An explosion rocked the earth as they stumbled out of the building, a blue flame streaked across the sky as it smacked into the house they had just been in.

"Sparza status on civies and the squad!" Rilik yelled into his comm as he, Rob and Mickolovitch surveyed the surrounding area, sweeping the landscape with their assault rifles at the ready.

"We're all good and that explosion killed some of the civies on the tail end of the group, we saw it when we were in a house." Sparza radioed back.

"Ok proceed with the search and rescue but be caustious that was a wraith, we haven't seen it but it sure see's us." Rilik said back as he shut off the comm link. "Alright let's keep searching. Only two blocks of house then we have to just keep running, we can't search them as throughouly as we like but we have to just give 'em a hollar." Rilik said to Rob and Mick as they approached another house.

"Hello anyone here? ODST's, from the army, you have to evacuate!." Rilik yelled into the house, he walked in a few feet, two bodies were on the ground, a man and a womans. He began to to walk out when he heard a faint cry. He started to search around more until the cries became louder as he approached a closet, he opened it, he looked down and saw a little girl crying in the corner, he picked her up, she tried to fight him but she was a little girl, he looked around the house more and found a picture of her and her parents. He picked it up in case he could get her to a shuttle she deserved to know what her parents looked like. He examined the parents bodies on the ground and saw two charred marks coming out of their clothes.

He exited the building with the little girl in his arm crying her eyes out. "I found a little girl, her parents are dead, energy sword burns in them." Rilik muttered a bit of sadness in his voice as he could relate a bit to the girl. "Hey umm.. little girl it's alright we're with the army we're gonna get you out of here and somewhere safe ok?" He tried to calm her down.  The girl looked at him, her face red with tears streaming down her face and just nodded and buried her face back into his shoulder.

"Aww you're a natural parent." Mick joked as he chuckled a bit at the sight, Rilik made his visor clear and just stared at the private with his grey eyes. This didn't help Mick as a spike round collided with his helmet, ending his life with a bad joke.

"Contacts!" Rob yelled. as he and Rilik reentered the abandoned building, Rilik set the little girl in the closet again, she was crying louder than before at the sounds of war around her.

"Grunts and Brutes inbound Ril!" Rob shouted firing a burst of fire into a brute, it's armor was torn off in the volley and it had it's gut torn open as well as a leg severed from the proceeding fire it recieved. Rilik fired a four round burst at a grunt, it's tank getting ripped off sent it running, he didn't waste his time trying to murder it since it would suffocate soon. Rob fired another volley at a set of grunt's, each ones face catching a round or two, one's face was horizontally ripped off and the other had no face as it was just a blue mess. A brute slammed into the house's door and barged in, Rilik pulled the shotgun off his back was batted away into a wall, he yelped as he felt like something snapped or broke in his body, he got up and rammed the brute and fired point blank into it's face, he looked up at the body and the brute was headless but it was standing vertically up.

Rilik backed up from the headless brute and watched it's body slump to the ground in a bloody mess, blood spurting from it's neck. He walked back to the closet, opened it and the little girl was curled tightly in a ball, he tapped her on the shoulder and she recoiled and squeked.

"Hey it's alright it's me the one who got you out the first time, the big bad aliens are gone, we have to leave." Rilik said as the girl uncurled and held out her arms to be picked up, he did so and she held onto his shoulder like it was her lifeline, they steped out onto the street and ran for the evac point.

"So what's your name little girl?" Rilik asked.

"My name's Sally" The girl responded, her voice squekey after crying for so long.

"Well Sally I promise we'll get you out of here." He said as they ran to the shuttle point.

"Under small arms fire from some grunts and jackals sergeant." came a voice from the comm.

"Alright just get to the evac point, run if you have to, if you have civies make sure they get there!" Rilik yelled as they approached a landing pad with a shuttle on it.

"Roger that, lets move people, evac isn't gonna wait forever!" Sparza said over the sounds of plasma sizzling.

"We gotta get there now." Rilik said to Rob as they were just a hundred feet from the evac shuttle and a pelican on the pad.

"Ok let's get her to the shuttle and then we'll help Sparza and them, and then we're off this god forsaken planet!" Rob yelled happiness in his voice.

They stopped at the boarding ramp of the shuttle and he set the girl down, "Now you have to be strong ok? Your mommy and daddy would be proud of you for being strong." Rilik said trying to make Sally feel better, she nodded and ran up the shuttle ramp, he watched as she went and sighed, he was about to go when he heard a voice.

"Wait, wait! Mister, mister what's your name?" Rilik turned around and Sally was tugging on his leg armor.

"My names Rilik, Sally you have to go now the shuttle will be leaving soon" He said and the girl nodded going up the ramp.

"Contacts are now jump jet brutes! Approaching the evac sight prepare for a firefight!" Yelled a worried Bradley. They came out of an alleyway near the landing pad, Rilik and Rob rushed to help the team, Bradley was tackled by a brute who gripped the ODST's arm and pulled with all it's ape like strength, ripping the man's arm off, he screamed a blood curdling cry at seeing and feeling the savage brute use his arm as a club, bashing the poor troopers head in with his own arm. Alexander fired point blank into the brutes face with a sniper, she missed badly and had the sniper taken from her by the brute and her precious rifle broken in half, the thing clobbered her with a hard punch to the gut and then an uppercut, she spun through the air and hit the ground groaning from the pain.

A fast green man ran past Rilik and headbutt the brutes gut, the man punched the brute in his gut many times and right hooked the brute in the jaw, a loud cracking noise could be heard as the brute was hit in the jaw, it hit the ground, dead, Rilik couldn't believe what he saw, a spartan had just beat a brute down in hand to hand combat. He hurried over to Alex's position as she continued to groan in pain. He checked over the woman, she was fine other than maybe a few broken ribs, her helmet was shattered to, and she had blood coming from her mouth.

"You'll live but you need some help." He said trying to comfort the wounded ODST. The spartan walked past Rilik and just got on the pelican with the two others that had been detailed to the evac. He pulled Alex up and she yelped a little at the sudden jolt of pain caused by the movement. She climbed aboard the pelican as did Sparza and Rob. Rilik watched the evac shuttle take off and got in the pelican.

"At least I was able to save one life" He thought while the pelican lifted off and flew by the shuttle.

He was smiling when the shuttle was bombarded by green strobes of light and blew up, the pelican flew away from the explosion, his smile was lost as it's wreckage spilled onto the city below, he dropped to his knees. He was broken, how could someone or something just blow up an innocent civilian ship. He cried a little bit but kept his visor dark, not wanting to show it to his fellow mourning ODST's. Losing people was part of the job, but losing civies is a big no, he stared at the remaining fire and smoke of the transport, as they sped away into space even after the pelicans ramp had closed he stared at the spot where the transport had used to be in his vision.

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A/N

That was the flashback people and I kept thinking about the ODST live action trailer song throughout writing it, kinda sets the mood in a sad place.

          My original idea on this whole thing was for a rogue spartan but decided it'd be better for an odst since everyone does spartans usually.