#rinok

Rinok held a scorch cannon in her claws, a notch in it for every Guardian she had slain. Her most prized trophy hung from her shoulders, a black cape stained with blood. However, this Guardian had a trophy the Baron absolutely desired. As the Guardian turned around to face in her direction, Rinok’s bloodlust nearly caused her to sprint from the shadows and rip her prey apart.

“Not yet! It’s still too wary.”

The helmet worn by her prey had one lens in the place of where an eye would be. It was constructed with metal, and had a square-like extension in the area of the upper face, where it was most armored. Lights pulsed from the top to the back, and Rinok could see that the pulses continued into the interior.

“What does it see in there? What are those lights? Ether?”

A pang of hunger shot through the Fallen. Ether rations were at an abysmal amount due to the heavy losses over the recent years, and now the Cabal had forced her kind into a desperate alliance. She pushed past her hunger with an angry grunt.

A crude jaw piece painted with rows of sharp, dagger-like teeth gave the helmet a primal look, as if it could open its maw to devour enemies whole. Scratches were littered on the helmets surface, and paint peeled off in multiple areas.

“Absolute beauty.”

Two smaller figures followed the Guardian. One was injured, hobbling and holding onto the bigger human for support. Rinok chuckled. This would be easy. She called her skiff.

____

Aiden had a terrible feeling in his gut. The hairs on his neck raised, and even with his armor’s temperature control he couldn’t help but shiver in the rain. Behind him, two refugees followed. They were almost back to the tunnels.

Warnings flashed on his HUD, and he cursed.

“Skiff inbound, they’re onto us,” warned Benji. The Ghost was cloaked in what little Light it had left, and resurrection was not an option. Not anymore.

“Guide them to the tunnels, I’ll handle the Fallen.”

“We should st-”

“Not an option! I’ve made it through worse than this, you know that,” Aiden replied through comms. His helmet projected the path of the Skiff, and highlighted a route through the ruins around the group to a better fighting position. As he raced up into the second floor of a building, the Titan saw cloaked figures drop to the ground, the hostile tracking program on his helmet scrambling into uselessness.

“Great, just what I needed.”

He searched for the Fallen through the sights on his auto rifle, but the rain made it nearly impossible to find any distinguishable target, nevermind a cloaked one. Aiden’s swept his vision over the street directly in front of him. A lone brick moved, and his rifle spewed three bullets around it. Blood splattered onto the road, flowing down the hill with the rain. Hearing the revving of Arc spools to his right, Aiden turned from the window and plowed through the wall just as bolts tore into the building. The Skiff had circled around. The Titan dropped through a hole into the first floor, onto an unsuspecting Dreg. Jabbing the rifle into another Fallen, he sprayed into it before spinning and bashing a Vandal’s skull inwards with the stock. He let go of the rifle, letting it sling around his shoulder and grabbed both the dead Vandal and a grenade from its hip, activating it and dropping it between him and the rest of the Fallen. Aiden leaped backwards, the explosion propelled him farther down the hallway and into another room. Snapping his sidearm into his hand, Aiden fired blindly down the hall before running out of the building, just to see the Skiff greeting him with another volley of Arc bolts.

Escape routes flared up on the helmet’s screen, and the Titan took off before the bolts slammed against the ground. He ran through the debris, sliding under a fallen wall that vaporized as he passed it. Bursting through the rotten wood of another building, Aiden could feel the exertion and exhaustion in his muscles overtaking the adrenaline. Another reminder of being Lightless. He flipped over a heavy table, blocking most of the hole he made, and stepped back.

“Benji should have made it to the tunnels by now. I need to lose these guys before I run out of ammo...”

The ammo counter on his rifle read 17.

“17 shots.”

The Titan frowned, and prepared to double back when-

____

Rinok smashed her scorch cannon into the frail floor, firing into the room below her. The rocket’s blast flared upwards, sending her toppling down onto the ground floor. As she landed, she cast aside the cannon and unsheathed her shock blades. Her prey lay on the floor, and looked at her in a daze. The Baron pounced. Her head snapped to the right as a wooden plank splintered across her helm, she felt her right arms stab into the ground and a vise-like grip clamp down on her left upper-arm. Snarling, Rinok dropped her right blades and blocked the incoming blow from the Guardian’s left fist. Now grappling, her left lower-arm stabbed into the Guardian’s side as it’s helmet unhinged its jaw, a blinding fl-

A piercing howl filled Rinok’s hearing, her vision trembled as the sound increased and blood leaked from her ears. Even with her helm’s sound dampening, the ear-shattering noise threatened to split her skull apart. Her vision snapped backwards suddenly, and the Baron realized the front of her face had broke from a headbutt from the Guardian. Flailing wildly, she slashed out and scrambled backwards. The howling stopped, but the damage was severe. Stumbling, bleeding, grunting, Rinok stared down her foe.

The Guardian was clutching it’s right side, where blood flowed freely down onto the it’s greaves. She noticed it’s left fist trembling, and saw blood dripping down from the forearm.

She laughed in the Guardian’s face.

You will die here.

Her opponent lunged forwards at her, and Rinok threw her last blade directly at the Guardian. As it swerved to her right, the Baron ripped her cloak off and threw it to conceal her next move. She leaped into the air as the Guardian attempted to dodge the cloak, slamming her knee into it’s chestpiece. She grabbed on with her four arms, and laughed again. The shockgun built into her knee pad fired. The scent of burnt flesh filled her senses. She let the body fall. Rinok felt her own helm, cracking, hissing, and crumbling. Kneeling down, the Baron plucked her trophy from the corpse. Rinok wiped away the blood from the inside of the Guardian’s helmet.

She smiled.

Perfection.

____

The lone Ghost silently floated over the cold body.

His eye slowly blinked before looking up, away.

The rain fell in sheets, drowning noises.

He looked back to his Guardian.

The body lay still, cold.

Bloody footprints led out.

A cold trail.

He followed.