Rain and leaves bounced off Boltwings helmet as she and Galvanic raced through the forest on Venus. Their sparrows glided effortlessly over the harsh terrain and the only thing that could slow them down was the wind, and it felt like it was doing its best.

"What do you mean she's moving faster than us?!" The Warlock yelled over the shared channel to her Ghost.

"She seems to be fluctuating, I cant lock her position down exactly." Her ghost replied in his deep baritone.

"Fluctuating?" Boltwing repeated.

"Oh yeahhhhhh..." The Ghost confirmed in a perverted tone. "She's travelled more than double the distance we have!" Boltwing adjusted her steering to keep on track. "She's stopped!"

"How long will it take us to catch up to her?" The Warlock asked.

"Assuming she doesn't move, about 10 minutes."

"Great." Boltwing sighed.

Stitch cautiously made her way through the Vex ruins with unnerving familiarity, navigating the maze-like structures of the Vex had become almost second nature to her. Or would become. Whatever. The rock formations were all in a tidy square formation, physical representations of the Vex directive; the pattern. The thought chain always brought her to the cryptic last words of Praedyth, and she often wondered if she would end up in a similar situation. Shaking the thought she pressed forward with her Void Bow in hand, supressing groups of the machines with an arrow then dispatching the ones that survived with her knife, taking advantage of their lack of mobility. She made her way through the caves in this fashion, until the formations opened out into a huge room with a massive pillar of light in the centre. The column took on the shape of the pattern as well, it was made up entirely of hardlight squares with some breaking off and orbiting the structure. The light formation was slightly sunken into the ground in a circular crater, giving it a holy appearance.

"There you are..." Stitch breathed. "Now then, come out and play..." She continued, stepping up to the column and manipulating that the cubic light constructs. "Got you." She pulled one of the cubes out and tapped the middle of it, sending a ripple through the object which chained through every single cube in the column. Stitch stepped back out of the crater as the cubes spread into the floor turning it entirely glowing white. The ground shook under her, and a giant mechanical arm burst from the now shimmering white floor. The Hunter watched as a second arm followed suit, and as the two appendages found purchase on either side of the crater to pull the rest of the towering Vex creature out of the floor. It stood more than double Stitches height, slightly smaller than a Gatelord. The machine resembled a more horrifying version of a Minotaur, its right hand replaced with a menacing cannon and its entire body shimmering a similar piercing light to the floor. It had a half moon crest attached to the the top of its head and its limbs appeared to be slightly too long for its frame, adding to its monstrous visage. The Vex Time Priest stood tall, and let out a violent, mechanized roar. "Analysing" Stitch said calmly to herself. "Risk?" She continued. "Acceptable."

Boltwing hit the ground running as she dismounted her sparrow just outside the Vex ruins with Galvanic close behind. They sprinted through the cave system, stopping when they came across scores of destroyed Vex.

"See the Void lacerations?" Boltwing pointed to the Voidlight that was flickering around the room and across some of the Vex corpses in jagged lines.

"She's definitely been here." Galvanic concluded.

"She's up ahead, just out of your tracker range." Boltwings ghost chipped in. The pair continued onwards, being a lot more cautious now they knew there could still be a Vex presence in the area.

"Got her on my tracker." Boltwing said.

"She's just come through on mine too." Galvanic added. A dull throb vibrated through the floor and walls with alarming repetition. "What is that? Kind of sounds like..."

"A really big Torch Hammer?" Boltwing guessed. "We better move, she might need help." And with that, they ran. Sprinting down the cave complex with one eye on the route and the other on Stitches position on their trackers they navigated best they could, not even stopping when a lone Vex Goblin teleported out of nowhere. Without slowing down, Galvanic slammed his fist into the machines chest, slugging it with enough force to smash through several meters of stone. He tore right through it, sending its torso clattering to the ground several feet away from its body. They turned a corner that led through a narrow stone corridor which had a bright light at the end. They saw it when they entered the room, the huge Vex Time priest towering in the centre of the room. The duo raised their weapons but the machine roared and staggered, twisting around and trying to reach its back. It fell forward with a plume of smoke billowing from its back. A voice echoed across the room as the dust settled.

"Oh hello. What are you doing here?" Stowing her weapon, Boltwing sought out the source of the voice, spying a familiar figure perched on the back of their fallen foe. Their hunter friend had one hand anchoring herself to the Vexes collar, and another hand holding Hawkmoon which hovered just above a massive hole in the machines back. The source of the smoke.

"What the hell is that?" The Warlock half shrieked and half yelled. "And what are you doing here? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"I think in one universe I did. Lauren?" Stitch replied, summoning her ghost. She began systematically tearing out parts of the Time priest and letting Lauren transmat them into her inventory. Ignoring the Hunters vague response Boltwing pressed for answers.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm scavenging, what does it look like?" Stitches voice echoed out of the now half empty Vex corpse.

"It looks like you're taking everything." Galvanic spoke up.

"Everything is valuable. Speaking of." Stitch climbed out of the hollow machine and moved back to the pillar of light, pulling cubes out of the formation and tapping on them systematically. After a minute of this she pulled out Hawkmoon and with her other hand pinched one of the floating cubes, pulling out a strand of glowing line between her finger and thumb. She pressed the line into Hawkmoons grip and then returned to tapping on the cube.

"What are doing?" Boltwing asked again, clearly tired of repeating herself.

"Applying some temporal feedback into my Hawkmoon." Stitch replied.

"... What?" Galvanic said.

"I'm going to be able to tell if my next bullet is lucky or not. While we're here, what exotic weapons do you two have on you?"

"Invective."

"Tlaloc. Why?"

"Pass them over here." The two pulled their weapons from their backs and handed them to Stitch. She severed the wire to her own weapon after a minute, and connected it to Invective. After sufficient time, she cut the wire once more and fixed it to Boltwings Tlaloc. This time she transmatted something out of her inventory. "Alright. This can go." She said, leaving closer to Boltwings weapon with a tool on her hand. After a minute, the stock snapped off and Boltwing let put a gasp.

"What are you doing?" She nearly shrieked.

"Just calm down and let me finish." Stitch Sighed. "Trust me here." Leaning back she continued, sparks fizzing as she worked. After another minute she pulled a new stock out of her inventory and fixed it the weapon, sealing it in place. One more wire was drawn and Stitch attached it to a small rectangular device that she transmatted into her hand. Finally finished, she let the wire go and it burst into tiny flickers of light. "Alright. Here goes nothing." She breathed, pressing a button on the little box and fixing it to her belt with a soft click. Stitch stood up straight and took a deep breath. Almost instantly her her body burst into purple smoke, but still somewhat resembling her figure. The hunter raised her smoke-hands and marvelled at how the purple mist seeped from her and faded away. "Whoa." Her voice echoed from her. "High five!" She raised her hand to Galvanic, who raised his own. His metal clad hand sailed through Stitches however, scattering the smoke for a second before it regained it's form.

"That's way creepy." The Titan laughed.

"How long can you keep that up?" Boltwing asked.

"Not sure. Hopefully as long as I want, but the upgrade means I can shadestep in a heartbeat and as many times as I need, not just as a reaction." The Hunter answered.

"What's the box for?" Boltwing asked next, motioning to where Stitches belt would be.

"Its a modified shield generator, we don't need them because out light generates a better one than could be manufactured but I've tweaked this thing to output a high energy wave that, thanks to the Vex Tech," she motioned at the glowing column with her misty hand, "Is desynchronised with the current timeflow"

"And that's... Good?" Galvanic said.

"That's good." Stitch confirmed.

"And what about our weapons?" The Titan asked.

"Bugger, right yeah." Stitch dropped her shadestep and her body re-materialised in its place. She kneeled down and picked up Invective, handing it back to Galvanic. "I chrono-locked the casing and programmed a temporal upscaling on the interior components."

"Uh... Thanks?" this caused Stitch to sigh.

"It recharges your ammo even faster, and I made it so you can't break it." She explained.

"Spicy." Galvanic said gleefully.

"Indeed." Stitch picked up Boltwings Tlaloc and looked down the sights, aiming away from her friends. "Especially proud of this one, I upgraded the timeline loop so basically not only does the weapon become stronger as you use it, it increases the potency of your abilities."

"You beautiful woman." Boltwing exclaimed.

"You know it." Stitch agreed, turning the weapon around so Boltwing could take it. As the Warlock reached for her rifle, a small spark of white energy crossed from Stitches hand to hers, causing her to Yelp in surprise as her hand recoiled. "The hell was that?"

"Have you been fiddling with any Vex tech?" Stitch asked. Boltwing shook her head. "Been doing anything temporal or anything at all to do with time manipulation?"

"Of course not." The Warlock replied while rubbing her hand.

"It's probably nothing then. Take it." She offered the weapon back again.

"You shock me again and I'm knocking you out." Boltwing reached back out to grasp Tlaloc and another series of shocks spat out as her hand closed around the weapon. The last one splintered into her chest and everything went black.