The Master Chief regained consciousness pinned underneath a large slab of armor plating. It wasn't particularly heavy, and it was easy enough for him to simply throw it to the side and sit up from where he lay.

He was surrounded by wreckage left over from when the Dawn split apart. Flames licked at the edges of rent pieces of metal scattered around the crash site. Fallen trees lay crushed under massive pieces of frigate, burning as the extreme heat from the impact set them ablaze.

"You okay chief?" Cortana asked. Her tone was calm, the immediate danger must've passed.

"I'm fine." He reported, standing up from his sitting position. "Are you alright?"

"I'm still talking to you, aren't I?" She quipped.

He nodded before taking another quick scan of his surroundings. Still more wreckage, still more fires. No hostile movement that he could see. He could also see a broken moon hanging in the air, and while it momentarily confused him, he didn't dwell on it for long. "Where are we?" He asked the AI as he spotted an unopened and miraculously intact weapons locker.

"No idea I'm afraid. I would've remembered a planet with a shattered celestial body parked in its front yard." Cortana replied as he made his way over to the weapon crate. "We're on a planet of some kind, though its exact nature is unknown. Good news is it has a breathable atmosphere, so we won't need to run on limited air."

"We?" He asked, opening the weapon crate and pulling out an MA5 assault rifle and an M6 magnum.

"Okay, you won't need to run on limited air." Cortana deadpanned as he checked the weapons for damage before clipping the pistol to the magnetic plate on his thigh. "Getting back on track, I can tell you that I'm picking up some garbled transmissions. Wherever we are, it's inhabited."

"Hostile?" He picked up a few spare ammo magazines, slotting them into compartments in his armor.

"No idea." Cortana admitted. "Honestly the signals are weak and scrambled enough that I can't make heads or tails of it yet."

"Chance it could be damaged equipment from the Dawn?"

"Slim. Unless our impact zone extends 47.6 kilometers due south." She stated. "Honestly Chief our best bet to figure out where we are lies with those transmissions. If you can get me closer, I might be able to pull something useful from them.

The Chief nodded. They were stuck on an unknown and possibly hostile world. Intelligence would be invaluable. "Cortana, set a waypoint."

A blue diamond shaped icon appeared on his HUD. "Done." She paused. "Actually, you might want to get moving Chief, I'm picking up some movement. No idea if it's hostile or friendly."

The Spartan checked his motion tracker, and sure enough he saw blips hovering near the edge of his detection range. With no way to tell if they were hostile the blips appeared highlighted in white. He'd need to keep his eyes open so he didn't accidentally shoot a local resident of the planet.

He was a soldier true, but he didn't need to be making enemies right out of the gate.

So, the Spartan walked, moving around the debris left behind by the Dawn's impact towards the waypoint. He kept his rifle at the ready as the blips remained on his motion tracker. Whatever it was, they were moving with him. They knew he was here, and they were shadowing him. And yet he couldn't see anything, there was too much wreckage to get a clear line of sight on whatever it was.

It was setting off warnings in his head.

Whatever was following him was likely hostile.

He eventually made it to the edge of the debris field. Which opened into a large clearing filled with half-burned, blasted, and fallen trees. Likely the blast-wave from the impact had scorched them black and tossed them to the ground.

Now he had a much clear line of sight, and he had a weapon. Whatever was trying to shadow him would be having a tougher time of it if they wanted to stay hidden. The Spartan kept walking, eyes shifting between his motion tracker and the surround trees.

He saw movement, but it stuck to the shadows and the cover offered by fallen trunks. He only got a brief look at whatever they were as he walked. He caught black fur, and white shapes. Beyond that he couldn't ID what they were.

But he knew they were circling him, trying to surround him.

They were likely readying themselves for an attack.

"Chief…" Cortana's warning tone resounded inside his helmet as he raised his rifle.

"I know…"

One of them crawled over a pile of fallen logs ahead of him, standing on all fours in the Spartan's path. Its long lupine snout was twisted into a permanent snarl, white teeth glinting in the light of the moon and dying flames. Its body was misshapen, like the cross between man and beast and looked to be about as big as an Elite. Its front paws ended in long claws, each easily the length of the Chiefs combat knife. Bony white protrusions jutted out of its body in various locations, and a large skull-like mask sat on its face where two blood-red eyes stared at him.

More of them slowly appeared around him following the first, crawling over wood piles in the same stalking gait of predators getting ready to pounce. They were all around him, slowly getting into position, howling and snarling as they readied themselves for the hunt.

The Chief wasn't afraid of these things. Cautious maybe, but not afraid. Fear had been beaten out of him a long time ago. He'd faced the Covenant and won. He'd faced Halo and won. He faced the flood, and won.

Whatever these things were, they didn't scare him. He'd seen worse before.

But they were a threat, they were between him and his objective, and there were twelve of them surrounding him.

"So Chief, you thinking what I'm thinking?" Cortana asked. He didn't answer, keeping his sights trained on the creature around him for any sign of attack. The first creature tipped its head back and let out a howl, joined soon after by its compatriots. The AI gave an amused huff at the display.

"They should've brought more!"

The Spartan opened fire on the first creature, his rifle pumping lead into it as it staggered backward. It was wounded and surprised, but not dead.

Another leapt at him from the right and he switched targets, firing a quick burst into its center of mass as he dodged out of the way. It crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs, whimpering at its new wounds.

The others were hot on its heels, and the Chief knew he didn't have enough time to sight up another target without getting struck from behind by another. He wasn't willing to test his armor against them if he could help it. The Mjolnir's shields didn't have the best track record standing up to a melee fight. He'd need to keep moving.

He rolled out of the way as another creature smashed into the spot he'd been not moments before. Another tried to take a swipe at him with its powerful claws. He ducked under the strike before unloading a burst into it's chest a point-blank range. He spied another on his motion tracker trying to get in behind him. He spun and met it with another rifle burst to its face, sending it staggering backwards howling in pain.

The fight wasn't going well already. He could see that. He was only hurting these things, not killing them. He needed to thin them out if he wanted the best chance to make it out of this fight alive. His rifle was almost out of ammo, and he'd have to swap mags. He doubted these things would give him the breathing room to do that.

CQC it was then.

Two creature charged at him, one reeling back to deliver a swipe to his head. He emptied the clip into its head, trying to score a kill shot. If the pained whine it let out was any indication it didn't work and only succeeded in stunning it.

The other one went for his legs, swinging its large paws at his feet to try and catch him off guard. He backflipped over the strike, attaching the empty rifle to his back and drawing his combat knife, lovingly dubbed the "Helljumper Toothpick" by the UNSC.

It tried to go high as the Spartan fell into a combat stance. Its guard was open, it had no technique, only animalistic instinct guiding its strikes. The Chief lunged, avoiding the strike as he buried the knife into its lower jaw. The Titanium edged weapon practically glided into the creatures flesh, like it was always meant to be there.

The creature wasn't dead, but it was in pain based on the yelp that came out of its maw. The Spartan wasn't done. Gripping the knife, he lifted the creature over his head and slammed it onto the ground. His boot came down, and the strength of a Spartan-II supersoldier decked out in a half-ton of Mjolnir flattened its head with a loud crunch.

Another came at him and was met with a fist to the snout, the impact sending cracks spider-webbing across the front of its mask. The Chief's knife was soon buried in its neck, and with a heave, the Spartan tore out its throat, leaving it to choke on its own blood.

Two down. Ten to go.

The other creatures held off their attack, again trying to circle him. They were acting more cautiously, having just seen two of their number meet their end at the hands of the Spartan. So there was an intelligence to them after all.

He didn't let them plan their next move, he needed to end this fight quickly. He charged the closest creature, tucking in and slamming his shoulder into the creature's gut. It was knocked clear off balance, stumbling backwards as it tried to counterattack. The Chief reached up, grabbed it around the neck and jerked it violently down. He heard the sound of snapping bone as the creature went limp.

Another lunged for him with its arms spread wide, trying to tackle him to the ground. He dropped, letting it sail over his head. He drew his M6, aiming at the head of another charging creature. He pulled the trigger and was rewarded with a howl of pain as its left eyes was hit by the round. The Chief pounced on the wounded creature, jamming his knife through the white bone of its face.

The Chief spun and unloaded two shots into another creature, keeping it from engaging him and giving him the space he needed to fight off the one that had tried to tackle him earlier. It came in with a wide right hand swing. It was sloppy, uncoordinated, a pattern that was rapidly emerging among these creatures.

He stepped into the strike, his forearm rising and deflecting the strike over his head. His shields flared, dipping to 60% charge. They hit as hard as Elite did, but they couldn't accurately place their strikes. His shields might last a bit longer in a stand up fight with these things.

He stabbed it in the throat, burying the knife all the way up to the hilt. He heard snarling from his right as another creature lunged for him. He picked up the one now dying on the end of his knife by the midsection and hurled it into the path of the oncoming beast. The two bodies tumbled to the ground, only one of them still alive enough to snarl back at him.

The Chief unloaded more rounds form his pistol into another, staggering it long enough to finish it off with his knife. Many others fell the same way, soften them up with the magnum, end them with the knife, until there was only two of the creatures left.

To their credit, they didn't break and run. He wasn't sure if it was through courage of an animalistic desire to kill the Spartan for ending their pack mates. It was a lot like the Covenant in a strange way.

His magnum was out of ammo, now resting clipped onto the magnetic plate on his thigh. He was down to the knife for now until he had a window to reload his weapons.

The creatures both charged, howling in rage at the Spartan. Their clawed feet kicked up dirt as they ran at him on all fours. It gave them speed, and it gave them a lower center of gravity.

It also placed their heads in range of the Chiefs boot, as one found out the hard way. His boot impacted with enough force to snap the skull-like mask in two at the snout, pushing the bone under the second half and into its brain. It crashed to the ground as the chief sidestepped the strike from the second one.

It lunged again, this time determined not to give the Spartan a moment to counterattack. It discovered, much like the Covenant that came before it, that Spartan's had exceptional reflexes gifted by their own superior biology and Mjolnir armor.

The Chief found his blade jammed into the creature's chest. It howled in pain before the Spartan applied his half-ton weight to push it over onto its back. The knife found its mark again as he jammed the knife into the side of its head, missing the bony face plate completely.

The Spartan stood up, checking his surroundings for any sign of more of the creatures. His vision was clear, no movement of any kind. His motion tracker was reporting the same.

"Well that was interesting…" Cortana said as he began reloading his weapons. "Now we have hostile fauna to deal with!"

"We'll manage." He assured, slamming a fresh mag into his assault rifle and shouldering the weapon.

"Never said we wouldn't Chief." The AI stated as he began to move out towards the waypoint. The Chief didn't spare the creatures a second glance, they were dead, that's all that mattered.

Apparently, Cortana didn't feel the same. "Hold up." He stopped as the waypoint suddenly shifted to another location. It hovered over one of the creatures he'd killed. "Well that's interesting…"

Wisps of black smoke rose from the corpse only to be further swept away by the wind. As the smoke rose away from its body, the creature itself began to vanish. It was dissolving right before his eyes. He gazed around at the rest of the dead creatures and found more of the same.

Now he was curious. "What are these things?" He asked Cortana.

"No idea." She replied in that tone of voice that told you she was already thinking of possibilities. "Definitely interesting though." The two stood in silence as they watched the creatures disappear before them. "Come on Chief, we need to keep moving."

He nodded turning towards his original waypoint. Hopefully they'd find out where they were and what was up those creatures.