War Chieftain Gongrukus braced against the helm of the Phantom as tore from the realm of slipspace into physical realm once more, the entire ship shuttering under the strained pressure. He snarled under his breath as he stared ahead of him as the ship visualized the outside area, it was barren, sand ridden plains laid ahead for miles covered with patches of red dirt. He supposed he should be thankful that they miraculously landed upon some sort of terrestrial world without inputting a destination solution, but his mind was too filled with rage to focus on any of that. The whole situation that led them here was a pathetic tale, fistShipmaster Roj'Kaskan Vazamee had ordered them to retreat from the human assault as those filthy heretics had managed to inflict a grievous amount of damage on their fleet. Then as their ship Breath of the Gods had entered slipspace, it seemed the damage had been too much, over-straining the ship causing it to break apart in the middle of the jump. It'd only been by the miraculous will of the Prophets that him and his crew had managed to board a Phantom just as the ship split in half, no thanks to the miserable leadership of the Sangheili. They would get their due soon enough, he could feel that truth deep in his bones and he yearned for the day he could see their pitiable race put in their place.

Shaking his mind of his thoughts he reigned in his anger, the Phantom was inevitably going to crash, the thrusters were fried and once that happened he'd have to find out where in the damned universe they were and if they could get in-touch with the rest of the fleet. Much as he despised to contact his loathsome shipmaster, they'd achieve nothing of notability trapped on this barren planet. As the ship nose-dived sharply into the ground, he could hear the lamentable squealing of the Unggoy and Kig-Yar as they were tossed around the ship's hull like toys. Another snarl escaped his lips, it annoyed him to no end that such wasteful creatures had managed to escape the ship with him and his brethren. They had their uses in the Covenant as the Prophets saw fit, but to personally be with him in this ship had grated on his nerves to no end. As the ship rocked to a halt, he took a deep breath before turning to survey the damage of the ship and its crew. Walking into the troop-bay he saw two of his brothers standing straight, as if unfazed by the recent commotion, meanwhile the other two species were splayed out pitifully on the ground, luckily only a handful of Unggoy and Kig-Yar had made it aboard his phantom.

"Ooooh were doomed! DOOOOOMED!" An Unggoy squealed, he thought to crush the runt's head himself, but his brother acted first, picking it up by his tiny skull before crushing it between his massive hand. Sending blueish blood splattering over the interior of the ship.

"Silence weaklings, the War Chieftain has no time for your cowardly acts."

Gongrukus gave a feral smile to his brother, this is why they would surpass the Sangheili, their loyalty to each other knew no bounds. "Listen up, we've lost contact with the main fleet though I'm not sure if it's because of damaged equipment or we're out of range. You three, "he pointed to the trio Unggoy groggily standing up from the floor, "Check the equipment, I want it working by the beginning of this sun's fall. They squeaked an affirmative.

"War Chieftain, I spotted a small cluster of primitive buildings a way off as we crashed, we should look into it. Their may be a way to contact the fleet…or fresh meat."

Gongrukus nodded in agreement, "Take two Unggoy and Kig-Yar to the cluster, see if theres anything useful." He turned to the others, "The rest of you, form a perimeter and get to work on the ship, the less time we spend on this revolting planet the better."

Dadaab Relief Camp, Kenya, Africa

The next few days passed similar to the first, a lot of intervene work, a lot of tense encounters, and no amicable progress on either side. Though Adrian couldn't blame them, their lives were hard enough and as if God had decided to make so cruel joke as to make life even more miserable Kenya had been experiencing a severe drought for the past week. Rations were even more sought after sought after because the droughts meant that the little bit of local agriculture in the camp was slowly dying to the long cruel fate of dehydration. Adrian and Vickers had both agreed that it would be prudent to step up their presence if they stayed here much longer, those living in the camp were tolerable of Overwatch's presence so long as they were seen as a benefit. However with the add on a drought and failing crops to a group of already people beaten down, well sooner or later some of them might decide to take matters into their own hands and claim the supplies for their own use. Angela had been torn, Adrian knew she wasn't so naïve as to believe that everything was peachy, he knew that a more aggressive stance would be the exact opposite of what she wanted to establish here.

Under the blistering sun Adrian sat on the edge of his cot dressed in simple combat pants and a white sleeveless tee embroidered with he Overwatch symbol. In his hand rest his TACPAD, a handful of wires running out of it and into his ODST laying next to him on the cot. It's the sand…all the god damn sand…he thought to himself bitterly. His suits climate control system had been sporadic the previous day, making the end of his patrol absolutely miserable in the Kenyan heat. Upon closer inspection when he'd returned to camp he'd found bits of sand within the wiring, a miracle in and off itself considering ODST suits were airtight, rated for trips out in the void of space. But that wasn't the problem; the problem was of course fixing his suit so he won't boil alive in his armor if he was sent out to patrol the very edge of camp. Grabbing the pack of cigarettes to his side, he flipped upon the cartoon only to see a handful left, it seemed he'd blown through them faster than he'd hoped. 'No we'll save them for later' he told himself as he lit a cigarette regardless, refocusing his efforts on the TACPAD in his hands.

After a few more minutes of meddling he heard the faint whir of electricity running through his armor, he shook his fist in quiet success as a grin spread across his face. With silent relief he began to strip from the Overwatch gear and into his climate-controlled armor, halfway through this process the unmistakable sound of footsteps caught his attention. Looking up he spotted Doctor Ziegler waling towards him with a tablet in hand, a frown across her face that morphed into one of wry amusement as she caught sight of him.

"Am I interrupting something personal? There's got to be a better place for this sort of thing." She teased.

"Ah well you know, when the feeling hits it hits." He shrugged with a mirthful expression, "SO what brings you to the outskirts of this fine camp Doc?"

"Well originally I had hoped you'd be willing to lend a hand to fix this dumm piece of technology, but it seems you've got your hands full." She vaguely gestured as he removed the sleeveless tee, his scarred body displayed for the world to see.

"I bet its sand…damn bits have gotten everywhere." He mumbled to himself.

She silently stared on, looking over his scars once more though now with a medical curiosity rather than an empathetic horror. The wounds were insufferably cruel but also deeply fascinating to one with her background.

"I'm curious if you don't mind…that wound on your left bicep. It doesn't look like any typical scar caused by a weapon, alien or not. More like-"

"An animal? You'd be right, that's unrelated to the Covenant that it did happen out on a mission."

"Sounds like there's a story to be told." Angela said as she sat on the edge of his coy, leaving no room for discussion.

Pulling on the rest of his under suit, his mind thought back to the incident, "Lemme see…would've been four years ago or there about. Everything's been such a blur in the war it gets hard to keep track of the passage of time. Anyway I can't remember why we were there, something about a supply line maybe? Though what hasn't faded from my mind was the scenery, there was this constant haze in the upper atmosphere of the planet so it always lent the sky this pinkish-red hue but that's doing it a disservice, I've yet to see anything quite like it. The plants were this vivid rainbow array of life, and when most of my time in the service was spent in a variety of foxholes on some barren shithole it was like…finding a needle I the haystack."

Adrian lazily zipped up the from of his under suit as his mind drifted fully to the memory. "Despite that stunning beauty the animals were some of the meanest fuckers I ever met, don't think I met a single peaceful one while I was there. Even the small furry ones had teeth like a meat grinder. Getting back to the original point of this story, we'd been there about three days trekking through some jungle when we we're taking five by this strange looking creek, wasn't water but some sickly white liquid. I popped off for a quick nap when the radar starts going crazy, this entire pack of wolf sized creatures with these freakishly long jaws, pass right by us like we're not there. Once they pass, we think we're in the clear but then a few stranglers that got left behind stumble right into our camp, they're obviously spooked at some intruders, so they go wild. I swear it was like a snap of the fingers and all of a sudden, they're charging like lightning bolts, blink of an eye and he was right in front of me.

"I raise my arm out of instinct as it's jaws clamp down on the titanium plate, it can't even leave a scratch but these things were bigger than Gracchus wolves-" He looked to see an amused albeit clearly unsure expression on her face. "Proklinat, uhh just imagine like…really big wolves that weighs a bit over two-hundred pounds. So even though his teeth can't pierce the armor you've still got weighty alien creature comin' at you at top speed. So it knocks me to the ground but I've got it's neck in a firm lock between my arms but these fuckers are feisty like you wouldn't believe. My teammates are busy trying to deal with the others, so I'm left wrestling this big mutant dog, putting two and two together it's not hard to see where this story goes. Ends up biting through a weak point in my armor where the titanium didn't cover, it had these wicked spiked teeth which was a double-edged sword. On one hand it made patching up the wound a real pain, but on the flip side it'd couldn't its jaw back out from the nano-mesh under suit of my gear. We're still wresting on the ground except now it's panicking because it can't free it's mouth, so using it's trapped jaw I twist my left arm as hard as I could until I heard it's neck crack." He said nonchalantly as he focused back on his armor.

"That was quite the story! Though I'll admit I was quite taken with the description of the planet more than the action." She said as she thought back to the vividly beautiful description Adrian had given.

"Yeah it was something, seen a lot of interesting planets in my travel, from absolute wastelands to unimaginable mountaintops, but none ever quite seemed to top that planet. For the life of me I can't remember what it was called, but it'd be nice to see it again…" His voice trailed off before he shook his head. "Anyway Doc, let's see that tablet of yours."

Angela handed it off to Adrian, as he began to fiddle with it her mind wandered to the current situation. It'd gone surprisingly well since the reinforcements came, they hadn't had any more cases of theft or issues with distribution, it seemed the added presence was enough of a deterrent for any would-be thieves or troublemakers. Adrian had also handled the assignment well she hummed to herself, she'd expressed reservations simply because of his background but he'd done remarkably well, it probably also helped that there had been no major conflicts, but she digressed. Her thoughts were interrupted at the sound of Adrian's voice as he handed the tablet back.

"Plans for today Doc?"

"Nothing different than usual, though I've thought about traveling deeper into the camp, we're on the outskirts and there might be many who can't travel the distance."

Adrian opened his mouth to respond before he could hear the comms from his helmet blasting, quickly snatching it up he donned his helmet.

"Kasporov here, what's all the chatter about?"

"Bok from the patrol team, we caught sight of…something just fucking appears in mid-air. No clue what it is, looks like its going to land outside the grid near Zeta 3-7." Depolarizing his faceplate, he shot Angela a look of confusion before the voice continued, "Weirdly enough it seems to be leaving a trail of some purple smoke? What the hell is this?"

Adrian's muscles tensed, "Say again, did you say purple smoke?"

"Affirmative, should that mean something?"

Ignoring the question as Adrian scanned the clear skies, he could vaguely see a smoke trail to the East. As his helmet's visual feed zoomed in his fear's became realized, he barely caught a glimpse before it disappeared from his view, but the sleek insectoid shape was burned into his mind. It was a phantom, a god damn phantom of all things had crashed here, it could be a small squad of Grunts or an entire war-party of Brutes, there was no telling what kind of hell that phantom could unleash.

Adrian opened a new comm line, "Vickers, get all your men back to the camp, ignore the patrols and stay the fuck away from the crash site."

"The hell's going on man? It's probably just some old junker satellite, maybe some failed Omnic tech."

"Just trust me, I'll fill you in alter but right now we need to fortify the position."

Silence filled the comms for a few seconds, "Alright…I'll bring them in but you better have a damn good explanation."

Turning he saw Angela had stood up, hard eyes looking at him, "What's happening Adrian? Is it…the Covenant?"

He nodded, "It's not just one this time…there's no telling how many there are this time but…the Covenant are on Earth."

He shifted his body with a groan, his body had been genetically enhanced a number of times but it didn't take away the toll of old age. If he'd had this power in his prime, then many things would be different but the past was set in stone, all he could do now was atone for the failures that flourished under him. His sharp red visor reflected the afternoon sun as he laid perched upon a cliff face outside of the relief camp, he hadn't planned on spend his time observing his former colleague but when he'd caught wind of the new member making an appearance well he couldn't resist. He'd tried and largely succeed to put his past behind him, but old habits died hard and he'd instead taken to being a vigilante. Not exactly what he imagined for himself in his later years but he needed justice, not just for himself…but for all of them…he didn't think he could ever fully be himself again. Rather it always seemed he was just a shell of who he used to be, he hadn't even heard his name in what felt like an eternity instead he went by the moniker of Solider 76, a fitting title he supposed but in his mind it only reflected his disconnect from the Old Overwatch.

Back to the topic at hand, he'd always kept an ear to the ground, had connections throughout the world, some more willing than others, but when you operate alone it's foolish to go into anything blind. When he'd heard of a commotion at Gibraltar he'd assumed to the worst, a Talon attack, betrayal, perhaps the final nail in Overwatch's coffin, instead what he heard was an increased Overwatch presence. Bolder than they'd been in years, obviously his interest in such a matter was piqued, but he'd had his own trails to follow so his interest had taken a backseat to his own work hunting an arms dealer only known as 'The Barbarian'. His next stop was going to be Russia when it seemed Overwatch had beat him to it, aligning themselves with a national power was a big step up from their largely covert operations. It was also the first time he'd really this new member, sprinklings of this mysterious character had permeated his channels, a man in the blackest armor that was brutally cold, as if he'd be a better fit for Talon than Overwatch.

Using some of his channels to the fullest, pressing his force where many didn't want it gave him some vital information, that Doctor Angela Ziegler would be helping in this relief camp. The more he could find out about this mysterious new character the better, especially if this 'brutal' figure had ties to Talon. After waiting for her arrival, he was disappointed to find her alone though not entirely unexpected; though after a cruel stroke of luck caused some medical crates to go missing reinforcements were brought in, most crucially was the dark-clad man.

Now here he was, waiting and observing until he heard a sound unlike anything he'd ever heard caught his attention. Looking around he saw a strange object shoot forth from some kind of portal, it was a dark purple with strange smoke billowing out, even without the faintest clue what it was he could tell it wasn't going to be airborne long. Scanning once more back to the camp, he could see the man in black frantically pacing, seemingly issuing orders…so it seemed the mysterious new comer knew the newest arrival. Everything was becoming much more complicated.

A/N: Well it's been quite some time since the last update hasn't it? Deep apologizes for that, it was a mix of procrastination and returning to University, I'd hoped to have put this out last week but what can you do. Though on the plus side, for me at least, I have a very clear idea of how I want these next few chapters to progress so the writing should be much smoother than usual.

Onto a more important topic, with my return to college I'm going to be busier with courses, essay, etc. so I would expect updates less frequently. Previously I've aimed at weekly updates though often times I'd get them out in a few days, though now with a new focus I would expect updates every week and a half to 2 weeks. Hopefully I can put them out sooner than that but it'll honestly just come down to my workload for that week.

That aside I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I always appreciate the support you show. Stay safe everyone.