yusnak clicks his com,
"there are multiple hostiles fireing on some humans garrisend in a building up head. Do you want to engauge for should I mark an alternate route?

Jak jumped across to the next roof. I'm glad these human like to live close together. He finally spotted the group of assassins firing on a group of humans. Jak heard Yusnak ask what to do. "Well while you figure that out," Jak responded "I'll try to give the humans some covering fire." He laid down again and took aim at a brute.

"Enough of this, we must take action!" Marius yelled as he bounded into the battle field, his carbine firing into the crowed of enemies, he took out a few grunts before diving behind a wall to reload, "Time to die!"

Jak looked up as Marius charge in. He shook his head and he repeated to himself as he had a million times "Now he knew why the humans had called them brutes." Looking through the scoop again, Jak fired and killed a couple of Brutes trying to sneak up on his raging comrade.

yusnak saw marious charge in.
"well we WERE ment to be a secret team," yusnak took aim and blew a brutes face off "to late now though".

Logan sprinted towards the central part of the city the moment he heard confirmation from Yusnak of hostiles already in the city. He slung his sniper rifle on his back and drew his pistol. He liked this pistol, much different from the modern standard issue, more like the pistol from earlier in this war. It had a lower rate of fire, higher calibur and power, and the ability to zoom in at 2X magnification. Great handgun.

Logan took the easy route, running down the street and sticking to the shadows with active camo engaged. He saw Marius lose control and start berserking. Thinking quickly, he shouted new orders over his COM.

"It's not too late to stay low! Those civilians won't be the least bit surprised to see a brute go nuts. If they see him accompanied by the rest of us, that's when they'll start asking awkward questions, so keep your cover, we're still black ops!"

That said, he poked his head aroud the corner of a building and starting pumping rounds into yet another jiralhanae, who, along with an entire squdron of them, had almost reached the capital building.

yusnak switches to his carbine to save ammo and pickes off some more of the enemy group.
"Jak im sure you can finishes the rest off," yusnak says has he activates his camo and flies towards the capital building "I will move in ahead to the capital building and protect the human leader."

Logara and Kopaka trembled with rage as they tried to pick a target. Marius was right in the middle of the assassin group, moving too much for the pair to risk taking a shot.
Just kill Marius along with them!
No! We can't, he's still part of our team.
How can we fight if we can't leave the shadows, when we can't take a shot into the fray?
We must wait. If he is killed here, fine. If not we will punish him ourselves later.

"Don't worry Yusnak, consider them on the 'Great Journey'." Jak said into his com as he fired and dropped another Brute. Jak checked his ammo. "Damn only two clips left." clicking a clip into the rifle, Jak looked through the scoop and saw that Marius and taken care of the rest in his rage. "Well that's convenient."

yusnak made his way to the capital building. As he reaches the steps he turns around to see how far away the group was He could still see jak, just, and could see logans service tag moving closer very quickly as marious finished off the last of the enemy group.
then yusnak noticed some movement in the window of a building. He turned and aimed looking for any hint of the enemy. there it was, 3 humans, one of them very small, they looked like civilans.
On their current heading they would run right into marius. thinking quickly yusnak fired a bust of 3 just ahead of them from his carbine

that should keep them hiden

as he turned away yusnak thought he saw the little one cry....

Almost completely invisible in his advanced active camoflage, Logan sprinted the distance from his cover to the capital building, and up the first flight of stpes. When he reached the first landing, he halted. He heard them up ahead, just around a corner, Marius was still giving them a hard time. He walked silently at a normal pace around the corner and up behind one of the brutes, currently engaged in fighting off the berserking Marius, and shot him in the back of the head.

Austin followed Logan at a slower pace, using the shadows to conceal himself. Finally reaching Logan and Marius, he nodded.

"Finally, some close-quarters fighting."

Seeing Austin run into the building, Kopaka ran after him while keeping to the shadows. Logara followed closely behind him, and they ran up the stairs to the building in three steps. Marius is still going. Kopaka thought as they went inside.

Just as the last of the hostiles were killed, some white blips showed up on Logan's motion tracker. Thinking fast, he clicked on his COM, a private link to Austin and the ODST's.

"We've got civilians."

One of the marines piped in.

"Crap, our cover's blown."

"No it's not. On my mark, turn around and start fighting our former Covenant allies."

Logan reengaged his active camo and backed away, if the civilians only saw one Spartan, they would be none the wiser to the fact that there were more than one. He whispered into his COM mic.

"Now."

All of a sudden, Austin and the marines attacked the former Covenant. After a second, they got over the shock of the unexpected attack and now UNSC forces were fighting hand to hand with a sangheili, a lekgolo pair, and two enraged jiralhanae. A split second later, with perfect timing, a group of men that were obviously part of Earth's governing body came into view, shocked and terrified at what they saw. Logan spoke over the private COM to one of the marines.

"Mark, scream at them to run!"

Catching on, Mark carried out his orders beautifully. He turned his head toward the group of politicians.

"Run! Go! We'll keep them here, GO!"

The men turned tail and ran for their lives. As soon as their white blips disappeared from his long-range motion tracker, Logan disengaged his active camoflage and stepped forward.

"Stop! Stop! That's enough. I said-" He punched Kopaka in his chestplate and felt it crack. The sound echoed over the shouting, everyone heard it. "STOP!"

The fighting stopped instantly. Rolm turned to him, furious.

"What is the meaning of this?!"

"Cover up, Rolm, that's the meaning of this! Had they seen us working together, we would have been screwed. What they saw instead was humans fighting Covenant."

"STOP!"

Austin looked up from where he was holding Jak by the neck.

"Ghhkrk!"

Austin looked back to Jak.

"Oh, right."

He placed the Kig-Yar on the ground, brushing off his shoulder and giving him a pat on the head.

yusnak was casualy flying up wards when heard logan start to shout for order. He looked down and could still see the group of civilans fleeing
"oh a rouse, my appologies" yusnak said calmly
glancing at the strugling marine in his grasp
"i would stop that were I you" he said pointing down
the marine looked down and suddendenly became very still. Yusnak flew back down to ground level and placed the human gently on the floor and patted him on the head.

Kopaka growled and batted Logan into the side of the building. He crossed the distance and pressed his shield onto the Spartan's chest, making his defenses flare yellow and pinning his arms to his sides. Logara stood with his back to them, making sure nobody else interfered.

"You've abused your authority, human." Kopaka said, ending his years of silence. Logan's force field sparked and disappeared making the Lekgolo's shield clang against his bare armor.
Don't kill him.

Kopaka pointed with his cannon to a marine with his head smashed open on the ground. The blood stain on his shield was directly under Logan's chin. "That is the result of your leadership. You pit your own troops against each other, to hide your allegiance. Coward. Why shouldn't I remove you now?"

Austin placed one SMG on his hip and used the free hand to pick a firebomb off a dead brute, aiming the other SMG at Logara.

"Hey, why don't you step aside so I can blast your buddy before he kills Logan?"

"This is between them." Logara said, raising his cannon and crouching behind his shield. "Whether or not your friend lives is all up to him. But you won't have any part in it."

yusnak clings to the side of a high wall and aims carfully at kopaka and fires a warning shot past his head with his beam rifle
"kopaka! should this continue any further i will be forced to take action. Do not make me do somthing i will regret."

if he kills logan then all the marines here and the other spartan will open fire on all of us. we could win but the punishment for killing the spartans would likely be far less farvourable. this could have profound effects on the whole allience.

Taking on the tone, and wording, of a high-ranking officer, Logan addressed his fellow Spartan.

"Stand down, zero-nine-one."

Austin reacted to the use of his Spartan identification number only by turning his head to face Logan, who decided to try a different tack.

"Come on, Austin, you know me. You really think The Colossus can't handle this?"

To prove his point, he shifted his center of gravity forward and pushed. Kopaka pushed back and became the only living thing of all time to learn firsthand how much he deserved that name and survive the experience. Logan pushed until he had Kopaka sliding backward, despite his best efforts. The entire group watched, silent and frozen in shock, as Logan backed a living tank into the opposite wall. He depolarized his visor, making it go clear, and stared directly into Kopaka's eyes.

"Understand this. I did what was necessary, both to keep our cover, and to prevent deaths in this squad. Do you really think that was as hard as I can hit? I could have killed you. That was an attention getter, the only one that could work. Know this as well. If you attack me again, I will punch through your chest and out your back. Understand?"

Austin placed the firebomb on his left thigh above the SMG, before placing his other SMG on his right thigh.

Daaamn.

Kopaka gave a shove to separate them and lowered his shield. Logara loomed behind Logan. "Very well. But if I had wanted to attack you, you would not have been able to hit back. You will do well not to threaten our kind."

Logara tapped Logan on the back and he turned around. "We'll follow your command. Just finish this mission."

He stepped around Logan and gave Kopaka a bat on the shoulder.
We knew that was not deserved.
He needed to learn his place.
He is the commander, you must learn your place. All he did was show off for the rest of the team. You may have turned them all against us.
This is why I don't talk to them. They are too easily swayed by words.

Logan tapped them both to get their attention, first Logara then Kopaka.

"Look. You have got to get over your dislike of us. If this is going to work, you have to let the hatred of the past go. We, the humans, have done this. If you don't do it as well, this alliance will never work." He looked around, addressing all the former Covenant. "This goes for all of you. And this unit, this team, is now the backbone of the war against the Covenant. If we fail, John fails. And we must not let that happen."

He did not elaborate, but he didn't need to. He knew they were all thinking the same thing.

If we fail, Truth will light the rings... and we'll all die.

Jak rubbed his neck and glared at Austin for the third time since the fight. The human had surprised him by pulling him down from the ledge. had it been a fair fight Jak was sure he would have hurt the Spartan a little bit. But he stared at The Hunter pair and Logan some how he understood both sides. But Jak just shrugged his shoulders and looked around and saw that there was a body of a grunt in the shadow of a wall not to far away. Walking over to the body and pulling out his knife, Jak cut off several bits of the grunts body muscle, what was left of it and began eating the bits.

"Alright, everybody, let's scan the area for any additional hostiles, starting with this building, every room. Let's split up in pairs and search. In fact..."

Logan considered for a second.

"Logara, come with me, Kopaka, with Rolm."

Austin took an Automag in each hand and approached the door.

"On three. One, two, THREE!"

He kicked the door open, scanning the room.

As Logan and Logara walked down the hallway to search the nearest room Logan spoke up again.

"I want you to know I did not split you two up to be malicious. I think it's a good idea to have a lekgolo backing me up, and quite frankly, I don't trust Kopaka to not still be angry with me. He'll get along with Rolm a lot better."