The Last Word and the Thorn - Part II

Jaren held the weapon in his hand as if about to fire it, but he felt firing would ruin its pristine perfection. “The glimmer I spent on this baby,” he thought as he chuckled to himself. He pulled his ghost and requested a teleportation back to his ship. “Let’s see how this thing will do in the Crucible,” he told it. Within minutes, Jaren landed at the Twilight Gap with his new team of guardians. With its lightning-fast handling, stability and rate of fire, he was able to cut his enemies down. A member of the opposite team saw the mass slaughter and tried to make a pact with him. “Look, your arm is insane. Now, if you see me, don’t you shoot. If we have a deal, I’ll give you any engrams I win." Jaren waited patiently through the man’s offer. When he turned, however, his actions told a different tale. He put the barrel of the hand cannon against the back of the man’s head. “Any last words?” The man attempted to turn with his mouth wipe open, but before he could manage he found himself with a bullet in his brain and his ghost hovering over his corpse. With that, he left the match. Another took his place quickly. “Piece of cake." The match dragged on, and Jaren found himself with a teammate capturing Zone B. The mysterious new opponent came from the wide hallway that coincided with the upper entrance to the zone. He was invisible, but the cloaking was slightly faulty, allowing for him to be seen. His teammate engaged immediately, while Jaren hung back cautiously. The ring of two shots with a hand cannon, and his teammate was dead. He was also hit by the second bullet’s overpenetration of his teammate. “That was no ordinary hand cannon." Most hand cannons didn’t have large enough rounds to overpenetrate, and the sound of it firing also had another quality to it, like the sound of paper tearing. His shock only masked the burning sensation for a few moments, and through the pain, he caught a glimpse of his opponent. He had the upper hand, as the challenger was unaware of his presence. He popped out of cover, and before his opponent was able to acknowledge him, three bullets had already hit him in the chest. Two more gunshots, near simultaneous, one from Jaren, one from his foe. Jaren had finished his opponent with a bullet to the head, but he was able to muster one more shot before he fell to the ground. To him, it was slow motion - a bullet coming straight toward his head, with a green trail following behind it. There, Jaren’s killing-spree was ended, and Zone B was still contested. When he respawned, the Control match was nearing an end, his team at 19,000 points, the other at 11,000. They each held a zone, and the kill feed was mixed. In the bottom-left of his interface, he saw the opposite team score a triple kill, achieved by a man who went by the name of Dredgen Yor. He recognized the name, but didn’t know where from. He disregarded it and rushed into battle with his primary in hand. He scored his team their final kill. And with that he was gone, wishing never to feel the pinch of the Thorn again. But sometimes, wishes don't come true.