ERA DRAKKA [i]Lee[/i] Lee woke to a small pink lizard crawling over his face, and with lightning-fast reflexes he got a hold of the reptile and crushed the poor thing. With a gloved hand he wiped off the blood from his scarred face. The lizard's blood or his blood? He didn't know. He didn't care. With a slight headache he stood up, pushing aside a small piece of plasteel. He rubbed the back of his head and put on his wide CSA hat. Damn, he felt worse than on a Saturday after hanging out in the saloon the previous night. He sighed loudly, grabbed his rifle and took a good look at his surroundings. On his left side, the lush woods of Venus almost lured him in, their exotic leaves slowly weaving in the wind. The contrast with his right side couldn't have been bigger. On this side, there were also things moving in the breeze. It were hung bodies. Hundreds of them, human and alien, decapitated and burned, rotten or freshly murdered. In the back, the slope went steeply downhill, into a grey pit, where yellow sulfur clouds were escaping from. The whole place pretty much looked like hell on Earth, or in this case, on Venus. It was clearly an abandoned sulfur mine, Lee determined from the machines standing in the distance. Fallen machines, and from what Lee could see they still looked newish. The Fallen hadn't been gone for long. Lee dug into his memory to find out where in Heaven's name they were, worsening his headache even more. Then, suddenly, it struck him. "Los Muertos," he whispered with his heavy Southern accent. "What?" An unkown voice asked. Lee spun around and drew his revolver, aiming at the spot he thought the noise had come from. He barely saw William diving from the weapon, landing in the ashes on the ground. With an irritated sigh Lee lowered his weapon. "God damn, kid. Ya gonna make me shoot ya one day" William stood up again. "Maybe you should think twice before aiming a revolver at someone" Lee put the revolver back into its holster. "Listen up, kid. I have no idea what the hell happened and why I woke up in Los Muertos with some lizard peein' on my face. So if I am a little jumpy right now I don't think ya got any right to blame me" "You don't what happened?" William curiously asked. Lee descended towards the large wreck that laid halfway down the slope that led into the abandoned Los Muertos mine. "I thought that'd be clear by now, Yank. Now, are ya gonna explain anythin' 'bout this damn mess or what?" William hastily followed him and helped him pull aside a large metal piece from the wreck. "We got hit by an Eliksni Anti-Air missile and soon crashed down in the woods. We slid further until we came to a stop on this slope" The metal piece finally gave in and released from the wreck of the Hawkeye and Lee stumbled a bit backwards, but quickly found his balance again. "Thanks for that, Yank. Now, as the Hawkeye clearly ain't gonna go anywhere, we gonna have to continue on foot, just like in the good ol' days. I'll wake Echo to talk with him about this. Ya just stay right here and don't move" William shrugged and sat down on the scorched ground, pulling out an energy bar. He didn't seem to care about the stinking sulfur clouds nearby, as he put down his blue-gold helmet. With a loud sigh Lee walked away, looking for Echo. It didn't take long for the Southerner to find the Exo. Poor Echo layed on the ground, face down, a few meters from the crashed SS Hawkeye. He was clearly awake, as he was just trying to get up when Lee arrived. An evil grin split open Lee's face. "Been waitin' too long for this. Payback time" With those words, he mercilessly kicked Echo in the side, making him roll over. Lee's intent was to make Echo roll down the hill for a bit, but the Exo grabbed his leg and pulled him down with himself. Lee immediately planted his boots in the black soil and pushed Echo down on the ground. He gave the Exo a headbutt, which apparently defeated his enemy. Lee stood up, but Echo reacted with a massive uopercut with his right metal hand, and Lee fell down on his back and slid down a bit. William, alerted by the noise of fight, arrived at the scene. "What the hell are you guys doing?" It remained silent for a few seconds, and then both Echo and Lee started laughing, one a healthy laugh, the other with a raw voice. Lee got up and helped Echo a hand to do the same. They hugged, in the way good comrades do, and dusted off their coats. Lee straightened his hat and said with a big smile: "That was a damn good uppercut, if I do say so myself. Ya are the first moron who does that to me" "Your headbutt wasn't too bad either," Echo said as he rubbed his forehead. After picking up his rifle, Lee became serious again. He quickly explained what he had heard from William (who occasionally added some side information, to Lee's irritation) and Echo agreed that they should go on by foot. The mission always comes first. They could not afford to stop here, after all they had endured. The others weren't too hard to wake up, and luckily there weren't a lot casualties. Only one brother, who had replaced the dead pilots, had died by the missile. The wounded were however many. Ava-3's left hand had been stuck under a bench and crushed by an oxygen tank, Fal Chavam's shoulder was bleeding heavily (so Nguye had to take over some of his stuff in his backpack, to heavy protest of Fal himself) and Echo's leg was clearly doing very bad, but he didn't complain. Furthermore, almost everyone was at least lightly wounded, and nobody was left unscarred by the crash. They managed to depart from Los Muertos fairly quickly though, burning everything they couldn't take with them. The only materials the Fallen would be able to scavenge were some heavily damaged Plasteel platings and some generic copper wires. Passing the weathered signs and animal skulls, the group left the hell that was Los Muertos. Their journey was very typical for traveling on Venus by foot (which was quite uncommon in an age of space travel). Cutting your way through the heated jungle that was Venus, trying to avoid any wildlife ambushing you. Suddenly finding out that the brush you had been stumbling through the last fifteen minutes actually was one big tree, with a trunk so wide that even if you all stood in a circle around the thing you still wouldn't be able to fit around it, the roots extending far from the tree itself and intertwining with other trees, creating a mess that was almost impossible not to get lost in. Its leaves created a curtain which mostly stopped the light of the burning sun, but unfortunately not the heat. After every row of greenery could be an enemy hiding, be it a mutated dog (originating from the lost dogs of the collapse) or a Fallen patrol. If they were lucky, they found a small path, used by said enemies. It was obviously dangerous to use, but as they went nearly three times quicker than normal, they were willing to take the risk. Occasionally, they'd stumble across a Vex ruin, looking abandoned, although that never was a certainty with the Vex. A structure could look as dead as their own brothers, there was a distinct possibility that there would be Vex warping in at any moment. To avoid attracting the Vex's attention, the group usually walked around the ancient buildings, but sometimes they had to pass right through them. Once again, traveling across Vex land was way quicker, but held major risks. Besides, those structures were eerie, completely silent and still, but you still got the feeling that they were watching every single one of your steps. Eventually they still decided to set up camp in one of these ruins. Sleeping on the ground was way too dangerous and they couldn't find a tree to fit their equipment in, so they had to settle for the Vex ruins. The found a cave on the edge of the complex, and decided that would be the 'safest' spot. Not much was said as everyone went to sleep. There was no need to, and everyone was tired of the journey. Tomorrow they'd reach Burton and his team, making the expedition complete again. Minus the fallen brothers. CONTINUED IN COMMENTS [spoiler]More stories will be added onto the main page, which I will link here. https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/226647634?sort=0 [/spoiler]