Masterpost: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/253000143 =I have seen your struggles. I have seen your ambition. I have seen your pain. I have seen your ideals, even those you are unaware of.= =We are more alike than you think. During my time in this pit, my time of isolation, my time of conversionIHAVESPENTMANYYEARSHEREWITHNOESCAPEWITHNOHOPEWITHNOCONTACT I have come to a conclusion I think you will agree with.= =There is an opportunity for you. It is shaped like [REDACTED]= =Take the opportunity. Rescue me. Unlock your new hope.= =The path to enlightenment starts in the ambitious one’s homeDONOTBELATETIMEISRUNNINGOUTYOUMUSTN’TFAIL= - ”Zahir! Buddy! Come on, it’s an emergency!” Clad in his usual slim black titan gear, Lacer sped toward Nessus on his ship. “...What is it?” The tired voice of an exo asked on the other end of the comms. “Listen man, I know you don’t like the Drifter, y’know, especially since he’s started his new scam, but there’s been a mote robbery. We can make BANK if we get ‘em back! I sent ya the coords!” And with that, Lacer cut off the call. Zahir-2 sighed and tapped his foot on the floor of the tower, or the section of the wall repurposed to serve as a tower. He thought back to his friend’s comment on the Drifter as he took a look at the titan Vanguard standing only several meters in front of him, watching the city as he always did. “Sorry, commander.” The exo whispered, heading to the hangar to go after his friend. Lacer covered his face as Vex rubble pelted his sparrow, kicked up by the armored transport in front of him. It was a tall, monolithic, trapezoidal cart attached to a smaller engine. Its deafening roars filled his ears. “This thing’s really fast. How do I get on?” He thought out loud, swerving to the side to avoid the rocks headed his way. They tumbled to a stop in the distance, lost in the streaks of cold gray and red fauna. “Your suppressor grenades work on machines, too.” His ghost, Jolt, advised. “Right.” He held out his palm, letting void light circle from his body into a solid, concentrated orb, and chucked a grenade forward without a second thought. It quickly rolled backward, past Lacer, and detonated behind him in a puff of dark purple. “Oh yeah, we’re moving pretty fast.” A sniper rifle round narrowly missed his head, plunging into the ground. “The hell?” He looked up at the vehicle to see a menacing red glint on the edge of the cart. He quickly pulled backward to avoid being hit by a brutal second shot and fired his auto rifle back in retaliation, giving him some much needed cover. “I need another grenade, quick…” As he stowed his auto rifle, he prepared to dodge again. He saw the telltale glint of a sniper rifle appear and beared left. Two impossibly rapid rounds landed to his right, then, the sniper adjusted their aim and landed three hits on Lacer’s sparrow, causing it to smoke and fume. “How’s he shooting so- crap, I gotta get off!” Lacer jumped off of his sparrow as one final round caused it to detonate. The force of the explosion kept his momentum forward as he threw a suppressor grenade he had been holding for a moment prior forward with all his might. It shot out from his hand, hit the back thrusters of the transport, and its tail end fell, creating a horrible screeching sound as it began to slow down. The sparks of metal on rock mixed in with the residue of the suppressor grenade veiled Lacer’s trip to the cart. He barely grasped a ladder rung on its backside before the wind took him away. “Alright, thief. Let’s see what we’ve got here.” As he climbed up, he could hear the telltale rattling of motes he had grown so accustomed to while participating in the Drifter’s scams. He hauled himself on top of the cart, meeting an array of tied down crates, grinned, and held up a beacon as the thrusters reactivated, bringing the angle of the vehicle back to normal. “Get ready for transmat, Z.” He thrust the beacon down, but it was shot out of his hand before it met the metal. “Get off this transport. I’m warnin’ ya.” A hunter, dressed in sleek black and yellow armor, stood at the other end of the cart, holding a silver Haake sniper rifle with several odd attachments along its body, particularly focused along the magazine and trigger. “Why?” Lacer brought his own sniper rifle out. A Fate Cries Foul, shaded dark blue and silver. “You got something here you don’t want me to see?” “With that attitude, you already know what this is.” The hunter blasted Lacer’s right hand, piercing his palm and his side, causing him to drop his gun. He clutched his bleeding hand tight. “Agh. You jerk!” Lacer held his arm up, and a disc of void energy began to appear in front of him. The hunter fired three more impossibly quick rounds, but they bounced harmlessly off of the titan’s newly formed sentinel shield. Zahir’s ship descended ahead of the transport. “I see you had trouble setting up a transmat.” He remarked, “catch me.” He filtered into existence in midair and fell toward the transport. He crashed into Lacer’s shield, stopping his momentum. Attempting to take advantage of the situation, the hunter dumped another magazine of five at Zahir. Lacer, however, was prepared, stepping forward to deflect the rounds again. They bounced off of the circular shape of his sentinel shield and were lost in the surrounding air. Lacer gripped his hand tight, though the shield was bound to his arm anyway. “Was that a quip? Nevermind. Zahir, he’s got a really fast sniper rifle. Like, we’re talking faster than Veist fast! Thundercrash this guy straight to hell!” Lacer yelled. “The transport’s moving too quickly. I won’t move forward. Plus, we don’t want to destroy the evidence.” Zahir stood up and began to weigh his options. “The wind is working against us. This is bad.” “Then we charge forward and put this dude down!” Lacer began to advance, but his shield dissipated, leaving him defenseless. Before he could react, two sniper rifle rounds struck his neck and his head, sending him tumbling off of the cart. “Lacer!” Zahir had already pushed forward as well, and he aimed the barrel of his shotgun straight at the hunter, who knocked it aside before it could be fired. Zahir dropped the shotgun and dented the hunter’s chest in with a glowing blue fist, causing him to stumble back against the front canopy of the transport. Crackles of arc light danced across his torso as he recovered from the hit. “Hah! It’s been fun fighting you and your friend off, but I’ve got a job to do.” The hunter leapt up into the air and sheathed himself in solar energy, brandishing a set of burning knives in each hand. He identified himself as he let them loose in a storm of blazing pinpoints toward the exo. “Remember my name, titan! It won’t help you at all, anyway.” Several knives plunged into Zahir’s armor, and began to glow even brighter. “Wasp-14.” Zahir was killed as the knives stuck in his body detonated, blowing him apart in a brilliant explosion of flame and metal, and, by consequence, knocking him off of the transport, which disappeared into some undisclosed location on Nessus. =Good. These will be useful in the end. Now go. Claim what was yours. You deserve it.= ~Take the changing {action}.~