"No, give that back, drop it.... Drop it!." The human bared their teeth playfully at the camera man and tugged harder on the camera equipment.

"No, drop it! Bad human, Doctor! Doctor!" But by then it was too late, With one last tug, the human yanked the camera form the crewman's hand and scampered off with it chattering in it's strange language. The other humans gathered around grabbing for the camera, fighting for it like the pack of wild animals they were.

The doctor looked over at the crew with the shake of his head, "Dont expect to see that again any time soon ... sorry ."

Across the room, the humans were playing with it , flipping it over and pressing the buttons with gleeful chattering to each other. A single human sat in the middle while the others stood around pointing and prodding at the camera.

"Come on, that was expensive. Now I'm going to owe the studio."

The crew zooms in on the humans playing with the piece of equipment flipping it over and prodding at it with their slim, delicate fingers. They almost expected the humans to start chewing on it, though they seemed pleased enough to pass it back and forth to each other playing with the buttons and turning the screen around to stare at the lens.

The Alpha followed after them and began chirping at them and pointing just like the rest.

"Look at them, so curious." One of the crewmembers noticed.

Krill nodded, "Oh humans just love playing with things, they are very very curious, and very smart too. They are great at social learning. Humans have been observed to attempt similar behaviors after seeing them. They are excellent mimics. In fact, in certain cases, you can teach a human how to speak/"

"Oh, well that would be a fun party trick, wouldn't it."

Here, watch this."

"Adam, Adam come." The Alpha lifted his head and looked over at them before happily trotting over, leaving the other humans to look over the camera, "Adam, Sit."

The human did as requested, happily taking his seat, "Like I said, humans are smart and can understand most basic commands. However that also depends on the temperament of your human, some humans do not like to be told what to do, so are liable to do the exact opposite of what you want."

He patted the human's head, this humans is very well behaved though, so I don't tend to worry about tat with him.

The cameras turned away from where the humans were playing and back towards the doctor.

"So, is there anything else you can tell us about humans."

Krill smiled, "Oh yes, Having lived with the humans for a while, I tend to find them very mischievous. Humans just love to play games and pranks with each other. They will often behave in ways that are contrary to their instincts in order to confuse people they think are idiots."

"Oh, that is very interesting, and what does that look like."

"Well, generally the humans take a target, specifically a target for social ridicule, then they start to behave strangely, and since humans are very good socially, they are also excellent at faking along with other humans. One human can start something and an entire group of humans can pick up on the message and begin doing the same thing. In fact, humans have a habit of acting dumber than they really are to confuse victims of ridicule who aren't smart enough to tell the difference. Humans especially love irony, and often that includes behaving in a way contrary to how they feel in order to throw someone off balance. It is a very interesting tactic to watch in person." He motioned them to come after with a hand and the group of them stood up to follow him down the hall as he continued to speak, "Here, lets get you a little more acquainted with the ship."

"So doctor, Mendex began, "This ship, how did the humans build it, I mean the ARE smart, but from what I have seen, they aren't smart enough to be capable of running a vessel like this. It seems far too complicated no matter how rudimentary for a group of uncommunicative bipeds. "

The doctor turned to look at them, and the group went very silent for a moment, they almost worried if they had offended the doctor in some way, but then the doctor responded flatly, and quiet without emotion in either direction, "Oh yeah, humans are complete idiots, in fact they used to be a whole lot smarter, but once they reached the state of developing robotic technology there was no longer any evolutionary need for them to be smart, so they devolved backwards towards their more animistic state. Occasionally there is a human who is capable to almost the same degree as you or I but they generally tend to be ostracized by the more brutish humans and so do not tend to survive long. The computers and robots the start ancestor of the humans made have evolved mostly on their own, and have kept the humans alive ever since."

The crew looked at each other in awe, "Oh... and I thought the GA were having peace talks with the humans at some point.

The Vrul shrugged, "Well, yes, and no technically they were having peace talks with the evolved AI that the more ancient humans created, but it was on behalf of the current humans that we have now. They are taken care of very well by the devices that their ancestors left behind otherwise the are totally and completely helpless."

Behind them the alpha was following with a small back of humans. In its hands it carried the camera and was gibbering away in its strange language.

"Oh look, i think it's mimicking us," One of the cameramen sai.

"Isnt that adorable." The doctor said smiling. The human continued to follow after them playing with the camera and talking like he was one of them, though none of them could understand.

They went around the ship for a little longer accompanied by their human until eventually Dr. Krill came to a stop by the entrance

"Now, we better get you all back to your ship, and perhaps we can do this another time. Now to properly say goodbye to a human, you have to hop around in a circle with your arms out. There you go excellent."

Behind them the human chirped something turning the camera towards Krill who raise a hand in a wave.

"Come back soon." He said

And they were just about to leave, when a shadow loomed over them. They looked up in surprise to see the human offering their camera back. Nervously they took it, and the human bared his teeth at them.

"Goodbye human." They said leaving down the ramp and heading back towards the studio where the network would determine what footage to use."

***

Mendex's produce sat in a chair with the rest of the team, watching the video footage with them from the beginning. He was a Tesraki with a rusty red fur and a very stern eye for business, even more so than our average Tesraki, which was saying something.

"Lets see the footage from camera 2."

"That one was stolen by the human halfway through."

"I still want to see it."

"Okay, here we go." the video played in the background as Mendex turned to his producer, "So what do you think. I think it will be exciting and compelling for the rest of the galaxy especially with all the rumors that have been going on about humans."

His producer was nodding slightly frowning at the camera screen, "As long as we take out all the footage of you cowering behind the crew, which may drop us at least two hours of footage."

Mendex frowned, and the rest of the editing crew chuckled.

He clenched his fists, "you try spending almost half a day with those smelly beasts and tell me that you aren't scared, you heard the Vrul, the humans are barely better than animals.

The producer was barely paying attention to him now, staring past him towards the viewing screen, "is that so> he said absently."

"Yes." mendex began, and furthermore I think-"

"Ha, hold on, i got it."

Mendex raised his head in confusion turning back towards the screen where the camera was being jostled back and forth across the floor.

"Did you."

"Yeah hold on." The camera righted itself and turned back looking up towards a light colored human with yellowish fur. The alpha with only one green eye.'

"Yeah," That strange revving noise the humans had been making burst over the speakers, "This is a Vexon camera. These assholes are using human technology to make us look stupid. You see the toggle here, this is the translation setting, can be turned on and off for different species. Looks like they went and turned it mostly off so it would only translate certain species."

The green eyed human raised a furry line above one of his eyes, "I wonder what the public will think when they learned that this entire documentary was filmed on a human camera."

Mendex stared at the feed in shock and disbelief.

"But.... but what...." he stammered standing as if to turn off the feed.

But his producer shoved him back into a chair looking almost gleeful as he did, "No smarter than animals huh." He glanced back towards the camera equipment.

"here , hand me that."

The camera jostled again, before swinging around to point at the group of cameramen sitting around a circle huddled away from the humans.

All around they could hear the distant conversation of humans.

"Dumbasses."

"I dont know how Krill is managing to keep a straight face."

"He has an iron will to be sure, ha, you could tell them we lick ourselves and they would believe it."

"I dont know man, you look like enough of a neanderthal to sell it all by yourself."

Mendex continued to stammer and explain himself as the camera watched the human jokingly approach the doctor and sit on command, which looked pretty dumb now consider the humans understood everything which was being said.

The alpha returned to the camera and picked it up, waving to the doctor as he turned the camera around, "Good morning citizens of the universe I am Commander Adam Vir of the UNSC Harbinger, first contact ambassador for humanity and military commander to the GA. I have some news for you.... Up to this point, I think you have figured out that you have been lied to and deceived ." he turned the camera back around zooming in on Mendex himself, "You see recently there has been a sudden upsurgance of rumors based around humans, and most of the are blatant falsehoods that are ruining our intergalactic reputation. Things about how we eat people, and how we are vicious wild animals , that sort of thing. And then there was Mendex, when he asked us to come aboard our ship and film this video, we knew what was going to happen. Now if you don't already know Mendex is a con artist and a liar. He has been going around the galaxy spreading falsehoods about other species, and animals in order to create a quick buck film companies, and industry, mind you that humanity popularized. Take this camera for instance, it's a Vexon, or a popular brand name for human filming equipment."

He followed the filming crew into the hall.

"Oh, look, I think it's mimicking us."

The human let off that strange noise again.

"Anyway, when we heard of Mendex's offer, we knew we had to do something. Hes created a lot of problems for the galaxy,. He has even caused the near extinction of two major predator species on other planets by giving them a bad rap. So, we enlisted our Dr. Dr. Krill...." The little Vrul turned around and gave the camera a strange gesture, "Now if you have read any of the doctor's original work, you would have read his observations on humans to be much different form the intentional falsehoods he is selling here. If Mendex had done his research, which it seems he both has and has not at the same time, we would expect to see this behavior. He is smart enough to know that humans have a complex language, and so chose to turn it off, however he did not delve far enough into the research to see the blatant lies that Krill was making up."

They continued onward, "We played along for effect, just to give enough evidence of the falsehood. The crew got their hands on a camera, and now I am relaying this story to you, in hopes that you will air it and let the rest of the galaxy know what a fraud Mendex is. I will also have you know that we have taken most of the footage, and will probably release it ourselves if you choose not to. However, we are hoping that the film companies wont be able to pass up an opportunity like this, it will make you very rich after all and will likely be very lucrative. People, even aliens, love to see a little bit of drama.

They were reaching the end of the video now, and Mendex just sat in his seat staring in wide eyed horror at the screen.

"Come on doctor, show them when I mean."

"Now to properly say goodbye to a human, you have to hop around in a circle with your arms out. There you go excellent."

He stared blankly at the screen while the human laughed at the crew hopped around their arms flapping wildly up and down.

He could see it now, the smug look on the doctor's face.

"I hope that this will help relieve some of the myths about humans. We don't want to hurt anyone, we don't each other, we don't fight for dominance. Earlier, I just asked Ramirez for his shoes, I didn't actually fight him, and we were never going to eat the crew. Check out some of doctor krill's scientific work on our diets, and you will realize that humans cannot digest fur,and that even if we could most aliens would not be edible to us anyway, furthermore, we do not eat sentient lifeforms. .

He turned towards Dr Krill, "Say hello doctor, I expect your research will be receiving some new readers soon."

Dr Krill waved, and then, the camera shut off.

"You can't air that." Mendex demanded in panic

His producer grinned and then laughed, "You heard the human, he has the footage with him already, it would be rude of me to make him air it, now wouldn't it?"