Hey! I'm back! Sorry for the long wait.

Ethan heard a gurgling scream, and Rek Vzar fell to the ground, two spikes sticking out of his head. The death of the kig-yar left only him and a sangheili, Karn 'Taham, alive out of their 7-soldier team. Preparing to fire his CO46 at the enemy forces, Ethan thought back to how they got into this...

-15 Minutes earlier-

Ethan grabbed a CO46, slamming a twelve bolt clip into the weapon with a satisfying clack. Their mission was to explore a mysterious ship that the Ascension-class cruiser Jagged Shadow had discovered in the Arenade system. The other ship was holding position and had not responded to their hails. While most soldiers prefered the Plasma Carbine for fighting inside ships, Ethan preferred the precision of the CO46. One sangheili, Karn 'Taham, had picked up a Torpedo Launcher. Why he thought that was a good idea Ethan did not know. Ethan was the leader of fireteam Echo, which consisted of 7 members: him, Karn, kig-yar Rek Vzar, unggoy Zula, unggoy Ripa, kig-yar Kev Nez, and human Matt Spencer. After Echo finished picking weapons, they headed back into the hangar from the armory. They boarded a Valkyrie and took off towards the ship. The other ship loomed in front of the Valkyrie. It looked odd, like it wasn't made of metal. As the Valkyrie got closer, it became apparent that the other ship wasn't made of metal at all, but what looked like plant growth. Some of the hull seemed to be made of massive leaves, covered with veins, while other parts looked fungal.

"Whoa..." murmured Ethan, awestruck at the bizarre ship.

"It looks like it's made out of plants" Karn commented.

The Valkyrie flew along the hull of the mysterious ship, looking for a hanger or opening of some kind to allow the Marines to enter. At last, the dropship came to an opening, which looked to be a hangar, though the room it led into was barren.

"No atmosphere, good thing we came in EAA suits" said Kev.

After team Echo piled out of the Valkyrie into the 'hangar', the dropship departed to investigate the rest of the mysterious craft. The dropship would still be able to quickly pick them up if anything went wrong. As team Echo took up defensive positions around the 'hangar', they took in their surroundings. The floor was somewhat squishy, and seemed to be made out of mushroom. The walls seemed to be made mostly out of the leaf substance found on the hull, but were supported by what appeared to be branches, running vertically and forming 'ribs' for the ship. The room was made of the same mushroom material as the floor, with large 'stalks' supporting it. At the other end of the room were a couple openings in the wall, obstructed by vines that were woven over the entrance. A few bioluminescent bulbs hung from the ceiling, providing light to the room. Due to the lack of air, the whole place was eerily quiet. Ethan walked over to one of the doors. Karn followed him, flipping off the safety and preparing his Torpedo Launcher to fire, should something hostile approach. Up close, Ethan got a better look at the vines. They were thick and smooth, and looked very strong.

"Well, nothing ventured nothing gained" Ethan muttered as he slowly reached out his hand toward the vines. Echo raised their weapons and prepared to fire, while Karn aligned his reticule so that he could fire through the doorway without hitting Ethan.

As soon as Ethan's hand touched the vines, they slid away and retracted into the walls at an astonishing speed. On the other side of the doorway was a hallway. It was made of the same material as the hangar: a mushroom floor, leaf walls (with branches for support), and a mushroom ceiling. Upon seeing that there were no hostiles on the other side, Ethan signaled for team Echo to form up on him. Karn took the lead, as his Torpedo Launcher would be useless with friendlies in front of him, which Ethan right behind him and the rest of Echo following. They slowly made their way down the hall, weapons at the ready. After a short while, they came to an intersection. They took the right door, deciding it would be best to not split up. Once again, the vines forming the door quickly retracted, re-weaving themselves as soon as the group passed through. They continued through a few more intersections. While the ship itself was creepy enough, the thing that really put Ethan on edge was the fact that they had yet to encounter whoever the ship belonged to. All the halls were empty. Just as he finished that thought, however, a door ahead of them opened and three things ran out. The had the same body shape as humans, and were about the same size too. However, that was about were the similarities end. The were made entirely out of plant matter: the feet and legs were made out of fungus with leaves wrapped around the straight sections and the torso was massive fungal growth. The arms were effectively the same as the legs, with a fungal structure wrapped in leaves. One arm had a giant sword-like growth on it while the other had what appeared to be a hand. The hand was made up entirely of fungus. Finally, the head was a giant fungal growth with a split where the mouth would be. The creatures looked at team Echo, then instantly charged them. Echo opened fire with their Plasma Carbines, but while the shots burned and scorched away plenty of 'flesh', the beasts did not falter. Ethan raised his Crossover Rifle and fired a few shots at one of them. The shots tore through it's torso, and the creature fell and lay still. But he knew that the other two would be upon them before he could shoot them. Just then a blue bolt of energy streaked past and collided with one the the creatures. The bolt exploded, and both of the beasts were incinerated. Karn 'Taham walked forward, Torpedo Launcher over his shoulder.

"Knew I'd want this thing!" he exclaimed.

Unfortunately, any celebration was short lived. A scream was heard, and they turned to see Spencer fall to the ground limp. One of the creatures had snuck up on the group from behind and impaled him with it's sword. Ethan brought his CO46 to his hip and hammered out six shots, ripping the monster to shreds. The group scanned around, and finding no more hostiles, cautiously moved forward. The next room they entered was large, open and circular. Four of the creatures stood at the far end of the room. Instead of a sword, it's arm had some sort of odd fungal growth on it. Ethan thought it looked like a gun, and his suspicions about it's purpose were confirmed when a barrage of thorns sprang from the growths and smashed into Echo's shields. The kig-yar, Rek and Kev, crouched down and deployed their hard-light shields. The were using type-2 HLS systems: unlike the type-1 standard for CSA Marines, which maintained the soldier's usual personal shields as well as the HLS, can be taken down quickly by concentrated fire, the type-2s reroute energy from the personal shields to the HLS, making it almost unbreakable, even against heavy weapons. Unfortunately, this also means that the user is exposed to fire from the side and back. As the unggoy took cover behind the kig-yar, Karn threw down two portable hard-light shield generators, and he and Ethan took cover being them. The unggoys shields recharged, and they leaned out from behind the kig-yar's HLS's and let out a barrage of plasma. Like before, the superheated gas seemed to have little effect of the creatures, and the unggoy were soon forced back into cover by the creatures' return fire. Ethan realised that only he and Karn had weapons that could hurt the creatures, as plasma appeared to have little to no effect on them. Rising up out of cover, Ethan fired three shots at one of the creatures, causing it to spasm and drop. Karn fired a micro plasma torpedo at the ground between two of the creatures, killing them both. The last remaining creature sprayed at them with it's arm-gun, forcing them to crouch back down behind the barriers. As soon as the barrage stopped, Ethan popped back out of cover and fired one shot, straight to the creature's head. As the creature fell down, dead, Ethan heard a yell through his helmet. Five more of the creatures had come up behind them. The creatures opened fire pegging Kev in the head. Since Kev had his HLS open, he didn't have his personal shields up, so the shop killed him instantly. Rek quickly spun around, his HLS intercepting deadly rounds sent his way. Ethan and Karn, quickly vaulted over the Hard-Light barrier and took cover, Karn firing off a torpedo while doing so. The torpedo hit one of the creatures, killing it, but there were still four left. As Rek reached the barrier, the creatures focused their fire on the two unggoy. The unggoy returned fire with their plasma carbines, but as usual the creatures didn't seem to even notice the fire. The thorns of the creatures arm-guns quickly stripped the unggoy's shields and soon they were dead on the ground. Ethan popped back out of cover and unleashed a hail of bolts from the CO46 upon the creatures tearing two of them to shreds. As he slapped in a fresh clip, Karn finished off the last two with a well placed mini plasma torpedo.

"We have to get out of here!" Ethan exclaimed. "We'll go back to the hanger area we entered in."

Karn and Rek gave their confirmation, and the small group quickly made their way back the way they had come. When they were about halfway down a hallway, the 'door' in front of them opened and three of the creatures came through. The creatures concentrated their fire on Rek, stripping his shields almost instantly and putting two spikes in his head. Ethan brought up his CO46 to fire, but before he could Karn fired a torpedo at the creatures, killing all three instantly.

"Out of battery!" Karn exclaimed as he threw the inert launcher on the ground.

What had earlier been a hasty, but cautious and ready jog was now a no-holds-barred sprint as Ethan and Karn desperately ran through room after room. Finally, they came back to the hangar. Ethan quickly messaged the Valkyrie to pick them up, and soon they were away.