Hi guys, sorry for the delay had to do overtime. Anyway, this is my last update for the year, unless I get bored. Merry Christmas, or whatever you celebrate and see you in the new year.

The Elite commander of the Storm faction backed up as the Arbiter advanced on him. The red glow of the Prophet's Bane shimmered almost as if it was unstable. Grunting, the commander stood and stared at the Arbiter, anger fuelled his zealous rage. Roaring he charged in with a wide swipe, pushing all his power into the blow. The Arbiter deflected the blow, and was about to move in for a strike of his own, but was pushed back by a kick to the chest.

Thel backed up as the two begin to circle each other each other, keeping their eyes on each other. Eyeing up the other, measuring for the next attack. Seeing an opening, the commander moved in, but the Arbiter moved out of the way and swung his blade at the commanders back. Cutting his armour and spine, sending him to the floor. Thel moved up and fully plunged his sword into the commander's chest killing him before he took in the command room.

He had seen places like this before. On Halo and other installations across the universe. It was hard not to be in awe of this technology, this architecture, this history. Turning towards the main console, he walked up to it and activated it. The holographic icons came up, he read them as best as he could.

"Shipmaster, send the archivist to my location," he said. "I have a terminal activated that I need translated,"

"Understood, he is on the way," the shipmaster replied.

It didn't take long for the archivist to reach Thel and began to translate the system. But as it was going to take a while, the Arbiter decided that now was the best time to meditate. While he had become disillusioned with the religion of the Covenant, certain practices were useful to continue. Meditation being one as it calmed the mind and helped him relax. He had seen humans do the same with analogy of calming monkeys in the head. While not understand what a monkey was, he got the idea.

Much like it was for him, mediation was a calming technique that humans performed to relax their minds and bodies. In a way, it was something that reminded him that his race and humans weren't so different despite the culture and physical appearance. But there was still animosity between the two races, which he couldn't blame them for. It was the same with him and the demon. Their first meeting with the Gravemind was little more than shooting jabs at each other and the second, the demon pulling a gun on him.

War left a lot of bad feelings on both sides. He couldn't blame anyone but the prophets for those feelings. At least Truth died for his lies.

His communication crackled bringing him out of his thoughts. "Arbiter, we have detected a human ship coming in fast,"

Thel frowned at that. Why where the humans coming here? But then again it could be another human faction coming to secure and salvage the station.

"Have you tried to contact them?" he asked as he stood but all he got was static. "Shipmaster, are you reciting?" all he got was static, less than a good sign.

He began to move to the door when the station shook. "What was that?" the archivist asked looking around and grabbing his plasma rifle.

"Stay here, lock the door," the Arbiter ordered as he exited the room and made his way down the corridors.

Static was all that met his ears as he tried to follow the map in his head to where the hanger was. As he got closer, the unmistakeable sounds of battle met his ears making it clear that the humans weren't friendly. Picking up speed, he readied his sword in case of a quick attack. As he entered the hanger, he spotted the attackers. 4 demons stood before him, but their armour looked odd. Much like the other elites, the armour was rounded and smooth. Almost clean, not damage, no wear and tear as he had seen with other armour.

They turned to him, the red eyes on their skull faced helmets creating an intimidation factor that didn't work on the Arbiter. One of them came running up, energy sword drawn, and jumped. Thel deflected the attack but was forced back as a bullet impacted his shield. As he moved back, one of the other Spartans came at him from the side, energy daggers in hand. Then deflected the blades but was forced to disengage from the attack as the sword welding Demon came in for another strike.

As he pulled back, the 4th Spartan, a female if Thel guessed, came in with speed. Almost impossible speed for someone like a Spartan and threw a punch. It missed, but she followed up with a kick to the chest. The Arbiter took that hit before slashing down at her only managing to nick the armour as she backed up fast. He was surrounded by three Spartans and one in the distance somewhere trying to line up a shot. This wasn't going to be easy; he needed to plan his moves.

Tossing a grenade at the closest Spartan, he then moved to the one with the energy dangers. Pushing him back while the Spartan with the sword backed up from the tossed grenade. At the two Spartans turned to the Arbiter, Thel took an opportunity to remove one of the knife wielding Spartan's arms. The silence from the Spartan was unnerving as he backed up, holding his arm while Thel moved to counter a kick coming from the fast Spartan. While he aimed for the leg, a shot that impacted his shield took his attention away from her attack sending him back.

Recovering quickly, he blocked another attack coming from the sword welding. The skull helmet leaned in close only for the Arbiter to headbutt the Spartan sending back in a daze as the fast Spartan came in with another attack. He backed up looking for an opening and found one as she tried to come with a heavy attack. She advanced with a punch to the face which he dogged before following up with a kick. Thel moved quickly and cut her leg off. She fell to the ground, clutching her leg in silence.

But the Arbiter didn't have time to take into account what happened as the sword welding began a furious attack. He was angry, something that the Arbiter could make use of. An enemy who was made, was one who makes mistakes. A lesson he learned many times. Thel moved back, avoiding the red blade that was aimed at taking his head off. He needed to wait for an opening. A shot from the unseen sniper distracted him, but the round bounced off a wall and hit the skull mask of the Spartan.

He flinched, but slowly turned to look at the Arbiter. The crack of his faceplate was hard to notice as he moved in with speed. Thel'Vadam moved out of the way of the attack before coming down with a slash at the plate. The energy blade made contact and the plate broke into several pieces with the Spartan stumbling back, his hand covering the open part of the plate.

The Arbiter backed up as well, one eye on the two Spartans missing a limb. Both of them were held up by the other, their read eyes burning into his soul. The sword welding Spartan turned and Thel just backed up even more. As the Spartan stood, it was hard not to notice the face. His face, the Demon's, face, John's face. He didn't want to believe it, but there it was in all it's glory. They stared before they readied themselves to attack, only for the Spartan to turn and run with the others back to the ship. Thel wanted to chase, but didn't as he moved over to his fallen soldiers, making sure that they were dead.

The Spartan ship, a rounded and sleek design unfamiliar to him, started up its engines and flew out of the hanger leaving the Arbiter confused about what happened. After checking a few more bodies, he stood and walked over to the entrance of the hanger looking out into the vastness of space.

"Arbiter, are you receiving?" the voice of the shipmaster cracked over the comms unit.

He sighed in relief. "Shipmaster I'm receiving,"

"What happened? We saw the human ship then all communications stopped," the confusion of the shipmaster was unmistakeable but Thel shared the same thoughts. He had no idea what happened either.

OOOOO

Parisa sat on a chair as she waited for the representatives of the other factions to hammer out the final parts of an area of neutrality agreement. Similar to what they did with the other areas where a Halo was. No one wanted a flood outbreak, so these neutral areas were the best for all factions, other than the Empire which was no more, in order to contain any flood outbreak. While the war was still ongoing, fighting an infectious parasite where even the dead was a resource wouldn't do anyone any good.

This meeting was likely going to be quick and simple given that this had happened before. But the waiting was the difficult part, it made her nervous about what could happen. Especially with the war sill going on. Empire territory was up for grabs. Anyone who got a head start would most likely get the lions share of the territory. Which in turn meant more access to resources, factories, planetary economies, soldiers, food and more.

She had already sent orders to begin taking Imperial worlds, but it would take time to set something up to get going. And she wanted to get it going as quickly as possible. Sarah's force was likely already making a move, the GHR and Union would also take their time as they would need to get the resources together. If they wanted to beat Atlas, they needed to move fast.

Sighing as she waited, Dana came on in her ear bud. "President, I have some… disturbing news form the Arbiter," the AI said making Parisa frown.

As Dana explained what the Arbiter had relayed to her, the President felt her blood run cold at the events. "What do you suggest?"

OOOOO

Kelly walked down the maintenance galleries looking over several prototypes of the modular armour system that they planned to implement. They were still in the testing phase to work out the kinks of the systems before moving over to full mass production. One of the main problems that they face was finding a good small power core that could be used as the main shield generator for the armour.

Part of the problem was power. Sheilds drew power from each hit to prevent the system from failing before recharging. A strong long-life core would be needed. The other problem was that such a strong long-life core tended to be fragile. Meaning that a good hit from a pistol or the backblast from a SPNKR rocket launcher could interrupt the internal workings of the shield.

The armour itself was fine, as they based it off the tried and tested ODST standard armour. It was the modular segments that were the problem. As she made her rounds of the techs, Malcom, walked up with a pad in hand.

"Hey boss, I could use your expertise on something. It's Spartan related," he explained.

Kelly nodded and the two walked over to his workshop where a set of armour was set up on a work table. "So, what's the problem?" she asked.

"There's something wrong with the armour joints," he explained as he pointed to the join armour sections.

Kelly nodded as she watched as Malcom moved the joint before she gave it a go. "A bit stiff," she noted while she felt around the lining of the armour. "It could be too much material…." She tried before the lab exploded.