AN. This one is going to be a little longer, so enjoy.
Leroy was certain that something was up. They had seen nothing the entire time they were in the forest. Not one bird, not one animal to be heard. It was completely silent, above and beyond what was to be expected. Just the wind rustling through the trees and the sound of their movement through the terrain. This was an unnatural level of quiet above and beyond what should have been expected on any planet. To use the old cliché, it was quiet, too quiet. The absolute quiet accentuated the sounds of their own movement, and it was making everyone jumpy and paranoid.
They reached a particularly dense part of the forest, where the trees were so close together they wouldn't be able to go on any further. With that, his sergeant told them all to head back out. Suddenly, they saw beings materializing out of nowhere. They looked like nothing he had ever experienced in the war, and that was saying something. They all looked like foxes, but they were bipedal with long flowing scarlet fur on the top of their heads and were holding strange looking rifles in their claws. They all stood around 5'5" and were scowling at them. It was a standoff on both sides.
Only extreme discipline kept him from firing, and he knew that this was dangerous due to the fact that they were outnumbered nearly 4:1 (AN, use US Marine size chart for numbers, a squad is around 12 people, a platoon is around 45). Then, a call in clear and unambiguous English came out from a fox with different coloration from the rest.
"Humans, lay down your weapons. You are surrounded and we have the advantage of numbers. We have jammed your radios and the other squads are being contained as we speak. We do not wish to see bloodshed, but if you open fire, we will retaliate."
His sergeant, ever the belligerent, said, "Only when you pry it out of my cold dead hands after I've used it to blow a hole clean through that armor and beat your skull in."
The fox made a sighing noise and said, "There is no need for that, we are a mostly peaceful species. If you would just lay down your weapons, we promise not to fire on you, on my honor as an officer. While your presence on this planet is surprising, we wish to welcome you warmly to it. However, since you came armed, we must assume hostile intent and hence our presence here. So I restate it, lay down your weapons."
They were all extremely wary of these beings, especially considering that they had had no known contact with this species, yet they already knew of humanity. And for some reason, at least to Leroy, they seemed familiar. He thought about it for a few moments, trying to place where he had seen beings like this before. Then it hit him.
He was something of a history buff when it came to ancient entertainment systems and he remembered a specific game from one of those systems. Pokémon was its name. He knew of nearly 950 different types of Pokémon from his studies of the game, one of the more popular ones of its day. He thought that the beings in front of him were Pokémon, as strange as that notion was. He stepped forward with his gun lowered, although ready, and asked, "You beings. You are known as Pokémon, right? You're a Zoroark, a shiny Zoroark at that if my memory serves me correctly on your species name and coloration."
Several of the Marines were in awe at him, and asked, "You know what these things are?!" They all asked.
"I think so," Leroy said.
The Zoroark, if that was what they were, were equally astonished, and the one who had spoken asked, "You know of us?"
"Yes, I do. Zoroark, the Illusion Fox Pokémon, capable of generating illusions so real that the victims mind is fooled into incorporating sensory cues, including pain. You typically do not do this unless someone is threatening your young or packmates, in which case you fight extremely fiercely. Said to be incredibly intelligent and extremely strong, and I guess the fact that you apparently have us outgunned proves the intelligence."
Vulpes was stunned that there was a human that knew of them. She knew of the attempt to educate humans of their kind, but that had not gone well and had been abandoned centuries ago. The fact that there was a human here who not only knew they existed, but was able to quote specific facts about them was stunning. Apparently, the experiment was a success after all.
Eventually, her Captain spoke up, and said, "You are wise, human, to be able to remember details from when we tried to educate your kind of us. However, we left out one detail. We are not mere subordinates to your kind, we were your progenitors, as we were to the Precursors, to the Forerunners, and to the San'Shyuum, the Sanghelli, the Jiralhanae, the Huragok, the Mgalekgolo, the Yanmae'e, the Kig-Yar, and the Unggoy."
This caused quite a stir amongst all of the Marines. She heard them say, "These creatures were the predecessors of the Forerunners, Humanity, AND the Covenant?"
Vulpes' Captain then said, "We really don't want this to end in bloodshed. Please lower your weapons and come with us. We assure you of decent treatment, according to the standards set down by the Geneva conventions. In fact, we would treat you not as enemies to be contained, but as guests in our house to be accommodated as best as possible. If you would just come along peaceably, then we could do this."
Leroy decided to take a chance, and he laid down his rifle. Slowly, but surely the others did as well, and he explained, "I believe they're telling the truth. If they had wanted us dead, they could have done it with a lot less effort than they expended trying to get us to surrender. Worse, they could have simply used those illusion powers I mentioned to make us tire ourselves and then take us prisoner easily."
As they marched on with the Zoroark by their sides, he noticed one of them looking at him. He was wondering what that was all about, and he asked, "Uh, why are you staring at me?"
The Zoroark looked him in the eyes and replied in a feminine voice, "You must be a scholar in our kind to understand anything about us. I apologize for the welcoming committee, but we had to know if you humans were going to handle this in a rational manner. Your kind were always known for their tenacity and stubbornness, so we were not certain how you would react to our presence. My name is Vulpes, by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you," while she extended her paw in a gesture apparently meant to be a handshake.
Leroy hesitated, because he was still slightly terrified, but eventually he took her paw and shook it. "Thanks for the compliment, but I'm no scholar, just a Marine with too much time on his hands on leave and a burning need to alleviate it with no chance of actually picking up a girl that would put me out of action. It's good to know that at least some gestures are universal," he said, "to be perfectly honest, none of my people thought you were real. That you were all just figments of a Japanese man's imagination writ large."
She seemed to be confused a little, and then brightened, "Oh yeah, Japanese is one of the names you came up with to describe subsets of yourself. I, like you was a being with too much time on her paws, so I pored over all of the information we had on your kind. That is where I knew of the handshake. Still, you have so many different cultures and subcultures, all with their own ideas and values. It's sometimes hard to remember them all."
Leroy smiled a bit at that, and said, "It's sometimes difficult for us as well."
They continued to chat politely enough as they went along their way, and had made good friends with each other by the time that they made it to the edge of the forest. There they found the other nine squads all kept in a circle. They were told to join them in the circle, and did as they were ordered to. Vulpes was still near Leroy, so he asked her what was going on.
"Your ship has been calling you for the last half hour, and is starting to get worried about you not calling in. While they would be justifiably suspicious of us if we were to call, they would at the least be willing to listen if you were to call them. Therefore, we would like you to call them down. We truly do not mean your people any harm. I can tell you this because we have already talked with our leaders, and they said to let your ship down to the planet on the condition that you do not brandish your weapons against our peoples."
Leroy shrugged, and said, "I would prefer a peaceful solution as well. I'd like there to be at least one group of living beings who didn't hate our guts."
He could see one of the Lieutenants making the call at that moment. He could faintly hear the response on the radio, and it seemed encouraging enough, that at least their own side was not going to fire on these beings. A few hours later, Leroy saw the Death of Tyranny start to land on the planet, and as it did, he was aware of how historic a moment he was participating in.
He had been among the first humans to come into contact with an intelligent alien species that wasn't hell bent on slaughtering them all. This was an interesting day for him, and it had all started with a Covenant attack. He was uncertain if he should say anything about that to Vulpes though. He would wait until the Captain of the Death to Tyranny arrived.
The ship had finally reached its hold point, and shortly thereafter, he saw Captain Barrett coming towards the group after landing in Pelicans, although he came with an entire company of Marines, clearly expecting trouble. He glared at the Zoroark who all kept their weapons at the ready.
AN. Did anyone catch the references so far? And as always, please read and review.