[i]This is it: the end of War of Lies. The status on the final arc of this collaborative fanfic series is still uncertain, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be seeing more posts from me After this I’m going to get back to posting chapters of my other series [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/253302742/0/0]Out of Time[/url], following the same posting schedule I’ve been using. I have some other announcements to make soon about my fanfic plans, but I’ll leave y’all hanging on that for now ;) Now let’s get to the story[/i] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/257503969/0/0]Link to Chapter 6 Part 1[/url] [spoiler]All chapters of the War of Lies will be linked to the [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/257167399/0/0]Table of Contents[/url] as they are posted[/spoiler] “Who could they have called in that’s not on either side?” Hundson wondered, shifting his grip to be more comfortable on his revolver. “Someone on both sides,” the voice of the man returned, but this time it came from the entrance to the building we had come through not long ago. Four weapons turned on him instantly, but he kept walking calmly, leaving the rifle on his back and the Reef Corsair standard issue Vestian Dynasty sidearm on his hip untouched. “I’ve been playing both sides of this secret little interplanetary war for awhile now,” the newcomer explained, and as he stopped in the light I took in his Awoken features and lowered my weapon with a flourish. Hundson followed suit, but Quince and Cadmus stayed tense. “Been with the Mob for some time, but I’ve been providing services to the Syndicate as well. You know how it goes.” “If the money’s right,” Hundson smirked. Quince let his aim drop unsurely at the mention of the Syndicate. Cadmus didn’t seem to care that this guy wasn’t hostile and kept his rifle up. The Awoken man was unperturbed by the fact; I liked him already. “Seren eventually found me out,” the newcomer gave a sly grin, “Took longer than I expected. But you know her: strings and puppets. And this War of Lies has been a nasty one, so she had a talk with me, and then I had a talk with Ava over with the Syndicate. And here we are.” Quince stiffened at the mention of our leader, but I just gave an impressed rumble. This guy got around. “So you are…?” Hundson motioned to the Awoken man with his free hand. “Shrief Ivoh, the guy who’s gonna make sure that you bunch don’t screw up the end of this war,” he introduced himself. “Shrief Ivoh as in the Count of 6 Demeter?” Quince questioned, clearly impressed. I never bothered looking people up even if they were a target, so the name didn’t ring any bells for me. But if the Capitan thought he was a big deal, this Shrief guy was probably worth showing some respect. Not that I showed anyone much respect. “Why do you Syndicate guys all call me that?” Shrief scowled, “No one calls me that.” “Fluff me,” Hundson gawked, “The Chief. We met once, ‘member? The Bracus infiltration?” “Mmmm, yeah,” Shrief nodded after giving Hundson a long look, “You were the guy with-?” “Stop yapping,” Cadmus’ quiet growl shut the two mercenaries up. He had finally lowered his weapon, but looked ready to use it at a moment’s notice. “Right,” Shrief cleared his throat, “Well, as you’re probably aware, none of you are diplomats.” That made Hundson and I grin a little, but the other two stayed icy cold. “That’s because Seren and Ava are both incapable of actually sending people to make a deal without trying to kill or cheat each other. Some kind of principle or issue they have or something,” Shrief explained, “So instead of setting boundaries that no one will conform to, we’re going to…collaborate.” “As in…?” I urged him to continue. “I understand everyone here is good at killing,” Shrief looked at us as if expecting a response. When no one did anything, he continued, “Well, as you all know, we have other enemies besides each other. Recently a couple of them started getting real aggressive, and with the Mob and Syndicate crippling each other, we are all in a really bad position to handle it. The good news is, we have targets and a plan to get us out of this grave we dug ourselves. Seren and Ava are going to drop all the fighting and focus resources on our mission. They’ll be moving people and supplies to set everything in place for us, which will let the Mob and Syndicate get a feel for each other and open up the flow of goods without having to fight over anything. They’ll work out resource access later when everything is more friendly and we’ll all be business partners instead of rivals.” “Sounds big,” Hundson shook his head at the thought of both organizations combining their power. Even I had to admit it would be scary to be the target for such a thing. And a hell of a lot of fun. “What are we killing?” Cadmus asked, straight to the point. “And why us?” Quince followed up. “We need a small hit team, and not only are you some of the best, but you fit our criteria for the job. This needs to stay quiet if we want to get the upper hand against our opposition, so only a select few in the Mob and the Syndicate know what’s going on. One squeak gets out and everything could fall apart,” Shrief went into more detail than I cared to hear, “Not sure if you noticed, but I have Servitors cutting off all outside signals. Compliments of Seren.” Curious, but not at all bothered by this information, I checked my earpiece and even the tracking equipment I kept on me and found that none of it was working. Quince did an equipment check, too, but the others didn’t bother. “Seren and Ava will set the path for us, but we won’t be getting any support. Like I said, we can’t let them catch our scent. It’s imperative that we still appear to be enemies,” Shrief continued. This bit was particularly interesting to me. I was used to off-the-radar solo work, but this would be a whole different kind of job. Sounded entertaining enough. “What are we killing?” Cadmus repeated, “How many?” “That’s the thing,” Shrief put his hands on his hips and sighed as he thought over his words for a moment, staring at his feet, “We have a lot of work to do across the system to make sure the Mob and Syndicate survive what’s coming, and the one guy we need to to get us through hell is also the biggest incentive for both sides to put aside this feud. You can imagine what kind of guy it is to warrant this operation.” “Guardian,” Quince determined. Now THAT made me smile. Cadmus actually seemed a little interested now. “And we won’t just be killing him,” Shrief warned, “This plan is…well, it’s gonna work, but it’s complicated. We need to use him to get some stuff done first. The War of Lies cost both sides a lot, and this bloke can easily be used to help clean up some messes that we can’t risk anymore. Lee will be taking point and basically be with the Guardian the whole time, making sure he’s led right. You’ll have friendlies with you, but they won’t know the plan or that the guy is even a target. Cadmus, you’ll wait at predetermined locations and shadow them. You WILL NOT kill until given the word. The rest of us are support. Quince and Hundson, you’ve got connections and the sway to help make sure none of our own men get in the way, or anything else. I’ll be coordinating everything and getting you anything you need.” Shrief must have done his research on us. Cadmus was becoming more intriguing to me the more I figured out about him. Was he the kind of guy to go for the kill even when he was told not to? Maybe we’d get along. “Who?” Cadmus’ question was clear: who do we kill? “The one man Seren and Ava hate more than each other,” Shrief grinned wickedly, “And one I’m sure Cadmus will love to finally pin in a corner.” There was a groan of metal, and I glanced over to see the grip of Cadmus’ rifle bending under the crushing force of his hand. His cybernetic hand, which had finally shifted out of the shadows of his cloak. “Wanna tell them who made you have to put on those shiny new parts?” Shrief‘s amused tone made it clear he was genuinely excited to see what happened when Cadmus was set loose at the end of this. “Orion.” [spoiler]Orion and Cadmus are characters belonging to series by [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/250943433/0/0]OverLordTitanX[/url] Shrief is a character who appeared in Chapter 3 of War of Lies, for those who need a refresher[/spoiler] [i]END[/i]