[i]Most normal men would have run away from that many Vex. Most Guardians would have held off long enough for their comrades to escape before being overrun. He protected us. He annihilated the opposition. He saved my life, but she never really forgave me for that.[/i] Killing him would have been easy. Killing him would have been simple. Killing him would save him a lot of trouble. Problem was, he probably wouldn’t get paid, and assassins weren’t really in this type of biz for just the money. They wanted the EXPERIENCE. The feeling you can only get when you’re tracking down the most dangerous type of creature. This hunt was too easy for Yamishtin. He would probably regret it, but he wanted to play with his food for just a little longer. Yamishtin shifted his aim a little bit, and fired all three of his shots straight into the Warlock’s left shoulder. He then bent down, and ripped his arm straight out of the broken, melting socket. Tempest brought himself up onto his knees and his one remaining arm, and watched as Yamishtin danced away with his arm in tow. He stood fully upright, and studied the Hunter as he happily danced his little jig, whistling an unfamiliar tune. Tempest blasted forward, flipping through the air and landing a few paces in front of him, his arm tensed for a palm strike. Yamishtin, ready for him, leaned back, and used Tempest’s own arm to backhand him across the face. The Warlock looked back at Yamishtin, completely stunned. “What’s the matter?” crowed the Hunter. “You need a helping HAND!?” And with that he slapped Tempest with his own arm again. … Mortars of void energy burst from the Vex plasma mortars, lighting up the afternoon sky like a firework’s show, until they came crashing down to seek the flesh of a lone Hunter. Combined with the fact that Jadis was in serious physical pain, and you could admit that for all of the Vex’s “supreme intelligence”, they were doing quite a mediocre job of killing a single Guardian. In a last ditch effort to live, she rolled into the opening of an old office building, and hid behind a column, just as several mortars reduced the opening walkway into a field of broken glass. The Minotaurs began to march forward, while the Hydra chugged along slowly behind them, providing a relentless surge of covering fire. As the Vex bombarded the building, Jadis clutched her stomach in an attempt to ease her pain, blood leaking down from her nostrils and the corners of her lips. “Why does this keep happening to me…” she groaned. A few weeks after HE had died, she suddenly experience bouts of pain in her stomach or head, and she would cough up blood. These “moments of weakness” as she called it could last from as little as a few seconds to as long as hours. All she knew was that she had never experienced had never been this painful before. Fighting through a wave of nausea, she struggled to stand up, but another spike of pain ripped through her body. She sunk to the ground, curling up into the fetal position, as undeniable agony ripped through her torso and blood crawled up her throat and spattered onto the ground. Jadis didn’t want to, but she screamed. She screamed out of the agony of the pain rippling through her body. She screamed out of the frustration of being unable to do nothing but writhe on the floor. She screamed out of the fear of her own impending death, as the Vex continued to march toward her, ready to entrap her in what was sure to become her tomb. Across that desolate battlefield however, behind the trunk of a thick tree, a bag of sapphire wire began to bulge and stretch… … Everything is supposed to be logical. Everything is supposed to have a pattern. Everything is supposed to make SENSE! Even with the stores of knowledge Tempest had accumulated from his years of wandering the wilderness, Tempest could not for the life of him understand this man. It had nothing to do with the pain of his sloppy amputation. Tempest had learned long ago to numb put the phantom pain the sensors in his body provided him. However, with one arm he could not fight very effectively, and the assassin Yamishtin was constantly taking advantage of his new unwieldy center of balance. “FOREHAND!!!” and with that battle cry the Hunter slapped Tempest across the face with his own arm for the third time. “BACKHAND!!!” he yelled, and as he tried to slap the Warlock again, Tempest ducked, launching a swift palm strike at his chest. Yamishtin fell backward with the blow, and as his back hit the ground, he kipped up, at the same time launching a ferocious dropkick into his chest, sending him skidding across the floor. Tempest looked up dazed, the stump of his left arm beginning to leak a black, viscous fluid. The Hunter gave his opponent the Exo equivalent of a cheerful smile, and twirled Tempest’s arm casually like a baton. The Warlock glared his eyes at him, but stepped up calmly and brushed himself off with his remaining arm. In what seemed like another futile attempt to attack, he rushed Yamishtin again. “FOREHAND!!!” Yamishtin cried again, but just as he was about to bit*h slap him again, the Warlock jumped up and rolled forward into the air, his cloth armor a whirling storm around him. He floated above Yamishtin for only a moment, before stomping onto the back of his skull, the Hunter’s metal face cracking the floor. Tempest landed on his hand and knees, firmly grabbing the back of his head as his hand erupted in purple fire. Carefully pooling it onto the back of his hand, tendrils drilled through the floor and vaporized the concrete and steeling supporting it, until he created an opening just large enough to push the rest Yamishtin’s head through. Like an ostrich sticking its head into the sand, Yamishtin was neck deep into the very floor itself, but when the fire dissipated and Tempest released his grip, Yamishtin was stuck. “HEEEYYY!!!” came a muffled cry among the clunks and scrapes of metal against stone as Yamishtin tried, with no avail, to escape his prison. “C’mon man! Don’t leave me HERE!!! HEEELLLLPPPPP!!!” Tempest unceremoniously sat onto the Hunter’s back as he called upon his Ghost. As Terminus appeared he merely glanced at the stump of his Guardian’s arm. “It’s going to take me a little while to reattach it. Find a safe spot to go to first. There are still Vex in the area.” “UGHHH!!” groaned Tempest. “Now I have to fight Vex too? Let’s hope Jadis did something useful.” Terminus rolled his eye as he dissipated in a flash of light. The Warlock checked his back to make sure Thorn was still safely attached, grabbed his good arm from Yamishtin’s struggling form, and with a moment of thought, grabbed the sniper rifle that he assumed the Hunter had used to kill Lazarus, before Blinking back to another battle. … As Tempest reappeared he was met with the torn up bodies of dead Vex and the unwelcoming screech of a dying one. Across the Academy, surrounded by the countless glowing forms of solar grenades, the half melted form of a Vex Hydra collapsed to the ground and exploded in a shower of liquid luminescence, revealing the form of a Sunsinger, with hair as white as straw, and eyes that burned as bright as the sun. “C’mon” said Lazarus, as Tempest approached him. “Something’s wrong with Jadis. Could you give me a hand?” Tempest whipped his left arm in front of Lazarus’s face. “Could you give ME one?” [b]Hope you enjoyed this part. If you liked it, give it a bump, comment, or give me some feedback. [/b] [i]Link to Chapter Index[/i] https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/116093772/0/0 [b]Continue to Chapter 8[/b] https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/131657053