Author's Note: ...All I have to say is, this is something I've been working on. Hope y'all like it!

Disclaimer: I do not own "Outpost: Isil" or anything to do with it. Treeskunk Productions does, however.

Chapter 1: Rekindle the Flames

It was mostly quiet in the interior of the human base at Outpost Valhalla. It was a relatively large complex for such a small base; one would wonder how the UNSC managed to fit it all in there. Boxes littered the area, most of them sporting an ominous-looking label that read "toxic." As a sort of inside joke amongst the UNSC Marines not stationed there, the interior of the base was nicknamed "the Pit."

In the kitchen on the bottom floor of the base, Shadow was busy cooking something. Which would explain why the rest of the soldiers stationed at the base weren't anywhere close to the kitchen. No doubt this was because when Shadow started cooking something, stuff in the base was either blown up, set on fire, disintegrated, used as a projectile, irradiated, or a combination of these. If one stood near the door (with a death wish) and really listened, they could hear someone talking.

"Now if I just add a little bit of that," said Shadow out loud, "a dash of that…a hint of that…and a gallon of that." A loud splashing sound could be heard. "Now cook at 300 degrees…" Flames shot out of the opening where the door used to be (it was incinerated when Shadow tried making one of his "spicy dishes"). "Then cool it off with nitrogen gas…" A hissing sound came from the kitchen. "Bam!" Shadow laughed.

"Professor Emeril would be so proud of me," he said proudly. "Now to find Rico to test it out."

"Hey, Rico!" he called, running out of the kitchen. He looked around, but the Lt was nowhere in sight. "Rico?" No answer. "Hey, rock-brained sister-screwing redneck!" He thought that this insult would at least get his attention, but silence was the only reply to his words. He looked around again. "He's not here." Finally giving up on the notion that Rico would come to him, Shadow went throughout the base looking for him.

"Rico!" He called as he walked into Rico's quarters. However, he didn't seem to be here either. "That's funny. He's usually in here fondling his gun…"

He suddenly had an idea: Skippy might know where Rico went. Without hesitating, he went to the medical ward, where Skippy usually hung out (he was, after all, the base's only medic).

Skippy was busy pulling up the medical records on the computer. His eyes strayed over to the list of dead as of the past week in Outpost Valhalla. He opened it for no particular reason whatsoever.

The computer paused for a few minutes to load the list (it was really long). Eventually it gave up and just shut down on him. It gave him an error message saying that there was "too much data."

Skippy didn't have much time to fix this, however, for Shadow came into the room at that moment.

"Hey, Skip, have you seen Rico?" he asked.

Skippy turned around. "Shadow," he said, "the only time I ever see Rico is when he's drunk off the moonshine he made from my lab equipment, or when I'm patching him up because he's gone off, fucked with the Elites, and managed to get himself shot."

"So, that's a no, then."

Skippy sighed. "Why do you want to see Rico, anyways?"

"I made a new Secret Special Meal for us," Shadow told him.

There was a pause, in which Shadow and Skippy stared at each other in silence for a moment. Finally, Skippy started to leave.

"Where are you going?" Shadow asked his retreating back.

Skippy turned to face him. "To turn on the stomach pump."

"Aw, come on, Skip!" Shadow said incredulously. "My food's not that bad!"

"The last time I heard you say 'Secret Special' and 'Meal' in the same sentence," Skippy reminded him, "I couldn't talk for a month, my vocal cords were so charred!"

"I warned you that it would be spicy," said Shadow, shrugging.

"Shadow, the temperature readings I got after eating it were off the charts."

"How high does that thermometer go?"

"I don't know. It melted before I could get a solid reading."

Shadow lost patience with Skippy then. "You know what?" he said. "I don't have to take this shit from you. Besides, you just used that as an excuse to get more drugs!" On that note, he turned to exit the base.

As he went through the entrance/exit, he muttered, "Frickin' treehugger."

Shadow exited up through the base's entrance, going out through the back to look for Rico.

"Hey, Rico, where are you?" he called. No answer. He went around to the front of the base and looked around, but still no Rico.

"Damn Texan always wandering off," he thought aloud irritably. "One hell of a commander he i-omigod!" he finished, ducking just as a Beam Rifle shot whizzed just above his head, hitting the wall behind him.

He ducked behind cover before whoever was shooting could do so again.

"The hell was that?"

In the field in-between the two bases, a soldier in red and yellow ODST armor was carrying a flag and dodging fire from a pair of pursuing Ghosts. The Ghosts themselves were driven by two of the Elites stationed in the area – one red and one blue – and they looked furious.

Rico ran towards the base and threw the flag over the top before turning around and returning fire. The flag flew straight over the base's wall and landed in front of Shadow. Shadow stared at it for a moment.

"I'm being shot at, and then flags magically fall from the sky…" he said, slightly freaked out now. "Aw, hell, Skippy must have slipped acid into the lemonade again."

Rico fired at the Ghosts with his Assault Rifle for a bit before taking cover behind the base's wall. His sudden appearance startled Shadow, who started shooting his gun wildly in fear.

"Wait…" he said, realizing who the newcomer was and ceasing fire. "Rico?"

Rico turned to Shadow. "Oh, hey, Shadow, I didn' see ya there."

"Rico," Shadow asked nervously, "what in the ever-loving piss pot of hell is going on?"

Rico rolled his eyes. "Well, duh, the Elites are attackin'."

"Why are the Elites attacking?"

"Well…I killed half their garrison an' stole their flag."

"You what?!" Shadow said, horrified.

"What's the matter?" Rico asked, confused and slightly annoyed. "I got their flag. Don't I at least get a thank-you?"

"Thank-you?!" Shadow yelled in disbelief. "You brought the entire Elite's base down here – bent on killing us and using our spinal cords as xylophones – because you took that damn flag! Why did you take that damn flag?!"

"Uh…" Rico said hesitantly. Why did I take their flag? He thought. "I…I forgot…Wait," he added, having just remembered. "Wait, I think it was because they called my mom a slut."

"What?!"

"Yeah…it was either a slut or a whore, I don't remember exactly."

"Wait," Shadow said, as if to clarify a few points. "You doomed us to certain death because they called your mom a slut?!"

"Or a whore," Rico reminded him. "My memory's a little fuzzy."

"Oh, Rico," Shadow said angrily, "if we get through this alive, I'm gonna make sure you crap in solid loaves for the rest of your damn life!"

"Ah, quit yer bitchin'," Rico said, raising his weapon. "They're coming around the back."

"What?!" Shadow exclaimed, turning towards the back of the base. Sure enough, the Elites had found out about the opening in the back of the base, and they turned to face the humans.

"Oh, goddamn it!"

Without hesitating, Shadow and Rico charged towards the attackers, Rico firing his Assault Rifle, Shadow letting loose with both his SMG and a series of panicked shouts.

Rico ran towards one of the Ghosts and hijacked it, swinging around and kicking its former occupant, a red Elite, out of the driver's seat.

Not wanting to waste time, Rico immediately opened fire on the Elite, who tried vainly to take the human down with his plasma pistol. Eventually, the Elite gave up the attempt and retreated, running back to the Elite's base.

Meanwhile, Shadow was still shooting, but he wasn't really hitting anything. In fact, he wasn't even aiming; he just fired aimlessly while evading the plasma bolts from the Ghost.

"Oh, please don't hurt me!" he pleaded. "Oh, God, please, I'm begging you, don't shoot! Don't shoot, please, I don't wanna die, I'm just an American! Kill Rico, he's from Texas, he's not human - !" He started babbling incoherently while still randomly waving his SMG in front of him and shooting it.

The driver of this Ghost, a blue Elite, stopped for a moment to look at the pathetic scene unfolding in front of him. Rico took advantage of his distraction, ramming into the Elite and firing at him, plasma bolts shooting from the cannons on the front of the Ghost. The Elite, startled, fell out of the Ghost and fled back to the other base.

Rico gave chase to the Elite for a bit before he ran into a third one, this one colored purple and trying to snipe Rico with a Beam Rifle. Rico dismounted his Ghost, exchanging his Assault Rifle for a Battle Rifle. He aimed at the Elite through the scope before opening fire, the gun shooting three-round bursts at a time. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of the Elite's energy shield, but the shots were rapidly depleting the shield's power.

Knowing that the battle was lost, the Elite followed his fellow aliens and retreated.

Rico lowered his rifle, satisfied until he heard frenzied shouting coming from behind him. Turning around, he saw that Shadow was still in a panic, firing his SMG and shouting incomprehensibly.

"Shadow," Rico said, trying to get Shadow's attention. It didn't work; Shadow didn't seem to notice that the battle had ended.

"Shadow!" Rico repeated loudly, firing a shot at Shadow. Just like with the last Elite, the bullets ricocheted off of the energy shield, but the force of it seemed to snap Shadow out of his panic.

"Wha-?" Shadow said, finally realizing that the Elites had left. "They're gone…I'm alive. I'm alive!"

Rico chuckled. "If you count as bein' a member of the livin'."

"Go to hell, you redneck prick."

Rico, however, had other thoughts on his mind, thoughts that were more important that Shadow's insults towards him. "Hmm…"

"What? Shadow asked. "You haven't realized that you're a redneck prick that would rather screw his own cousin than have an intelligent retort?"

Rico shook his head. "No," he explained. "I'm…just wondering what's so damn important about this flag. I mean, it's just a piece of metal and cloth…Hell, it even looks like the UNSC made it. Why do they want to keep it so bad?"

"I don't know," said Shadow, shrugging. "I always figured aliens had a fetish for long, metal poles and loose, flappy things."

"We'd better get into the base before the Elites counterattack," said Rico.

"I'll do that, you just keep an eye out for them," said Shadow. "The last thing I want is to be blindsided by some gay alien looking to fulfill his carnal desire with this flag." On that note, he turned around and walked away from Rico to get the flag and bring it inside the base.

Rico stared after him for a second before walking to the front of the base. He had been thinking about the battle that just took place. Though he had managed to hold off the Elites by himself, Shadow wasn't exactly a whole lot of help. Skippy was decent when he was using Betsy, but the medic had an...unusual attraction to that thing, so he only wanted to use it as a last resort. With Rico being the only sane one so far, he wasn't sure that he would be able to repel another Elite attack by himself.

"I guess it's time to call for backup from the higher-ups," he said aloud. Then he seemed to have second thoughts about his opinion of Shadow and Skippy in battle; after all, there was the fact that Skippy did seem to do really well with Betsy, and Shadow was decent with a Rocket Launcher, so they weren't completely inept.

"You know what? We're a competent group, we can handle a few Elites by ourselves. We don't need any – "

"Uh, Rico?" Shadow called from the entrance, interrupting Rico's train of thought. "The flag won't fit through the door, it's too tall."

Rico sighed. "Did you try putting it in tip first?"

There was a pause. "Oh!" Shadow exclaimed. "That works. Thanks, Rico!"

Rico rubbed his temples. "I'd better call Command…"

Author's Note: Surprise! I decided to take a break from my Spriggs fic, and I thought I'd give a novelization of "Outpost: Isil" a shot (thanks a million to snake eater for the idea!). Seems to me that the two machinima series that get the least love are Spriggs and Outpost: Isil anyway.