Me and Rease trek through the tunnel, trading off on who's holding the fosfor flare while we follow a twisting, winding path to some unknown destination. I watch as the stylized map in the top left hand corner of my vision slowly fills out the surrounding area; the fog of war being removed in a manner incredibly reminiscent of the game. "Well, except for the part where the in game map is 2D," I think. The center of the position - of my head specifically - is represented by a white triangle, while a blue dot represents Rease, and I watch as the two bits of geometry navigate a digital representation of the tunnel we're currently in. Beyond the shuffling of our feet and the gentle hissing of the flare, the cave is effectively silent.

  Both of us have our guns in hand, but after the first hour of uneventful tunnel mapping, the mood is more awkward than nervous. Other than a handful of discussions on which tunnels to take, we'd barely spoken. "Should I tell a joke?" part of me wonder briefly, in an attempt to figure out the best way to break the silence. "No, that's dumb," my mind argues. "Talking to talk is pointless at best, and at worst you just end up in an even more awkward situation when it's clear you don't have shit to say. There's nothing wrong with comfortable silence. I don't need fill the space with inane crap." Another 30 seconds crawl by. "We literally chat all the time," I continue musing. "Is this just a case of 'we don't spend all that much alone time together'?" I consider the idea for a minute, contrasting the amount of time I spend with Rease, versus the others.

  "Actually, shit, I don't really spend a lot of one on one time with anyone. Well, except for Ko-lee obvi." I cringe. "God damn it, am I bad friend? Should I be doing that more? Or am I blowing this out of proportion? 'Cause like, we do spend a lot of time together, in general. It's just all group activities and stuff." I feel the thought roll around in my mind for a solid minute. "Eh, does it even really matter? Like, ultimately, we have the next five years together. I imagine it'll come up naturally at points. Group cohesion early on is not a bad thing. Besides, it's not like I personally have shit to talk about. I think this is just one of those 'social conventions' I'm feeling obligated to fulfill. But Rease had all that time with his parents in space. He's probably used to the quiet."

  My thoughts catch on that last bit, and I turn to Rease, now having an actual question for him. "Hey, Rease..." I start, cautiously. He turns to give me a single raised eyebrow, but doesn't say anything. "Uhm, why weren't you more gung ho about wanting to fight the Grineer back there? Like, I get the whole 'we don't have enough guns' thing, but even beyond that..." I trail off, not entirely sure how to put my feelings into words. He gives me a confused look. "Gung... ho?" he asks, chewing on the non Origin word. "Like, you know, 'Rahhh! Hell yeah, lets fuck em up!' That sort of thing," I respond, with my best jackboot thug impression. He chuckles, and the sound runs ahead of us before fading out, an amused audience of ghosts just beyond the light.

  "Was that supposed to be me?" he asks, with a prodding look. I shrug, and keep a neutral expression on my face for the bit. "It was a theoretical gung ho person. They only had the one trait," I say, letting a sly grin on my face. "Being gung ho," he says, nodding. He looks away from me, and into the cave, but I'm able to catch his lips turn down ever so slightly. "Do you remember when we first got our weapons?" he asks me in the dim light. I waggle my head back and forth dismissively, flicking my eyes between him, and where I'm placing my feet.

  "Sort of," I respond. "I remember that Ravon basically made a Buzzfeed quiz for us, but not the specifics. Mainly, I remember what happened at the end of that class." He shoots me a sympathetic look. "Right, I forgot about that," he says, a touch of humor in his eyes. There's a moment before he continues. "Well, I don't know what Buzzfeed is, but I do remember what he said to me, specifically." His voice tightens, as though weary, in a shockingly good impression of Ravon. "You want to be in the middle of the conflict, or maybe you want to spread a little chaos. There's nothing wrong with your choice of weapon, but if you find that you have that sort of impulse, I want you to make sure you think twice about any decision you want to make when in the field." I give him a small round of applause. "Solid impression," I say. He gives me a grin, but it's weak. A facade.

  "It stuck with me, you know?" he says. "I'm not a rail agent anymore. I need to be... more reliable." He sighs, and for a fraction of moment I can see exactly how much it's weighing on him, before it's covered up with a careful neutrality. "Plus, having the Sarge die on me... literally on me?" He shudders briefly, before continuing. "I dunno man, it just... I don't want that to happen with any of you." I feel the impulse to respond "It won't", but I cut the death flag off before it passes my lips. He takes my silence as prompting and continues speaking. "Me and my mom and dad, back on the Chrysanthemum, we got into some squeezes here and there. It's part of the job description," he says with a shrug. "And, as much as mom and dad tried to get me to do good, to see good in people... well, sometimes, you gotta get your hands dirty. I get that."

  "But!" he says, a touch louder, clearly trying to drive home a point. "Sometimes you think you gotta pull that trigger, when you don't. Sometimes, there's a different path to take, even if it's all fucked up and rusted and stuff. Even if it's hard, you gotta take that fucked up path, because the easy one leads to dead people, and you don't always get to choose who it is that's doing the dying." He shoots me a look, his face uncharacteristically serious. "You can't unpull a trigger." I find myself nodding, as I consider his words.

  "Yeah. I see what you're saying," I tell him. The fosfor flare I'm holding finally sputters out and dies, and as I drop the discarded husk on the ground, Rease lights another one. "You don't want some revenge though?" I ask, after sorting out the flame. "'Cause like, on a theoretical level, I totally agree with you; killing bad. But I don't think we can talk out our differences with these guys. And, if we were to sit around on our butts waiting for rescue, then they'd end up dying once the warframe showed up in like a week. They'd die very specifically because the warframe was here for us, as well. In both cases, we have a hand in it, but in one case, we might be able to get some catharsis." I explain. Briefly, I can't help but compare my actions now, to what I'd done all those months ago in Sharip.

  "At some point, I went from 'no, we need to keep living, this isn't worth it' to 'I'm willing to take that risk'. Have I always been like this? Is this just what happens when you keep dodging death by a hair, and not doing anything about it, or have I always been this bloodthirsty?" I wonder in quiet horror. I can't tell if it's a change from being in this universe, or if it's just a matter of practicality, but I'm jarred out of my musing by Rease. "I agree with you; they'll end up dying. So, what's the point in revenge?" he asks me. I scoff incredulously. "Uhm? For Sarge?" I shoot back, with a touch more heat than I intend to. "They tried to kill us. I think maybe a little blood is due." Rease just gives me a calm look. "Sure, but who's blood? Who'll end up paying, Annie?" he asks. I groan. "Yeah, okay. Like... I get it. I just..."

  "want to do," I think, finishing the sentence in my head. Being powerless back home was one thing, but here? There's something about it that just fundamentally rubs me the wrong way, in a manner that I struggle to pinpoint exactly why. "Maybe that's it," I think, in response to my previous thoughts. "Maybe the difference is power. I didn't have it, and now I do, and I want to use it, but I'm being reckless about it. There's a time and a place, and... I don't know. This might not be it," I think, with more than a little frustration. "Still, there's probably some middle ground. Maybe we sabotage them on the way out, or something. Blow a tunnel closed and trap them. More Tenno, less... gung ho."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "I guess there's some brains under all that brawn," I mumble, after a few moments of contemplation. He looks at me, a wounded expression in his eyes. "Wait, did you think I was dumb?" he asks me. "W-n-no," I stutter, unable to find the right words to backtrack. After a few seconds of floundering, his expression shifts into one of humor. "I'm just fucking with you!" he laughs, clapping me on the shoulder with his free hand. "I'm just fucking with you. I know how I come across. It's... sorta on purpose. I'd rather be the big slightly dumb goofy guy instead than the big scary smuggler," he explains with a smile on his face. There's a pause, then a small sigh, and his smile turns slightly sheepish. "And... yeah, sometimes, I do mess stuff up. Like, I'll not pick up on something that someone's saying, or whatever. Not read between the lines correctly. I basically only ever spent time with my parents; I didn't get a lot of time with people my age when I was growing up," he explains.

  "You were home schooled?" I ask, before my mind catches up. He furrows his brow at me, but just I wave him off. "Sorry, ignore me, that was... it was a stupid question." I can tell he's going to press me on it, but our conversation dies as we come across what at first, appears to be a void cutting into the tunnel. My eyes struggle to resolve the pitch black nothing preventing us from progressing, and it's only as we approach does it start to make sense. Our tunnel is sticking out of the wall of a cave, about 15 feet off the ground. The light from the fosfor flare only barely reaches the other wall as we stand near the edge, showing a space smaller than the ruins, but still sizable. The ground is covered in soft sand, and there are rocks jutting out here and there on the cave floor.

  "Trippy," I say, my eyes scanning the space. We both spend a few minutes glancing around from the top of the ledge, before finally, Rease turns to me. "Ladies first!" he says with a smirk, gesturing towards the climb. "Aw, chivalry isn't dead!" I say, before turning away, and stage muttering under my breath, "But I might be." It gets a booming laugh out of him, and I feel buoyed from the back and forth. I hold on to the emotion as I carefully descend down to the floor. The rock wall is rough enough that the climb is easy, but it's tricky to learn the path going down, since I can't see where it is I'm placing my feet. "Yup, lookin' good!" says Rease, standing at the top with the fosfor flare. I just roll my eyes, my attention on the climb.

  It takes me a couple minutes to get down to the sandy floor below, and once I do, I look up at Rease, my arms raised high in the air in a Y pose. "Tadaa!" I say in a sing song voice. I'm so busy waiting for his reaction that it takes me a second to realize that he's not paying any attention to me at all. "Annie," he whispers, and something about his tone causes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I whip around 180 on the sand, my hands moving automatically towards my Burston, as my eyes try their best to pierce the gloom. I raise the Tenno weapon up to eye height, the stock pressed hard against my shoulder, but I can't see anything.

  At first.

  I catch movement, and my eyes lock on immediately, but I don't understand what I'm looking at. Some sort of organic pillar, like a snake standing straight up on it's tip, is sliding it's way towards me from across the cave. I see the one coming from the back, then another three, then another five as they all wind their way around the rocks towards my position. It's only as they get a few feet closer that I can see the shifting sand, and hear the sound of scrabbling, digging. "Skates!" I yell, before letting off a burst. The gun flares to life, two out of three of the rounds hitting right on target. I watch as nearly black blood spills out on the sand, but the Martian creature seems mostly unperturbed.

  "Annie, climb!" shouts Rease, as a long brrrt rings out from above me. Metal peppers the sand around them, and some shots hit the exposed tails themselves, but none of the creatures seem to be deterred, still heading towards me with a grim surety. The tail at the front winds back, and my eyes widen, before I make a Rushing dive behind some rocks. The spike - some sort of ossified material - thunks into the cave wall beside me, adding to the sounds of chaos. From my slightly more obscured position, I let off a few more bursts, while Rease tries to cover me from above. Even with the minimal practice with the newer weapon, the accuracy of the Burston helps, and I manage to fully saw off the tail of the one closest to me.

  The skate unburys itself, a miserable squealing wail filling the air. It tries to make it's way towards me, it's manta ray-like body only a foot off the ground, but I fire into its back over and over until it collapses on the sand, dead. The other 7 aren't put off by the display of brutality, and are only a few feet behind it's corpse, quickly closing the distance. I run the numbers in my head, and feel a moment of grim resolve; I won't be able to kill them fast enough before they reach me. "Grenade!" I hear echo around in the cave. I don't see it, but I don't need to, and as I drop behind the rock face, I manage to hear the gentlest displacement of sand. The frag goes off, a loud snapping bang, and as I scramble to my feet, I catch the sight of a huge cloud of sand in the air, just at it's apex. As it falls down around me, I see three more skates are in various states of dead or dying, and I feel a small smile crawl onto my face.

  Five more round the corner.

  I drop a few English expletives, before reloading and introducing the swarm of creatures to Tenno engineering. "ANNIE! CLIMB!" shouts Rease, and this time, I heed his word. I fling the rifle onto my back, the magnetic clamping system grabbing it and holding it in place, and I throw myself up the rock face, hands and feet finding holds even in minimal lighting. I hear the sound of three more spikes hit the wall next to me, then feel two more hit my shield. The blue bar in my top right hand vision drops precipitously low. Two more spikes, one on the wall, and one on my arm. The blue bar disappears. The volley only took a few seconds, but it's more than enough encouragement for me to pick up the pace. The climb isn't long, but it still takes time, time I know I don't have. I'm 90% of the way there when I feel a pressure, then an incredibly invasive internal sensation.

  Then, pain.

  More than I've ever experienced before; a hammer strike to the leg that causes me to gasp out and lose my grip on the wall. I feel my frame of reference shifting as I desperately try to recover my grip, before I feel strong, warm hands reach out to grasp mine. Rease yells in exertion as he nearly singlehandedly pulls me up and into the tunnel, before supporting me a few dozen feet away from the edge, where the skates can't get an angle on us. My leg is throbbing intensely, and I feel lightheaded as I roughly collapse into a seated position.

  "Fuck," I bite out, as Rease busies himself with something. It's a moment before I see him bring out the clotra, I give him a frantic nod, with tears in my eyes. "I need to pull it out first. You need to lay on your stomach," he says, as I desperately try to avoid looking at the spear sticking entirely through my leg. It's a pointless exercise; my mind takes in every detail of the ridged, cone shaped object, a foot or two feet long, off center and covered in gore. My gore. My blood red on the bumpy projectile, on the floor, on Rease. My insides not where they should be. My stomach revolts at the thought, but I clamp down on the impulse, and turn my attention to getting in position. It takes more effort than I expected to lay down, and the protrusion on the front makes it so my leg is askew, the muscles pulling on the wound. "On three," he says, his hands on the back of my leg. I feel him grab onto the spike, and without a word, he immediately yanks it out.

  "AGHHH you JACKASS," I yell in English, fighting the impulse to grab at the wound. My eyes burn, my cheek sting from the torrent of salt pouring from my eyes. He ignores the outburst, and I feel him press the medical device down, causing the surrounding area to spawn a new burst of pain. Then, a numb wave, and a sensation I can only describe as "thick" as the clotra goes to work on the surrounding area. I slowly rotate around so that I'm no longer on my stomach, and watch in morbid fascination as a foam-like material spills out of the wound, hardening almost instantly. The pain subsides, and the throbbing decreases, but doesn't fully dissipate for a couple minutes; time I take full advantage of to catch my breath, to let the adrenaline drain from my system. "So..." says Rease, after what'd been nearly five minutes of silence. I open my eyes to glance at him, from my propped up position against the tunnel wall across from him. "Not that way."

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