RISE OF IRON EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!


She had no idea what was so hilarious. For some reason, the boys were absolutely hysterical.

The Warlock, Martin Anton, had been without purpose since his broken-legged best friend, Silverhawk, had been forcibly confined at the Tower for medical leave(against her will). A Crow probe had sent back data regarding a possible House of Rain artifact being held somewhere on Mars by a small House of Wolves splinter group.

Variks, upon seeing the feed from the probe, had deemed the artifact as "too dangerous" for non-Fallen hands to touch. She didn't trust that. According to him, he'd been tracking that particular artifact for a while. He didn't know much about it; just what he'd managed to pull out of some very vague old House of Rain banners.

Namely that the artifact caused pain to anyone who wasn't an eliksni, or something like that. He'd said the banner was damaged almost beyond repair, and that he was lucky he'd managed to even get that much out of it.

She still didn't trust him.

The Queen, still recovering from her illness, had yet to have Uldren send Petra back to the Tower. She had the feeling that the Prince had something to do with this. Perhaps he'd put a good word in on her performance during the crisis? Or perhaps the Queen was waiting until the top military commanders were well enough to take her place as the Prince's "sidekick" for the remainder of his temporary rule? Either way, ever since the Prince had returned, it had been field assignment after field assignment.

The Cirrus and her crew were, as of the cure's distribution, the healthiest military asset the Reef had at the moment. As the Prince gallivanted around Venus and Earth searching for the cure, Petra and her hastily-assembled and decontaminated crew had worked with them from a distance. She'd coordinated several attacks to aid the Prince and his quest, and all of them had met with success; even Silverhawk's risky-albeit clever-plan to draw out the House of Wolves' Ketch.

Upon their return to the Reef, Prince Uldren-the very exhausted Prince Uldren-had been pounded with duty after duty. Getting the cure distributed had been chaos in some places, especially the poorer districts of the Reef, where damage from the Reef Wars was still being repaired. He'd had to go in multiple times with a peacekeeping force of Crows(both person and robo-bird), and all the while keep a saddle on the Wolves that served the Queen.

According to him, working with the Wolves was like pulling a five-year-old's loose tooth. However, as the disease appeared not to affect the Fallen, they'd become necessary in keeping things in order, with so few awoken guards around. But when a riot did break out, it was a scramble to get the violence-prone Fallen out of the way and replaced with much more peaceful peacekeepers. It had, very few times so far, escalated to the point in which the Fallen were needed in order to keep things from getting too out of hand. Those few times, Variks and his two sole housemates were the only ones the Prince trusted with that duty.

But she still didn't trust Variks.

It had been a week and a half since Uldren's return to the Reef. At first, hailed as a hero, but soon yelled at as the full weight of a temporary reign, during a crisis, no less, fell down on top of him. Every moment of every day since then had been "cure this" and "riot that". It was clear to her the moment he set foot on the docks at the Royal City, all he wanted to do was go be with his sister for a little while, and perhaps catch up on his sleep.

Petra would kill for some sleep right about now. With so many commanders incapacitated, her and Variks were left as the highest-ranking individuals at Prince Uldren's disposal. She'd been sent all over, eliminating known threats outside the Reef before they became a problem to their incapacitated armies. Uldren had Crow probes out all over the system, monitoring for Guardian activity. There were few signs of life, and where there were, they were usually lone Hunters or the occasional lonely Fireteam that had gotten stuck out in the wild when the City went on quarantine lockdown.

She didn't know how long it had been since she last got a full night's sleep. She knew Variks had barely slept at all as well.

Which was why it was so strange, the scene she walked in on that afternoon.

Martin Anton was a young Warlock of about 5ft.10", with sandy-brown hair that stuck out everywhere, a child-like face, wide, leaf-green eyes, and a pair of round, wire glasses that looked like the bridge had been sautered back together more than a few times. At this time, he wore deep scarlet robes, with black pants, boots, and gloves, and a dark blue, padded, armor-vest of some sort underneath the robes, worn over the black tunic he had underneath. His bond was a plain, boring gray color, and he had a belt containing various pouches(many of the book-shaped) strapped along his waist beneath his robes.

He had been on his way to Mars to check out rumors of some Golden Age shielding tech. Bored out of his mind with no Silverhawk to drag him along on ridiculous adventures, he'd armored up into this Warlock combat gear, which he looked strange in, considering he hadn't worn such equipment during his dangerous mission for the cure. Perhaps, with that mission, he'd been confident enough to not wear armor?

She really was overthinking this particular subject. She'd rather liked the look she'd met him in; that previously-faceless, nervous voice she'd heard from over the comms. Russet robes with too-big sleeves. A blue vest and a brown tunic, baggy, muddy pants and bare hands, a pure white feline cradled in his arms, hair all messy and glasses dirty. There'd been something...cute about that, for some reason. She couldn't think of any other way to describe it, and she found herself blushing whenever she thought about that first moment, after slapping him and the Uldren in the backs of their heads, actually taking him in for the first time.

But...she supposed that his new look was actually quite...dashing? What the heck was she thinking?

When they'd made contact with the Timey-Wimey, she'd invited the Warlock on board(though hoping he wouldn't crash his ship while landing it in the hangar), insisting that they might as well save him the fuel and the hassle of dealing with gross travel rations. Besides; for some reason, the concept of parting ways and continuing without him, leaving him behind, made her fell...lonely, somehow.

Curiously enough, Variks had been the first one on the scene when Martin had landed. He'd seemed quit eager to meet the Warlock, and had left for the hangar he moment she invited Martin aboard. And Martin had seemed oddly pleased to see Variks as well. She'd been more than a little confused, watching from a distance as the Fallen and the Guardian started off towards the hangar exit, talking like old pals. At least, it had seemed that way from where she'd been standing; Martin talking excitedly, Variks nodding and occasionally gesturing at a similarly hyper-active pace.

She'd followed them, which had led to the scene unfolding before her now.

They were laughing like mad-men. She'd thought she'd heard something frightful, out in the hallway; like Variks was chocking on his tongue or something. But no, he was just laughing, him and Martin both. For some reason, they were in total hysterics.

"An-and then t-the proton s-*hic*-said to the neutron..." Martin broke off, unable to control his voice and now overtaken by hiccups, which seemed, to both of them, to make the situation more funny. They were in Faroth's lab, sitting at a table where Faroth still had the electrified metal ball that Silverhawk had tried to mess with during her brief visit, Variks at one long end of the table while Martin stood along the edge next to the ball. Whatever science joke Martin had been telling, it probably had something to do with the fact that his sandy-brown hair was now poofing everywhere.

This assumption was confirmed to be wrong when Variks, weak with laughter, reached over with one lower arm and flicked the switch to the electric ball. Martin's hair began to settle, and they began to laugh even harder.

"What's so funny?" she asked, leaning against the doorway. She'd had no idea that Fallen could laugh. Much less get in the state Variks was in now.

"Ain't it elecr-ionic!" Martin burst before face-planting on the desk, pounding his fist on the surface. Petra let out a snort, rolling her eye. Completely ignoring me.

Martin looked up at her, the two of them trying to calm themselves. Except, they both failed miserably. Martin snorted and continued laughing with renewed vigor, and Variks seemed unable to resist doing the same. Petra frowned, not seeing what as so funny about her.

"H-*hic*-her face! Her face!" Martin exclaimed, face hitting the desk once more.

Petra brought a hand up to her face, feeling the cover that hid her torn, scarred eye from view. Was it loose? Had she put it on wrong this morning? She glanced at her reflection in the pane of glass in the middle of one of the lab doors. Her face looked as normal as ever. But that didn't seem to stop them. Variks pounded on the desk with his fists, and Martin, already off balance, fell off his stool and behind the desk with a loud thump, throwing them both into escalated hysterics.

"What? What about my face?" This yielded zero results. "What the heck is so hilarious about my face? You two are going to hurt yourselves if you don't settle down, you know?"

"What in blazes is that sound!?" came Faroth's voice from the hallway. The scientist ran up to the doors, grinding to a halt next to her. "It sounds like a torn record!"

"No. It's just Variks." she told him, nodding in the direction of the hysterical Fallen. "And Anton. For some reason, my face is hilarious."

"Huh. Didn't know the Fallen could have laugh attacks." he commented curiously, before his composure quickly switched to anger. "Wait; what were you two doing in my lab!?"

The scientist's rage seemed to goad them on even further, and Variks waved a hand hopelessly in the angry awoken's direction as he buried his face in his other arms upon the desk. Petra sighed, shaking her head.

This...is going to be an long, odd mission.


Not sure it I'm going to continue this or not. I'ma just post it as a one-shot till I decide. The funniest thing about this is that This Is Sarcasm finally reviewed my new Fever update, and claims she had a similar "laugh attack" in the middle of a school library upon reading Variks' new lines. Shame on you, Sarcasm.

I couldn't NOT write this. I've been daydreaming a lot recently about Martin, Variks, and Petra, and I just had to write a scene with all of them in it before I went mad. Does this mean there will be more adventures with the three of them? Yes, there will, and yes, Variks will call Petra and Martin both out on their crushes for each other. Martin's totally transparent, but Petra's much harder to read; but not to Variks. He's a Fallen. He can tell.

And he might just decide to take action... *grins evilly*

Speaking of Variks, I kind of owed him this after blowing him up and knocking him out at the end of Fever and the prologue of Heartbusters. To those of you who donated waffles, this, THIS, this one-shot... is because of you, as well.

Variks would thank you for your donations, but he's too busy stuffing his face, and I'm just trying to find a Fallen-calibrated treadmill for all the calories you guys have given him. And now Martin's jealous.

Martin loves waffles.

Now, I might as well adress a VERY SERIOUS problem while I'm at this; Variks and Uldren's names aren't on the character drop down list. We have freaking Xandar 44 on there, but we don't have Variks or Uldren. Not too serious a problem to those who don't use those characters often, but a very serious problem to those of us who do/will. If you know how to petition a character to be added to the drop-down list, let us all know in the review, so we can get Variks up there, and get Uldren's proper name on there as well. "Crow" is just really inaccurate. We've had his real name out in the open for two years now, but he's still referred to on here by his beta name.

We kind of have to fix that.

And RISE OF IRON OH MY uaw uyhtaidmkl;spweiqwheIT"S SO BEAUTIFUL THE WOLFIES AND THE FLAMING AXE AND THE ROCKET LAUNCHER ISALLLLEPIC! 5tyytytytyt67uyryfhr657*did NOT just bang her head on the keyboard repeatedly*

I keep getting PM's from fans saying how much the premise of RoI(deadly disease, locked away for years, Fallen get their hands on it*cept this time it really kind of backfired on them*) reminds them of Fever.

I PREDICTED THE FUTURE! And I assure you, I'm still in school; I'm NOT on the Bungie team; I had NOTHING to do with this. But I can't help but wonder, what were Bungie Teamers reactions when they saw my fic? Was it "Oh, heck, do we have a leak?"

But hey, biggest difference; my disease doesn't turn you into a mindless zombie(man, first the taken, now ANOTHER faction of zombiefied Fallen? We need something CHEERFUL to happen to the Fallen for once, like, a rescue mission to retrieve a lost member of Variks' house, or something, cuz I swear they have the WORST LUCK out of ANY of the Destiny enemies).

I CAN'T FREAKING WAIT!

Overexcited, and in much need of a potty break, don't forget to read and review.

Cheers!