To Joesph's dismay, everything happened like a snap of his fingers. One moment, for once, he was relaxing and having fun with his crew. Not having to worry about anything his mind could think about to bring him down. Then as the king predicted, as death predicted, his doubts came back. Then all with the sound of a snap, Their enemies have come in numbers, they are all now separated, and two of his friends are dead with either their head or throat burst open. All just like that.

Joseph's legs practically make themselves jello running from hall to hall that seems forever endless. His dislocated shoulder aches trying to put itself back together as he does so. Both legs and his shoulder are only thriving off a joint diffidence to the pain.

Then he hears it. A soft but in his mind impactful scream that echoes throughout the hall that he's in. He knows it belongs to Joltxs. His voice is light but a thunder cracker when in pain. A moment later, the echoes fade away. Joseph's mind screams Joltxs cries on max throughout his skull as he forces himself further along.  His heart can only tell him

You should have been there...why weren't you there?

From the overwhelming guilt to the real physical pain, he can't take it anymore. He rushes to end the suffering and throws himself into a utility closet. He makes sure to close the door behind him as his body slowly crumbles on the floor behind it. The silence overshadows the area for a while for his shoulder to get a much-needed break, but not without pain. The cracks his shoulder makes trying to put it firmly into the socket are louder than any blaster bolt sliding in between a skull of metal or bone. It does the job; however, it still moans as he keeps cranking it, making sure it stays in place.

He only gets in a few peaceful gasps of air before his ears listen to the gut-wrenching sounds his killers make, desperate to find their prey. He places his ears slowly on the cold metal door to get a bigger picture. To a sigh of relief, they are not in his hallway—but they are closer than he wishes. Joseph knows all too well how they will search for him as his ears give him all the visuals needed.

The bots always speak within their own robo language to one another which makes them sound almost alien. It's no different as they shout to each other while stomping their feet in the concrete, opening doors to rooms, and kicking down boxes and crates. Their lungers walk around, sniffing and wagging their tails into the wind for any fresh blood they might have slashed earlier. The acolytes just swing their blades into the metal walls which screech them at the touch.

'This is their way of taunting us,' Joseph repeats to himself. 'we are prey who have to be placed on the cutting board.'

If his chest can't sink any further into his ribs the distant sounds of not only one, but multiple swinging blades, conforms he was right. One of their metal bangs begins scratching at his ear, yet no stomps or growls accompany it.

'This might be my only chance.'

He waits for their footsteps like a lion on the plains about to prey on a gazelle. Though his body shakes knowing that the tiniest mistake will have him end up like the majority of his friends. His plan works without a hitch as he grabs and throws the acolyte's body into the closet. Unlike him, they spring up just as fast as they fell.

The acolyte begins swinging their blade towards Joseph as if they are cutting airless bamboo. A few dodges in and Joseph gets a hold of their wrist, twisting it to what his arm can allow. They grunt as the blade is dismissed from their hand. Immediately, Joseph makes sure to kick it further into the shadows before they can react. Once the blade falls they exchange many punches and jabs, trying to tear a hole in each other's defenses.

The acolyte's counters keep up but aren't fast enough. They only have one second to notice that Joseph replaces their shadow from behind. With that their neck then breaks gracefully in between his palm and fingers. Their body then falls lighter than a feather. Staring into the new corpse, he notices the acolyte is definitely male, about average built at best. He can tell by his skills—he is no doubt a freshe out of their academy, and probably his first real mission. Still, his heart whimpers while replaying the whole ordeal within his head.

It wasn't too long ago that he was just like him, yet he wouldn't have been so careless even at his level. He can't tell if the boy thought them weak or saw himself as that strong. Any acolyte should know not to underestimate their enemy. Think of them as stronger and most importantly—don't overvalue your abilities.

The mightiest giant can be taken down by any prepared boy with some stones.

That's what they used to tell him, although he's not sure how many acolytes actually follow that rule. Either way, the acolyte chose to come down alone, and now he rests in the corner of a utility closet. Still, Joseph's heart gives him a proper burial by placing a blanket that he found in the corner over him. He then brandishes his blade and straps, Bertha, around his back. Its ends are sharp but crooked near its guard. Nevertheless, it will go through bots like scissors through paper.

Something about the swiftness and agility that blades can bring always makes Joseph's blood warm. He can feel the grip pulsating throughout his palm, itching on the inside for a singular slash. This is more of his style, and the blade knows it. 

As if he needs a test run—two bots come right around the corner, presumably supposed to be with the acolyte. He rushes from the closet, slicing off their heads and allowing them to spray from their bodies like a water fountain Unfortunately, he doesn't bother to silence their fall as they sound like rocks slamming against raw iron.

He can already see bots coming to the noise on the other side of the hallway. His eyes pinpoint for a moment a hound right behind them. He shakes away the warry excitement building in his chest and doesn't stay to see the hound's legs charge up for another feeding.

He speeds down in the opposite direction, turning every corner to get away from their ramped echoing stomps. They might be a hunk of metal, but they definitely aren't anywhere near slow. His body manages to keep the distance just enough to have a few feet around every corner. Once his ears can't heed them, he stops to take a sigh of relief, having a feeling he won't be getting another one.

Joseph scans around him, coming to see he appears to be on the second floor. Judging by the few doors with a bunch of crates around, this is a storage hall. He hesitantly opens the nearest one. It's an old room littered with unused parts, shrapnel, and garbage with a tiny window in the middle. Its cobwebs are the only things full of life.

Only a few inches inside, the hairs on his arms stand up from his skin. He turns his back towards the shadows and at a creak in the rusty floorboards, he has them with the blade resting a centimeter from their lip.

"Easy there, commander," a familiar drunken voice says, slowly bringing the blade back down to earth.

Taking a second to realize who it was, Joseph's body bolts for Hardcase's shoulders even though they both look like they can use a hug. He has so many questions, but in the end, only one comes to mind.

"Is Heavy with you?"

Heavy muffles his presence from the shadows—however, Joseph only hears the gurgling of blood that comes immediately afterward. His feelings remain at a standstill. He's glad to hear his voice, but he knows for sure, that whatever conditions Heavy is in, it isn't good. Hardcase then takes him around a corner, hidden from the initial view, to where Heavy lies.

His body is slumped along a wall, letting his back lay upon what looks to be crumpled-up paper and junk. His mouth is drooling blood that becomes dry almost instantly. Both of his hands clutch a hole in his chest with a towel. The hole is small but still leaks, even with the added pressure. At least the sight of Joseph brings slight color back into his face.

"I told you not to try and speak," Hardcase mutters, fluffing up his trash as if it is a pillow.

Joseph asks in a fearful tone, "How did this happen?" 

Still staring at his almost lifeless skin, he wishes tears will come from his eyes to bring even more color back into him. Nothing arises.

Hardcase then explains that once the smoker hit, Heavy and he got separated from the rest of The Ragtags. They wandered the halls until a bloody lunger pierced through Heavy's chest with its tail. It would've gotten his throat too, however, its claws shattered, hitting his scarf. Gave Hardcase a chance to smash it into a bloody pulp with what was left of the minigun. Afterward, it wasn't a matter of time until they found this place. He then tells Joseph luckily he found them before they did.

Even though Joseph's mouth remains a frozen frown. He tries to imagine Hardcase smashing the lunger into mangled black, leaving both its shattered pieces behind, hoping to melt it out a little. It doesn't come close. Even Heavy starts chuckling to himself, although his are soft, mouth barely hanging open. Joseph doubts he thinking of the same funny thing as his chuckles become softy hysterical.

"To think you thought my scarf was stupid," Heavy says letting out another soft chuckle.

His eyes can't reach anyone without shutting down. Still, his mouth continues chuckling like a booing ghost. In a way, Joseph can understand. A mind on the brink of pain needs something to hold itself together. He only guesses that Heavy has chosen the humorous route.

Joseph then bends down to his level, placing his palm directly upon the towel. It seems to calm him. He just can't tell if it is from his hand's warming aura or from the pain that the extra pressure is causing.

"Hardcase is right. You shouldn't be speaking, save your strength."

He weakly swipes Joseph's hand away while keeping his eyes towards the sky. He know then that he had to tell them.

He takes the time to tell them both everything from Cliff's fate to Joltxs' silent screams. In the end, he's the only one standing high if he can even call it that. Hardcase sits on a box, frozen in his constant deep breaths along with his hands that hang over his bandana like a wishbone. Heavy only tries to aim his eyes towards the ground. They are both dying.

Joseph in response walks his body around aimlessly back and forth, desperately seeking every file from every data bank he could muster, to give them something even if it was only a few words. Deep down in his mind's storage, he pieces together a solution that will have them live or die trying. With two possible revolutions, he rushes back to the sinking ragtags from the opposite side of the room.

"Alright you two, listen up." He gains their attention even though Heavy can't show it. "We can make it through this, we just have to keep leveled heads and think." His voice pauses. "We need to get Heavy patched up first and foremost; I recommend we go back up to the command post. It's not too far and there's a sizeable medkit we can use to keep him alive a bit longer."

Hardcase looks bewildered at the notion of trying to make it to the third floor though Joseph's face assures him that he knows what he's talking about. Granted, the only reason he remembers that is because it appeared in the corner of his daydreams before the sunset fell. Oh, what he would do to hear the friskiness in her voice right about now.

"Wait...even if we can get to the third floor and patch up old Heavy here, what use will it be if we're eventually hunted down like corned rats?"

"We'll stall," Joseph says firmly, "until backup arrives."

It takes him a second to realize what he means. Once he does, his voice starts to resemble his normal self.

"Haha, you're bloody right...Lincoln. He should be arriving soon with the rest of the men by now, yes.

Joseph's eyes give him a nod in approval. However, Hardcase remains dissatisfied.

"That's great, however, they won't know that something is up. Those acolytes probably want this place in tack. I bet they're cleaning up everything as we speak."

Sadly, to Joesph's dismay, he has a point. Acolytes aren't idiots or at least their commander shouldn't be. They'll need this place in tack one way or another. And now with The Ragtag's blood spilling back into the ground, they'll need to keep it clean. Once they were done, all the blaster holes and the scuff marks might as well have been an illusion.

"Let's just give them a grand explosion to look for."

 Hardcase's eyes pop, his mouth grins out, and then his head nods slowly to the idea that he knows Joseph has when tosses Bertha to him. The Resistance Fighters' weapons, powerful as they are, are lucky not to fall apart at a single trigger. The Covenant's research was excessive yet in creating these toys; both sides were limited. The bigger the gun the more of a ticking time bomb they are when overheated or tampered with.

Lucky for them, Bertha has a huge internal core to make quite a show. Hardcase takes no time getting to work and makes a ticking timebomb out of the gun. As he does so, Joseph goes and shatters the glass in the window and throws everything from rusty cans to highly flammable junk down below. It all appears to fall endlessly.

Within only ten seconds of Hardcase finishing, Bertha's black outer layer starts heating up while the blue plasma that shows off on the outside turns bright orange.

'Big Bertha, parting is such sweet sorrow.'

Boom

The building is coated in a swift earthquake as the explosion leaves a massive hole through the side of the Solis station. Alarms start to blare their ghastly song throughout the halls while the sounds of slapping metal scatter in many directions accompanying them. They all bet anyone's eyes can see the smoke for miles. They hope that Lincoln's eye can see just as much.

The two soldiers exchange eye contact while they try to lift Heavy off the ground. Hardcase takes his shoulders while Joseph carries his legs. His body is like a hammock being carried by two running trees as they run through the halls with no bots' insight. Too bad Heavy is barely conscious to even acknowledge the ride.

Making their way to the third floor is the same feeling as the second. However, as they pass a hallway not too far away from where they need to be. Joseph even if it was for only a moment, plays what he sees in slow motion through his mind.

An acolyte warrior stands smack dead in the middle of that very hallway. This one he could tell by a glance is a female, tall and thin. She wields a blade with the frame of a sickle—though it is the way that her head tilts like a wimping flower that shakes his every bone to its core.

Underneath the mask, he knows she has a huge smile showing off her teeth. A smile that wolves give once they find their prey. Joseph's legs then, to Hardcase's surprise, dip faster than he can manage to keep up. They manage to hold off Heavy slipping corpse to feel the breeze that comes with entering themselves back into the observatory. They both rush Heavy to the top of the commanding post where Joseph once stood, placing him in between a 'U' shaped corner of monitors. Joseph uses one hand to rush for the medkit, while the other pushes its limits trying to get the emergency door down.

It sounds like the first door as it slams down with a silent hint of relief. However, they all aren't fools. They know the door will fall to a barrage of blaster fire, the same as the first. With that in mind, Hardcase is already working on Heavy. However, the blood is spreading further down his stomach. Joseph's hands eventually replace his which makes the process become smoother.

He cleans his wound until it stops crying blood, then stabs it with a delaying pen that was within the medkit. Heavy gives out his loudest groan, but his breaths become normalized as the pen duplicities some of his lost blood. Only a temporary solution as It can produce tiny amounts. Then he will start losing more. Heavy will need a real doctor.

Joseph and Hardcase both continue trying to ease his pain until they all hear a filtered female voice inches away from the door.

"So, you choose to coward yourself like a bunch of cage puppies. How adorable."

The sickle blade that Joseph remembers her carrying starts digging deep into the adjustment walls, tearing their ears apart.

"Yet you wouldn't be the first puppy I found today, though I doubt your screams would be louder than that tiny little fellow I've found earlier."

Joseph already had a feeling, however, that confirmation has him and Hardcase's fist becoming white. "To think I was just hunting normal prey until I saw a ghost of a lingering past. Wouldn't you say, Joseph?"

Her words stop Joseph's heart and twist his eyebrows to buckle. He knows why she knows his name, however, his mind refuses to hear it. Still, with every word she continues to speak, his steps are drawn towards the door like a fish towards a worm.

"At first I thought I was looking at a dead man—but here you are. All flesh and bone." She pauses. "Tell me...is this what you chose to do? To play a make-believe hero, saving as many lives as you can, only to go to rest knowing that all those lives you save can't replace the one you failed...The one you let die?"

She has his white paper fist only a centimeter from that door. Only the sound of a shiny moon echoing throughout his head at that moment stops him from pounding viscously. He remains still, letting the rising hairs of his arms taste the cold sheets of metal.

"Though, I wouldn't want to be so close to that door if I were you. It's going to be blasted in a moment," she says as if she knew that Joesph is the one right in front of her. "If you survive, then we will see each other real soon...Joseph Arrowson."

Her final words to him slither down his skeleton and leave his face frozen with bloodshot rage, yet her sweet voice keeps silently calling to him.

Only then, he can't help but let a single teardrop fall.