Annoying disclaimer: I do NOT own any part of the Halo franchise. I also do not intend to make any money out of this.

Reaching for a new dawn

Dar had never fell in with the covenant religion. He was no zealot, and he quite strongly preferred it that way. It was never a problem until the covenant had branded him "Sh'Skah", or traitor. He had served unquestioningly on a senseless number of missions for which he was never imburssed. He had been fed up with it for a long time. He was plotting a little sweet revenge, and he would have been successful, had not a wandering Sangheilli heard him planning with his allies. Dar had managed to gather a group of 23 Kig-yar and Unggoy that were fed up with being bottom-barrel fighters for a war that none of them believed in. The day they were discovered, 21 members of the group died. One skirmisher, Reve, was taken prisoner, and only one managed to escape. Dar was somewhat proud of being "the one that got away".

His pod landed on the human planet, Reach. He had been dodging both human and covenant forces for what seemed like days now. His dexterity, speed, accuracy, and adaptability had saved him too many times now to count. It seemed like every creature on this infernal planet was trying to kill him. From grunts to even moa, everything had attacked him at some point. His gauntlets were completely drained of any charge, and he was running low on ammunition. What's more, he was exhausted and starving. Kig-yar needed to eat almost constantly to stay healthy. It wouldn't be long before his body began to shut down around him. He had tried raiding human establishments for sustenance, but when he did, either they repelled him, or had no food to take. He tried killing moa, but they were very scarce all of a sudden. Either way, he knew he wouldn't last long like this. He had all enemies, no friends, and nothing to fight them with. His title, "Sh'skah", marked him for dead. That meant either side would kill him on sight.

He had been running for quite some time now before he barreled over and rolled on the ground, having lost his footing on some unheeded obstacle. He stopped rolling, and lay there for a few moments. He sat staring up into the night sky. The stars that burned above, and was surprised not to see any covenant cruisers or carriers. He just lay there. He was so tired. So hungry. So worn from the constant running. No part of him wanted to work. He felt his eyes slowly closing on the world around him. A break couldn't be that bad, could it? His breathing slowed, his pulse became more and more faint, and everything started to go black. Maybe betraying the covenant hadn't been such a good idea. It didn't matter now, what was done was done. Sooo...tired...

He'd only been asleep for what seemed like minutes when he was forced back into wakefulness by a sudden jolt of pain. His eyes shot open, and when his vision cleared, he looked up at something he'd been trying, above all, to avoid. A demon. A spartan. He was staring up into the barrel of a human machine gun held by a demon decorated in grey and crimson armor. It was one of the ones with four eyes. The two hidden behind its helmet, and two on top of its helmet. One shoulder marked it one of the anti-vehicular units, whereas its other shoulder was bulkier in design, and reminded Dar of the humans' elite non-spartan infantry. Dar was weak. He was starving, and tired and sore, and even on a good day, a spartan this close spelled only death. He half-closed his eyes, and heard the demon speak.

"Well, aren't you in a sorry shape?" Months of training in human language as a counterintelligence scout meant that this commando skirmisher knew exactly what the demon said, and even 3 different ways to repeat it without using the same words. He knew the demon spoke the truth when he realized he was receiving pity from one of the enemy's finest troops. "What a damn shame. God knows this rock is done for. At least you could have provided a good last fight for a lost warrior." Dar exhaled heavily, and just after that, he heard the demon sigh loudly. "Well I can't kill an unarmed unit. It's sorta against the rules. Mind if I join you? One dying soldier alongside another?" Dar's vision cleared as the gun was taken out of his face. He continued staring up absently at the stars.

He heard the demon groan out in pain, followed by a loud thump. He shifted his focus to his left eye, and looked over at the spartan. It sat right next to him, holding its stomach with its left hand. It was injured badly. It was steadily bleeding out of its side, and the hand was doing no good. He was putting up a good struggle, but Dar was no fool. He knew this demon was not going to last much longer than him. Dar tried to push himself up, to get away from the threat, but try as he might, he simply didn't have the strength to do so. He just lay there, sprawled out on his back, his quills ground into the grass and dirt below him.

"Why did you even join in this war? I've done my research. You fellas don't even have any ties to the covenant. What's the deal?" Dar was dying, and he already well knew it. Perhaps having someone to talk to in those final moments would make things easier? "Greed and lies.", he spoke simply. His focus was shot, and that was all he could manage. Still focusing on his left eye, he made out a small medical pack on the side of the spartan's hip. The spartan chuckled. "Ah, so you speak. I was wondering if I was talking to myself here. Well, name's Dony, Sierra 218. What's your handle?" Dar struggled with his memory for a moment before he pieced together what the demon meant. Its name was Dony. It's designation was S two, one, eight. "Dar..." Dar breathed in heavily. His body was beginning to slow down.

Dar caught movement in his peripherals. The spartan, Dony, had extended an empty hand to him. He understood this as both a greeting and a sign of peaceful intent. Automatically, he tried to return the greeting, and lift his hand to the spartan's. It rose only pitiful inches before falling heavily and pitifully back to the ground. Dar was surprised when the spartan reached down, and took his hand, shaking it lightly. His body suddenly felt a little lighter, companionship from the enemy in his last moments, when his own kind had run him out, and put him on death's door. Dony looked around warrily, then back to Dar. "None of your buddies around?" Dar let out a weak chuckle. "No 'buddies'...rogue..." Donyxz stared directly into his eyes. "Hmph. Jumped off the crazy train, did ya? Good call. Bad timing." Dony let out a hacking laugh, his helmet bobbing back and forth as he did. "Damn genetics... Let you in on a little secret. I can't heal like most of the other spartans. The coding just didn't take with me. Sometimes it doesn't." Dony stared up at the night sky and for a moment, Dar wondered if Dony saw the same things he did.

"I have a couple of hours left in me. You?" He didn't look down as he said it. "No." That's all Dar managed. "Eh, damn shame. Pleasure talkin to ya none the less..." The demon reached its hands up and held its helmet on opposite sides. Dar heard a faint hiss, and Dony raised the helmet over his head, bringing it to rest in his lap. "Did you know that under all this, we're basically the same as all the other humans?" Dony fidgeted with the helmet as he spoke. "No. Stronger, faster..." Dar didn't mind talking to him too much, even if it was getting progressively more difficult to do. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. They did things to us to make us stronger, faster and smarter than normal, but I mean... down inside." Dony paused. Dar wasn't sure he understood what the demon meant. "We're all just a little scared of dying. That's why we fight so hard." He looked over at Dar. "Just like you fellas, I guess. Deep down, no one wants to die... so we do something that makes no sense. We die." Dar spent the bit of extra strength to look directly at the demon, overlapping his eyesight, giving a clearer, more defined picture of him. Without the helmet on, he had very short, brown hair and blue eyes. He was gaunt, but not scrawny, and his neck was thick. No, not thick, dense. "Wh...what?" Dony looked from him back to the helmet in his lap. "We sacrifice our lives so that someone, somewhere doesn't have to. It's what makes it worth it..."

The spartan set the helmet down beside him and reached over to Dar, grabbing him under the arm, and pulled him close. When he finally stopped pulling, Dar was resting, his back on the spartan's side, supported by the spartan's arm, which was wrapped around his torso. It was an unusual position, but not uncomfortable. Dar thought for a moment. "Demons...never run. Never... fear... Brave. How?" Dony let out a slow, almost bitter laugh. He looked over at Dar, and spoke something he remembered having read in a history class a long time ago. "We wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes." Dar's neck was getting tired, and he just lay his head on the demon's shoulder. He wanted to hear more. It sounded nice for some reason. "Why should the world be over-wise?", he continued on, "In counting all our tears and sighs?" He stopped there. And looked up at the heavens once again. "I don't remember who wrote it. It's good though, huh? In the distance, Dar saw the sun rising. It was a beautiful sight. The sky painted over with fiery orange and crimson red and just beyond, it was drowned in a melancholy purple. He felt peace. He closed his eyes.

Dony laughed aloud. "Guess this is the last sunrise either of us will ever see, huh? Well, it's a good one by my call. I wonder if you..." He switched his attention over to the skirmisher. Lightly, carefully, almost reverently, he lay the skirmisher back down and stood. He crossed the skirmisher's arms over its chest, and lay its legs out straight. Then he looked straight up and far above him, he saw that same reflective purple armor he was all too familiar with. He lay down next to his newly gained and newly lost companion, and looked out into the same sunrise that had been his last vision of life. Almost as an afterthought, he began to sing out a familiar old tune.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..."
"You make me happy when skies are grey..."

Memories of the family he'd been taken from flooded back to surface all at once, and a single tear rolled down his face. He continued on, challenging the fate he knew he could never escape. The fate he, the fate all men and women and creatures alike were born into. He sang on...

"You'll never know-oh, how much I love you..."

Memories of his mother came to haunt him. It had been so long since he'd seen her... Her auburn hair, her warming smile, her soothing voice... He missed her, he always had...
Another teardrop.

"Oh please don't take...My sunshine...Away..."

The last syllable of the song was drowned out by a massive weapon charging somewhere far overhead. The world around Dony lit up and in an instant disappeared as the covenant cleansing beams scoured the planet's surface, turning grass and trees to ash, buildings and bodies to dust. Rivers and streams vanished in unspeakably massive clouds of steam. The soil and sand were baked over, leaving nothing in the wake of the beam save the glass left over from the intense heat of the plasma that baked everything it touched.

Reach fell that day. But just minutes before, two companions sat and watched a sunrise together for the first time, each seeing the same beauty for the first time. Hours before that, another spartan, saved the future hope of mankind and a beacon of knowledge and understanding. Reach was lost, but the war had only just begun.

"We Wear the Mask", a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

"You Are my Sunshine", a song by Oliver Hood.

War isn't one-sided. It never is. The day everyone sees that, and we truly open our eyes, seeing each other in a new light for the first time, that just may be the day that war doesn't have to exist. Untill then, Oorah, USMC is the path for me. God bless the Corps, God bless all who fight for freedom and rights of the common man.

-Yours truly, another ShadowPasinThru.