A/N: I was eating sunflower seeds at midnight when this came to me; it's just a useless one-shot, kinda like Kapper.
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"How many times am I gonna have to tell you!? I'm George, he's Ron!"
Humans were indeed strange creatures; they delighted in playing tricks on his kind.
Few creatures that he had come upon could look so much the same as a set of human twins. Not even the Lekgolo could boast such uniformity and they were a subspecies conglomerate bio-form.
These two humans in particular, George and Ron, were a handful but despite their ironic demeanor they were powerful warriors and gifted snipers.
The two humans were odd creatures even by human standards, preferring to pull tricks and stunts that confused and confounded both enemy and ally alike, they had said that it was to liven up the battlefield.
That statement alone left many to query the sanity of the two humans.
It would startle many a warrior to look into the hills and see two of the same humans side by side, it had dozens of brutes doing a double take and their collective oddity could buy precious seconds. Their presence seemed to blanket the room with a quizzical air only compounded by their beguilingly similar features and an attitude which belied their expertise.
"Sit down, shut up, gear up and stop switching jackets dammit!"
Sergeant Johnson, a seasoned veteran of many a deathly ring, yelled at the two, hitting them both roughly on the shoulders as the two once again switched their jackets with a pout, to allow proper identification.
The Arbiter huffed as he slowly paced the corridors of the human base hidden deep within the radiant jungles of what they called Africa. They had reconnoitered here to regroup and tend to the wounded, they stood in the main halls of an underground docking bay just beside the entrance of the base, the warm glow of an early morning peeping in golden strands across the open iron gates.
He was agitated, as were they all; there had been sightings of a forerunner construct, the brutes were close to sniffing them out and rations were running low; it was a disheartening situation.
The arbiter ceased his pacing to stand tall before his men, a mixed group of grunts, elites and humans. Upon integration, the grunts had taken a fondness to the humans that many an elite found disgusting but the humans seemed to handle them differently; not as cannon fodder like the covenant had treated them but as valuable allies to be defended, even if their trust was indeed a tentative one.
Many an elite had been quite surprised to see the lowly grunts rise up to defend the humans with an honor that they had never displayed their kind, it was only then that they realized the respect the grunt faction deserved had not been paid. They still ran if fear, still cried in horror, yet they remained at the humans side for far longer than they would with any elite warrior, it seemed that the power they possessed could only be dredged up in the company of those whom they could trust.
Courage in allies.
The weather was hot and humid as the elderly Arbiter chose to head out to the entrance of the base and bask in the sunlight that weaved through the trees.
To his side came a strange crackling noise and a human soldier spat to his left. Immediately, the old shamed warrior stood rigid and angry at the display of disrespect, his jaws parted in an angry scowl as his eyes sank to meet those of the marine.
"Wut…?"
His eyes were a thick pool of blue green slop, betraying his youthful appearance and dragging out into the light the obvious age hidden beneath his plasma scarred black armor. The man sat tiredly on the top of the old stone and wrought iron walls that made up the entrance to the bunker, eyes half closed, helmet at his side and enjoying the morning sunlight just as the Arbiter himself had come out to do.
An ODST the Arbiter recalled, they were humans of honor and often could be quite rash; this one seemed a veteran, surely he knew of his blatant disrespects.
Still the old dog captured the elites gaze as he shifted and moved his arm to the right of his bowed torso and produced a small bag; what treachery was this.
"…Want one?"
Birdlike and curios, the arbiter tilted his head toward the man with decidedly bad breath and clicked his mandibles in a gesture unknown to the marine. The soldier's bad breath could fell a brute and his whole demeanor spoke of neither respect nor the need for it as the other continued to scowl.
"They're sunflower seeds. 's hell to crack 'em open but it buggers the time."
The man popped a seed into his mouth and cracked the shell between his teeth, spitting the remains over the fences.
The arbiter cocked a naked and scaled brow as the human handed him a small black seed, slowly he turned it over in his palm, it felt rough and was slightly sharp on one end. Placing the small treat between his jaws the Arbiter tried to snap off the hard black shell in vain, delightfully shocked by the salted surface yet unable to reach the real item.
The marine laughed short, quiet and wheezing breaths, hands on his crossed legs, sitting oddly uneven on his perch beside a large tree trunk. The old elite scowled again, shame bubbling in his belly to be quickly quelled and forgotten as a smile crossed the mans scarred lips, long and genuine, it seemed as if to calm his angry soul.
How odd these humans were, they were creatures of tricks and games, moral was never so high or so low back within the covenant forces, races never mixed in placidity, time seemed to crawl by and heavy burdens seemed shared; they were more like brothers than the tight nit elite groups.
He looked back into the dim reaches of the base, eyeing a human medic tending to a wounded grunt as the elites watched with small uncomprehending glances.
Humans displayed many different characteristics, some good and some bad, more so than all the covenant races and soldiers combined, their ideals stamped out of them by the hierarchs. They had come to find that many a man had different belief systems and codes of honor; some of which bewildered him but they had all generally come to tolerate one another, begrudgingly or not.
They fought, they played, they strategized and disrespected and loved and hated.
"Ya, see, that's the difference between a loter us; you see crap, I see a crapertunity!"
"OI! Kapper, get your boney ass back down here before you fall! We need all the men we can have for this…"
The angry medic called from inside the base, waving a hammer haphazardly as the ODST laughed and held onto the edges to help himself down.
With a quick controlled slide down the rocky surface of his post, the Arbiter watched as the man came down to stand on his one leg.
He looked at the man for what seemed like the first time; the poor bastard was missing his left arm and leg, supporting his gangly bandaged form on the brick and wrought metal of the outer walls, limping along slowly but surely as he made his way back into the base.
The man looked back at him with that same scarred ragtag smile that had more life in it than the Arbiter himself. "I may be useless but I'm one hellofa sniper!"
Shocked and shamed at his disrespect, the old elite averted his gaze and offered the man his gauntleted hand. The human looked at it for a second with odd eyes before accepting his clawed hand and limping beside him back into the darkening base base.
The elite felt a small twinge of regret curl inside of him, he knew this man would most likely not survive the day and so did the man.
The Arbiter held no doubt that this "Kapper" would put up one hell of a fight and despite himself he swelled with pride.