As Jack came through the wall a jackal met him headfirst, trying to tackle him down and blast him in close range. In response he threw his hands up, conjuring yellow energy which pushed the creature back. It made a screeching sound at him which cause him to wince, but quickly he focused. Forming a fist with his right hand he swung forward, hoping to hit the thing's face hard. However it dodged and kicked back at him, but just as it was about to fire at him the bird-like creature exploded in a burst of blue energy.

"Don't run off, kid." Scruff grunted, reloading his rifle whilst eyeing Jack up and down. "Caves are just around the corner, reinforcements should be able to fit through the wall now."

Just at that particular moment Diana seemed to jump in through the hole, a portion of her face still melted. Although when she got in a jackal tried to jump at her as well. Reacting quickly she pulled the two swords from her back and pulled them out, turning to dodge the jackal. 

Then she connected the two ends of her swords and locked them in place with a click, running to meet the Jackal head on about a few feet in front of him she slammed her staff into the ground. Using the momentum she managed to swing herself around the staff, using her feet to kick the gun out of his hand. At the last possible second she let go of her staff, her hands touching the side of his head and used her powers to force an ice spike through his head and bring him to the ground with her. 

Then she got up, dropping the bloodied ice spike from her hand and pulling her staff up from the ground and twirling it before she threw the two a smirk. "He's right you know, anklebitters should stay with their rat sitters."

The voice of the ODST in command echoed into the complex from the outside:"Come on, what are they payin' us for? Get yer asses in their on the pronto! CQC, take point."

For a moment there was silence as marines and ODSTs started to transition through the gaps and begin to secure the cave entrance.
Then a faint glow emerged and an army of grunts came charging at them, each one carrying a live plasma grenade in each hand making a kamikaze run straight at the UNSC forces.
"Suicide squads! Don't let them get near you!" A marine shouted as he opened fire at them.

With a grunt Scruff ignored the woman, leading Jack around the corner without a word. From here they could see the cave entrance swarmed with the light of suicide squads. Quickly he began firing, picking the grunts off before they could reach the soldiers. Jack meanwhile stood still and stared into the caves, seemingly lost in thought.

"We're getting close, I can feel it." He spoke almost entranced, a certain golden glimmer in his eyes.
"Well let's get a move on." Scruff replied as he began moving forward once the initial wave of grunts had been dispatched.

Diana rolled her eyes and shrugged, disconnecting the swords in her staff and twirling the two blades in her hands. Her face had completely healed by now, a slight smirk on it. "Yes let's get a move on."

As the combined forces of the UNSC eliminated the last of the suicide grunts, their grenades fell from their hands which resulted in a series of plasma explosions that almost seemed to shake the ground. The explosion, having been near the mouth of the cave itself, caused a few stalactites to drop off the cave's ceiling and shatter as they met the icy floor of the cave. Multiple loud cracking sounds soon followed, and the walls seemed to groan and echo throughout the cave. The ODST in charge put his fist up - a signal commanding everyone to stand their ground.
"Woah.. watch it." A marine said.
After a few moments, the ODST uncurled his fist and used his fingers to wave everyone forward.
"Alright, move in.. but be careful. Shoot a sonuva bitch only if you've confirmed it a sonuva bitch. And refrain from using explosives. This place sounds like it ain't gonna be up for much longer."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sir! One of the CRS cruisers broke formation and is heading towards the surface of the planet." An officer at the navigations console said.
Admiral Al Thani looked to the man and frowned.
"Broke formation? They must be trying to delivery reinforcements..."
He looked at the officer at the communications console. "Send a heads-up to Dumont. I want that cruiser intercepted and distracted until our infantry is done down there."

"We've got reports of a cruiser headed this way Captain." The Lt. Commander beside him announced, causing him to turn his attention from the screen which showed the action on-surface.
"Ready the weaponry, we're in for a fight." He ordered to which the bridge burst into action, calling orders all over to prepare for engagement. Meanwhile Dumont switched to his private comms. "Scruff, how's it looking down there?"

"We're entering the cave." The small soldier replied, beckoning Jack to follow closely. For the closer quarters of the cave he had switch to his pistol, keeping it trained forward in case of enemy engagement. "ETA. 2 minutes on the package."
"Copy that." Dumont cut the call, focusing on the coming fight. "Shields up, let's do this."

Diana seemed to be at ease but her shoulders were tense, every enhanced sense on alert. The only other sense of her unease was her fingers, they were turning into water then freezing into ice before turning to flesh and repeating the cycle over again.

She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, but it wasn't one she voiced. Instead she settled for twirling her twin swords, frost crawling up the edges of the blade with an equally frosty calm look on her face.

Each Marine was on high-alert, their senses dialed-up to a hundred. Not a single corner of the cave went unnoticed with their overlapping fields of view as they examined each part of the cave top-to-bottom as they moved deeper into it.
"Christ, you'd think it'd be warmer down here with all their mining and shit right?" A marine commented.
"Hey! Focus, we've got a job to do alright?" Another replied in a whispered shout.
"Well this is just swell ain't it?" The lead ODST said. The other marines that were guarding the rear turned to look and discovered what he meant: the path ahead divided into two separate tunnels.
"Great, so now what?" A subordinate ODST asked.

"The artifact... it's left." Jack muttered, looking down to Scruff for his opinion.
"Well, we better get going that way." He replied and gestured for his squad to take point on the left. Meanwhile he turned to Diana and the others. "If we want to secure the whole mine you lot better go right, me and the kid can handle this way." A nod came from the small rodent before he turned away to follow the others down the tunnel.

"It's close, but there are things near it. Alive. Probably covenant trying to research it..." Jack continued, the same glowing eyed wonder showing.
"Just don't let it get to your head, kid." Scruff reminded.

Diana tilted her head to the side, a slight frown on her face as she thought about what she should do. "I'm better out here standing guard. I can hear any reinforcement covenant soldiers coming round the bend before they even enter the place. " She walked to one tunnel, inspecting it before going to the other. "The curved structure of the ice makes it a suitable echo type chamber, I can holler down it something comes either way." Then she stood between the two tunnels, connecting her swords into a staff again and stabbing one end into the ground.

The Marines and the ODST CO looked at Diana for a moment, and then at the squad moving through the left tunnel.
"Alright, Elsa's got our back. Let's move in quietly." The ODST in charge said.
He and his remaining marines and ODSTs proceeded to move into the right tunnel.

Meanwhile deep in the mines, the Head Jackal hissed more commands at her subordinates.
"The humans come, but we have the element of surprise! Take positions and prepare to depart!"

While this was happening, the small detachment of Jackals and Grunts that were at the artifact were unaware of the oncoming UNSC strike team.

Under a minute later the leading soldier raised his hand to signal their arrival to the artifact. The group stopped before an outcrop in the icy rock which overlooked a large circular chamber that was oddly made of engraved stone. Patterns and lines covered the structures walls and floors, leading up to a central pedestal upon which something golden shone.

Scruff moved to the front of the team and kept low, which was rather easy for him, surveying the group of Jackals and Grunts. His arm shot out to stop Jack from jumping in.
"Wait for the other team to find the enemy. We can't afford to alert the whole mines to our presence and risk them getting ambushed." He explained, before switching to comms. "ODSTs, we've found our target. Give us the heads up when you've found engagement and we can co-ordinate our attacks."

Diana sat in the center of the fork, a tunnel on either side of her. Her hands were pressed against the floor, she seemed to be relaxed. But in reality she was listening intently, with her hand pressed to the ground she could still feel the slight vibrations the soldiers made as they moved, could still hear their heartbeats as well if she listened hard enough. Suddenly she felt a different vibration, in the blink of an eye she was on her feet with her bladed staff on her hand.

The ODSTs and Marines arrived in a large cavern littered with stalagmites and stalactites. Large purple four-legged walkers stood stationary at different points around the massive room, with some burn marks and holes showing signs of drilling activity.
As they moved further in, surveying every inch of the area, their ODST CO raised his fist again, signalling for the others to stop.
"Gentlemen, either we've already blown our way through all the numbers they had down there or we've walked right into a trap."
A marine that had taken the liberty to separate from the group by a few meters spotted something attached to a stalagmite almost touching the ceiling.
"Sarge, we've got a-- ohh shit.."
An explosion went off, which was then followed by a series of others chaining throughout the cavern. The rocky walls started to crack and groan under pressure as they were weakened and bits of rock and stalactites started to rain down. A number of marines were consumed in the plasma explosions as they all struggled to regain contact with the rest of the group.
The ODST CO began to shout orders to fall back to the exit over all the chaos to little avail. The explosions reverberated throughout the entire cave system, being heard and felt by anyone else that had accompanied them down there.

"The humans have taken the bait. Fools, they can do nothing now!" The Jackal leader gloated from the tunnel through which they had entered. Unbeknownst to them, the Covenant had used active camoflauge technology to hide themselves and were now exiting through the tunnel, heading towards the surface with entire floating purple carts loaded with mined material. The carts were sealed off from the top, so any roco that landed on them shattered and fell apart harmlessly as they pushed them towards the exit.

As the cave shook from the explosions only the stone walls of the chamber seemed unaffected.
"Was that our signal?" Jack asked in shock, whilst the covenant below became more alert than before. There was little time to waste for either side, so Scruff jumped into the chamber first. His pistol fired off a few rounds to cover the others entrance, picking off a grunt or two and causing others to flee to cover. The Jackals made a more valiant stand, opening fire on the group with their rifles.

Jack launched towards one such Jackal, grabbing it's rifle and freezing it's mechanisms in time. No longer being able to fire the weapon was useless, leaving the Jackal victim to a series of punches in it's face which sent it down to the floor.
"Clear the chamber! Kid, get what you need!" Scruff ordered, firing more shots at the remaining grunts over the sound of explosions and gunfire.

Diana didn't waver when she heard and saw the Jackal Leader and her troops marching out with their carts, instead her eyes darted around the cavern. There was no possible way one on one that she could defeat them all. Suddenly her eyes focused on the cracks in the walls of cavern, a dangerous idea forming in her head. She turned her head sharply towards the left cavern, yelling as loud as she could even though she knew her voice would echo. "Brace yourselves! I'm about to do something incredibly stupid!" 

Then she turned back, jabbing her staff into the ground so she would have both hands free. She raised one palm, chunks of the icy floor rising from the ground and morphing into large spikes. There was a fifty fifty chance this would work, although the chance that she would be able to maintain control was even slighter. She shoved her palm forward, sending the large spikes straight into the center of the cracks.

Her plan was to bring the cavern down on top of the oncoming soldiers, while using her powers to forcibly hold up the ceiling of half the room she was in and the left cavern. She hadn't control that amount of ice in a particularly long time, she hoped she could handle it. The second the spikes impacted there was a cracking sound that rebounded through the caves, quickly followed by an ominous groaning as the walls started to shake and concave. Diana darted for the wall between the two tunnels, pressing her palm to it and connecting with the ice from the left tunnel and half the ceiling in the room. She forced it to maintain stability, but the action required all of her focus and effort. 

Should any of the covenant soldiers and Jackal's survive the currently collapsing ceiling, she would be completely open to attack.

Only a few surviving troops made it through before the tunnel behind them collapsed, while the few that had survived were making a mad dash for the exit, along with their leader. They picked up the pace, the Jackals pushin the floating carts past Diana, completelt ignoring her as the grunts frantically followed. The Jackal Mistress hissed at Diana's face as she passed her, but not before delivering a powerful punch to her right temple. She then turned and joined her troops in the evacuation.

Meanwhile, as the tunnel started to come down, the UNSC Troops' exit was blocked off and they were trapped inside the collapsing cavern.
"What in the Sam Hill?" The ODST CO blurted. His armour was cracked in places and his visor was partially shattered. Blood ran down his forehead and he watched the tunnel cave in completely. The few marines left with him gathered near him and stopped dead.
"Well there goes our exit.. what now?" One of them asked.
The ODST CO turned around and faced his men and for once, he was at a loss for words.

"Got it!" Jack shouted over the noise, finishing with the jackal before sprinting for the middle. Almost in sync the rest of the group formed around his path, holding off the grunts and jackals to make sure none obstructed his run. The closer he got to the golden object the brighter it glowed, until the whole chamber flooded with a blinding light.

Time stopped everywhere across reality and for that endless moment there was only Jack and faceless figure.
"You are the heir to the title of Aspect." It spoke to him without a mouth and seemed to examine him closely without eyes. "You have found one of the relics of time, but there are still more to find before you can truly claim your title." While it spoke Jack merely looked at it in awe, unsure what to do. "You are not afraid, that is good. With each relic you find you will grow stronger, you must not fear your power lest you lose control of it." The figure explained, still as ever. 

Suddenly the blank landscape changed to a shifting image of the icy caverns, shooting through the halls until they could see the situation around Diana. 
"My friends... They're trapped and in trouble. I need to help them." Jack spoke desperately, looking at the fist flying straight into the face of Diana.
"You have the power now. Save them." The figure suddenly disappeared and reality came back to real-time. 

Instantly he tapped into his newly gained power, bending the few threads of time to his will. The ice falling to block the ODSTs exit rose back into place, and the covenant-pushed minecarts rolled backwards. What did not change however was anyone's perspective of time. He could not with his current power change time fully, but what he could do was reverse certain actions.

Now with the exit unblocked and the minecarts back in the mine, there stood simply a no-doubt confused squad of ODSTs, a Diana who still had a Jackal Mistress to deal with, and an even more confused group of jackals and grunts who had just watched their minecarts float away. In the midst of it all Jack appeared with a glow of light, wielding a golden sword and looking rather exhausted. 

"Secure the minecarts." He gasped with his remaining energy, before taking a few moments to rest while everything resumed around him.

Diana let out a grunt when the punch connected with her temple, for a split second it felt as if her brain had rattled around in her skull. She felt dizzy and a bit disoriented, blinking for moment at the sudden change. She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, due to Jack's time reversal of the caves Diana no longer had to hold up the ceiling. A smirk formed on Diana's face as she looked at the Jackal, walking away from the wall with a slight bounce in her step as she cracked her knuckles. 

She pulled her staff up from the ground, disconnecting the two blades and spinning them. "Unfortunately for you, I don't believe in letting people have the first punch free." Suddenly she darted forward, one blade aimed for the Jackal's throat while the other aimed for the stomach. Although when Diana was about a foot away from the Jackal the ice beneath her feet rose up a couple inches, allowing her to jump and flip over the Jackal. The second she landed the little ice step grew taller and thicker. Then she kicked the Jackal in the back as hard as she could, with enough force behind it that if the Jackal were a human being it would snap their spine in half.

"Wait, what the hell just happened?" That was a marine's reaction as time itself appeared to reverse the effects of the explosive charges.
"Well I'll be damned if it weren't one 'a them-" the ODST CO started to say but was interrupted by the arrival of Jack, who then ordered them to secure the minecarts.
The ODST, puzzled, looked around and saw the carts back where they were before.
"I ain't even gonna ask.. alright boys you heard 'em, lets get those carts back in one piece."

Fortunately for the Jackal Mistress, she was anything but a human. The force of the kick however did injure her back and send her flying a few feet before she landed on the ice-covered rock floor of the cave. The Jackal got up and hissed at her, hunching over slightly due to her injury. The other Jackals that were making their way to the entrance at this point noticed the absence of their leader and turned back to investigate, while the grunts, shocked with the sight of seeing time itself reversed, had only one response:
"When in doubt.. flee!" And they all collectively fled to the exit.

The Jackal Mistress stepped around Diana for a moment and without warning, whipped out her plasma pistol and rapidly fired off multiple shots aimed at her.

"Target will be in range in 5 seconds." The Lt. Commander announced, giving Dumont time to turn enable the combat setting on his screen. "Establishing cannon locks."
"Perform a hard turn starboard-side, ready the cannons and fire on my mark." The Captain ordered and immediately the ship began to turn sideways to the oncoming cruiser. "Fire!" He shouted, at which pointed the ships starboard weaponry let loose, bombarding the enemy with shots. "Quickly, dive down whilst we reload." Suddenly the ship turned down, ceasing it's fire to restock arms. The covenant ship had begun firing, but found itself trailing behind and landing very few hits.

"Prepare for secondary fire."

Diana dodged as many of the shots as she could, using ice to knock away the shots that she couldn't dodge. Although one nailed her perfectly in the shoulder, her jaw clenched as she kept her mouth shut in an effort not to let out a yell. It hurt like a bitch. Diana straightened, letting out a strained breath before giving the Jackal Mistress a forced smirk. "That was cute." 

Slowly the wound was beginning to heal, it was slightly gruesome to watch as the wound stitched back together from the inside first. Diana had a high pain tolerance, she could take quite a few hits before she would actually succumb to the pain. Diana kicked at the floor, the second her foot connected with the ice a slightly spiky trail went straight towards the Jackal before a large spike shot up from the floor. Diana had taken particular aim towards her gun, attempting to force the spike through it to render it useless.

The spike successfully impaled the Jackal Misstress's plasma pistol, the attack having caught her completely off guard.
Realising now that the person standing in front of her wasn't a human at all, she snarled. That ought to explain her peculiar scent.
She quickly reached to her chest and grabbed a plasma grenade on a utility belt wrapped around her torso, activating its fuse and throwing it at Diana's chest. At the same time she dove to the right, rolled and sprinted towards the exit.

"Put your backs into it! Move it tinkerbell!" The ODST CO commanded his men as they pushed the carts through the tunnel. The ODST then attempted to establish communications with the Lightbringer, however the signal was choppy due to the layers of ice and rock on top of them.
"Strike team to Dumont, we've secured the groundside, awaiting evac, over."

"Communications from the surface sir, sounds like request for evac."
"Send the dropships, cover their descent with cannonfire." Dumont ordered, to which the dropships quickly departed the ships hangar. They swooped down into the atmosphere, covered by varying shots of cannonfire dancing around them carefully. Once they broke the clouds and came into view of the caves, their attention turned back to the enemy cruiser.

"Secondary fire, now!" Dumont shouted and unleashed a chorus of gunfire upon the enemy ship, this time crippling it severely. 
"Engines out of service Captain and weaponry offline, it's a shell."
"Admiral," Dumont turned to his comms. "We've got a covenant ship disabled for capture."