Masterpost: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/253000143/0/0 Altair quickly fanned the hammer of his golden gun. Three streaks of orange light annihilated the figure under the cloak. However, instead of dissipating into ash and leaving a ghost behind, whatever was under the garment exploded in a violent flash, killing the nearby guardians instantly. Altair was thrown backward and collided with a minifridge. It toppled over, and he landed on it belly first. Two energy drinks rolled out of its forced open door. “You guys!” Altair ran for the hall again, but he heard the sound of a transmat behind him as he approached the ghost, causing him to turn cold. “I feel sorry for those like you.” A dead, gravelly voice snaked into his ears, and Altair felt a crushing weight come over his body. “You who put the lives of others before yourself. They will all die in the end, no?” Altair felt a rib crack as he was forced to the ground. He saw the menacing red glow of a Vex eye hover in front of him through the shut off lights of the ship, attached to him by something out of his vision. Ribbons of void energy flowed off of the arm in front of him. “Wha...what…” Altair attempted to move his hand closer for further inspection, but it was like trying to move a heavy boulder. “Cease your struggling. I can tell you’re a noble one, so I’ll make your suffering brief. Your ghost, too.” The voice grew closer as the figure knelt. “I’m going to protect them from this monster…” Altair thought as he looked up at the ghosts floating before him. “How this is even possible, I don’t know, but… I have to do something…” With the last of his strength, he lunged forward and took hold of Lacer’s ghost. “A useless gesture. Pathetic. I will keep my promise to you, however.” Altair felt a wide barrel press against his back. “At all costs…” Altair heard the ear-splitting blast of a shotgun go off, and everything went dark. “What in the world happened?” Lacer’s eyes fluttered open to a horrifying sight. Altair’s mangled corpse before him, and a warlock holding the hunter’s ghost. “No, stop…” As strength surged into his reviving body, he scrambled to stand up, but it was too late. The warlock took a jagged blade and skewered the ghost with it. Its mechanical eye flickered out instantly, and the warlock cast the shell aside like a piece of litter. He watched, horrified, as it clattered to the ground beside its guardian. “What the hell are you doing!?” Lacer roared and charged the warlock, but in the darkness, he was outmaneuvered. The warlock thrust his hand forward, and Lacer felt a cold pain enter his chest, spreading. “I am giving him peace. This man whose intentions were too pure for this world.” The sounds of Zahir and Auva’s ghosts bringing them back flared behind him, and the warlock stepped away, taking the knife out. Lacer dropped to his knees, coughing, as his teammates ran for the infiltrator. “Don’t screw with me. He’s not dead.” Zahir fired his shotgun at the mysterious warlock, who disappeared and reappeared in a fizzle of Vex particles to dodge the blast in perfect time. “I must ask. Why do you meddle? Is it truly worth it? You who would invest so much into organizations and people who will all shrivel.” He scoffed and teleported again, but did not reappear. “Where’d he go? I’m gonna get him back for making me go through that…” Auva clenched her fist. A rumble from between the hallways caught her attention. “He has the motes! The entire cargo area of the ship was ripped away!” Ascella yelled over comms. “After him!” Zahir looked over to the cockpit, and he quickly realized the fate that had befallen the pilot frame. The door had been opened, and he couldn’t see any indication of the frame still being in the seat. “No, we can’t chase him. We’ve already lost.” Lacer said hoarsely, kneeling over Altair and his ghost’s bodies. Auva ran over, wide-eyed. “What did he do to Altair?!” She bent down and gripped the hunter’s shoulders. A large, messy, gaping hole was bored into the hunter’s chest. “Altair! Wake up! What are you lazing around for?!” She began to shake the body. “Auva.” Zahir touched Auva’s shoulder, and she sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry.” Lacer grimaced in anguish as he looked over the body of his fallen comrade. He had not known Altair for even a year, but the hunter’s relaxed and helpful disposition never failed to make him feel warm. “Altair…” Auva’s voice trailed off. “Why aren’t you moving?” Her eyes finally trailed to his ghost, which had been nearly sliced in two. “He saved us. If he hadn’t given me his light, I wouldn’t have woken up in time to fend off that warlock.” Lacer stood up and looked at the back halls of the ship. Auva clenched her teeth under her helmet and shoved Lacer back into a wall before running past him and transmatting away. He remained there, leaning awkwardly into the hull. “This is my fault, man. I shouldn’t’ve ever had this stupid idea. I got someone killed.” Lacer put his hands on his knees and he slid down the wall. “It’s not. You couldn’t have known that someone so powerful would come after us.” Zahir sent his ghost to begin transmatting Altair and his own away. “I-” Lacer’s legs buckled and he doubled over, breathing heavily as he clutched his chest. “What’s wrong?” “I… I’m fine.” Lacer felt a biting cold stab at his lungs. His ghost had healed the stab wound, so why did this pain linger? “He got away with the motes. I don’t know what we’re going to do now.” Ascella, her voice somber, came back through the communications unit of the ship. “I think Auva knows. She’s chasing straight after something, and… uh… I lost her. She jumped.” “What!?” Lacer scrambled up. “What is she thinking?” Auva chased the fleeting signature on her navigations with laser focused intent. A call from one of her teammates, she didn’t care who, came up on her ship’s display. She dismissed it and continued on, eyes narrowed. “I’ll kill you, you snake.” She disengaged her jump, and the celestial body that was the harsh orange atmosphere of Venus filled the windshield. From the observation unit in the tower he was manning alongside Ascella, Procyon looked up to the milky blue skies and clenched his fist. The only thing on his mind was the death of his friend and mentor. All other noise that could fill his ears, eyes, and mind drowned out.