"Agh, I should have known this would happen!" Zahir yelled, tumbling to the ground as his sparrow exploded. Its fiery demise sent shrapnel into Zahir's back, keeping him struggling on the ground. Hive shredders continued to zip past him and pelt his armor. He rolled over to avoid a boomer shot, taking cover behind a rock.
"Hold still." Crucius said, restoring Zahir's armor. "The cave's not far now."
Zahir looked over his cover. Between him and Tivik's crew were a small army of Hive. He set his pulse rifle up, bursting down the Thrall that had begun to close on his position.
"Got an idea?" Crucius' voice filled Zahir's comms. The titan ducked behind cover to reload.
"I will admit, getting across that field seems difficult at the moment." Zahir stowed his pulse rifle and clashed his fists together. "But remember that trick I learned last month? Thundercrash?"
"Yeah, I remember that time you freaked out Over Bronze fighting a plain Captain."
"Quiet, that's not my point. It's perfect for a situation like this." Zahir stepped back, laying low to stay protected. He began to will arc energy into his entire body. A surge of power overtook him. Just as he had the day he discovered the art of the Thundercrash, he put all of his concentration into moving forward.
The Hive watched in amusement as the arc charged titan soared through the air above them. Arc energy sparked off of him and stung the Hive, as if warding them away from the exo missile. Zahir rocketed toward the cave mouth, and landed with a mighty crack. He stood up and retreated into the cave, grunting as he was reintroduced to the sting of the Hive's weapons.
"Remember, we're only here to find out what they're after." Crucius cautioned. Zahir nodded. He raised a silenced sidearm from his side and deactivated the bright orange light on his helmet's visor. The area he was in seemed to be completely bare, hiding what lay uphill.
Zahir continued forward, looking over the hill to a vast circular cave room. Several Fallen caches lay toward the back wall. A dozen or so Vandals were lined up to the right, carrying mysterious devices that resembled large vacuums. The two that Zahir had spotted seemed to be conversing with a Captain, who seemed to be the highest ranked Fallen in the room. He was rather short, and had a necklace of dead ghost shells wrapped around his neck. The sight made Zahir's head thump in sickness and anger.
"Scratch that. We won't be able to go about this quietly." Zahir put his sidearm away, prompting Crucius to summon a sleek, gunmetal gray rocket launcher into his hands. Zahir slowly loaded three rockets. He hadn't used a rocket launcher in a long time, but they were simple tools of destruction. He aimed at the Vandal platoon, being the highest concentration of Fallen in the cave.
"Are you sure about this? Those devices the Fallen are carrying could be a huge clue."
Zahir didn't respond, his emotions like a wind in his head, urging him to kill. He let his rocket launcher fire. Then again. Then again.
The Fallen began to scramble as the rockets soared toward them. Each one connected, sent a few Fallen flying from the impact. As he watched them flee in terror, a horrible thought crawled further into his mind. He revelled in their suffering. He felt as if he was owed their cries of anger and anguish at the sight of their dead comrades. After all, he had gone through the same thing.
Zahir's thoughts cleared just in time to see several Fallen scrambling to his position. He set his rocket launcher aside and brought out a sleek Haake shotgun. He let a buckshot tear into the first Vandal that leapt at him. As it was sent flying back, he thrust his elbow into the head of another, snapping its neck in one blow. Another Vandal fell to his shotgun. Zahir noticed several bullet holes riddling his torso as he pumped his shotgun once more. Pain rushed through his body, causing him to stumble to his knees. He pushed onward, fueled by newfound rage and apathy. As he killed the last Vandal attacking him, he succumbed to his wounds. All went dark, and he fell.
"Woah!" Crucius yelled, as Zahir re entered the world. He felt a Fallen wire rifle shot strike his shield as his body regenerated, shielding his ghost from a fatal blow. Zahir heard a scoff from a tunnel in front of him, and a rush footsteps.
Zahir trudged through the mess of corpses he had made, heading straight for the tunnel.
"Zahir! Slow down! We have no idea what awaits beyond that tunnel. We need to retreat or call in a fireteam!
"We can't let them get away. We haven't found anything out yet." Zahir began sprinting through the tunnel, stopping in his tracks as a cluster of traps sprang from the floor.
''Web mines! The titan yelled. He destroyed one with his fist, but he realized it was in vain as the other few detonated, covering his vision in a silky white web. No Fallen awaited ahead of him. He slowly turned his head around the tunnel, searching for enemies, until he saw a set of eyes looking at him from above. An additional light appeared below the eyes, and a wire rifle shot ripped through his shoulder. His assailant blinked as another mine detonated in front of him. This Fallen was going to keep immobilizing him with, and eventually kill him.
"What are we going to do?" Crucius asked, his voice, even through Zahir's comms, a distorted jumble.
Zahir, now aware of the existence of more, saw a web mine slowly descend from the ceiling to the ground in front of him. It seemed that the webs affected gravity as well. Zahir looked down at his feet. The floor was littered with dirt and gravel. The titan began to slam into the ground, throwing a veil of dirt around him.
The Fallen above him began to panic, shooting his wire rifle into the brown shade in an attempt to hit the exo. He was taken by surprise as the hulking orange titan quickly came into view below. Zahir grabbed the Marauder by the throat with both hands, pulling him down as his lift wore off. He descended slowly, once again afflicted by the web mine, and slammed the Marauder into the ground. As the effects of the mine wore off, the Marauder saw his chance to escape. He stuck his bladed arm into Zahir's side and skittered away, picking his wire rifle off of the ground. Zahir, annoyed at his injury, blasted the Fallen's arm with his shotgun, causing him to drop his weapon and fall over in pain. The Marauder roared in anger, procuring more web mines in each of his undamaged arms. Before Zahir could pump the forend of his shotgun, the mines had gone off, leaving Zahir in a lethargic state once more.
"Just how many of these mines does he have?" Zahir complained, struggling to run through. Before he could kick up dust to shield himself, two wire rifle shots ripped through his armor in quick succession. Zahir stumbled back and fell to the ground. He continued to shuffle back, reeling from his injuries. Another web mine detonated, followed by the glow of the Marauder's wire rifle. An arc bolt ripped through Zahir's foot, but the titan was unfazed. He had switched his shotgun for his pulse rifle at this point, having aimed in the direction of the Marauder in front of him. As the dirt settled around and over him, he fired.
The Marauder seemed to be gone from his spot, though, as the bullets yielded no damage. Another web mine went off, followed by a wire rifle shot hitting Zahir's shoulder. The Fallen had gone above him again.
"I can't heal you quick enough! You need to do something!" Crucius' distorted voice came through to Zahir once more. Zahir remained calm in his newfound state of apathy, taking another shot in the chest. He coughed, his vision beginning to black out. One or two more shots would kill him, then his ghost would he captured and destroyed. He wouldn't let that happen.