The Wrath of the Machine There we were, neck deep in Splicer territory. We had nothing but a name, Aksis. We knew he rose to power but he never caused us any major problems. What's another fallen raiding party to the kingslayer, the hivebane? I mean, we saved time itself for Traveler's sake. We never expected this. The smell of burning metal and flesh in the air we stood there ready, looking for any way in. Cocky Splicer's, looks like your archpriest is about to let us in the front door. He stood as if to challenge us. They called him Vosik, and SIVA had turned him into much more then a fallen priest. There was nothing left to him but the desire to consume, the desire to perfect. We were there to show them that no one is perfect... They often talk of our strength, but it's our cunning that got us through this. "SIVA, doesn't work for them, they work for SIVA. I think it's time to make SIVA work for us..." exclaimed Typhon-3. Typhon was a stern leader, as any titan should be, but his years spent learning under Lord Saladin gave him an edge when fighting these biomechanical beasts. On his queue we started throwing their own SIVA charges at them, Vosik retreated. I've always believed the fallen were cowards. It seems SIVA hasn't changed that a bit. In his haste to survive he left the door wide open. We were in. The place was a mess. Built from the scraps of old Russia, it's a wonder how these fallen even navigate this place. If not for myself and another hunter Hazer Shift finding a vent we could take out with little effort, we'd probably still be lost in there. As we scouted the way we found all sorts of SIVA remnants. The warlocks were quick to grab them for further studies. Mamod-23 was certain we'd be able to turn these pieces of SIVA tech to aid us in some way. I wasn't touching the stuff. Not after the last Clovis Bray outbreak disaster. So we dropped in the vent. The Warlocks ogled their prizes, the titans were busy planning, but I knew Vosik couldn't be far. One step too far and it all came together. We were in his trap. Swords at the ready we sliced through waves of splicers as we collected SIVA charges once again. As we threw them we could feel the SIVA mites swarming, but what was generating them? The room grew hotter and hotter, until Danzar Phane, a Titan of incredible strength and wit noticed the source. "Vosik has control of the monitors!! Take em out!" He yelled, and not a second too soon. As we continued to pile up splicers we finally broke through his dense shield. As we fired on him Vosik's pain could be felt through the entire room. As the monitors turned hotter and hotter we knew we would not survive. Hazer was the one who found our safe room. One has to wonder why the fallen would build such a room. It's as if they had such little control over SIVA, they needed to protect themselves from themselves like this. It wasn't time to wonder such things. Before we knew it we were back at it. As the last SIVA charge landed we could tell Vosik would not survive our coming volley. We opened hell and sent that priest right down its throat. After the battle we found something even more interesting. These fallen had guardian weapons hidden away, and they modified them with SIVA. We all grabbed our weapons and moved on. After some strenuous navigation from me and Hazer we found daylight. "The fallen are definitely getting smarter, look at this machine! You think banshee could make a weapon like this?" said Hazer. Typhon replied, "Now's not the time to be impressed by our enemies strength, it's the time to destroy it. Now let's get out of the way before this thing turns..." "ON!!! IT'S ON!!!!" yelled Leetan Rend, a voidwalker of immense power. With that we turned and ran as hard as we could. Backs to the wall we let loose on the siege engine. A swarm of splicers moved in fast and pinned us down. Just before the siege engine crushed us we managed to stop the behemoth, but there was still a lot of wall to cover and no way to get passed without some heavy machinery (heavy machinery like the one we just stopped). As a fallen skiff came down to drop the parts to repair it we seized our opportunity. We quickly took out the repair squad and claimed the parts for our own, and they were heavy even for a guardian. "I've never seen a titan so tired in my life!" I said. "Fine you carry it!" Danzar replied. At that moment he ran forward and landed a fist of havoc I'm convinced could've taken down the wall had it been any harder. With the path ahead clear we made it to the siege engine just in time for the fallen to drop Meksis, their seige engineer. Fallen Captains are always so pompous until they taste my razelighter. With Meksis dead I was able to open up the ramp of the seige engine, so my team could make some repairs. "What took you so long?" Mamod asked. "I couldn't find the open switch, I don't read fallen. Maybe we should send a Lock next time Mamod, you guys always have your noses in alien texts." I replied. We rode the seige engine to the end of the wall. The drop below was treacherous but we were a team of guardians. I've never met a guardian who was scared of heights. We pushed through and found ourselves in the server banks of a long dead warmind. These things are hard enough to navigate without enemy fire, but with stealth vandals and those damned exploder shanks after us we were forced to move quickly. We cleared our enemies and managed to find out way further into Aksis' lair. "SIVA has taken over this place. The very architecture has been completely altered. We should stay and study it." Said Leetan. "This is no place to linger, if we can take out Aksis none of this will be of issue." Typhon replied. We forged through and found ourselves at the top of another long drop. This time, into darkness. As we dropped in I could tell we weren't alone. Forget my extended radar, it hadn't worked right since Vosik let out those first few SIVA bursts anyway. I could feel the large presence in the room. Mamod took one step too far and there he was. Aksis in all of his "perfection". The devils came again to their leaders aid. This time it wasn't the normal splicers we'd encountered up to this point. This was Aksis' personal hit squad. Servitors began sacrificing themselves to empower Aksis. I remember thinking "Servitors making sacrifices for an Archon? The fallen really have changed.". As we took out the Servitors they dropped SIVA charges. We instantly knew we'd found a way to break the machine gods ties to the SIVA he relied on. As Aksis filled the air with SIVA mites we let loose. As the charges hit we knew we had disrupted his attack. We severed him from his machine. We all celebrated our victory. Moments later and without notice Aksis awoke, and ended our parade. His ties to the machine may have been broken but his body was not. Having lost control of the SIVA he couldn't stop it from improving us as well. One by one we felt the rush of power as we continued to rain down SIVA charges. He tried to teleport out of harms way but every time he did one of us was there to punish him. It was time to make him regret every guardian that fell in the plaguelands fighting for our cause. Again he made his move to fill the room with mites, and this time there were no Servitor cores to throw his way. We managed to find another fallen failsafe, another means to help them stay safe in the event that their little control of SIVA was lost. With a second volley of charges Aksis knew he was in trouble. I've never seen a being of such power show so much fear. With a final effort to destroy us, Aksis summoned the entire strength of SIVA to his aid. It was almost enough too. In one final stand we unleashed the full extent of our payload. Aksis was dead, we did what we came to do, and we expect no gratitude. All we want is more loot!