#I'm sorry my writing is bad asdffhfjgjk

[94pigeons]

Rez Day, Crucible, and a Warlock

For @newbabyfly, I think I may have figured out why Stoom changed teams in the middle of a match...

“Hey, Lynn! Lynn! Lynnnn!” Mihovanna’s voice slowly abolished the walls between Lynn-3’s peaceful thoughts to the chaotic room around her.

Miha had called her to a meeting, which was very uncharacteristic of the titan. Well maybe not, but it was uncharacteristic of Lynn to accept the invitation, as the warlock tended to neglect the responsibility of maintaining, let alone enjoying, time with Mihovanna. It was what they were to supposed to discuss that drew Lynn to accept the meeting. Well, “discuss” is a bit of a generous term when applying it to the current events. The meeting had been fairly one sided. When Lynn had sat down on her knees, Miha had gone off on a tangent about Ymir (their fireteam hunter), and her resurrection day upcoming tomorrow. The titan flailed her arms about in exuberant gestures while she had explained her plan to make Ymir’s day one of the best she, in the words of Mihovanna, “will ever have… until next year. Probably.” Somehow the titan managed to skim over the fact that she was rezzed before Oryx’s fall, which meant that the chances of one upping anything her previous fireteam had done would be unlikely. Her old fireteam had way more time to get rez days right.

Lynn had zoned out around the part where Miha had talked about bribing the Drifter. Not because it was a stupid idea (The Drifter did not strike Lynn as moral, and would probably accept a bribe), but because the idea seemed simply barbaric. But what was she to expect from a titan? A civilized plan? Oh please. The class prided themselves on their rambunctious, loud, nearly disrespectful nature. If there was such thing as a good plan, it came from a warlock. No exceptions.

So when Lynn had been unpleasantly pulled out of her thoughts by the obnoxious repetition of her name, there was only one good response. “Let me handle it, Mihovanna”.

The Titan’s smile grew, excitement glimmering in her eyes. “Don’t worry!” Miha said, puffing out her chest in pride. “I already took care of it! I figured with you so busy with the whole fireteam Lamril situation and all, I’d better...” The Titan’s voice became softer and nearly incoherent as Lynn tuned her out.

Of course Miha had dealt with the situation. She was what, a year old? What else was she ready to do but cause problems for her.

Without another word, Lynn got up and left. As the door closed behind her, she could still hear Mihovanna talking.

The next day….

As a part of Ymir’s rez day, Mihovanna had scheduled a “special” Cruicible match with her “friend” supervising. It took much reassurance to get the Awoken hunter to consent to the plans, but they got her to agree, and together, they prepped for a match. When the three of them had arrived, the enemy fireteam was already there. By the looks of things, they were doing a four versus four match.

The enemy team consisted of 3 hunters, and a warlock. Two of the hunters were awoken: one male, and one female. The female hunter looked very nervous, her purple locks kept cascading out from behind her ears. As they did though, she quickly scooped them back up and nestled them back behind her ear. Lynn tagged her as a kinderguardian. Possibly an easy target. Possibly. One couldn’t be too sure when it came to guardians.

The other awoken, the male, radiated a completely different energy than the smaller awoken hunter. He stood, broad shoulders back and arms crossed. Four lines of black paint (designating that he belonged to the Sixe family) fell down of either side of his face, from just under his eyes to down below his ears. This man had an aura of confidence. Lynn took careful note of him and moved on the the next hunter in line.

The next hunter, who, unlike the other two, was human. The frizzy bob cut blonde hair  gave the girl a sassy look. She gave Lynn a cocky smile with a tilt of her head, and whispered something to the warlock at her side.

The Warlock, like Lynn, was an exo, and appeared to be female. She, like the awoken male, seemed to be very confident. There was also something different about the Warlock across from her. Whatever it was, made Lynn shiver.

Turning her head, Lynn assessed her own team. Next to her was Ymir. Outfitted in armor with a rather pricey shader, Malchesidec Bramble, equipped to it. Lynn was almost excited to see Ymir don her helmet, which the hunter fiddled with in her hands. Ymir was intimidating when one could not see the emotion she expressed. Her face was light blue, and her straight bob cut hair was a darker version of the same color. Lynn noted Ymir’s twitching face. She was nervous. The white, barely visible U between her eyebrows was pushed together in worry. Her eyes, also blue, were skimming the enemy team. She too seemed to be worried about the outcome of the game. More so than Lynn was.

Next over was Mihovanna, decked out in chucky armor and covered the shader Ymir had given Miha when it was her rez day. Lynn recalls that Ymir had thought Metallic Sunrise complemented Mihovanna’s dark complexion. As much as the warlock hated to admit it, the hunter was absolutely right. The shader did look good on the titan, made her look experienced. But she wasn’t, and anyone could tell, especially at the present moment. Mihovanna was not assessing the enemy team in the little time she was granted to do so, but instead was whispering to her ghost, Pip, a wild grin on her face.

Lynn shifted her gaze to the spot next to Miha, and to her dread, discovered it was empty.

“Five more seconds” Lynn’s ghost, Ophilia, said.

Sighing, the warlock slid her helmet over her metallic head, and pulled her weapon off her back, getting ready for transmat.

Looking over at her fireteam, they were doing the same thing. Ymir exchanging a shy smile with the enemy team before she slid her helmet over her head and tugged her hood over it, shielding her helmet from Lynn’s view.

Then they were transmitted in. Over comms, Mihovanna let out a whoop of excitement as she charged forward. Ymir gave a barely audible chuckle, and rushed off to catch up with the titan. Lynn just sighed, and trudged forward. This would be a bad day.

Five minutes later…

Lynn and her team were getting crushed. Five minutes and no backfill was provided. Ymir was frustrated. Mihovanna kept charging in, having a blast but refusing to acknowledge the consequences of doing so. And Lynn? Lynn was pissed. Getting dragged into losing a game because of Mihovanna’s poor planning skills.

And the enemy team showed no mercy.

They split up in teams of two. The warlock and the frizzy haired hunter were together, and the awoken kinderguardian and the awoken male were paired up.

Anytime Lynn and her team attempted to take advantage and kill the awoken kinderguardian, her partner would swoop in out of nowhere and absolutely obliterate anyone within sight. Like some sort of protective papa bear.

After failing and trying multiple times with the awoken team, they decided to try and single out the other pair. They soon discovered that they had made a mistake trying to fight the hunter warlock duo. They had made a big mistake.

Once red had showed up on Miha’s radar, the titan charged in, getting stabbed in the face by the frizzy haired hunter. Standing over Mihovanna’s corpse, the hunter paused. Her helmet tipped to the side, and she dashed around a nearby corner. Frustrated, Lynn and Ymir gave chase, eager to add the hunter to their meager kill count.

After rounding the corner that the frizzy haired hunter had just a moment before, the duo stopped. The warlock stood confidently, blocking their path. The hunter was on her left tossing her knife into the air, catching it, then repeating the process.

The warlock laughed as she unleashed her Nova bomb on the two guardians. Lynn managed to barely avoid the Nova Bomb, taking massive amounts of damage. Ymir wasn’t so lucky. Scrambling backwards, Lynn fired her gun. It was in vain though, and the frizzy haired hunter flung her knife towards the injured warlock. It embedded itself between Lynn’s optics, smothering out Lynn’s last bit of health.

Back at spawn, morale was low and silent. Miha was in shock that she had just been stabbed by a knife, and Ymir was waiting for Lynn, knowing it would be in vain.

Ymir’s ghost, Antony, broke the silence. “A member of the enemy fireteam has left” he said, nonchalantly. “Looks like you three might have a chance after all.”

Miha laughed. “We’re gonna win now!”

Lynn stayed quiet and let Miha get her hopes up. It was good for the team. But then a notification popped up on her hud that read: “A new member has joined the fireteam”. It was quickly followed by a transmat next to fireteam Hazard.

As the special effects faded away, the fireteam’s eyes came to rest on a familiar figure. To their horror the three came to recognize the new guardian as the warlock from the enemy team. Out of the corner of Lynn’s eye, she saw Ymir spread her feet and raise her ebony pulse rifle to her shoulder, ready to shoot the warlock.

The warlock seemed just as surprised as Lynn was, looking around, confused.

Miha laughed again. “I told you we would win!”

After the match…

They didn’t win. But with the assistance of the warlock, Stoomdorm-2, their team had gained momentum. Lynn had to admit, finally getting kills felt good, even if they were just assists.

Miha was a bit down, since she was so confident that the team would win after Stoom had joined. Turns out, Miha had paid nearly all her glimmer to hire some shady guy in the tower to mix up the enemy teams and give her team the unfair advantage. It happened a bit late. But worth it. The expressions of Stoom’s former allies when they realized she had switched teams was priceless.

Mihovanna finished up the day going out to some obscure restaurant down in the city. They sat down at the table, and Miha grilled Ymir with questions about her day.

“What surprised you the most?”

“Probably when you found me at the memorial.”

“What was your favorite part of the day.”

“That unsupervised Crucible match.”

Lynn choked on her drink. “What? How the hell was that the best part of the day?”

“That other fireteam…” Ymir chuckled. “Reminded me of the good old days.” Smiling she took another sip of her water, lost in fond memories.

Miha, as if on queue, absolutely obliterated the mood. “Yeaaah, I remember you telling me about those guys. One of them is at the memorial, right?”

Lynn flinched, knowing this topic all to well, and the sadness it could bring to fireteam Hazard.

“Yes Miha.” How Ymir had so much patience with the titan, Lynn had no idea. “Kahlil was his name.”

Lynn was eager to get off this topic. She glanced around the room, trying to discover a reason to change the discussion. Luckily, it was easily found.

“Oh my Lord…” Lynn said. “Over there near the bar.” She gestured to a table with three hunters and a warlock sitting at it.

Miha exclaimed rather loudly, “It’s them!” The room grew quiet, and the occupants watched Mihovanna abruptly stand up, and stop over to Stoom’s table. The room regained it’s normal ambiance after Miha had sat down at the table with the other fireteam.

Lynn glanced at Ymir, who chuckled. “Nice save, but it could have been smoother, Lynn.”

Snorting the warlock rolled her eyes. “Well you seemed so fond of them, I feel like I should have pointed them out to you.” Lynn paused to take a sip of her beverage. “You should probably go over there, make sure Miha doesn't tell that warlock about that bribing stunt she pulled.”

Grinning, Ymir stood. “If you insist…” She chuckled as she sauntered over to join Miha and the other fireteam.

Lynn just leaned back in her chair, relishing the time she had to herself, and the laughter that filled the room.