[url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/90330036]Catch up on part one here![/url] [b]"Disproportionate response."[/b] ...None of the information slowed Bishop. He just needed to move, to move fast. Turn what could be a long, protracted firefight into a quick mop-up befitting of the Vanguard Assault Lance's claim to fame. He knew they'd take care of it. They'd done this too many times now. The facts that the Hive shouldn't be here in this city, the Wizard presiding over them seemed to be taunting them, and they couldn't seem to transmit out of this zone were secondary to the fact that they all knew they could do their job. Find out what's going on. Destroy whatever it was, or bring information back. Get rid of whatever was in the way. [b]Boom---ksssh---B-BOOM![/b] A detonation, and a few secondaries. They were exchanging fire with the Shrieker. Some of the Hive out there had boomers. Well armed. This was no expeditionary force---but what it was didn't matter. It didn't matter at all as he vaulted another twisted support beam, grabbed another which was hanging before he even came back to the floor, pulled and tossed himself into a flip to crash feet first through another window. It was beautiful. The glass glittered around him. His mostly invisible form sailed. It all worked. He was so fast, so... so[i] perfect[/i]. Absolutely perfect. What he was about to do was going to look so cool. "Ground team hold fire." Ricochet's crisp order. "Do it, Bishop." Doss, from wherever he was hiding up high. Oh, he was going to do it. He was definitely going to flip out of that window, twirling and inverting among the shower of shattered glass, draw his favorite Arc Blade mid-flight, let the thrum of the charge run through him as he achieved temporary flight, blaze straight through the panicked Hive weapon fire from below, and twirl a single slice through the center of that Shrieker just as its blasts fired and converged [i]just behind[/i] him. It was going to look amazing. He was going to stop to give a snappy one-liner when he landed, too. He hadn't thought of it yet, when he cut through the Shrieker. He had plenty of time. Even when it exploded behind him, he knew he had a bit. "Hoshit. Gotem!" Wally cheered. "Nice, Bishop." Ricochet. Fox giggled. "-blam!-ed it uu---uh oh." Faulted. "SHIT! SHIT!" Doss. The air split open in his path. He knew the looming figure by a gut, primal sense before his eyes could even fully decypher what they were seeing. The hulking outline of a Tomb Ship, cutting in from Light knows where. Right in his path. "FUUUCK!" He smacked the upper edge of the front end. If they have a front end to speak of. Those things don't look like they fly in any direction in particular. He [i]felt[/i] that one, a jolt in his right hip and a dull throbbing pain. His shields popped all at once, the meter on his HUD draining to nothing. He bounced, flipped head over heels, came down hard against the top of the emerging ship. He caught a glimpse through the portal it was emerging from, and that snapped him out of the momentary stun of the impact. He twisted around, still sliding toward the portal---or was the ship just moving under him, or was the portal drawing him in?---and jammed his Arc Blade into the eerily smooth black surface. It flicked and bounced off. He did it again. Then again. The third time it caught, and he felt a painful and familiar pop in his arm as his momentum was suddenly completely arrested. "Ah----blam!-in' hell! Hey! Don't look now, but I think I caught a Tomb Ship!" He shouted into his helmet, trying to blink away the searing pain in its arm. He managed to gather his knees under him before an explosion below him nearly blew him off the side. Being so close to the detonation rattled his bones. "HEEEY! I'M UP HERE! DON'T -blam!-IN' SHOOT IT!" "Which one is it?" He heard Fault ask. [i]Which one?[/i] "Just over where the Shrieker was. One that's turning toward you guys." Doss reported. "I see Bishop. You alrigh---STOP SHOOTING AT IT!" Another explosion below him. "The -blam!-, Ricochet? Chill, Bishop's up---" Fault spoke up, but was interrupted. "Left side turrets are down on that one. You can jump off now." Ricochet didn't sound excited by it all. He did sound...grim, though. "Oh." Realization set in. If he'd just jumped up with those Void turrets active, he might have taken a hit or worse. So the destruction happy Titan wasn't just trying to blow everything up, or blow him up if he wasn't clear, he was blowing the turrets off. "Right. Hold on, getting clea---" "We need to fall back. They're dropping more." Doss interrupted him with the suggestion. "We're fine." Ricochet grumbled out. "I've got more rockets." "More Tomb Ships cutting through. Behind us. Ricochet look!" Fox rarely ever raised her voice. Bishop tried to block out the arguing as he stood, found his balance, and looked for a place to jump. "Shit." Hissed out by Fault. "We've got to move. Ricochet." Doss pressed. "We're close to something. They called for help." Ricochet insisted, his voice nearly a growl. "That Wizard isn't just a tourist." "Ricochet!" Fox shouted, her tone now carrying a reprimand. "-blam!-in'---I KNOW woman, I---fine. Doss, Bishop, here. Now. Now!" "Not to steal your thunder, Big Guy---" Bishop huffed out. He was already moving. Already running. He'd taken a leap off of the Tomb Ship, blinked to the side of the nearby building, taken two running steps along the face, and then blinked again to shorten his drop to the ground to avoid a hail of Boomer and Shredder fire. "---but I was already coming. -blam!- this." A Thrall popped out into his path that he knifed so quickly that he wasn't sure if it was his blade or his somehow blinking [i]through[/i] it that killed it. Didn't matter. "Knights behind you." Faulted announced. "Keep coming, I've got them." Bishop didn't stop to see the Void Nova as it was charged or fired or impacted. He felt the world tremble and reality give that sickening heave it tended to when a Void Nova went off, but he didn't take the time to look. "More cutting in. I've never seen this many Hive ships at once. I'm groudside, heading to you. Start moving. Go go go." Bishop could hear Doss' weapon firing beneath him speaking. Reaching where the others were holed up behind what looked like an ancient abandoned bus turned entirely sideways in the street, he slid to a stop and pulled his Auto Rifle from his back in the same motion. "We going to get Doss?" Bishop was surprised to hear himself ask it. But it was already out. "Yes. And then we're falling---" Fox punctuated herself by punching Ricochet in his broad armored chest. "...back." "Doss, pop flare. We're coming. Then we're going." Fault sounded impatient. "Doss. Pop flare." And even more so when he had to repeat himself. "Doss!" Bishop half stood to look through a window of the crumbling bus which had likely been missing its glass for centuries. He ignored his own feeling of relief when he saw a bright blue flare, trailing thick smoke, zigzag out across the street from a building diagonal from them. Third level up. "Spotted. We're moving to you. Find us some egress, while we're saving your a---" There was no hearing Ricochet when the world shattered. There was no hearing anything. He couldn't even hear himself think over the deafening explosion, he couldn't see through the rock and dust, and he couldn't force calm through his mind at what he knew he'd just witnessed. The face of the building the flare had come from was suddenly gone. The rest of the building was giving way, leaning and toppling in toward the street. The ground shook. "----eeder! It wa---" snatches of dialogue he couldn't hear through sudden hearing loss or his own disbelief. He was staring. He was seeing, but not believing or comprehending. It wasn't an explosive. It didn't explode from inside, or from something fired from the street. It was... "---ishop. BISHOP!" Fault grabbed his shoulder and shook him. "Lets GO!" "A -blam!-ing SEEDER?!" Wally was shouting. "They dropped a -blam!-ing SEEDER on us?!" "Doss, respond." Ricochet was barking. Bishop found himself with the group. Running with them. Firing with them. It seemed as though, instantly, the numbers of Hive present had multiplied a hundred fold. Thrall. Thrall everywhere. "Doss. Come in. Doss you worthless can opener, respond!" [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/90582747]Part three![/url]