Hey…uh, Luke? Happy Birthday, my good sir. I want to finish this before you log, so…here's to you, man.

Story takes place around the general timeframe of the Halo 3 level called The Storm. 'Nuff said.

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"I hope there are no hard feelings, human, about the shot to the leg. It was a necessity at the time, and I think it helped break you from your rage. Of course, I'm sure you understand that if it happened again, or your anger had been directed at me, I would not and will not hesitate to kill you. But that does not need saying, as I'm sure you would react the same way I would in such a situation." –Mok the Kig-Yar, to Damien Senge, onboard the Through the Darkest Times, post-2553

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The sounds of battle roared overhead of what the humans called "Voi". Sounds of battle that were, Kyk thought, getting closer—which was not good, at all. The Prophet of Truth was nearing his moment of glory—and, therefore, the Covenant's moment of glory, seeing as he was their voice—and the humans were making a final push, to try and stop him.

Brave. But stupid.

Kyk, along with many other Kig-Yar, had been assigned to guard the outer perimeter of the Southwest anti-air battery. The humans had made a brief push some time earlier, and had been repulsed—with many, many casualties. The Kig-Yar guards had been some of the first to die; they made excellent scouts, true, but they were fragile things. If the enemy attacked, they couldn't hold the line by themselves for very long. Kyk was one of the only survivors, and he'd only lived because he'd played dead.

On the war-torn, scorched Earth, he stood, examining his plasma pistol, still fully charged. As if that mattered, at this point.

Like most Kig-Yar, Kyk didn't believe in the Great Journey. He didn't believe that, any second now, he'd start floating up towards the heavens to a neat little celebration with Truth and his cohorts. No, he thought the entire 'religion' thing, in truth, was a bit idiotic. Still, the Covenant was extremely powerful, and Kig-Yar were paid well for their military services. Even better if they were snipers…Kyk should have trained for such a profession; it was safer, too.

But for all their honor and battle-proven mettle, Kyk wished the Covenant could have been juuuuust a little stronger right now, at his position. When he'd played dead to survive the human assault, it had saved him from a death by human hands; but when the Jiralhanae forces had arrived to repel the humans, he wasn't able to simply merge into the crowd. No Kig-Yar had arrived, so he would have stuck out—and if the Jiralhanae learned of his maneuver, they would have deemed it heresy, and shot him. By their logic, you could die a martyr, or die a heathen. Kyk didn't like either option.

After the humans fled, the Jiralhanae—with roars of triumph—had fallen back to a more defendable position, leaving the Kig-Yar corpses to rot. A few minutes after they had left, Kyk had rose and dusted himself off.

He was stuck in between a rock, and a hard place—a human force, and his own wrathful superiors. Not a fantastic predicament. Kyk's brown feathertips, growing on his shoulders and his head, quivered at the thought of what sort of death might befall him if either side discovered him. Death would be the least of his worries, to say the least.

But a Kig-Yar never did anything without some sort of trick hidden in the recesses of its plumage. And Kyk had a very useful little trinket…

Beneath him, in the dirt and debris, was the bloodied form of a human soldier. At it was moving, ever so slightly.

A captive! What luck. He'd come across the human after the battle, bleeding out. He had no way of keeping it alive; he knew nothing of healing, and had no medical supplies. Hopefully it wouldn't bleed out.

At first he'd considered dragging it back to the Jiralhanae, but he would never make it with the body. So he had decided, instead, that it would be best to simply wait for the humans to arrive, and hand their dying comrade over in exchange for his own security.

He looked down at the human body as it made its first noise since he found it. Gurgling, spluttering. Their species hardly seemed a threat, at moments like this…

It was rolling over—waking up. Kyk sighed and clacked his beak, before raising his plasma pistol. He didn't bother turning his shield on, though…it wasn't like he would need it at the present time.

The human had rolled onto its back, like some sort of canine creature, and its eyelids slowly separated. Mok noted its circular, blue pupils—much different than his own, which were a hallowed pinkish hue.

The human was groggy, and might very well have been delusional when it first woke up—it had lost a good deal of blood. But when it looked up, whether it saw a Kig-Yar or a pink Unggoy didn't matter in the slightest.

It gave a sudden, disturbing yell, and fell backwards with a shudder—landing, again, in the dirt. Kyk couldn't help but roll his eyes at the human—it shuddered, squirming on the ground and reaching for its hip—its sidearm. Obviously, Kyk had taken the precaution of confiscating his weapons.

He would have tried to say something to it, but the modern translators were far from great. Sometimes even the Jiralhanae didn't understand him. So he went with the universally-understood language of threatening, and raised his plasma pistol at the little mammal's torso, shaking his head.

No, it would be best if you DIDN'T move, actually.

The thing, noting it had no weapons, frowned at him, and stayed in place. Kyk stared at it; the creatures, in a lot of ways, were quite similar to the Jiralhanae. Only they were smaller, and more delicate, with much stranger-looking faces. A peculiar species, indeed.

Well, he had his hostage, now. Everything was going as well as he could have asked for…the humans would be here shortly. The exchange would be hard, but he did not doubt his own abilities. He was sure he could pull it off.

Then, the human did something strange, and unexpected. He looked at Kyk, and pointed to himself. "Antoine," It said.

Kyk did not know how to react at first. Finally, he realized it must have been a name. Confused, and now somewhat suspicious, Kyk nodded slowly, gun still trained on the human.

It look at him for a few seconds, as if expecting something. Kyk did not know why. Finally, It gave him a look that seemed to express confusion, and then pointed at Kyk.

What was is asking for, Kyk wondered? This human was strange.

The human sighed, and pointed at himself again. "Antoine."

Yes, I know that, human. Your name is 'Ahn-twooahn'. But what was that got to do with—

The human pointed at him. Ah.

The Kig-Yar shrugged. "Kyk," He said passively. It wouldn't hurt to say his name.

The human laid back in the dirt, seemingly satisfied. Against his better judgment, Kyk relaxed a little, keeping the weapon trained on this 'Ahn-twooahn' fellow.

He tapped his foot, impatiently, when were the humans going to get here to retrieve this one? He didn't want to have to watch it forever.

Then in occurred to him that they might not come back. The Covenant surely would do no such thing for Kyk, if he was in the human's position…so why would the humans do it for one of theirs? …Well, they were advancing again, from the sounds of battle. They wouldn't abandon one of their own if given the opportunity to retrieve him, surely.

The human slowly got to its feet, yawning and stretching its arms—checking to see how Kyk would react to the movement, he suspected. With a click of the beak, Kyk raised his gun at its head.

It looked down at him, sighed, and sat back down. It looked at him. "So, 'Kyk'…know any good jokes?" It laughed to itself.

Kyk could understand the human perfectly—the issue was the human being unable to understand him. Still, even though he understood it, he did not make any motion or make any noise, just keeping his weapon focused.

"Guess I should thank you," The human said. Kyk was no master of human-emotion, but he thought he sensed some bitterness. "Finding me and keeping me protected, like this. Aren't you a Good Samaritan." It stared at the ground.

A 'Good Samaritan'…what could that have meant? Kyk was confused. He couldn't think of a similar phrase in his own tongue. What was a Samaritan? What made it good, or bad? Why had the human put such emphasis on the two words?

Kyk cocked his head at the creature. It looked up at him, and shook his hand dismissively, as if waving off the curiosity.

It was probably a curse, Kyk decided. Some ancient term used for traitors, cowards, thieves, or something of the sort.

Then, Kyk made a mistake. He looked away from the human for one second to examine his pistol. But surely the human wouldn't do anything stupid.

…The human did something stupid.

Stumbling and bumbling, it pulled itself off of the ground dizzily, and turned, trying to break into a run and get away from Kyk. Cursing, the jackal turned, and raised his pistol.

His aim wasn't incredible, but he got the job done. His first two shots missed, but the third struck the human in its right calf.

With a scream of agony, it fell forward, yelling and howling. Kyk did not feel the least bit sympathetic. I am armed, and we are in an open field. Did you honestly not see this as the obvious conclusion to that attempt, human? …Ahn-twooahn?

The human kept screaming, writing on the ground as it reached two hands down to its leg and screamed in pain. Well, this wasn't good. The human needed to shut its mouth, and quickly, or Kyk would be mistaken as an aggressor.

The human was desperately trying to pull its leg armor off, to isolate the burning plasma before it got through to his skin. Kyk saw it, and groaned.

If it gets it to shut up, its worth it.

Kyk crouched down next to the human's injury. The human, screaming, tried to hit him, but Kyk swatted the hands away with no trouble at all. With careful precision, he reached forward towards the calf, trying to ignore the human's aggravating wails—but the human rolled over onto its back, hitting the ground with his fists and continuing to yell.

You're not making this any easier, you idiot! Kyk hissed, and shot out, holding the squirming human's foot in place. Then, he began to undo the straps of the armor, careful not to burn himself by putting his hands to close to the superheated plasma.

In an instant, he had the armor off, flinging it aside. A tiny hold had burned through, but it was nothing major.

The human stopped, whimpering pathetically. Kyk rose up, strode a few feet away, and waited there, tapping his foot and impatiently waiting for the humans to arrive.

He didn't want to look like he had downed the human…even if he had. He motioned for it to get up, waving his pistol upwards. It understood, and—not wanting to be shot again—complied, weakly getting up. It winced and bit down on its lip as it stood on its bad foot.

Kyk sighed, and looked at it. In the distance, he could hear gunfire. Time to get friendly, Ahn-twooahn, or whatever your name is.

He dropped his plasma pistol, making sure the human noticed. It looked, confused, and for a second Kyk thought he was going to try and steal the weapon and use it on its owner. But it did not.

He flashed his shield on, and strode forward, draping his left arm around the human's shoulders—they were about the same height, give or take—and brought his shielded right arm up, protecting both of them as best as he could.

He began to walk towards where the humans would be, supporting the human. He wanted to look as friendly as possible, so he wouldn't instantly be shot when the humans moved into the vicinity.

As much as it seemed to resent him, the human complied, taking any help it could get. Painful step after painful step, it strode forward, wincing. Kyk helped it as best he could.

It was slow-going, but fortunately, he did not have to worry very much. Several seconds later, he spotted human helmets charging over the rock-formation in the distance. Towards him.

He stopped, ducking his head a little lower. Understandably, a couple shots pinged off of his shield, before they stopped, and he heard shouting. A few seconds later, he saw them running towards him.

If he released the human now, they could fire at Kyk without the humans worrying about hurting their comrade. Just in case, Kyk tightened his grip on the human's shoulder—but it didn't try to move away from him. Odd.

They ran, closer and closer, until he could make them out through the distortion of the energy shield. There were at least ten running towards him.

Now all he could do, was hope for the best.

They got up to him, weapons still trained, hollering to one another. Kyk squeezed the human's shoulder, half worried. The human realized what was being asked of it.

With hollers, it called for the other ones to put their weapons down. They didn't comply, but they lowered the barrels of their weapons, especially when they saw Kyk was unarmed.

The humans had been dissuaded. Kyk moved his arm back, and took a tentative step away from Ahn-twooahn. Without the support, the human nearly fell.

A couple rushed forwards to retrieve him, one with medical supplies. They ignored Kyk, for the time being, and he began to move farther and farther away from the human, with his hands held high. To further pronounce his point, he turned off his shield.

A human advanced toward him, menacingly, holding what they called a 'shotgun'. Kyk couldn't help but feel afraid.

It was getting closer. The weapon was still aimed at the ground, but at any second…

"Hey, stop." The crowd looked over at the human called Ahn-twooahn. He was lying on the ground, as another human applied bandages. "Don't hurt that thing, it helped me."

"It helped you?" The human with the shotgun scoffed. "That's just stupid." It turned, raising the barrel.

As Kyk died, he wondered what 'Good Samaritan' meant.

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Good Samaritan Doctrine: A legal principle that prevents a prosecution of 'wrongdoing' on a person who has voluntarily helped someone who is ill or injured.

The expression 'Good Samaritan': If you don't know it, look it up.

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…Happy Birthday, to Luke.

…Oh, and to anyone who is reading this... HALO: Reach was just announced. I suggest you go check that out.

Thanks for reading.