Chapter 3: Licking Your Wounds
"I did warn you to keep your head down" Vara's Ghost said, as he floated around the Exo, his triangular body parts making clicking noises as they adjusted.
The Exo herself sat on an old, wooden chair, over the concrete floor of a small room in the abandoned, half-buried building that she and the other two Guardians had found, and were in. She was holding her defunct, damaged, burned optic in one of her hands, inspecting it with her only other remaining eye under the light that shown down from the ceiling, courtesy of the Ghost activating the old building they found's power.
"That's the second time you've said that now..." Vara growled to her robotic companion, turning her unhooded face up to him, showing the black, burnt-out hole where her right eye used to be, the light from above bouncing off of her smooth, bald, metal head. "Could you please not rub it in so much?"
"Oh, but who could pass up such a sweet opportunity as this?" the Ghost said again, sarcastically, getting a small chuckle out of her.
"Are... Are you sure we won't be able to fix it?" she asked, after a small moment of silence.
"I said it was unlikely" he said again, just before a blue ray of light shot out of his eye, and scanned over the warlock's face, then the eye in her hand. "I never said it was impossible."
As she sighed, she heard the sound of footsteps coming from behind her.
"Hey, Vara... It's me, Geryl. How're you holding up?" the titan's voice went out, which instantly placed an evil idea into her mind.
"It's bad... Very bad..." she lied, repressing the urge to laugh, changing her smirk into a frown, and turning to him, noticing the helmet he carried under his arm, leaving his pale face exposed. "The damage got into my head, and my Ghost said I've only got a few hours left before my brain module shuts down for good."
The titan stopped in his tracks the moment he heard her say that, and the expression on his face went blank.
"Are you... Are you serious?" he asked, his voice now much more hollow-sounding.
"No..." she replied, giggling quietly, her smile returning.
"Oh, come-freaking-on, Vara! I saved your life! You don't have to go scaring the tar out of me like that!" he cried out, walking up to his friend again, who was now, shamelessly, laughing out loud.
"You get shot in the head, you're missing an eye, and the first thing you can think of is making a joke about it?" he said again, as he placed his helmet on the nearby table.
"What can I say? I've been waiting to... "Pull" something like this for a while..." she snickered, placing her mechanical eyeball on right next to the dark-colored helm, the damaged, torn-up wire it was attached to coiling around it. "...By the way, how's your shoulder doing? I can't see those bandages you acquired when you're wearing your cloak and armor over it..."
"You're not changing the subject that easily, cyclops" he muttered, rubbing the sore area where she spoke of.
Things went silent between them for a good few seconds, and Geryl's brownish eyes widened in fearful realization over what he had just said, while Vara's only eye curled into one of anger.
"...What did you just call me?" she finally asked in a growl.
"I think I should... Go now. I'll... Make sure to check back in on you with what results I can get" Vara's Ghost piped in, before vanishing into thin air, leaving the two in the room, alone.
"Okay, okay, I'm... Sorry" Geryl quickly apologized, looking to the floor, briefly, before looking back to his friend. "It's just that... You almost died a few hours ago, and now... You're already making jokes about it. "
"Coming from the guy who almost lost a hand to a Vex back on Mars, and was already saying the classics, like "gotta hand it to you," and "can ya give me a hand" within the first hour?"
"My injuries weren't life threatening..." he mumbled.
"Alright, fine. Let's just forget this..." she sighed, rubbing her metal forehead with her hand in a tired fashion. "It was a prank. I thought it was funny, you didn't. It's as simple as that. It happens."
Geryl huffed, and folded his arms. They both looked away in another bout of silence, for a few seconds, before the Exo broke it once more.
"How's Draid doing?" she decided to ask. The titan turned to her, an unsure expression on his face.
"He... Hasn't been taking it very well" the titan replied.
"Yeah, well, I'd probably act pouty too, if one of you guys got hit really bad..." she said.
"That's not all what it's about" Geryl responded.
"What's it about then?" she asked, as she placed her hands on her hips. "Is it that lone Fallen that was kicking his can the entire time we were there?"
"Something along those lines..." he slowly said back.
Pharrik stood, unmoving in the tree line, as the storm raged on around him. The Fallen's blue cloak had enveloped his body, covering his two pairs of arms, concealing them, and the shrapnel launcher that was held at the ready, in his upper pair. His four eyes remained transfixed on where he purposefully placed the hunter's sniper rifle, a trap for the Guardian, sitting on the ledge where they previously fought, propped up against one of the mounds of snow, in plain sight.
He had been staring at the frozen, snow-covered weapon, and nothing more, for the past three hours, waiting, ever so patiently, for his prey to appear. From underneath his cloak, Pharrik repeatedly fumbled with his large shock dagger, using one of his lower hands to take it out from its hilt, reminiscing on all the times he had used it in his past hunts, and then put it away again. He could faintly hear it click back into its sheath, against the howling night wind that soared by his head.
Breaking the cycle, a crunching noise of heavy footsteps against the deep, brittle ground was suddenly heard by the captain, coming from behind him in a slowly approaching manner. He calmly turned, and was pleasantly surprised to see the familiar shape of the baroness, clad in thick fur and cloth, heading his way through the rapidly falling snow.
"Why have you come out here?" he asked, as she came up to him.
"To ask you to return inside" she replied. "I don't think the Guardian you spoke of is going to come. It would be mad, even for them."
"He is going to come..." Pharrik responded, with a small chuckle. "I know it. I feel it. And when he does show, I'm going to be here, and I'm going to be ready for him."
Sifaxis went quiet for a few moments, knowing her mate had made up his stubborn mind. She knew him long, and well enough to know when arguing would do nothing to stop him, especially if it was an event like this.
"If... That is your final say on the matter, then I shall leave you to it" she begrudgingly said, lowering her head. "If you wish to come back inside, I recommend you do it soon. You might freeze stiff if you spend any longer out here."
"I may return back... Soon" he spoke, in a tantalizing way, just as she turned, and started to leave again. "If I don't see him in another hour, I'll... Think about it."
"Hmph" the baroness huffed, hiding a smirk. "I do hope you return. You and I were lucky to have survived today. You should relax now."
She turned, walked down the hill, and was gone before too long, leaving Pharrik alone once more. He turned back to the weapon he was using as bait, and resumed his careful watch, as the blizzard went on, patiently waiting...
In the slightly larger room adjacent to where Vara and Geryl were, and the one that lead to the outside, Draid was just putting his helmet back on. His Ghost floated around his head, examining his armor for any repairable damage.
"I still don't think this is a good idea..." the flying mechanoid said, as he flew back to the front of the Guardian's face.
C'mon... It's me you're talking about" he laughed back, as he propped his hood over his head. "We've traveled to the deepest reaches of the moon together, and then some. A storm like this will be a walk in the park."
"I have serious doubts about that" he gulped, listening to the sound of the storm outside. "It will probably be more like... Wading through a flash flood."
The Ghost disappeared, just before Draid heard the door behind him open up. He turned, and saw Geryl enter the room, a sour expression on his face.
"I... See you're all ready to leave" he spoke, in a low tone.
"I'm going back there, Geryl" Draid replied, picking up his revolver, and holstering it by his side. "You can't stop me. I'll be back by morning."
"Draid, you can't just go out in the storm like this!" the titan shouted. "Either you'll freeze to death, or you'll get buried alive, assuming the Fallen don't get to you!"
"I'm not going to engage them, I'm just getting my sniper rifle back" he retorted. "And I'll see if I can get Vara's, if it's still there."
"I don't care about a stupid hunk of weaponized metal" the Exo's voice suddenly said, as she appeared from behind the door, following Geryl. "I care about life. That includes yours."
"Vara... You should be resting" Draid said, once he saw her.
"No, that's what you should be doing" she began, as she walked up to him. "I, currently, may be lacking an eye, but I still have more common sense still in my head than you do at the moment."
"You guys don't understand..." he sighed again. "I said I'm just getting my rife back."
"Yeah, well, you're going to freeze before you get a mile from here" she argued.
"That's what I said!" Geryl shouted.
"Guys! Can you just listen!" Draid yelled. They both quieted down, and looked back at Draid, letting him speak.
"You both know I've trained myself for environments like this. For the last time, I'm just going to get my sniper rifle. It's a rare, ancient, and powerful weapon that I can't just give up and leave to be subjected to the elements, or be abused by a Fallen."
"You have several more just like it!" Geryl argued again.
"But this isn't one of those one" the hunter spoke. "It was..."
"It was the LDR five-thousand-and-one... Wasn't it?" Vara sighed, finishing his sentence, before closing her eye, wearily.
"With... The Longview SLR-twenty long range scope, and high caliber, armor-piercing iridium-core rounds" he responded, blatantly.
"The one with the clown cartridge?" the Exo asked again.
"Yes, the one with the clown cartridge" he answered back.
""Ballistic Heartbreak"" Geryl chuckled, reciting the weapon's description, before tensing up again, with a fake cough. "Well... I can see why you want it back so badly."
"And I'm willing to bet that if I don't go back to where I last saw it, those Fallen will get their claws on it" he growled, looking back to the door.
"What do you think, Vara?" the titan asked the warlock. She only stood there, a ticked-off expression on her metallic face, before replying.
"Okay, fine. You know what? It's your decision" she finally spoke, turning away. "You want to die for your gun, it's your choice, not mine. Now, If you'll excuse me, I have an eye to repair."
She quietly left the room, leaving Geryl and Draid alone. The titan rubbed his injured shoulder, and looked at his hunter friend.
"I wouldn't do this if I were you, but, at the very least, promise me you'll get back alive, and in one piece" he pleaded.
"I will" he promised. "Keep an eye on Vara while I'm gone, no pun intended, and help her out while you both heal. I'll be back before sunrise, assuming it doesn't take me that long to sift through the snow."
Nodding his head, Geryl calmly left, joining the Exo in the other room.
Focussing back to the large, metal door, Draid proceeded to open it up with a loud screech on its heavily rusted hinges, and immediately saw the raging blizzard that waited outside for him.
With a final check on his shotgun, pistol, assault rifle and knife, he set off into the cold, stormy dark, alone, closing the door behind himself as he left.
Author's notes: Sorry for the short chapter. Had a bad case of writer's block, and was very busy (I'm graduating soon). Another chapter may come soon, but I have three other stories I'm thinking of creating.
Ta-ta for now!