But the ringing shot sitting still in the air did not come from her weapon. Instead, it emanated from the place where Maurice had set his perch, a small ledge of naturally protruding rock jutting out from the steep, spinal elevation on the other side of the valley. The Fallen turned their attention there, clambering up the steep hill with all fours ripping into the earth as anchors. Iliyus swiveled her arms around and craned her head towards where the commotion was, to see Maurice's sniper laying on its side, gunshots firing into the air below the elevated position. The band of Fallen had reached the summit of the thin cliff face and began to slide down the steep summit's other side. Screams were distant, yet certainly shrill, and wrenched in agony. Maurice was gone. She sat upright, putting the rifle at her side and digging through her duffel. She had only her sidearm, a generic design made as compulsory by Tower frames, her rations, water, and her emergency medical tools. She pulled the walkie out with quick breaths and fumbled with the channel, switching it to an emergency line that put her in direct contact with the Vanguard. She better get a commendation for this. "Emergency, emergency, Militia Scout Iliyus Verent coming in. My parter Senior Militia Strike Leader Maurice Connel is MIA, presumably dead by the hands of the Fallen we've been tracking. We're being overrun and my position is compromised. I will try to make it to the forward scout base station two kliks west of here, but I don't know how long I have until I have until-" She felt something cold and hard press up against her neck, something that slightly singed it, fames seeming to dance up her hair. The pain accompanying the onset of panic served a purpose: something had a weapon to her head, and judging by the fire at the end of it, a Shrapnel Launcher. It didn't take her long to figure out a decisive action. She heard the previous line kick up with radio static and Fallen chatter, which Iliyus took as a cue to swing around faster than the Vandal could squeeze the trigger, crack an elbow to one of his dense kneecaps. The Fallen lost balance and tumbled down the side of the cliff, the Launcher falling down as well. She followed, quickly strapping the rifle over her back and sliding down the cliff after the Vandal. She slid down the steep face of the petrified ridge, gravel and dirt kicking up behind her. In her tattered cloths bound tightly around her thin frame, kicking off of the stone under her and pouncing on the Vandal, she looked to him like a specter of Death itself. She did indeed launch herself onto the Fallen grunt, wrestling with it. The Fallen had twice the arms and twice the strength, so she found herself pinned under it. It was only then she had close counsel with the scourges she had been tracking for the better part of a week. It's multiple eyes were a bright orange from the plentiful Ether it had just consumed, glossy and bulging from its skill. Its mouth was split into multiple parts and covered by a respirator with tubes leading into its skin; and that was obscured by thick and ragged scarves and bundles, worn even in the sweltering heat of Venus. They grappled for a while, neither entirely sure of what to do but struggle against eachother, her new to closeness with such an enemy and him as well. A pang of fear sliced through her heart, though, a realization that made her spring to the sheath of her knife. [i]You will die if you don't take a decisive action.[/i] She squirmed her arm out of the abrasive grip of his, quickly sliding her sharpened and polished blade from its resting place and sheathing it once again into the chest of the Fallen. It recoiled in pain, Ether bubbling around the knife stuck within him, Iliyus taking his state of shock to pin his shin under her boot. As impulsively as she could think, without second thought, she slipped the sidearm from her waistband, cocked back the hammer and emptied the entire magazine into the Fallen. The gun's slide jerked back every time she squeezed the trigger of her weapon, a bullet casing leaping from the port and falling at her side every time she fired. When she had stopped, she pressed the trigger again instinctually, this time only making a low clicking. She saw the Fallen's limp body, long dead before she had to empty the entirety of the magazine into him, lead riddling his body and in those holes Ether pooling. It was white, similar to the radiolarian fluid that the Vex produced, but with a certain purple shimmer. The smell of smoke rose through the air and into her nose, more pungent and overpowering than the acrid sulfuring oceans of Venus that bubbled with scaling heat. Her hands began to tremble and before she could further dwell on what she did, she heard the scream of the rest of the Fallen draw closer, enraged war cries. They knew what happened, rounding the ridge to find her. It was time to go.