Chapter 5

7 Years ago….

The Ghost moved as quietly as it could through the night, knowing that the Hive were always close, hiding in every shadow on this dark planet. If things were different, the Ghost would not have even approached this planet, but according to its sensors the Ghosts guardian was on this planet. Suddenly, the Ghost's sensors went off, indicating it had found its Guardian, and the Ghost stopped, stunned by the fact that all these decades of hunting, it had finally found it's Guardian. As quickly as it could, the Ghost began the resurrection process, and for the first time in decades after her death, Ana took a breath.

Ana gasped, unsure of where she was, or for that matter, who she was, and sprang to her feet, looking for a way to run in her panicked state.

"Calm down, if you freak out they'll hear you. You are unarmed and can't fight them off." the Ghost whispered to Ana as it floated into her sight. "I'm your Ghost, I'm here to guide and help you. We need to find a ship and get off this planet as quickly as possible. Hold out your hand." Ana held out her hand and the Ghost landed on it before dematerializing. "I'm still here, only you can hear me now." The Ghost whispered to Ana, "We need to run, now. The Hive are coming for us." At the mention of the Hive, a memory returned to Ana from when she was a kid. Her mother getting gutted by the Hive while Ana hid in the closet, trying not to cry. Driven by fear and despair, Ana began to run. The second she began to run, she heard a collective shriek come from behind her and she knew what it meant. The chase was on. Ana pushed herself as hard as she could, jumping and climbing over rocks and railings, slamming her way through crumbling doors and jumping through broken windows in the remains of a human city. Ana looked over her shoulder for a second and saw the bright glowing green eyes of an acolyte joining the chase. Ana turned around and saw a Hive Knight step out from behind a building about 30 feet in front of her, and swung its sword at her head. Ana dropped into a slide and slide between the Knights legs and sprang back up to continue running, only stumbling a little. On and on she ran, moving farther and farther away from the pursuing Hive, until she could run no more and collapsed to the ground exhausted. Ana rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky and three suns now rising from the horizon, gasping for breath the whole time.

"What happened to my home? Why am I back here? I remember my death, how am I alive?" Ana gasped, still out of breath.

"According to my databases, this planet was overrun by the Hive 500 years ago." Her Ghost responded, "I am not sure why you were here because you appear nowhere in any database. For your final question, you are alive because of me, you are my Guardian and I am your Ghost. I am here to assist and revive you during your fight against the forces of darkness." Ana slowly and shakily climbed to her feet and began looking around. Ana was standing in the middle of what used to be a children's playground, the broken swings and crumbling and decayed jungle gym told her everything. As Ana looked around, her eyes landed on the only thing still intact. It was a small clown statue that was covered in filth and its paint had been worn down by the wind over centuries. Ana felt a cold chill go up her spine and stamped down the fear the clown brought up from within. As quickly as she could, Ana moved away from the playground and the eyeless clown with it's too big smile. Ana began walking through the dead and decayed town, letting her feet guide her to a place she knew not where. After a few minutes, walking through the crumbling decayed town, looking around at the rooting wooden structures that had collapsed and been overgrown, the fallen brick and crumbled cement buildings all grey and brown with dirt and weathering that had been partily overgrown by the blue and green vines, the cracked and destroyed sidewalk and road with the bright purple grass peeking through, with the odd blue and red trees. Ana stopped in front of a building that was barely standing, but was being kept up by a few steel pillars that refused to break. Another one of Ana's memories came charging to the front of her and her father, building these pillars after a bad storm had nearly knocked down the building.

"This was my dad's gun store." Ana whispered. Ana walked up and pushed on the metal door, which didn't budge an inch. Ana turned the door handle and slammed her shoulder into the door, like her father used to do, and the door popped open a little. Ana pushed the door, allowing it to slowly swing open making an insufferable screech as it did so till it came to a stop. Ana walked in and looked around at the rotted wooden shelves and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. Unsure of what she was doing, Ana allowed her instincts to lead her to the back room and to a shelf that looked different from all the others. Ana reached out and pushed down the part of the shelf she knew was a switch to open her father's secret room and turned when she heard the creaking screech of the secret door opening. Ana walked over to the safe and looked inside. Sitting inside the safe was her father's prize possession. A gun that he built himself from Hive, Fallen, and Cabal technology, that had other pieces of tech that Ana and her father had built. Ana reached in and grabbed the gun, which reacted the way it always did when she touched it. The gun seemed to buzz and vibrate in her hand and the core in the center began to spin, awaking the centuries old weapon of destruction. Ana hugged the gun to her chest and walked out of the building.A movement in her peripheral vision caused Ana to snapped the gun up and swung around to point it to her left but saw nothing. Ana shook her head and lowered the weapon. Ana held the gun out and allowed her Ghost to dematerialize it and keep it, somewhere. Ana sighed and began moving down what was left of the street towards a large chapel like building. Ana heard a loud crunch as something heavy landed behind her. Ana spun around to see a Hive Knight, only about a foot away from her, swing out from behind a building, thrusting it's sword out at Ana as it went. A strange burning Sensation began in Ana's gut and chest, and she looked down to stare at the sword that had impaled her.

"Oh." was all Ana said before the Knight lifted his blade up, with Ana still on the end of it, and made a strange choking cough like noise as Ana slowly and painlessly slid down the blade till she was fully impaled. Struggling to remain conscious, Ana brought her head up and spat blood in the Knight's face, and was rewarded with a quick death as the Knight tore her throat out in rage.

Now….

Ana snapped awake and nearly cried out in fear but managed to contain her reaction by burying her face in Edward's shoulder.

"What's wrong Ana?" Edward whispered, awkwardly shifting around in the sleeping bag to look at Ana.

"Nothing, it was just a nightmare." Ana whispered back. Ana stared up at the pitch black, two mooned night sky and had a shiver go down her spine. Ana could have sworn that she remembered those moons. It was probably her imagination. Ana curled back up against Edward and slowly drifted off to sleep once more.

7 years ago….

Ana jumped to her feet and looked around, unsure of what had just happened.

"Don't be surprised, I can resurrect you more than once. This is going to be a normal thing for you soon enough. Now that doesn't mean that dying doesn't hurt, so I'd advise you not to die and we'll be fine." Her Ghost said in her ear. Ana just nodded and peeked around the corner. The Knight was still standing there, looking confused, and splattered with her blood. In a sudden fit of rage, Ana jumped out from her hiding spot, sprang up in the air and pulled her arm back as if she were notching an arrow on a bow. To her complete surprise, she summoned a bow made of a strange purple and black material that seemed to writhe in her grip, and fired an arrow from it, which struck the Knight and disintegrated it completely. Ana landed on her feet and watched as the bow vanished from her hand.

"I see." Ana's ghost muttered to itself.

"You see what?" Ana asked mystified.

"You are a Nightstalker." Her Ghost responded. Ana pursed her lips and lightly nodded, acting as if she knew what her Ghost was talking about. Ana looked up and stared at the ever changing color of the sky and sighed. Ana watched as the suns began descending on the horizon and the moons began to rise.

"We have to hide, most of the Hive sleep during the day so they'll be waking up now. GO!" Ana's Ghost hissed urgently. So, Ana did what she'd always done best, run. At first she tried to pace herself, but then she heard the howling shriek from behind her and she began to pick up speed. Ana glanced over her shoulder just in time to see a horde of thrall come pouring out of fallen buildings and small caves, who all then turned towards her and began to chase her once more. Ana turned back around and dropped into an all out sprint for her life. To her dismay, the town and it's protection of rubble to dodge around and hide in to slow the Hive ended too soon, and she was forced to run out onto the wide open plains by more Thrall coming in from the sides to join the rest of the horde. Ana knew that she could keep up her all out sprint for as long as she needed, but she knew that the Hive could probably keep it up longer. On and on she ran, jumping over small holes, darting around trees and rocks, stumbling over unseen obstacles, and covering mile after mile of flat unchanging ground. Still running, chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw that the Thrall horde had not given up on the chase, in fact it had nearly tripled in size. Ana redoubled her efforts to keep up the dead sprint but she could feel her legs beginning to fail. A strange break in the purple grass dead ahead of her drew Ana's attention and as she neared it, she realized it was a platform of some kind being held in place by 4 chains across from each other. Ana dropped into a slide which brought her to a stop in the middle of the platform, right by the lever that released the chain locks. Without thought or hesitation Ana hit the lever, releasing the locks and causing the platform to begin it's descent.

"That was a bad move." Ana's Ghost whispered, "We are currently descending towards the area where the Hive are thickest." The elevator came to screeching halt and Ana heard a grinding and then a couple thuds, and without anyone telling her what happened, she knew that the elevator wasn't going anywhere, any time soon. Ana looked around and felt her heart sink as she stared into the blackness surrounding her. "They haven't woken yet, but the second you move out of the light, they will awake and chase you. So you better not make a wrong turn."

"I'm sorry." Ana jumped when she heard a new voice from her comms. "I can't help you anymore. You're on your own. I tried to lead you to my ship, but then you did this. If you are stupid enough to do what you did, you clearly weren't worthy of being alive." "If you do happen to make it out alive, come find me, I'll be on Jupiter. Ask for The Stranger." And just like that, the transmission was cut and Ana was once again alone. Ana felt rage building up and without thinking threw her head back and screamed in rage. Ana heard movement around her and froze, realizing that she'd just screwed up. Then the glowing green eyes began opening in the darkness, and Ana bolted, causing all the lights to flicker on, and the Hive gave chase. The Hive were vicious, Ana ran and ran deeper into hell eventually losing the site of light. After barely escaping the hive, she finally realized how deep in shit she was. She did not know which way she had run to get where she was, she didn't know which way to go or what to do. So she did the only thing she could think of, she tried to survive as long as she could. At first, Ana saw nothing, but after a few days, Ana was hungry and thirsty and went in search of food and water.

Ana and her ghost saw unspeakable things during the search, how the hive made worms, thralls, knights, acolytes, and such. she clung to the shadows much like Eris had done when Eris was trapped in the hellmouth for years. Another day passed without the discovery of anything and Ana was weak and sick, she was near giving up when a lone Acolyte wandered near her position. In sudden desperation, Ana lunged from her hiding spot and broke the Acolyte's neck with an audible snap, that went unheard. Quietly, Ana dragged the Acolytes corpse back into the little cave that none of the Hive seemed to notice. Ana unsheathed her knife and laid it to the side. Using only her brute strength, Ana cracked and broke the armor off the Acolyte's chest and then tore the rest of the armor off it's arms and head. Using her knife, Ana sliced into the Acolyte's chest and tore it open, revealing it's inner organs, and splashing it's blood all over Ana's gloved hands and spraying it onto her helmet and chestplate. Ana reached further in and tore out the acolytes heart and using her Solar abilities(surprising herself with them) she heated the heart and burned it a little, making feel like broiled chicken in her hand. Without thinking, Ana reached up and removed her helmet, and instantly regretted it as she had to gasp for air for a couple seconds before her body adjusted to the slightly less oxygen content of the air. Before she could stop it, the hunger inside her took over and she devoured the Acolyte's heart in just a few bites, tasting none of it. Still without control, she used her Solar powers to cook the rest of the corpse and began tearing it apart and eating any real meat she could strip from the corpse. After her hunger was satiated, she leaned back, stared down at her Hive Blood splattered hands and helmet and looked down at the corpse. All of sudden, the reality of what she'd just down hit her, and if she'd been standing, she would have collapsed. At the moment, her ghost floated in and froze, staring at her and the corpse of the Acolyte.

"Did you…" The Ghost trailed off, Ana nodded and the Ghost made a sighing noise. Without a word, the ghost materialized the jug of water the ghost had carried back. Ana snatched up the jug and drank half of the water before capping it and setting it aside. Ana looked down at the Acolyte's corpse and made a decision, if she was going to live, she'd have to continue killing and eating the disgusting creatures. Ana laid down on the cold ground several feet away from the corpse and drifted off to sleep. Ana woke the next morning, feeling a little odd, and opened her eyes to complete darkness.

"Ghost? You there?" Ana whispered.

"Yes. I'm shining a light into your eyes. Can't you see it?" Ana shook her head, fear rising within her. "Your eyes were blue, why are they orange now?" Ana shrugged and began rapidly blinking her eyes as they started to burn(not literally) and water. Ana shut her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and tried to suppress the pain. Slowly, the pain faded away and Ana removed her hands from her eyes and opened them.

"Is your light still on?" Ana asked. In response, the Ghost turned the light back on, reblinding Ana and causing her to cover her eyes with her arm. Slowly, Ana lowered her arm and allowed her eyes to adjust to the light. Ana's ghost turned off the light again, plunging them back into darkness. To Ana's great surprise, her eyes adjusted till she was able to see again and her Ghost made a little gasping sound.

"Your eyes…" Her Ghost began, "They're glowing." Ana shrugged and her Ghost settled inside Ana's discarded helmet. Silently, Ana rose and moved out of the cave to go hunting once again.

Ana lived in the cave for several weeks, but due to her odd sleep schedule and her lack of a day night cycle to view, she assumed it had only been a few days. Several more uneventful weeks passed, all the days blending together, screwing up her sense of time. To her, it had only been 2 weeks, but in reality, she had been living in the Hive Cesspool for 2 months.

Then, only 3 days before she was planning to attempt to escape, Ana heard a sweet soothing voice, singing a familiar song. She'd heard the song down here before, but she'd never been this close to it before. Ana considered informing her Ghost that they were going towards it but, whatever, she had her Ghost with her; It wouldn't complain. So, Ana took a second to pinpoint the sound and began moving towards it. After only a few seconds, Ana was attacked by a Thrall that was hiding in an alcove. Before she could kill it, the Thrall slashed her side with it's claws, tearing through the weak armor and shredding the skin underneath. Ana snapped the Thrall's neck and gripped her side in pain as she continued searching for the source of the singing.

Eventually, Ana found the source. In the middle of a massive hidden chamber Ana had discovered long ago, on a rock, with a small tablet like device in hand, sat a woman dressed in Hive armor with the eyes of a Hive, yet Ana knew she was not Hive. The woman looked up, and the eyes, hidden behind the gauze, seemed to settle on her and the woman stopped singing.

"You are not Hive, what are you and how are you here?" The woman growled as she stood and drew her weapon. Ana stumbled out of her hiding spot, getting dizzy from blood loss and stared at the woman for a few seconds before she spoke.

"I could ask the same of you." Ana hissed. Ana looked down at her side and saw that her hand was covered in her own blood and it was slowly spreading, soaking into the cloth lining of the armor and running down her leg. "Oh." Ana mumbled before collapsing, unconscious before she hit the ground.

Hours later, Ana awoke in a hospital, with several human doctors around her, and the woman in the cave standing off to the side, with no memory of what had happened the weeks before.

"Where am I? Who are you? How'd I get here?" Ana mumbled, gasping in pain.

"Hey, settle down. I've been ordered to guard you and you are not to move." A human in armor by the door said with a slight german accent.

"I don't need guarding, I'll kick your ass if I have to." Ana growled.

"I don't see that happening anytime soon." The human chuckled, "My name's Edward. I'm primarily a Nightstalker, like you. What's your name?"

"I'm Ana, now get outta my face." Ana growled.

"Well Ana, you and I are Guardians. We Guard humanity. Eris is the one that found and rescued you so you owe her your life. We are Hunter Class so we'll be training together. If you ever need anything, give me a call." Edward said before walking out of the room. Ana closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep once more.

Now….

Ana awoke to the rising suns and looked around, knowing why this place had felt so similar to her know. Ana climbed out of Edward's sleeping bag and watched the rising suns come up over the horizon. She had come from this direction when she had run. They were heading back towards the ruined city, and her lost gun. Ana took a deep breath in attempt to calm herself and shivered, still cold from the frigid night air. Ana walked over and kicked Edward, waking him abruptly. Edward woke, and within seconds was on his feet with twin knives in hand, ready to kill and fully alert. Ana started laughing at the panicked look in Edward's eyes and he gave her a death look, only making her laugh harder.

"Who are you and what have you done with Ana?" Edward growled jokingly.

"I killed her and made a new one." Ana answered, laughing even harder at the look Edward gave her.

"What is wrong with you?" Ryan asked, giving her an odd look that made her laugh more, "I thought you couldn't laugh."

"I saw your face and that changed." Ana choked out before laughing even harder at her own joke. Edward, Jace, Baris-7 and Shannon started laughing as well as Ryan's face turned red.

"It's not funny." Ryan snarled.

"You're right, it's not funny," Shannon said, barely containing her laughter, "It's hilarious." Shannon began laughing again, and the others started laughing harder. Ryan sighed and shook his head and walked away from the others. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something dash towards Ryan, and out of pure instinct, she whirled and fired her ShadowShot into the Thrall's chest, killing it instantly. The entire rest of the group, including Ryan, stared at Ana, no longer laughing.

"I have NEVER seen you move that quickly before. How did you do that?" Edward asked, confused and surprised.

"Uh, remember that trauma I suffered that blocked my memories, I seem to have removed the block." Ana said sheepishly.

"What was your trauma then?" Ryan snapped, getting death looks from Edward and Jace.

"You know that pit we just escaped from? I was trapped down there for a few months. Not a few weeks. This is my home planet." Ana said, staring everywhere BUT at the other Guardians.

"And your point is?" Ryan snapped. Shannon smacked Ryan in the back of his head and gave him a death look. "Ow." Ryan grumbled, rubbing the back of his head.

"What has gotten into you today? I make fun of you all the time, but she does it and you turn into a douchebag. What is your problem?" Shannon growled at Ryan.

"She BETRAYED us. She left with that, TRAITOR, why should we be nice to her?" Ryan growled back, raising his voice.

"Uhm guys, please stop yelling." Ana urged. Both Ryan and Shannon ignored her.

"Because if you don't shut the fuck and stop being a dick I'll lay you out the way she did first day." Shannon yelled, making Ryan turn a beet red color with rage.

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP OR I'LL PERSONALLY BREAK YOUR LEGS AND LEAVE YOU FOR THE HIVE!" Edward roared at them, very, VERY pissed off. Ryan and Shannon stopped yelling at each other and looked at Edward, who had void energy swirling around him making him look terrifyingly ominous, even in the light of three suns. Ana took a step back, fearful of Edward for the first time ever. Ana had never seen Edward lose his cool before, but she'd seen the aftermath of the last time it'd happened. Edward had been trapped on a Cabal base, and they had somehow pissed him off. In the end, the base somehow got blown to smithereens and a few pieces had been actually launched into Mars orbit. When Ana showed up to see what had blown up the base, sitting in the middle of a 235ft deep crater was Edward, sitting on a rock and sharpening his knives.

Ana shook off the memory and placed her hand on Edward's shaking shoulder and his head snapped over to look at her, and he instantly calmed down.

"We need to get moving, and Edward, we don't need a repeat of Alpha Base 2731 here." Ana said with an air of authority. For some reason, everyone got to work tearing down camp and packing back up. Once they were packed up, Ana switched to the hand signals they were taught and signaled them to get in Arrowhead formation with Ana on point, Ryan and Jac on her left and Shannon and Baris-7 to her right with Edward watching their back. Still signaling, Ana instructed them to set pace at a sort of sprinting jog. It took nearly no energy for them to do, but they covered ground faster than they had before. Within a few hours, and only a few minor skirmishes with the Hive, The group reached the abandoned town. Ana signaled for the group to stop and motioned for them to find cover. Ana activated her experimental stealth cloak and began slowly moving forward, unsure of what to expect. Slowly but deliberately, Ana picked up a small rock and threw it at a metal wall, where it made a loud pinging noise that seemed to echo through the air. Ana stood still for several minutes, waiting for any Hive to show themselves. When none did, Ana unstealthed and motioned for the group to move up. Slowly, they began moving through the town till a golden glint in the dirt caught Ana's eye. Ana held up her hand, signaling the team to stop, and Ana approached the golden glint. Using her foot, Ana reached out and dragged the filthy, leaf and dirt covered object over to her and slowly picked it up. Using her expertly honed void abilities, she cleaned the filth from her fallen weapon and looked up. Floating only a few yards away, with their backs to her, was a group of 4 Hive wizards. Ana stumbled back and signaled frantically for the group to hide. The wizards began to turn, and with no place to get to fast enough, Ana tried to activate her stealth. The wizards turned around and narrowed their eyes, expecting to see something, but saw nothing. Ana went to move away and she heard a slight sputter from her stealth, and then it shut off. The wizards pointed at Ana and began to screech in rage, and then they opened portals that hive began pouring out of. Ana turned and shouted at the top of her lungs, "RETREAT BACK 30 METERS AND FORM SHIELD WALL TO THE SOUTH." Then she began running around west. Since the Hive couldn't see the rest of them, they all pursued Ana as she ran.

Edward took over the second Ana disappeared and ran everyone into the alley Ana had been referencing, and set everyone up in formation. Edward on point since he was the best shot, Jace to his left, Baris-7 to his right, with Ryan behind Jace and Shannon behind Baris-7. The Edward, Jace, and Baris-7 activated the shields Ana had built for them while they were on their way back from Zeph's place and positioned them in a slanted interlocking pattern, making them near impenetrable. The 5 of them sat and waited, first a minute went by, and another, and another, and another. After several more tense minutes of waiting, they heard Ana whistle from somewhere in front of them and they tensed up, waiting for her to appear. A few seconds later, Ana shot around a corner and ran for the Shield wall, Hive hot on her heels. Right before she would have crashed into the shields blocking the small alley, Ana sprung up over them and landed behind Edward, spinning and changing momentum to come right up behind Edward so that she could fire over his shoulder. Then, Ryan, Shannon, and Ana opened fire on the Hive, dropping them faster than they could pour into the alley. A noise from behind caused Ana to turn her head and she saw more Hive coming from the back.

"Ryan, Shannon, more Hive on your Six. Shield team, go offensive." Ana ordered. Immediately, Ryan and Shannon spun around and began firing on the Hive that were trying to come from the other way. Edward, Jace, and Baris-7 recalled the shields and began firing their own guns into the Hive hoard.

"We are outnumbered here Captain," Edward yelled to Ana, reverting back to his old nickname for her, "They have more thrall then we have bullets to drop them with. Also, we are stuck in the middle of an alley with no way out."

"Wrong, we definitely have a way out." Ana said before stomping on a slightly raised panel in the concrete, opening the floor underneath them and dropping them down into a tunnel, and the hole they fell through sealed back up.

"Where are we?" Edward groaned.

"Welcome to my Lab." Ana said as she flipped a switch on the wall, turning on all the lights and revealing a massive chamber filled with weapon parts and machinery.

"Ho...ly...Shit." Ryan whispered while the others stared.

"Behind this door is our only chance at escape." Ana said as she approached a locked vault door. Ana input a passcode to the lock and hit the switch, causing the door to swing open and reveal its contents.

Shannon gasped and sputtered "But...But...That's not possible."

That's all for part 2. Much thanks to Kenokosan for giving me a bit of story to work with. I won't put the link on here(because I can't do that on the school computer I'm typing this on XD) but Kenokosan has written some beautiful smut between Edward and Ana. Also, Kenokosan is Ana's creator, but I'm not done changing and developing her backstory yet. Currently, Ana is technically 31, and Edward is technically 46, although neither look older than 25. If you have any criticism or helpful hints, send them to me. I'm not sure if you caught it, but in the last part I made reference to A Dark night with the character Gate. Finally(I ramble a lot) last chapter should have been titled Hellmouth 2.0 not Hellmouth 20. That was an unforeseen mistake.