"Human your going the wrong direction, 12.6 degrees out precisely." The droid waved its arms in computed frustration. Kath gave the walking computer a stern look, "Red, I didn't ask you to follow me. Anyway I'm sure this is the right foot path to the log cabin". "Well I had nothing better to do" retorted the droid. "Anyway the retired weaponsmith is close by now I'm sure of it." sighing Kath carried on, "typical he lives in the middle of nowhere, hes damn antisocial." Clearing the forested path he rapidly froze mid-step, approximately twenty metres in front of him lay a raggedly wrapped person who looked like they hadn't seen a warm bed for many years. Frantically waving at Red, Kath whispered "Who the hell is that?".

The boy slowly lifted his head as he closely listened, the eerie silence dawned upon the area. He slowly turns his head behind as he propped himself upright, his heart began to race and eyes widened as his vision locked onto the man and his droid. Frozen in place, he anxiously grinned and slightly nodded "Skator...oh".

Now engaged in eye contact with the figure Kath wandered over sensing little danger, "taking a nap are we then?" chuckling to himself. The droid stayed in the background looking attentively towards the sky. Kath continued with more of a frown now, "you're quite a way out from any large settlements, break a leg out here or run out of food and you will be dead you know."

The droid began to rattle, "Human close your garbage hole and listen". Deep growls began to permeate through the countryside, sounds similar to those of in-atmosphere star ships. "I am picking up encrypted radio chatter hidden across multiple frequency bands, seems to be evading UNSC detection". The droid cocked its metallic matt-black head towards the mysterious figure, "it appears this child has been put on a bounty hunter list by the local farmers. And when I say bounty hunters, I mean thieves and bandits. Typical".

'Peace and quiet, what a joke' Kath thought, laughing at the idea of even thinking he would be lucky enough to have some. Turning towards the mysterious figure Kath sighed, "you going to explain what this is about? It seems we are now caught in this mess".

The deep jet-like sounds of the star ships began creeping closer.

Xumarz tried to peacefully bark back, but quickly was interrupted by a land cruiser hovering over the trees. Looking up, he winched towards the dark rusted vehicle, holding his wrapped hand over his eyes, quickly looking back at Kath, returning a shrug with a face of disapproval. He lifts the cloth over his head as the 4-steated aircraft slowly makes an entrance of the clearing of trees, a broad silhouette pulls a modified plasma rifle out from the passenger side of the vehicle, aiming it towards the boy. The man ends up looking more fierce than he sounds, "You the kid whos been makin trouble?" as he yells from atop. "I didn't even do anything..." muttering to himself. "Not the type to talk back? Yer sure ugly, so its probably best you don't, so lets make this quick boy, I got other things important." Giving an amused smirk to his partner. Arau stares back at Kath, shaking his head, turning his back towards everyone trailing off.

'Did he just bark at me?' The thought quickly left Kath's head as the craft hovered over the clearing. Looking back towards the barking-boy he could not quite believe it, he was just walking off like it was nothing. "Urgh...".

Kath's aura changed back to his military training, whirling the Arc rifle from around his back he peered down the sights at the crafts engines. The Arc rifle shot completely disintegrated the left thruster of the aircraft causing it to spiral down into the clearing at an alarming rate. "Bugger". Kath jumped out of the way of the spinning death trap.

The craft now half buried into the soil had four, very angry, and very confused bandits dismounting from it. One of them perked up, the amused smirk now wiped from his face, "Whaa-t in gods na'm was that?". They quickly took cover behind the crafts hull and began shooting in Xumarzs and Kaths direction.

Kath now lying behind a dirt bank shouted, "Oi barking-boy take cover!" as plasma shots kicked up the dirt around them.

As the dirt kicked up the boy dropped quickly to the ground "Barking boy?" he exclaimed "I-I didn't even get to finish my sentence!" Picking up a rock with his right arm, he tossed and aimed for the shooting aggressor, almost missing, the rock clocked him right in the head only making him more angry. Xumarz, chuckled to himself as Kath stared back not amused. Fire continued again as the bandit finished reloading even more pissed.

The other three thugs pulled out modified guns adding onto the fire, Arau frowned as he threw his hand up making a dark but see through shield, big enough for Kath to crawl over towards the boy. Bullets bounced off the wall as Xumarz shouted “Are you waiting for an invite old man? Common!”

One of the back up thugs pulls out a scattershot towards Kath and Xumarz, hitting the boy in the shoulder. "Gah, please hurry up!" as the shield begins to fade away. The shot-gunner cracks up in succession of hitting the boy. "Ay! Tony, I managed to get a shot on the kid!" as he pumps the gun for another shot. "I'm not enjoying all this attention i'm receiving these last few days..." the 'barking-boy' says under his breath.

"Ah great... You're a magic user as well." Kath had a deep distrust of magic users, reluctantly he rolled under the dark shield that reverberated sharply in the air and began his commando crawl towards Xumarz. The scattershot went off with a loud crack, Kath hissed looking up to see the barking-boy, who was now adjacent to him, caught in the shoulder by a ball-bearing round but still focused on the magic. 'Hes pretty darn resilient' Kath thought, the dark shield flicked but stayed cutting the air in front. 

"There is no god damn way we can out flank them, we are literally pinned down" as he said this, Kath ducked intermittently with the plasma shots. Now moving the Arc rifle into a prone stance he aimed the barrel at the scattershot wielding bandit just as he pumped the contraption for another shot. Kath didn't know whether another lucky ball-bearing from the scatter would get through the shield and this time, at worst kill the kid. Kath took the shot.

"Arr-gg" came the bandit voice, the Arc shot ripped through his chest between the joints in the half-plate armour. "You bastard!" came another ruffled voice from behind the downed aircraft hull. The lone plasma shots became a barrage as one of the bandits, quite possibly 'Tony', began spraying his modified plasma rifle in Xumarz and Kaths direction.

Looking over to Xumarz, Kath jovially winked "One down, three more to go!".

It hadn't been long since Valek had gotten off of the shuttle, he'd not had much say in where exactly he'd been going as he'd just taken the first shuttle from home that he could, he'd not even taken the time to look where the shuttle was headed and so that was how he'd ended up on this rather boring and simple farming world. For a man of his skill it was quite backwater, but still farming worlds usually had an abundance of organisms on which he could practice his arts.

It was almost like a gift when a ship came flying overhead, just to see something more technologically advanced than the odd rifle pointed at him if he went to close to a field. It was surprising even when moments later the ship came crashing to the ground after being hit with a projectile of some sort, Valek broke into a jog towards the wreckage. If a ship had gone down there might be corpses, an abundant source of blood and biomass for his work.

When he got close to the wreck however it wasn't difficult to figure out that they weren't dead, they seemed to be in some sort of firefight, although he couldn't make out their opponents as they were lying behind a dirt bank. As he arrived one of them went down, Valek dropped back a few paces and lay down in a ditch, swiping one arm out and manipulating the life-blood of the dead bandit from his hidden spot, spreading the blood in a thin layer across the ground nearby. He was hoping for a stalemate, they'd all kill each other or only one would be left that he could easily finish off himself,  that would give him the optimal harvest. If that wasn't possible he'd ally himself with whatever side would provide the least matter and assist them so that he could gain as much as possible.

Xumarz rolled his eyes at Kath's response and the shield began to deteriorate in the air, droping his arms, he sits up behind the near by tree with Kath.

 "Great shot... What's it look like out there now?" Ripping a piece of cloth from his cloak, he quickly tries to wrap it around his arm.

  "C-can, you help me with this first?" As he stutters holding his shoulder close. "Now I gotta get myself some more rags." As he chuckles to enlighten the mood.

Chuckling that the barking-boy wanted more rags Kath responded "Eh... well... 2:3 ratio of us versus them, not sure where that bloody droid wandered off to though." Kath carried on wrapping Xumarz's shoulder wound, it was quite a deep one. "You're not human are you barking-boy? Your skin colour and markings give it away". 

After yanking Xumarz's bandage knot tight Kath pick up the Arc rifle and began suppressing fire. Another figure appeared through the scope lying in a ditch on the opposite side of the wreck. 'Doesn't look like a bounty hunter' he thought, 'innocent bystander, or maybe someone came to help?'. Kath gave the figure a thumbs up hand signal, which in turn caused one of the bandits to wave back in a confused manner. 

Kath tilted his head towards Xumarz, "We need to go on the offensive, otherwise we're just sitting ducks. You ready?".

Panic raced through the young boy's head knowing if they both went out there, their bodies would be torn apart by the bullets alone.  "Ready?" surprised from his response, "You do realize we will both be killed if we go out there?" Peaking from the other side of the tree trunk, he quickly looks back at Kath watching the man prepare himself for his grave.

In one swift move, Bear pushes Kath onto the ground, throwing his arms up and outstretched them towards the bandits, successfully engulfing their heads in a black mist, the two men behind their leader began to panic and their shooting stopped, the cries of fear began to turn into gasps of air.

The mist started turning into a solid field around the men's heads, cutting off their air. The leader turned around as he watched his men suffocate right in front of him, as Xumarz dropped to his knees winching in pain, holding it long enough for the men to die.

"Boys!? Knock off the act!" as the bandit leader's utter rage turned into panic, watching his companions slowly die before his eyes. Their struggle began to cease, as Xu watched the bodies fall limp onto the ground. "Are they dead?" he thought to himself, as he dropped his hands to his side exhausted.

"You killed them!" As Tony shouted loudly, "How did you do it ya ugly bastard?" loading his gun, he aims it towards Xumarz. The boy stared forward at the rifle pointed towards him, he makes a couple moves scooting away, but was just to tired. "Lundur..." as he mumbled under his breath

Like lighting arcing through the clouded sky, the plasma shot tore from the Bandit leaders rifle directly towards Xumarz. 

"Lundur.."

Pouncing from where he was pushed, Kath reached out with his left arm knocking Xumarz out of the rifles aims. Kath's arm vaporised giving way to the intense heat of the plasma, all that was left was part of the humerus connecting to the shoulder. From where the shot was directed from now floated the remains of the Bandit leader's head which slowly connected to a long metallic arm that belonged to Red, the droid.

"Arg shit balls" Kath was flailing on the ground from the pain. "Where the fuck is my arm?", now panicking in the realisation of what he had just sacrificed. He looked over the Xumarz, "Where is my arm?" said now in more of a shocked tone, blood began to pool around. Kath's eyes rolled towards the back of his head followed by quietly passing out.

The droid now moving at a brisk pace towards Xumarz and Kath holding the once Bandit leaders belt. Red knelt on its pneumatic knee joints whilst forming a tourniquet around the arm stump. The wounds were more serious them the droid predicted, the shoulder joint would have to be replaced. Now looking over towards the Xumarz the droid rattled, "Do not worry child, he will survive."

Everything happened so quick for Xumarz to even process what was going on, as he took a deep breath everything started coming back to him, noticing a deep wound in his shoulder he weakly stands up holding it. Turning his eyes towards Kath he sees the man who realized that he protected the boy from the shot. Kath's words became evident in Arau's head realizing he was in shock as he passed out, the orc's heart quickly sunk as he watched Kath pass out and his droid started wrapping his shoulder tightly as more blood poured out. "T-thats only going to go so far..." "What else would you like me to do?" the droid rebutted back. At an instant Xumarz pulled off the rest of his tattered cloak quickly wrapping it around the open wound to help with the bleeding.

"We have medical supplies, I may need your help." as the droid looked over to the boy. "Gah? What? I can't do that!" holding his shoulder from the shot wound and winced from the sun hitting him. "He risked his life for yours, so the best you can do is take him to our ship." Xumarz sighs as he looks at the droid. "Kath isn't getting any better, does it look like I can honestly pick him up?" Xumarz growled "I understand! Hold on..." Bending his knees Xumarz wraps his arms around the wounded man, partially throwing him over his back to shield him from the sun. "Argh, w-wheres your 'ship'?" he grunted at the droid.

"Just over here." the bot replied, showing the teen to the ship's medic bed, throwing Kath's body onto the bed. "Medical supplies?!" Xumarz paniced, "I know nothing about this junk..." as Red brought them closely to the orc "Calm down. I will walk you through the steps approximately. Uncover the wound." Xumarz did so, "Now apply this gel to the wound, it will clean it." "--Like touch it?" "Yes touch it! We aren't a hospital, we don't have the required equipment for a fast recovery until we get him to one." as Red watched Xumarz hesitate he cuts in once more "Wash your hands. Hurry his vitals are dropping. If you want him alive, hurry and apply the gel." "Alright! One thing at a time!" as Xumarz opens the wound he slaps the clear blue gel over Kath's open arm wound in disgust.

"Alright creature, I can take it from here." as the droid buts in "I thought you needed my help?" "I actually don't, it was pay back for Kath saving you, we actually have a spray canister to apply to the wound." the robot chuckles to himself "Just observe, I'll help with you after we're finished with him." Xumarz glares back at Red in anger, then sighs again knowing more conflict isn't worth it. He was just to tired to deal with him.

The droid finished applying the medical spray around Xumarz's shoulder wound, "This will require hospital treatment youngling." If droids could sigh Red would of. "I will begin the engine startup sequence, you must rest now." Red made its way over to the cargo-junkers rectangular cockpit and began flicking switch boards. The ship sprung to life with a low rumble, leaning back the droid rattled "we must leave fast,I have intercepted transmissions of a UNSC patrol purposefully heading our way." 


At the rear of the ship Kath eyes slowly creeped open trying to focus on the hazy ceiling of the junker. "Eh, kid you alright?" the words slid heavily from his mouth. Trying to prop himself up and failing miserably he continued mustering the words, "My name is Kath and the bag of bolts is Red, w-what's ya name kiddo?". Kath began to slip back into unconsciousness. 


From the front of the ship rattled Red, "Your not going to like this but as you two are wanted ladies we're going to have to get you numbskulls seen too by the backstreet doctors of Reach. Any public hospital will trigger the UNSC and worse, bounty hunters." The ship began to lift from the ground. The atmo-thrusters fired with a thunderous roar propelling the ship into the stratosphere, flames started licking the cockpit glass. The vibrations ceased and artificial gravity kicked-in imitating that of Earths 1g. The ship began to broad cast a fake ID code and thus entered the blue-haze of FTL under the nose of Earths UNSC fleet.