Chapter 2: The Coming Storm
It was late morning. Pharrik walked out of the building, shrapnel launcher in hand, and took in a breath of the fresh, cold air through his respirator. Clouds had already begun to form overhead, indicating an approaching storm, to his delight.
He looked around the snowed-in courtyard, and outlying buildings, resembling a desert of snow and ice, save for the ruins, trees, and ice-laden stockades and walls, the latter of which were built from the scavenged sheet metal and brick that littered the land, and poked up through the ground at random.
As he watched dregs setting up their guard, or working around, and the shanks hover by on their small jet engines, Pharrik put one of his lower arms into one of his cloak's pockets, feeling the fist-sized, metallic orb that was filled with rations of ether energy, making sure the precious object was there.
After double-checking on the device, he turned his head back to the door he exited from, looking over one of his shoulder pauldrons, to see two vandal guards exit behind him, followed by Sifaxis, a wire rifle held in her hand, barrel facing the ground, and blue-tinted respirator back over her mouth, a difference from the night before.
"I shall be back by the time night falls" the Wolf captain said, hoisting his gun over his shoulder, as the baroness approached him.
"You always do" she purred, as she walked by. "May you have luck in your watch, and in scavenging what you may find."
Lowering the shrapnel launcher back into his hands once more, Pharrik nodded his helmeted head to her, and turned his back, where he began to trudge off, passing by the multitude of workers and soldiers. It was several minutes before the captain reached the edge of the heavily defended territory, where a large hill sat.
As Pharrik finished walking up to the top of the icy, snow-capped hill, thinking of an old tune in his head, he stopped, and turned back to the large, makeshift fortress, where he saw the dregs and vandals working below, their small shapes sticking out in the white snow like red-and-white ants.
It wasn't long before he spotted his mate, watching with amusement as she ordered them around, directing each available worker toward what defenses needed to be reinforced, what needed to be watched, what shanks needed fixing, etc. She was very competent in what she did, and as a baroness, it was expected of her to lead effectively.
He let his breath exhale from his breathing apparatus once more, letting a thin, grey cloud pass into the air. He was about to resume his trek, deeper into the wilderness, when he heard what sounded like snow crackling nearby, coming from behind a few trees and shrubbery, on another part of the same hill he stood on, that also overlooked the outpost.
Curious, and thinking of it to be some animal he could make into a meal, he decided to investigate.
"I gotta say, the place is bigger than I expected" Geryl said, examining the snow-covered building from the hillside, as he started to lay down, and got into a comfortable position in the snow, next to his two teammates, who did so just a few seconds prior.
"I don't see any Archon anywhere..." Draid whispered, as he peered through the scope of his sniper rifle, examining the surrounding area.
"Neither do I" Vara-twelve said, as she looked through the scope of her own. "Just dregs and vandals... A few captains here and there, and... Wait a second..."
"What do you see?" Geryl inquired.
"A baroness... She has the colors of the House of Wolves on her..." she said, focussing her sights on the figure further.
"I see her" Draid said. "A mercenary?"
"Maybe..." Vara spoke. "A high-ranking one, if it's the case."
Looking further, as a disappointing thought went on through Draid's head, Vara's Ghost suddenly spoke up, into the three Guardian's coms, saying exactly that very thought that entered his mind.
"I think I know what's going on..." he said. "The Archon must have replaced himself with a double, to take the fall. He led us on another wild goose chase."
"Well... Is there anything you know about the baroness? Is she important at all?" Vara asked, in a dispirited tone.
"Her name is... Sifaxis Wolf's Eye" the Ghost said again. "From what I can dig up, she's a really good shot with a wire rifle, hence the name. You might want to keep your heads down."
"I think she'll be the one who'll want to keep her head down..." Draid tittered, quietly, as he put the blue-armored baroness's head in his sights. "Anything else?"
"Well... She and her husband, a captain, left the House of Wolves a short time after Skolas's death, to avoid the infighting" he said again. "They've, apparently, been performing mercenary work for whatever House that could hold them since then."
"Huh. So, another Wolf's around here..." Geryl spoke. "I wonder where he is..."
No sooner had the titan said that, Draid heard a small, sizzling, electrical noise from behind himself.
Taking his eyes off of his scope, the hunter looked over his shoulder, just in time to see a vaguely rod-shaped object, glowing blue, electrical sparks flying off it, poking out of the snow in between himself, and Vara and Geryl. His eyes widened in surprise and terror the second he realized what it was.
"Grenade!" he screamed, rolling out of the way. Vara heard him right off, and reacted accordingly.
"Wha-?" Geryl stuttered, before he suddenly found his collar getting grabbed by the Exo, who threw them both out of harm's way, and rolling straight down the hill with a grunt.
The shock grenade went off, exploding violently, collapsing the top of the hillside, sending a small avalanche to follow the two Guardians on the way to the bottom of it. All of the Fallen below, including the baroness, heard the small explosion, and looked up to see the mound of snow that fully landed nearby.
Back on the top of the hill, Draid managed to stand up, and looked at the large, four-armed figure, clad in the armor of a Fallen from House Wolves, wading through the deep snow toward him, a hateful expression on his two pairs of eyes. A noticeable feature on the captain was the pair of large horn-like trophies sticking up from his back, giving him a much more intimidating presence.
Unlike most Fallen he had encountered, which would normally yell and scream whatever profanity they knew in their language, Draid was partially taken aback by the fact the captain was eerily silent the entire time he stalked toward him. He was like a phantom, even as he slowly brought the tip of his shrapnel launcher up, until it was fully aiming at him, its muzzle blazing with its fiery glow.
Before Draid could raise his sniper rifle in defense, the Fallen let a round escape his weapon, hitting the Guardian directly in his chest with a beam of exploding shrapnel, and the force sent him flying through the air, away from his rifle, where he hit a tree, partially breaking it, and fell back to the ground.
"Guess... Guess I know where he is now..." Draid groaned to himself, sorely, pulling his pistol out. He was able to crack two shots at his foe, each hitting against the larger creature's arc shield, before the Fallen unexpectedly teleported away in a wisp of blue energy.
Draid quickly got to his feet, switching his pistol with his shotgun, holstering the former, and pulling the latter from his back.
"Where did you go..." he muttered under his breath, looking around the snowy, tree-filled area for his enemy. The swishing sound of something behind himself told the hunter the answer.
Turning, he fired his weapon, just as the Fallen unleashed his, each gun letting out a loud, ear-rattling bang as they went off. The resulting scattershot from each hit the launcher out of the captain's hands, along with creating a few holes in the back of his cape, while snow was blown up in Draid's face, causing him to flinch back in reaction.
He recovered quickly, and looked back to the captain, who had left his gun on the ground, and had proceeded to charge at the Guardian. Draid carefully took aim, and fired.
The captain teleported the second he shot again, and appeared right in front of him, where he instantly knocked the shotgun out of his hands, grabbed him by the throat with his forearms, and began lifting him from the ground...
Back at the bottom of the hill, Geryl was just finishing digging himself out of the snow, grumbling angrily, unable to locate his gun, and looked up just in time to see several Fallen troops approaching him. Quitting his carping, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, as a single vandal walked up to him, a shock rifle in its hands.
"Ferra straw!" the four-armed alien yelled in its language, getting closer, weapon pointed at the Guardian's head. "Dres Ghoul! Ista neeket shess! Va-"
The vandal's head suddenly erupted in a burst of white light, its soul escaping its body with an ethereal scream, as a shot rang out from under the snow, next to Geryl.
He looked down, and saw Vara-twelve's hand poking out, a pistol in it, just before her body emerged as well.
"Couldn't find your gun. Use this" she said, in a quick, serious manner, tossing the firearm to him, before taking out her sniper rifle again from her side. "Draid didn't come down with us. We're on our own."
"Thanks for the heads up" he replied, gunning down a dreg as it charged at him.
"Don't mention it" she replied, blasting away another vandal with a burst of blue energy from her hand, evaporating the creature. "We just need to kill that baroness, and it's all over. We can handle that, can't we?"
"I've got a gun in my hand, and a warlock best friend by my side. Anything's possible!" Geryl chuckled, preparing for the oncoming slugfest that was about to occur. "We just need to find some cover, and we're set. Draid can handle himself, and when he's done killing that mook that sent us off the cliff, I'm sure he'll get our back..."
This Guardian's a lot tougher than most I've encountered... Pharrik thought to himself, as hurled the hunter to the ground with his upper pair of arms, watching as he made a person-shaped crater in the snow, the wind getting knocked out of him, as indicated by his sore cough that came after.
After kicking him once in the gut, he grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him up again. The Wolf violently threw him away once more, where the hunter smacked against the side of a tree, breaking some of the bark off of it, and landed on the ground, where he went limp.
Letting out a triumphant huff after seeing his body lay unmoving for more than a dozen seconds, Pharrik calmly turned, and picked his shrapnel launcher up from the snow, brushing it off. He looked back at the Guardian's direction, and began to trudge his large, hunched frame over to him, adjusting the weapon for its next use.
"You Ghouls have been a blight upon the Eliksni for too long..." he spoke with his dry voice, in the Guardian's language, as he reached his quarry, and poked the tip of the weapon on his back. Using it, he flipped the Guardian over, until his other half faced him, where he could get a good, clean shot.
Without warning, the Guardian came back to life, and, with a roar, burst from the ground, knocking the shrapnel launcher aside, and plunged a knife into Pharrik's chest armor, surprising him.
"...And we'll continue to be a blight on you for a while longer!" the man growled, still clinging to Pharrik, pulling out his pistol, and firing it upward, at Pharrik's head.
Moving his head at the last second, the shot grazed his blue-tinted helm, and hit his left horn-trophy instead, chipping its tip off, angering the Fallen greatly when he noticed.
Clasping the man's gun arm with two of his hands, he was about to throttle him, had his foe's attacking not let up.
His other hand still free, he let go of the knife still lodged in Pharrik's chest, and curled it into a fist. The Guardian then rammed it across the Fallen's face, reeled it back, and did it again, and again, and again, the fourth, tremendous hit partially tearing off Pharrik's respirator.
With a final kick, he freed himself of the dizzied captain, ripping his knife out in the process, and jumping back.
Pharrik soon regained control of himself, and stopped stumbling. He situated his respirator again with one of his lower arms, and hoisted his launcher back into a more comfortable position, as he watched the human get into a defensive stance, a knife in one hand, and a pistol in the other.
"By the way, I forgot to mention, nice english" the hunter mock-complimented, ready to dodge Pharrik's next shot. "...And here I thought you were just some other dumb alien with a gun and death wish..."
Without hesitating, Pharrik brought the man into his sights, and fired, but the hunter jumped his cloaked frame away, and landed right next to his shotgun again, picking it up before the Wolf captain could calculate his next shot.
They both took aim at each other again, and fired.
Geryl and Vara-twelve ran up to, and hid behind one of the makeshift barriers the Fallen had created, made of brick and steel, each taking quick shots at the oncoming horde every time they poked their heads out, and taking down any that dared approach with a quick punch, bludgeon, stab, or burst of magic.
Vara took another shot with her sniper rifle, killing a Devil's captain with a direct hit to the chest, staining the surrounding snow with red blood. Charged up with power, she then sent out a nova blast that exploded in a ball of blue energy, vaporizing several dregs, vandals, and shanks, before she finally spotted the baroness.
The female Fallen stood behind a barrel almost a hundred feet from them, aiming her wire rifle at them, patiently waiting for the perfect time to strike. The Exo reeled back, and reloaded, noticing she was almost out of ammo for her weapon.
"I see her" she spoke to Geryl. "Quick, throw something that will distract these guys, while I pick her off."
"With pleasure..." the titan replied, pulling out a grenade. Pressing its activation button, he tossed the round object out a far distance, where it disappeared in the snow, and went off with an earsplitting explosion.
Vara poked her head out with lightning speed, quickly getting her target's head in her sights when the accompanying smoke departed enough. She twitched her finger on the trigger, ready to instantly take out the baroness with perfect efficiency and accuracy, prepared to send her soul screaming to the heavens...
Then the glass on her scope shattered to dust as a bolt of arc energy from the baroness's rifle went straight through it, and hit the Guardian directly in the head, near where her right eye would be, had her helmet not have been there to obscure her face.
The Exo slumped to her side with a gasp, onto the ground, a hole burned into her visor, as her titan companion looked down in utter horror.
"V-Vara!" he shouted in despair, bending over to his fallen ally. "No, no, no!"
He suddenly reeled back in pain as a snarling dreg jumped up from behind himself, and stabbed him repeatedly in the shoulder with a shock dagger. Reacting accordingly, he turned, and roared as he punched it in the face, shattering its skull, and killing it instantly, throwing it back with he force he used.
He pulled the knife out of his back with a pain-filled grunt, and tossed it away, before refocussing his attention on the heavily injured warlock that laid at his knees, while sparks and shots from Fallen weapons continued to whizz through the air nearby.
"She needs medical attention. Get her out of here, now!" his Ghost shouted on the com, urgently. The titan nodded in agreement, as he set to action.
"D-don't worry..." he spoke, softly, as he picked the Exo's limp, moaning body up in his hands. "I'll get you out of here, Vara... Don't worry..."
With a free hand, he summoned his Sparrow, and it teleported right in front of him. Quickly, and carefully placing her body into a semi-comfortable sitting position on the front, he leapt onto the levitating vehicle right behind her, and began to speed off, into the frozen wasteland, before any more fire could hit the two of them.
Upon seeing her enemy fleeing out of sight, Sifaxis let her guard down, and raised her rifle up in one hand, letting out a booming cheer of victory, the hundreds of surviving Fallen around her joining in with their roars.
Back on the top of the hill, Draid was doing slightly better than his teammates, but only slightly, as seen by how he was sent to the ground when the butt of Pharrik's shrapnel launcher hit him across the face.
The Fallen lifted his foot to stomp on the hapless hunter, but Draid rolled out of the way just in time, and brought the barrel of his pistol up, and let loose several shots, which either deflected off Pharrik's arc shield, or his armor.
Thoroughly pissed-off by the attack, Pharrik was about to fire on him, when the Guardian kicked his leg out, tripping him instead, sending his larger body into the snow.
Scrambling to his feet, Draid snatched his shotgun, and rushed toward the tree line, when he suddenly heard an incoming message came onto his com.
With an impatient sigh, he answered it, while simultaneously turning to see his enemy finish getting back up, shaking the snow off of his cape, and looking toward him, angrily.
"Whatever it is, it better be good..." he growled into the com, hiding behind a tree as makeshift cover, keeping a close eye on the captain coming his way.
"It's the opposite of good, Draid! We need you back here, now!" Geryl's voice yelled on the other end, while the sound of the Sparrow he was riding on buzzed in the background. "Vara's been shot in the head... I'm injured... Damn it, we need you!"
Draid went quiet for a moment, shocked by what he just heard.
"Don't worry, I'll be right there! Give me a few minutes!" he finally replied, ending the transmission, just as the sound of the Fallen's shrapnel launcher went out, shredding the trunk of the pine he was hiding behind to splinters.
He jumped back as the tree noisily toppled, and fell to the ground, and avoided the next shot that came from Pharrik's weapon, running back out into the deep, open snow, holstering both of his weapons.
He turned as the Fallen pointed his shrapnel launcher once more, and began to speak to him, catching the alien's attention.
"Listen, ugly..." he started, raising one of his hands to him.
Intrigued by the sudden turn in action, Pharrik quietly lowered his weapon, listening intently to what his enemy had to say.
"This... This isn't over. My friends need me, but you can bet on your life that this is far from over. I'll be back, soon. Count on it."
With those final words, Draid activated his Sparrow in a fast manner, and hopped aboard it the moment it materialized, zooming off into the tundra, while Pharrik looked on, letting him go.
All the Fallen could do was let his guard down as the shape disappeared over the horizon. With the battle over, and nothing to do, Pharrik shrugged his shoulders, and turned, headed back for home. As he walked on, thinking of the fight that had just occurred, he couldn't help but notice the first flakes of snow that begun to fall from the sky.
"Give me their coordinates..." Draid asked his Ghost, as he sped off, fear and worry swelling up inside of him at the gravity of his current situation. Without so much as a question, his mechanical friend did so, projecting a map in front of him as he drove on.