As the day went on we continued to win most of our matches, facing pairs of all kinds of Guardians. Thankfully, Sierra had stopped trying to get me killed so she could try winning on her own. I was cautious nonetheless. Now we were on Mars, taking cover inside a Cabal outpost called Firebase Delphi that was now held by the City. We were in a hallway that formed a semicircle around a command room and had branching passageways leading downwards at the apex of its curve. Sierra was in the larger of those passages, aiming down her scope at a Huntress, while I was opposite of her, peeking around the curve at a Warlock. The other team didn’t seem to care about winning, but That meant Sierra had taken it upon herself to try ruining their fun. “Can you kill that guy already so we don’t need to cover both sides?!” Sierra snapped. “He won’t give me a clear shot,” I lied, giving the male Warlock at the end of the hallway a thumbs up as he danced randomly in the middle of a doorway, “He hasn’t been a problem anyway.” There was something familiar about that guy… “Well this girl is getting on my nerves,” Sierra fired off several hand cannon rounds at her adversary, a female Warlock, which were answered by a volley from an auto rifle, “She’s just hiding and keeping me down by blowing a ton of ammo.” “Think they’re trying to time out the match just to frustrate you?” I snickered, giving a small wave to the Warlock, who was now swinging his arm wildly in the air in an exaggerated greeting. “That’s it, I’m shooting your friend you turncoat,” Sierra shifted behind me and, before I could react, put a couple bullets in the Warlock’s stomach. He bolted away through the central room to the other end of the hallway, where his partner waited. Both of us moved to look down the other arc of the hallway just in time to watch him jump onto his teammate, knocking both of them over. The man started saying something to the woman that got her laughing and neither got up. Sierra started to raise her gun while they were distracted, but I took a closer look at the two and pushed Sierra’s arm down, finally recognizing something. “You’re the guy that hosts all the competitions in the Tower courtyard!” I declared, pointing at his vertically striped black and white robe. That got his attention and he looked over at me. “By golly I’m famous!” he shouted after a moment, hopping to his feet and pulling the girl up. Sierra tried lifting her weapon again but I wouldn’t let go of her wrist. “I knew I recognized you!” I shook his hand and bowed politely to the woman as they reached us, “Remember me? I’m Drew’s friend.” “Hmm,” the Warlock put his hand to his chin thoughtfully, then snapped excitedly, “Got it! Purple Reign! The great Drew-22! Strong in body, small in mind, pain for eyes and ears!” “Yes him! Exactly!” I exclaimed as he remembered. “No idea who you are,” he mused. “I was wearing blue and gold,” I described, crestfallen. “Ah yes, now I remember. Should’ve recognized the poor choice of wardrobe,” he pointed at my attire. “Can we hurry this up?” Sierra growled. “Ah, and you’re the smart better who was at Drew’s arm wrestling match,” the man looked Sierra up and down, “I’m Fehri Dreij, at your service. And I sure hope you’ll be interested in some service later, hot stuff.” “You slimy little-“ Sierra tried yanking her arm up again. “Hot head, more like,” the woman finally spoke up, then elbowed Fehri, “You’re supposed to be my date, anyway.” “Gotta have a backup,” Fehri chuckled. “After this match I’ll teach you why you don’t need a backup,” she responded, crossing her arms saucily. “Speaking of the match…” Sierra kicked Fehri in the shin, making him back away. “We probably should get back to shooting before Arcite scolds us again,” I admitted, finally releasing Sierra’s arm. “No worries, we forfeit,” Fehri raised his hands in surrender, then looked at his partner, “Can’t wait for that lesson.” “Barf,” Sierra pointed her cannon at his head, “Better leave before you’re too torn up to be a decent date.” With that, she pulled the trigger. • • • We had been fighting for hours. To my surprise, Sierra hadn’t gotten tired of the Doubles and asked to stop, and instead seemed to be enjoying herself if you looked past her competitiveness. We had been to Crucible arenas all over the system, facing other pairs of Guardians and building a pretty decent number of wins compared to losses. Sierra had given up on insulting and bossing me around and instead let me make most of our tactical decisions while also striking up plenty of casual friend-to-friend conversations. Honestly I was starting to get worried about how out of character she seemed. Maybe this was how she was when she felt relaxed and didn’t have people like John and Drew bugging her. John, in fact, had remained docile all day and participated in many of our talks along with Rush. Rush was acting normally, with insults and impatience flying everywhere, but it all came down to good-humored pestering as usual. So we were all getting along well. We were on Earth now; the abandoned outpost known as Frontier right outside the City’s borders. Night had fallen, showing that we had spent nearly a day in the Crucible. I had earned some new gear from our matches, and although I still wore white with red my armor was now mostly that of a rounded Titan set and Rush wore a glossy red shell that he wouldn’t quit complaining about. Sierra had actually earned some holiday themed armor of her own that she wore in all white, but was no closer to admitting that she enjoyed the Crimson Days. We were sticking low, prowling through the shadows of a building filled with train car cargo crates right at the beginning of a round. The plan was to let the enemy come to us. I sat between a couple crates, watching both entrances, while Sierra watched the open-ended back way. A scuffle of footsteps sounded outside. “Just one,” I whispered, “I’ll pick them off, you cover me if the other comes and watch for if they’re sniping.” Sierra tapped the neck of her sniper rifle against a crate in answer, and I snuck up to the edge of the entrance on my left, careful not to make a move that a motion tracker would detect easily. It was very dark out with the Moon hidden behind clouds. But I saw a single silhouette slink away into the cover of the bridge in the center of the arena. Seeing no other sign of movement, I decided to pursue. They had probably guessed where we were by now anyway. No one challenged me as I moved across the flat stretch of concrete to the bridge, moving quietly even with my boots and armor. Rush kept his light off so I could stay hidden, but in this visibility I was almost tempted to have him light the way for me. Almost halfway through, I heard armor scrape on metal and flipped around to find the nozzle of a rifle in front of my face. “You had to have known that was a bait,” a raspy voice scoffed. “Crag?” I squinted into the shadows that concealed my captor, who was prone on top of a train car. “William?” he recognized my voice as well. Pt3: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/243103052/0/0 Pt5: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/243103210/0/0 ToC: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/212710816/0/0