Hello everyone! Firstly thank you for the kind and helpful reviews, being my first fanfic I hope I'm not ballsing it up too much.
This chapter has our protagonists learning a bit more about each other before the night is through and bit of that playful banter.
Alright, that's all
Cheers.

They both walked in silence, Archer because he was tired and Laetana because she wanted to keep an ear out for signs of an ambush. They both had decided to skirt to the grassy outskirts of the road and derelict buildings for there was a distinctive lack of rubble. After what seemed a couple of hours Archer broke the silence,

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you?" Laetana looked up with confusion. "Um…a Turian?"

"No I mea- shit that came out weird. I meant your style of fighting. I've been on a few training exercises with you guys so I know you have you're soldiers, engineers even a few biotics. But you, I've never really seen you're fighting style before."

"I'm a Cabal".

He waited for her to continue. When it was clear she wasn't he pressed more.

"Yeah…see I have no idea what a Cabal is. You're gonna have to explain that to the human".

She gave her eyes a small roll before explaining "I'm a biotic, mostly, but I also have soldiering experience. What's those soldiers your Alliance uses? Vangods?"

"Vanguards".

"Well think of me like a Vanguard, I know the basic biotics warp, pull, but I also charge in. Except I don't stop when I hit an enemy, I go right through them."

Archer slowed his walking "wait as in figuratively or you literally go through them?"

"Literally"

"Right…ok. And that damages them?"

Laetana lifts up one hand showing her blade laden gauntlet. "It does when I sweep these through the body. Add some poison and most enemies are either paralysed or have bleed out. Quick and clean." She lowered her arm and stared up towards the sky. "There isn't many of us. The training usually weeds out the weakest and not everyone can be trained to use deathly poisonous blades correctly. You'd be surprised on how many accidently almost kill themselves."

"Bugger me. I'm glad you're my side then".

"What?"

"I said I'm glad you're on my side".

'No I heard that. What was that phrase you said before?"

"Bugger me. It's a way of expressing surprise"

It was Laetana's turn to slow down and she gave Archer a strange look. "I've met a lot of humans and I have never heard that phrase." The look she was giving deepened. "Nor have I ever heard your accent before, it's rather strange"

Archer gave a chuckle, "believe me the amount of times I've heard that sentence, even from other humans. I'm from a country called New Zealand. All New Zealanders have these funny accents, not being very many in the Alliance we're often not heard from other species".

"Is a country a type of city? Settlement?"

"What? Nah nah, a country… have you ever seen earth?"

"Pictures on the extranet."

"Well you know how there's specific land masses surrounded by water? Each of those is called a country. Each country has its own beliefs, government, fauna (he points to his mask) and accents."

Laetana was ready to ask more questions before she became deathly still, hers eyes quickly scanning the hills and trees near their right. Noticing her sudden stop and tensing Archer upholstered his handgun and silently readied his omni-tool to spring up his shield.

"Contact?" He whispered.

Laetana raised her hand for silence, her face plastered with concentration. "Something over those hills" Nodding her head the direction. Without warning the telltale rasp/shriek was emitted and a pack of Husks sprinted over the hill, there had to at least be 15.

"SHIT" yelled Archer as he sprang up his shield and unloaded his Carnifex into the nearest Husk, its head breaking apart.

Laetana unsheathed her deadly looking blades and charged into the pack, as she said she passed through three of them, swiping the weapons as the moved. The Husks struck were split open collapsing to the ground while others caught in the devastating attack were left weakened and poisoned.

Archer aimed at another of the monstrosities before he realised he'd just used his last thermal clip, his gun now useless he threw it aside and planted his massive boot into a charging Husk, thumping it to the ground before ramming the end of his shield into its face, cracking into its skull and wrenching it free. He quickly set his Omni-shield to snap-freeze and thundered into a clustered group barrelling them aside. Those who had made direct contact began to slow and freeze over before being smashed apart by his armoured gauntlet. He felt a husk jump onto his back and begin to claw at his helmet, he grabbed the thing by an arm and leg before launching himself upwards and slamming down onto his back. After rolling over the stunned Husk he began to mercilessly unload his fists into its face driving it inwards until there was a resounding crunch. He jumped up for more before realising the pack was destroyed with only a few writhing on the ground still being affected by the lethal poison. While Archer was about as quiet as a charging Water Buffalo, Laetana had barely made a sound in her killing, however was just as effective as Archer noticed there were more sliced and split bodies to his crushed ones.

With his adrenaline now gone he was hit once more with a wave of tiredness that almost drove him to kneel. Laetana appeared next to him, presenting his gun that he'd tossed aside.

"You alright?"

He took the gun and struggled to stand, "yeah, just tired. It's been a while since I've slept."

She looked down at her own smaller omni-tool realising it was heading into the evening, she herself was beginning to feel the creeping presence of fatigue.

She lightly punched him in the shoulder. "We'll walk for another half an hour in case there's more Reaper troops and hole up in a building for the night. Can't have you falling asleep on me."

"Grown fond of me have you?" He said it with humour in his voice.

"You're certainly helpful in a fight but there's no way I'd be able to carry your big ass should you collapse on me"

"You wound me madam".'

She gave a small laugh before tossing him thermal clip and striding forward, leaving Archer to jog after her.

Like she promised after walking for a good half hour they stopped and found a second story building, most windows were intact and Archer could easily open and lock the doors with his omni-tool. They searched the kitchen and lower floors for supplies before heading upstairs to what they assumed was the upstairs lounge. Luckily the inhabitants were not home and Archer hoped that they had made it somewhere safe. He locked the door behind them and collapsing onto a couch. After fighting for so long and having more near death experiences than he'd ever want in a lifetime he finally began to relax and could help giving a small chuckle.

"What?" Ask Laetana as she too had found a couch to collapse onto.

"This is the first time in a while that I've been able to just…sit. Relax. It feels damn good."

"Well get all the sleep you can" she said with a smile, or at least a Turian version of a smile, "cause we're going to be up early tomorrow."

He gave a large sigh, causing her the laugh slightly before removing his helmet. Laetana realised she has had no idea what this human looks like and tried to not seem too eager to see his face. With the last strap removed Archer pulled off his helmet before setting it down, he looked up at Laetana who was unsuccessfully trying to hide her curiosity, her eyes doing tiny movements, taking in her features.

Her first though was "not bad for a human" before she moved to his facial features, he seemed to have a short dark brown beard followed by moderately thick eyebrows. His face was proportionate and his nose was slightly bent to the right (perhaps an injury?) she kept soaking him in before her eyes were drawn to his. While hers were a soft, mellow green his was a beautiful piercing blue and they seemed to bore right through her. She quickly adverted her gaze and began finding her pack the most interesting thing in the world.

"I can't be that bad looking am I?"

She looked up again to see him giving a wide smile, showing his teeth.

"You're certainly not the worst human I've seen"

"Then I will take that as a compliment. You're certainly not the worst Turian I've seen. Mind you all I've really met are the males, and they aren't exactly the prettiest things in the galaxy."

It was a light-hearted jest and Laetana took it as such, chuckling while also self-consciously blushing.
"Well it's better than looking like a shaved, giant Pyjack. Except I'm pretty sure Pyjacks have smaller ears."

Archer gave her his famous smile "ok I'll admit that's pretty good. Actually that reminds me of this story about when I was in basic training and we got a Pyjack drunk…."

While Archer told his story Laetana couldn't help be fixed on his face, she'd never had a problem with interspecies relationships although never done it herself, but this human…She shook her head, banishing the thought, all that is important to her now is finding Serbius and getting off this planet. "Spirits please keep him safe" she thought to herself.