he ordered the two aliens, "Move!"

"Something break!" Caboose said as he reached the three, "And there's a lot of water! I don't think it's being very friendly right now."

"Didn't do it!" The female complained, apparently not listening to Tysiac's order, "Had an abortion earlier this year."

"Tucker did it!" Caboose reasoned as the familiar sight of the turquoise Chupadore appeared on a higher walkway above the group, Church reacting with more confused disgust at the female's choice of words.

"What the hell! I didn't ever get a chance to bang her yet!" Tucker yelled before nonchalantly commenting, "Oh, you mean the water?"

Tysiac was already down near the doorway as he looked back and watched in complete bafflement about what the hell the Chupadores were doing as Church and Tucker argued with each other, the latter pulling out an energy sword. The ONI agent somewhat heard Tucker's discovery of it before the man raised his voice to a loud enough volume and tone that demanded the Chupadores’ attentions, "The water. Move, before I leave you here to drown."

With that, he went through the doorway and didn't bother to look behind if the others were following, though his motion sensors quickly informed him that they did. That didn't last long, as the motion tracker grouped the four together before disappearing, then moving backwards.

Tysiac didn't bother looking behind. He found his way through the rushing water back into the console room before finding the hole where light was filtering in through the cracks of the ship. Pushing himself forwards and generating enough momentum, he jumped off of the broken console and threw himself against the hole. The momentum and weight of a Spartan plus armor was enough to crush the console. The impact bent and twisted the wrecked and rusted metal, hurling him out of the wreck and into the lake just as it exploded with water gushing out.

Reaching back to the same shore where he had left the Last Word still under stealth cloak, Tysiac looked back to see the three Chupadore Blues on the shore with Tucker and Church staring at Caboose with a disturbed and disgusted look while the female Chupadore came to the group on land. She explained that she had been shot out from a hole at the top as the others began climbing out and trying to dry off.

Oh, and apparently she now gave them her name. Kai, or 'Sister' as 'everybody does', according to her.

He ignored Tucker's rant about pickup lines amidst Church arguing about him harassing the female. Instead, he began walking towards the cloaked ship. His departure wasn't unnoticed as Church began calling out at him, "The hell you going?" Tysiac didn't answer as he keyed the ship to come out of stealth through his armor and gave the command to lower the ramp, getting a massive reaction from the aliens from seeing the corvette appear out of thin air.

"Wait, how fucking long was that here?!" Church began to demand and yell at Tysiac, who still didn't answer him or the other Chupadore's questions.

The first thing that Tysiac did as he boarded the Prowler was head for the cockpit, looking for a manual transfer cable of data between his helmet's recorder and to the ship. Due to how the hacking attack he had suffered from orbit appeared to have been through long-range communications, and how restarting the power and keeping both the Hyperscanner and comm channels off had prevented further attacks, Tysiac wasn't eager to try sending the data to the ship while on Sirca. At best, he could 'hide' the ship's presence under the disguise that he and the Last Word had gone down and was destroyed by whoever discovered his presence. That way, he could risk sending bursts of reports to ONI to keep them aware of his progress, the current state of progress and perhaps warn them until further notice to not try to either send a rescue party or even the Infinity that had been recently rolling out and undergoing final preparations the last he had heard of their new ship.

It was only then did he register the Chupas climbing aboard. The first was hearing Church complain about how small everything was inside and felt like he had to crawl. He called out to them through the helmet's speakers, "Do not touch anything. That includes you, Tucker."

"What the fuck?! I didn't even see anything yet!" His voice groaned.

"Given you have that sword and flushed yourself out of that wreck, I doubt you weren't considering doing so." Tysiac retorted, sending the turquoise into an angry tantrum, to the amusement of the other two mentally coherent Chupadores. Removing his helmet to let the data transfer safely, the ONI agent fetched the cable and connected them together.

The humor of manually moving data wasn't lost to the man. After all this advanced tech over the course of several hundred years, and still there was room for the requirement of manual transferring for those who didn't have either available data crystal chips or AI to handle. It reminded him of one historical moment long before the UNSC formed, where the North American military used to think that dogfighting with guns was outdated and no longer required, and missiles were the future for everything. That opinion quickly turned after the old Vietnam war and returned to being a requirement.

The sound of heavy footsteps came from behind as Tysiac set the helmet down on the cockpit console and was about to create a new report to send to ONI before hearing Church's voice, "Wai-what the fuck? Tucker, how did you get in h - "

Tysiac looked up and over to see the still paling Chupadore nearly crouching at the entrance from the cockpit of the Last Word. He initially had an expression of confused shock before the Chupadore realized who and what he was looking at. The sight of Tysiac's face made him give a near leap of shock, "Holy shit!"

"It's rude to not knock, Church." Tysiac commented as he stood up, the height differences once again making a stark reminder to him of these aliens.

Church made a half-crawl backwards as he asked, "The hell are you and why's your face have to look so flat?"

"Why do you have to look like a giant reptilian teddy bear?" Tysiac retorted with an eyebrow raised.

"Oh, fuck you!" The Chupadore snapped as he gave a growl in trying to maneuver around the doorway.

Tysiac turned back to sit down at one console to continue his work as he left a parting remark, "Not interested in interspecies relationships. As for what I am, it's called human. And as it so happens, I'm not the first visitor to show up to Sirca."

Church seemed to stop struggling for a bit as Tysiac began typing out his report in details. A brief look towards the Chupadore told him that the alien was looking at the UNSC logo with rapt interest, as if there was something that was clicking in his head. In fact, back inside the wreck, Church had been lost in thought about the faded image and that marking on the piece of fabric.

Almost seemed like he had known something and that was lost... Something to look into at a later time.

Tysiac returned to typing out the report as he left the Chupadore alone with his thoughts. After attaching the video files to the report and adding a few more details to clarify and inquire about the name of the wrecked UNSC ship that was probably sinking further into the nearby lake, the human quickly paused as he turned his attention to the occupants in the Prowler.

Things were quiet. Far more than he would've expected from one Chupadore that had a temperament issue, one that had a likely serious hormonal issue, one ditzy army girl and an alien version of Michael J. Caboose....

Tysiac immediately left the console after saving the report, grabbed his helmet and marched out of the now empty doorway and towards the rest of the ship. Finding the ship also empty with a few of the weapons lying around, the man quickly took a look outside of the ramp and found none of the Chupadores in sight other than their footprints in the mud.

Realizing they've ventured off, Tysiac went back inside to clean up the mess and reconsider his equipment. As of now, he didn't need to worry too much about getting into a firefight. The lack of non-lethal options had left him in a slightly awkward position when handling noncombatants. In addition, given how he encountered the alien variants of the Reds and Blues from Project Freelancer, it was an easy suspicion Tysiac would encounter the more competent agents of the Project, just more of the alien kind.

A quick sorting of his duffle bag with mags filled with Lockdown Paint and live ammo, the latter with a unique designation so he wouldn't confuse the two types, and Tysiac began his hunt. The Last Word's ramp retracted, the cloak-field remotely activated again, and the coordinates set on its location. Tysiac began to follow the tracks into the forest and away from the lake. The signs of broken foliage and his helmet giving a scan over the ground and showing the prints digging deeper into the mud and dirt seemed to indicate they were chasing after something.

Then came an audible yell of panic further into the forest. With a silent curse leaving his mouth, Tysiac marched further into the forest before coming to an end at a cave. Inside the cave, the footprints disappeared into a far too perfectly carved hole in the ground, leaves having finished settling down.

It appeared to Tysiac the group was following something and triggered a trap that led them to fall in. And likely, because of the surrounding leaves, it had been disguised and hidden.

With another grumble, Tysiac began to peer into the darkened hole. His armor was detecting sound coming from there, but none of it was discernable and the noise from outside the cave was making it worse. Seeing one plank of wood embedded into one side of the hole, Tysiac coaxed it out of the ground and dropped it in lengthwise, with some of the dirt he had ripped out following behind it.

Hearing the first confirmed impact of the wood below five seconds, Tysiac gave a quick calculation and estimate over to himself before standing up and ensuring that the duffle bag and his weapons were secured. The drop itself, by what he had come up with, was a fairly long one. However, it was safely within the limits of what he could survive and continue his hunt for the Chupadores. And it was likely that whoever built this hole was meant to trap and collect prisoners, meaning his quarry was more likely alive from the drop as well. Only question left to ask was where the Chupadores were still at the center of the hole where he might accidentally crush them, or did they get moved away?

With some hesitation, Tysiac elected to wait and brought up the mission timer. Once a minute had passed, the man felt more confident that the chances were the aliens had been moved away. Thus, after another check on securing his equipment, Tysiac jumped down.

Only one issue. Just as he jumped in, he heard the sound of someone calling at him with both shock and surprise, and the motion tracker suddenly lit up with one unknown contact. However, Tysiac had already disappeared into the hole and into darkness. Leaving whoever was there to figure things out on their own as he descended further into the unknown.

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