“This gives them the appearance of being able to teleport. Don’t get me wrong, when the dark clouds form and a mass of Vex appear out of thin air, that is actual teleporting. I’m talking about when single units move from fifty feet away to a mere ten feet away in seemingly the blink of an eye. That is their use of time manipulation. How do they do it? They figured out one of the most basic mathematical equations for understanding time itself. But I am getting off subject.” “The Vex as you and everyone else understands them, are separated into programs. Different programs perform different tasks. When Nymph got into the Vex systems, he discovered that these Vex did in fact have a program but it was unlike anything we had ever seen. We didn’t know what this meant so we captured one using the same time manipulation formula as they use. Nymph also tapped into the Vex unit and ripped its knowledge of the code out of its memory banks so it in turn couldn’t use it to escape. After a couple hours of scanning, Nymph came to a conclusion. These are part of the first program.” “What do you mean the first program?” Velox asked now completely lost. “It’s really hard to explain and even Nymph and I don’t understand it but, this is the most simple way to put it. The Vex, whenever they were created, were much more intelligent and possessed processing capabilities that I couldn’t even fathom. Their one downfall was, that even given their monumental intellect, they couldn’t reproduce other vex minds like their own meaning that there are a set number of original Vex. The ones they tried to create paled in comparison to their own image. They still needed to expand but were stretched too thin by the number of worlds they had taken and had to maintain. So what they did is they created fragments of their minds in order to keep on expanding.” “These fragments were the first programming. Basically what they did is they cloned their minds as best they could and put them in the machines we see today. As they kept expanding, they needed more and more units to take more worlds and solar systems. As time went on, the Vex realized that if they cloned certain parts of their minds, say aggression and combat skills only, they would perform better in those areas and the cloning process would take much less time.” “So what we have here is the closest thing to a whole original Vex mind. The other programs have been even further cut down from the original intelligence. What we know about the Vex right now is only a fraction of what the originals truly are. It’s terrifying really. The Vex we know are powerful beyond reason. This original program even more so. I could only guess at what kind of power an original Vex may poses.” The cavern was silent as Azrix cleaned his weapon. After a moment, he looked up at Velox. She was sitting on the ground with her back resting on a large rock staring up at the roof of the cavern. Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes and she was breathing heavily. “Are you alright?” Azrix inquired putting down the hunk of metal he was cleaning. “We… Aren’t going to make it out of here are we?” she asked in a low and despair filled whisper. “Well I wouldn’t say that. Now that you are here, I would say we have a pretty good shot of getting out of here alive. You do have a ship in orbit right?” She looked at him her face full of desolation and swallowed hard. “Yes but if the Vex are jamming all signals, there is no way Gaia can call it back to the surface. I doubt the Vex will just let us walk out of here either. So either way we are dead.” Her head sank to her chest and she stared at the ground. Azrix got up and knelt beside her. Even kneeling he was a giant. He rested a heavy armored hand on her shoulder. “I survived here for six months on my own. I’ve been running for my life for the past three weeks trying to find a way out of here to no avail. Now you show up and only an hour on the surface has you thinking about your own demise? You don’t get to do that. If anyone gets to do that, it’s gonna be me. Besides Nymph has a plan to get us all out of here.” He said turning towards the grey ghost. He was hovering with Gaia racing around on the surface of the small pool of water. It almost looked like they were playing. The ghost stopped and spun sharply towards Azrix. “I do?” he asked unsure of what Azrix was referring to. “Yeah, or have I actually outsmarted you for once?” “I highly doubt that.” he said hovering towards the two guardians. “Alright I will remind you. All we need to do is find out where the Vex are broadcasting that signal and shut it down. After that Velox will call in her ship and we will all get out of here.” “Right and we are just gonna waltz into the Vex stronghold, flip a switch, walk back out, get in a ship, and fly back to the tower all merry and happy?” the ghost asked in a sarcastic tone. “That about sums it up.” “But my ship only has one seat in the cockpit. There is no way you and I will both fit in there.” “That does pose a slight problem doesn’t it.” Azrix said scratching his head. “It’s an easy fix though. Call your ship down once we shut off the signal, we will switch out the drive core, and then we take my ship back.” “How damaged is your ship?” “The Vex only took out the drive core. That should be the only thing that needs replaced.” “Actually we may have a problem.” Gaia said now floating next to Nymph. “When Velox and I were ambushed by the Vex, we took cover behind your ship. Some of the rounds pierced the hull. We will need to patch those up before we try taking it back into orbit.” “Not a problem.” Azrix said. “I have plenty of plasteel plating lying around. All we need to do is weld a couple pieces on and she will make it out of orbit.” Gaia sat seeming to calculate the odds of the ship actually making it into space. “Alright it should work, but re-entry on earth will be a different story. We will have to actually make those repairs with some aerospace metal. Unless you want to burn up.” “Well it beats sitting around here waiting for the Vex to find us.” He retorted. “Good point.” The ghost said. “Alright it is settled. We will go out there and you will set up an overwatch position roughly one hundred meters out. Watch my back and Nymph and I will make the repairs to the ship. After that, we will come back here and wait out the night. Tomorrow we will take a look into the cave where these Vex have been coming from.” He walked back over to the gatling gun and started putting it back together. Velox took out her sniper rifle, ejected the magazine, and started loading spare rounds into it. Before long, the gatling gun was back together, and her magazines were full. She had to ask the question though. “Hey Azrix, where did you get that gatling gun?” Azrix chuckled a little. “I cannibalized it from my ship. Nymph made a few modifications to where I could fire it hand held. I call her Veera.” He said slamming one of the retaining pins back into place making the weapon operationally ready. Hope you guys enjoyed chapter 3! Chapter 4 will be out next Friday. Leave a comment if you want me to message you when it is out. Please do not hold back with your criticism. I need to know if i am doing something wrong or leaving something out. I will adjust fire in the next chapters based on your guys input and try to make changes. Chapter Index can be found here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/101226805/0/0