[i]Hello, Guardians. This is Chapter 7 of [u]Another Side of the Fight[/u]. Please leave some constructive criticism, and come back in case there’s something new, or edited, in my posts. Please enjoy![/i] [b][u]Chapter 7[/u][/b] The foliage in this part of Nessus is surprising, as the unstable moon is almost fully converted into a Vex machine. Slashing through some thick branches and vines, there seems to be a curious opening in the jungle of red leaved trees. Wirven puts up a fist, clenched, forgetting he was alone. Pulling out Khalid, he nods and starts scanning the circle. “There’s disabled traps all over this area, but none are visible. Let’s keep moving, before-” he stops as he looks at a bush that moved nearby. Grabbing my Graviton Lance Wirven aimed at the bush, ready to shoot. Then a fake painted prop of a person pops up, and gets blown everywhere, by my panicked shots. Khalid gives him a look of disappointment, as he shrugs. Then Wirven hears a familiar sounds: Fallen cloaking tech crackling, as well as footsteps. He slowly turns around about to take out some Fallen, but what popped up was.. Vex?! Strangely, it’s eye wasn’t red, it was purple, maybe blue, colors of the Fallen. He immediately took cover to think over what and how Vex could have taken Fallen tech, but a shot rang out and Wirven saw a Cabal Legionnaire with a wire rifle aiming at my position. “Khalid, get us out of here!” he yelled, pinned only to a small rock jut-out as cover. He heard his ship hover over and felt himself sitting in his seat the next moment, speedily flying toward The Guardian’s position. “This is Wirven-3 of Fireteam Spirit Hawk! Hawk Leader, we have Vex with Fallen tech and Cabal working with them! I repeat, we have - UGH!” he gasped as one of his ship’s engines fry from a Hunter’s knife stuck in the fuel line. [i]A Hunter’s knife?[/i] he questioned, just before he hit the dash of his ship, and dying again. Mira’s head felt like it was spinning. She shivered, from cold and anxiety. Mira woke up to a dark room, filled with Hive spores and bones of chitin and calcium phosphate alike. The bed has hay from Earth and a mattress made by what might have been Awoken carpenters. Weird place to wake up in, but it’s good for now. Just as she began to sit up, Mira felt a hand- no, a claw-like hand, gently push her down again, and she’s face to face with a Hive Wizard. “Awake, I see,” Mira heard the Wizard telepath to her. “You must rest, your powers are… recharging,” she hissed the last word, almost in fear with some frustration. “Powers… what kind? I thought I saw myself.. f-floating..” “Yes, you did. And I was forced to look into that,” she replied. “As a high ranking Wizard, or Witch, whatever is comfortable, Variks believed I could find out where your rare ability came from. I told him that the “Great Machine” gave you them, but he wanted to make sure.” “Is that what they call the Traveller here?” Mira replied, with a bit of sarcasm. The witch didn’t take that easily. “Sorry. So, how do you want to study these abilities?” “Trial… by combat,” she said, and Mira felt herself being pulled into a Hive portal. “Please stay still, it’ll go quicker.” This hurt, a lot. The Darkness enveloping her was draining the Light from Mira, but she didn’t feel anything missing or see any damage done. Suddenly, she dropped to the ground in front of some Cabal stationed in the Last City Quarantine Zone, and they looked at her the same way Mira looked at them: confusion. They raised their Slug Rifles, and she felt a surge of red come over me, and Mira pointed her finger at the Centurion on the left. He began inflating. The Legionnaire on his right backed away slowly, yelling into his comms what he was seeing. The Centurion then deflated as fast as it had inflated, and shriveled into nothing, gone. She felt herself smile, and looked to the poor Legionnaire crawling on his stomach from stumbling. “What’s wrong?” Mira asked as it looked at me. “First, you wanted our powers, now you run from it? Strange how opinions change..” She snapped her fingers and he stopped moving entirely, becoming rusted over. “.. like that.” “Well.. well done!” Mira turned around and felt the power fade quickly from my vision. “That is the most impressive thing I’ve seen done since Oryx taking the Tablets of Ruin!” the Witch exclaimed. They teleported back to the room Mira woke up in, as the Witch opened the door leading to a dug out, earthy hallway. “We will share what we found with Variks.” I guess there is more than one side to history, cause I just made it, she thought, as they strode to what the wizard called The Table. Being Eliksni isn’t easy. Never has, never will. This is what Fallen live by, every day. And everyday, you get reminded that a Shank, a robot, has more power over you, because your a Dreg. When you have a chance to escape your House, take it. It’s what Ririksis did. Being a Dreg, without your all of your arms, you can barely survive. Barely. Ririksis grabbed his sidearm and his sniper, and used the scope to scan his surroundings. Nessus was a peculiar place for a Dreg to be alone. Usually you’re with your strike team, always ready. Ririksis left that behind. Houses falling, leadership dropping, he can’t, won’t, take that anymore. It’s him against the universe, and a couple of contractors. When he first heard of The Spider, he was ragged and starving. He never really wanted to go back into a group, and when he told Spider this, he understood. Let him rest, fed him, have him some leisure, then asked him. A favor. About a group on Nessus, species and races of all sorts. Get the supplies, get the Glimmer, get the Ether, especially, and get a Skiff and get out. The profit for Ririksis would be hospitality until your last day alive, and given he and Spider were friends, this would be the start of a great friendship. Most importantly, the names and whereabouts of his former abusers. He was trained as an assassin from a young age, always tampering and sabotaging anyone he could, for resources and for survival. Ririksis accepted, and now searches for his bounty.