I stared at the strange figure perched upon the rocks looking down at me. She was slender, and clad in a tattered grey cloak. A strange-looking pulse rifle was holstered on her back. She grinned wolfishly from underneath her hood, and waved. Before I could do anything, a sudden whir sounded from the massive door. Sigils on the portal began to glow and come to life. Lights glowed round the edges, and horrific cries could be heard from behind the gate. Ghost bleeped warily.

"Ace…we may want to move back…now…"

I nodded, and slowly backed away, pulling my hand cannon from my back and reloading the weapon. I quickly glanced towards the point where I had seen the mysterious Exo. She was gone. The chains binding the door flashed and disappeared with loud clanks. Then, the door crashed open and a hoard of hive spilled out, their grey skin blending together to form a indistinguishable tide of enemies. I began firing my gun as fast as I could, taking down each of the enemies as they approached. Overwhelmed, I pulled my fusion rifle, and began disintegrating Hive as they got close. I jumped on top of a pillar, and kept firing into the hoard, their bodies piling up around the post. Eventually, I ran out of ammo and started stabbing the hive in the face with my knife. It seemed like the fight took forever, during which I killed what looked like fifty to sixty odd hive. However, the hive stopped coming eventually, letting me catch my breath while leaning against a rocky outcrop. Ghost appeared, and gave me a look I interpreted as a frown.

"Guardian…you don't need to breath so heavily. Your enhanced lungs can intake air far more efficiently than…"

"Ghost…" I wheezed, my throat raw and jagged. "…It's…more….of…a habit….than anything. I'll be OK…in a moment."

Ghost made a hiccup-like bleep. "…you Guardians and your little quirks. No wonder we're here to look out for you: you'd be lost without us Ghosts!"

I glared at the small machine, upholstering my hand cannon as I did so. "One more word Ghost, and you'll be the one with some quirks. Namely some Structural quirks!"

Ghost sighed and disappeared into his dimensional pocket. I grabbed some ammunition engrams off the floor, and reloaded my weapon. I then walked into the temple, ready for what lay ahead. I didn't take much time to adjust to the light inside the temple. Or rather, the lack of it. Compared to the brightly lit and shadowed moon outside (whatever technology that had given the moon a atmosphere has apparently kept it looking just as airless and therefore just as bright as it had been for centuries), the interior of the 'temple' was dark, and lit only by glowing patches of green fungi and the occasional torch. This lit the interior with a dim green glow, which both made the atmosphere feel even more malevolent, while also aiding the poor eyesight of the horrors that lay inside. If I had been a normal human, I would have adjusted to the new lighting conditions far too slow to see the bolt of energy whizzing towards me. Fortunately, my revived form had significant improvements over my original body, including the said eyesight adaptations. The feature that saved me however was not my eyes in this case, but my enhanced reflexes. These allowed me to leap out of the way just in time, the bolt of energy smashing a pillar behind me to splinters.

"What the hell was that?" I exclaimed, looking in the direction where the energy had came from. I gasped. Flying in mid-air above a altar at the back of the atrium was a spectre. It was vaguely feminine, and had a X-shaped head with glowing red slits for eyes. It appeared to have no legs, it's lower body simply being a series of petal-shaped flaps that were fashioned into a horrific mockery of either a ceremonial robe or a dress. It had two clawed fingers and a hooked thumb on each hand, each cracking with green discharge. A series of spikes, looking like they were made of bone, jutted out like a collar from the back of it's neck and shoulders. It floated in mid-air, and hissed. Unlike the horrific roars of the menial hive creatures, this was a hiss of hatred. Of the desire to kill. Of pain and death. I readied my hand cannon, and charged in.

The creature flung a few more bolts at me, all the while calling in reinforcements, who appeared from hidden burrows and bolt holes within the walls. I fought them off as best as I could, but they were without number, and almost voracious in their hunger for my death. They were coming out of the woodwork as it was. All the while, the creature (or 'Wizard' as I had decided to dub it) flew round the ceiling, dodging my fire with quick, evasive movements, and flinging bolts of orange energy down upon me. When the bolts connected, they almost always depleted my shields. However, I had learned my lesson from my battles against the Fallen on Earth, and when my shields got low, I would always disengage from the hoard hoping to pin my down beneath their grey, soulless bodies. After a while, the hoard was gone. The wizard desperately called for more minions, but none came.

"Run out of cannon fodder for the grinder, eh?" I said to the floating apparition. My only response was a guttural hiss.

"I don't think that was a compliment," said Ghost. "I ran that through the translator…you don't want to know what it just said."

I stared up at the creature, and raised my gun. It began to back away, and would have started weaving, if I hadn't layed down a entire clip of ammunition into it. The last of the creature's shields was dissipated with the first three shots, and the next five punctured it in all the vital places I could think off. The creature may have had a exoskeleton…but not much can stand up to projectiles the size of wine corks fired from a hand cannon with a gauss system inside the barrel. The creature disintegrated into ashes. A single orange engram dropped to the ground with a plonk. I picked it up, and summoned ghost.

"Ghost, what should we do now? Our initial mission was to open up the way through here, but I'm pretty sure that the Vanguard will want to see the data on these new Hive varieties. I'm asking your honest opinion buddy."

Ghost bleeped a bit. "While the Traveller is a important mission element, I'm not sure we'll be able to get to it by myself. Now we're inside the temple, I can pick up the signature coming from the fragment….as well as over two million Hive lifeform signatures. There's so many here, and you're really only here for initial reconnaissance. We'll check in with the Vanguard, and try and get a force together for a raid. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

Author's Note: So, short chapter for this week Ladies and Gentleman! I've been busy lately, so sorry about the lack of updates again. This will kinda continue for a while, so don't get your hopes up about more regular updates. It does take time and effort to produce quality writing…and I say that in the loosest sense possible. In other news, I'm thinking about opening a account on fictionpress, so that I can release some of my original stories I've been working on. Also, I'd like to make a quick request for my readers in the European Union.

Yesterday, Article 11 and 13 of the new Internet Copyright laws were voted in by a council of the European union. These articles allow the EU to do two things. First is to sell payed licenses for people to put hyperlinks on social media and other places to sites such as news sites. This is basically hyperlink tax. Second is the removal of fair use, which is predicted to kill off meme culture, creative use of copyrighted material (such as remixes, parodies, criticisms and abridged media on YouTube) and also impose restrictive laws on 'piracy', which in the wrong hands could be used to supress certain political viewpoints, and therefore deny people the freedom to share their ideas and opinions with others.

I've grown up in a world where the internet has been a integral part of everyday life. The majority of the politicians responsible for this have not, and see the internet as a disruptive element. If these laws pass through the EU parliament and become law, places such as Fanfiction will disappear or be blocked in Europe as companies enforce what they see as their sole property, and fair use of their material in stories like this will become illegal.

So for this site, for yourselves, and for the good of the internet, please: speak up. Call your local political representative. Sign petitions. If you can, protest these changes to internet law. Calls and petitions take up very little time, and it is not a legal requirement to donate if you sight a petition. This is a moment where if we do nothing, then at some point in the future, we'll wake up, go online, and realise our mistake. It's out internet people. Let's save it.