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Description
"Our old worlds have grown feral - rabid beasts with teeth of rust and ruin. But such beasts are meant to be tamed. Or broken."

- The Hunter's Mannifest

She had once hidden in a pile of garbage for three days in order to kill a man. That job had been completed during summer in one of the Last City's lease reputable neighborhoods. It had been miserably hot, and insects had feasted on her continuously. Stinking of filth, badly dehydrated, sun-burned, and sick, she had still made the two-hundred-yard shot on demand the instant her target shown her head. One round. Nice and clean.

That job had been preferable to this one. For two days and two nights now she had hidden, watching as the blanket of white covered the remains of kazakstan. She was chilled to the bone but couldn't light a fire for risk of being seen. It must have been because of the unrelenting cold that she found herself thinking about the wistfully deserts of Mars. The northern tundra of Old Russia had never been intended for man. Fools tried to live here simply because they were too stupid leave, and probably to radiated die.

She had come all this way to put a bullet into a particular one of those stubborn creatures.

Some folks called her a mercenary, others a hired gun. Most would argue he was nothing more than assassin. But to her, she was fulfilling her role as a Hunter. Regardless, of their opinion of how she earned her glimmer, Cornelia Dubreau was the finest sniper in the Sol system. Give her a clean shot and neither the Traveler or Darkness couldn't save you.

The hard part was the waiting.

XxXxXxX

She had spotted them coming long before they saw her. Picking her potential employer out from the crowd had been easy. The hooded woman walked between two heavily armored exos hidden under long cloaks. The common civilians were deferential and moved quickly out of the woman's path. The two machine were program killers, and they couldn't help but act like it, with wary eyes constantly shifting as they scanned the busy market. Their predatory nature made them stand out among the shoppers.

Cornelia preferred to blend in. It made her job easier. She kept her hood held over her luminescent eyes and covered the lower half of face with a scarf, masking her awoken features.

She stepped from the shadows and followed the three discreetly for a time. The gently falling rain barely stifled the merchants' enthusiasm as they loudly hawked their wares. Fall in the City was like spring in any other region. once she was certain this wasn't an elaborate trap and they were isolated from potential eavesdroppers, Cornelia walked up behind the human's guards and waited to be noticed.

It didn't take long. The first bodyguard turned, her hand inside cloak and surely resting on a cheap hand canon. The second moved immediately in front of the woman. They were quick, but he noted that neither looked towards the rooftops. Sloppy.

"I wish to Mistress St. Pierre about a job," Cornelia answered. Her human speech was unaccented, as bland as her appearance. "I was informed she's looking for me."

The woman turned, giving her a glimpse of pale skin and green eyes inside the hood. She was rather young for the leader of a powerful trade family. "You are the one I was told about?" she asked.

Cornelia gave a full bow to her, one that was intentionally giving too much attention to them.

"You're shorter then I expected." She appraised him. "Are you as goo as they say?"

"Are you as rich as they say?"

She nodded.

"Then I'm good enough."

XxXxXxX

It was just another job, though colder than most. There had been so many jobs over the years they had begun to run together. Half up front, find a way to reach the target, take the shot, collect the remainder. Sometimes that meant investigation, preparation, disguises, infiltration, and a lot of cover identities; other times it meant good field craft or an elevated position and some patience. In the end it was the same: get a line of sight and let Patience and Time take control.

When she had been sixteen-standard-years-old hunter recruit, her instructor had given her the most important bit of advice of her entire life. The bullet wanted to hit the target. The was its destiny. It was the shooter's weakness that stood in its way.

Shifting to keep the circulation flowing to her extremities, she checked the boneyard again. The target would have to come through it eventually. She was certain that approaching the isolated and fortified installation of a ambitious fallen would have been a stupid move. Stalking out this position was the surer, but far more uncomfortable, method to get a shot. On most of eastern earth this already be considered a harsh winter, but anyone who actually scouted the cosmodrone during winter knew that the real snow hadn't begun yet. The target was a dreg who would be looking for any scares game for the looking for any more allies, and when it did, it would pass through here, ready for the hint.

Cornelia knew the feeling.

XxXxXxX

Claudine St. Pierre fireplace, staring into the flames. Cornelia's earlier assumption had been correct. She was young, twenty-five at most, and more than likely too inexperienced for this line of work. She'd been informed that her father and older brother had recently been murdered, casualties in the constant struggle between factions of this world. The political nuances were difficult for a foreigner to grasp, but it was a constant source of work. Surely it had been a surprise when the family business had fallen on her.

Cornelia doubted she would survive long in the cutthroat butchery that surpasses for City business, but until then her glimmer would spend as well as any other's.

the city. Her bodyguards waited outside. That told Cornelia this was something she wished dealt with as discreetly as possible.

"Your target is a over ambitious dreg. It used to work for my family. It was very loyal once, but I want it dead for what it did to my family. It is a beast now, a killer." She was looked kind and naive, but there was no mistake for the steel in her voice. "A year ago he betrayed my family. My father trusted this creature, treated it like one of the family. Yet it turned on us and used our most vital assets to build its own house. My brother was murdered because of it. For such treachery there can be no—"

Cornelia held up one hand. "You don't need to explain yourself to me."

The human looked up from the fire, surprised. "You do not care what evil he has done?"

"The bullet doesn't care. Why should I?"

Claudine stopped. The awoken had put her off balance. It was apparent she had already thought through what she was going to say to her hired assassin, as if she needed to justify her decision. "Very well. It goes by the name Ikos, the Baron of Bears."

"You've got more noble guardians at the Tower. Why do you need me?"

"You are not the first I have hired for this work; it has killed all I've sent before. Ikos is a Reaver-class, not shy of bloodshed, cruelty, and unnaturally smart. It is one with the land, as alert as the wolves it used to hunt for us. I've heard it has killed the barons of two other houses and took their assets as well. And he is on of the finest shots on earth."

"That won't be a problem."

She paused to collect herself. "It is gifted. I don't know the full details, as they were a guarded secret, but my father once said it used to serve a Servitor."

A dreg that knows space magic? What the Warlocks would pay to study that. Any form of advance magic or technology always made a job complicated. "My fee just went up."

"Whatever is necessary. I will not rest until I know for a fact that Ikos is dead."

For some reason Cornelia found herself taking pity on the human; not a rare thing but only to the worthy. "A word of advice: I've been doing this for a long time. People, aliens, sentient machines die. Sometimes you're the one to kill them, and other times you need someone else to do it for you. There's no shame in that. You don't need to share your reasons with me. Giving me the order is the same as pulling the trigger. All it takes is the will."

"I have the will." She said, cold as an Old Russian winter.

Perhaps she would last longer than Cornelia first thought. ""Perfect. That and an extra ten thousand pieces of glimmer, with some strange coins, would put that dreg in the ground."

XxXxXxX

The thick furs she'd bought kept her body heat trapped. She'd also purchased a compact device from the warlock order that produced a small measure of warmth for a few hours each time its sunsinger capacitor was wound. If she had been born with warlock abilities there would be no reason for such a device, but it did its job well enough to keep her extremities from freezing off during the night. The device had cost quite a bit in strange coins and some relic iron, but it was worth it: frost bight in her trigger finger could ruin everything.

She allowed herself short naps. In these times she would allow her ghost to take point, but it would do no good if Ikos decided to come out of it's small palace to see what was picking off its scouting parties. The mutated bears and wolves of the tundra stayed away from places like this, so Cornelia had no worries there, it was the other hunters she feared. Fortunately she was a very light sleeper.

In her sleep, Cornelia saw ballistic calculations, wind speed, and trajectories, but never the faces of the hundreds she had killed.

Another snow fell that night, the type that made everything cold and painful. The shivers came next. They would pass soon enough. Cornelia was not afraid that a few shivers would throw off her aim. Only rookies tried to hold perfectly still when shooting. Everyone shook to some degree anyway; breathing, muscles tremors, even a heartbeat could cause the sights to move. Making a difficult shot was all about knowing your body's rhythms and firing at the correct time. An experienced hunter didn't try to hold their breath - that only increased the tremors. The key was to shoot on on the respiratory pause. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze. Bang.

Expect Patience and Time was not like any other gun. Her rifle was comprised in golden age technology that rendered both of them only noise was the buzz of passing bullet, which sounded like a small crack in the air, and the impact, which sounded rather like hitting a melon with a club.

The fallen had witnessed that notion far too well. The first night she came here to search for Ikos, she had found its grounded Ketch, with ten pikes, four skiffs, three servitor, three dozen other fallen of varying ranks, and a walker that had received a new paint job but no recent repairs. Cornelia made sure it never would again.

Sje checked the round of ammunition before reloading. Cornelia used the best components. Fifty-caliber arc cartridges with not a single blemish on the casings. An custom optics, which was a precision glass for better zoom, and a fitted stock to increase her weapon's stability. She had no use from the extra ammo that the field scout attachment offered, one bullet would be enough to deal with the dreg, and if it wasn't she had a few more rounds to take care of the problem.

Patience and Time was checked, cleaned, and reloaded, Cornelia finally tended to her own physical needs. After relieving herself, taking a swig from the mineral elixir in her canteen, and gnawing on some protein bar that was guaranteed to replenish vital nutriments if it didn't break your teeth first, the huntress went back to her frozen vigil as the sun came up.

In the distance, a lone figure appeared, trudging through the snow.

It was time.

XxXxXxX

Claudine St. Pierre poured her a drink and then poured one for herself. "To a successful hunt."

Cornelia ignored the glass she set in front of her and reached out for the other one. A clever assassin would poison the glass rather than the drink. He took up the tumbler and eyed the clear liquid suspiciously.

"You are a paranoid woman, Corneila." Claudine smiled, took the glass originally intended for him, and pounded down the drink in one gulp. "Some of my father's finest vodka. It is older than I am."

He gave her an appreciative nod. "To a successful hunt." A favored drink of Old Earth, it consisted of water and distilled potatoes, brewed to a point that it was so potent that it take the slug off the most foul abomination of the Hive. It burned going down and then sat there like a fiery lump in her stomach, making her sweat. The awoken could see why people enjoyed this drink during the winter months.

She took the bottle and poured them another few finger of the potent liquor. She had already gotten the first half of her fee up front and felt fairly certain she was't being set up, so the huntress took the glass, though she would pace herself in these unfamiliar surrounding. Despite her size and age, Claudine seemed capable of keeping her wits despite strong drink, but that was expected of a human. She gulped down the second and poured herself a third.

"I gotta tell you, Nel, I've dreamed about that creature's death. Since its betrayal I've feared it may someday decide to return and murder the rest of my family. This worry has been knawing at me."

"Whats more important, revenge or protecting your family?"

"In the city, revenge is protection. I want that thing to suffer."

Cornelia took another sip. "If all goes well, it won't."

She eyed the awoken frankly. "There are many stories about you..."

"I'd wager most of them are exaggerated."

"If even a fraction of them are, though, I must ask..." Claudine paused. "Why?"

Cornelia leaned back in her chair and took another, longer, sip. "Why what?"

"Why do you still do this? You have been doing this for a long time, no? How long has it been?"

"That I've been shooting at things for money?" She was drafted by the Tower at the age of six. She had come from the lower regions of the City, the underworld known as Hell's Alley. No mere thug or crime lord resided there, but eliminators who practiced their deadly trade with finesses of the finest arts. Cornelia was being groomed to be one of these eliminators, if it was not for her ghost and her soon to be teacher finding her first. While caught in the act of trying to steal his pocket, the Hunter known as Cayde-6 gave her an option: the tower or her hand. Most would have chose the knife, but three square meals a day, and expert training made giving up the remainder of her short childhood seem like a fair trade. Like most guardians, she did what was expected. Go out into the wilderness, find scraps that supposedly came from the Golden Age, earn good loot, and kill the aliens. Lot and lots of aliens. It was the same, day in to day out. Even the legal bounties she was offered were too low of risk with even less of a reward. It was not until the was offered jobs inside the city where she go the thrill she had been wanting. The money was not half bad either.

"I don't know. Coming up on twenty-five years."

Everyone knew that the Traveler extended life into the far four-hundreds, but Awoken could hold onto their youth into their six-hundreds.

"You must be wealthy now." Claudine nodded at the sack of glimmer and strange coins on the table between them. " You command a substantial fee."

She reached over and hefted the bag, as if she could tell the value of the coins and glimmer by the weight. Cornelia had made made her fortunes and lost them. Glimmer was necessary to live, but she was prepared to leave it behind without hesitation in order to get out of a situation alive. She dropped the sack back on the table. "A girl's gotta eat, and work isn't a guarantee. I'll earn what I can, until I run into somebody better and then I die."

Claudine chuckled sweetly that made Cornelia blush slightly. "Why, you're an amoral, pragmatic fatalist. Are you sure you don't have human blood in you?" She shook her hand, already more serious. "I understand. I am bourgeoisie. My family rose from paysans to les hommes d'affaires with the power of some prestigious groups because our hard work and cunning. And now the business is mine to protect. I did not ask for this life, but when my family was murdered like dogs, this became my life. I had no choice." She finished her drink, the entire glass, with one powerful gulp. "Earn what you can, until you lose it to someone better. I like that."

Cornelia had found an odd fascination with this human. She seemed weak, but she had a inner fire in herself. The awoken huntress could not explain it, but she felt like she wanted to protect this girl. It would be safer and far more secure then dealing with black bounties. But even if it wasn't, it wasn't often that she debated philosophy with an employer.

XxXxXxX

The approaching figure was humanoid, dressed in heavy furs, and approximately five hundred yards away. The drifts were deep enough yet to for snowshows, but the footing along the rusted boneyard still had to be slippery. Regardless, the figure was moving quickly and confidently among the skeleton frames of discarded flying machines.

Lying prone in her insulated fears and water-resistant armor, Cornelia slowly removed the canvas lens cover from her telescopic sight and moved into her shooting position. Patience and Time's hand-guard rested gently on top of a petrified log. She never let the barrel rest against anything, as extra pressure from hand or rest could change the tension on the barrel and affect the accuracy. The platsteel and wood butt was set firmly against her shoulder. Her cheek rested on the stock. The cold glass of the telescopic sight had been coated with a special warlock chemical mixture to keep from fogging up once it was only an inch from the warmth of her face.

The magnifying scope enlarged everything a dramatic seven times, but unlike most it offered an extremely rare affect. While others made it look like they were staring down a long, dark pipe with an enhanced image at the end, Patience and Time allowed her to see everything without being seen. Cornelia found her potential target instantly.

The figure was a fallen dreg, a Reaver-class from the amount of healed battle damage. It cradled a shrapnel launcher like a mother would a newborn. Draped an its shoulder was a bearskin cloak, with the head of the beast pulled over its head. Problem is most fallen wore this as an allegiance to their new house, and Cornelia wasn't being paid ten-thousand pieces of glimmer just to kill any regular dreg. The most damning piece of evidence was also the most disturbing. It was wearing a large amount of dead ghosts around its neck and several hanging off the rifle. That was her target.

A cold tinge ran through Cornelia. Claudine did tell her she had sent many guardians after him, none of which had returned.

She settled for the creature to get closer. Her finger would remain indexed outside the trigger guard until she was ready to fire, but the simple, nearly invisible dot started to shift and twist then revert back to normal. Ikos wasn't alone, it brought help.

Cornelia could recall the first time she had killed her first stealth vandal. She had a hard time to explain it, but it was if nature and light subtly shifted around as it moved. She had taken no chances then and fired, but she couldn't do that now.

Five hundred yards. Her ghost murmured.

Still to far, and now she had to deal with four to six hidden vandals on top of Ikos. Timed right, she could take out Ikos and be gone before the hornets knew what kicked them. If not...

Four hundred meters.

Ikos paused for a second and seemed to study the rusted, snow covered ruins. Pointing to it, an current of electricity sparked into life and began to carve out the emblem of their house.

Ikos was cocky, Cornelia was sure. It believed that it was a rival house that was taking out its scouting parties. It was going to be wrong very soon.

Two hundred fifty yards.

Patience and Time was one of the most accurate firearms that has come out of the Golden Age and Cornelia was one of the best shots. She was deadly with the most cumbersome of rifles; a precision instrument like this simply increased her potential to buyers. Her rifle was a technological marvel, capable of shooting a two-inch target at one hundred yards. She could take Ikos from here but held on, having memorized the layout of every rock, bits of sparse plantlife, and many large abandoned ruins. The dreg was moving between some large rocks, which would provide it with some cover if she missed. Cornelia picked another spot: a mostly open clearing with no true cover for ten-yards in either direction. It would have to do.

Ever so slightly, Cornelia moved the finger of her right hand to bring to life back to them. Then she returned her hand to the firing position on Patience and Time's stock. The huntress shifted her body slightly, as to not put as much pressure on her chest. Her breathing was low and even.

Two hundred...

Ikos walked into the chosen clearing.

Cornelia placed the pad of her finger on the trigger. Half a pound of pressure was all it would take.

The small dot was no longer on the fallen but above and ahead of it. One of Cayde-6's lessons played out in her head. 'It took time for a bullet to travel through the air, so you had to lead the target, allowing the bullet to intersect with it.'

One ninety...

Ikos froze in place.

Cornelia did the same.

At this range the fallen's face was clearly visible through the powered sights. Somehow he knew something was wrong. A sound, smell - it didn't matter. Something was off, and that meant danger. Ikos turned, its hand blazing with with power.

Cornelia pulled the trigger. All the snow in the clearing exploded upward.

Patience and Time made a slight crack, and the recoil still thumped her shoulder, and the scope lifted. A wall of icy of energy crashed throughout the clearing, blowing snow and dirt everywhere and obscuring her target.Cursed magic! Cornelia calmly opened the action allowing the spent casing popped out. Closing the breach she peared down the sight again. Now, where did you run off too.

The chaos had died off and most of the snow fell back to the ground. The was no sign of Ikos.

Now came the tricky part. If the little bastard ran, Cornelia would have a shot, which meant Ikos wouldn't run - it would take cover and allow the remaining Vandals to search for her. If it had taken cover, it would use its own rifle out, and it would be searching for the attacker. The shrapnel rifle was only good at close range, so it would be the spotter.

It was not a complete lose though, the missed bullet had killed one of the invisible vandals and in the self-defense commotion had taken two others. Her radar indicated that there only three targets left, so she would have to use her remaining bullets wisely.

The air shimmered and swam as another vandal peaked out ever so slightly. That was its grievous mistake. The bullet tore through the creature's head, making ether erupt in its death cry. She found a sturdy stick, placed the fur over it, and then shoved it past her spider-hole. A second later the vandal spotted the movement of the fur and fired. The charged thin wire pierced the skin. Cornelia spotted the flash and the arc energy before she heard the shot. The fallen died just like its earlier companion. She moved the stick, letting the coat sway, and then hurled it out and down the cliff side.

Ikos and its remaining guard appeared from their cover, space magic and arc energy tore the furs to pieces thinking they were finishing a wounded opponent, unaware they were chasing empty cloth.

She realized her first mistake. The muzzle of Patience and Time poked out, and the active camouflage had dissolved.

Acting quickly, Cornelia disposed the final vandal guard but lost her chance to end Ikos quickly. It was already summoning a defensive spell, and the snow and wind exploded outward again, strong enough to redirect bullets. She wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice.

The targeting-dot danced across the torrent of ice and wind and earth. Over two days Cornelia had memorized every nuance of the surface. Ikos was in the clearing, no true cover except for its perversion of nature caused by its spacial magic. But there was nothing to trap him. No icicles to shoot down to scewer it, or hidden traps to ensnare it. Just the fallen dreg and her remaining round. Reloading would take too much time, and Ikos could be gone by then. Her heart hammered, but he felt only so cold so deep it burned. Her breath shot out in painful clouds of steam. She was in an awkward improvised position.

It would have been an extremely difficult shot on a nice day in the sun.

The bullet wants to hit the target. That is its destiny. I's the shooters weakness that stands in the way.

Cornelia Dubreau was a consummate professional, and she wasn't about to thwart the destiny of a bullet.

Adjust for distance. Compensate for wind. The targeting dot shook across the surface of the torrent. Hold over. Exhale. Squeeze.

Patience and Time made no noise as the recoil thumped her shoulder.

CRACK.

The bullet disappeared into the blizzard.

XxXxXxX

The young, reluctant leader of a merchant faction poured her one last drink.

Cornelia'd had too much, but the fire was nice, the room warm, the chair was comfortable, and it had been a long time since she had enjoyed the embrace of a beautiful young woman.

"Is that all there is to it, then, Nel? Survival? Money? Power? Is that all there is in life?" Claudine was a little drunk herself. "We do a job that makes us important and vital, and maybe we're good enough at it that we get to live longer. Is that it? You kill people, over and over and over. You've assassinated Cabal Colossi, Vex Gatelords, Hive Knights, including generals, politicians and priests - so many, for so long..."

"It's what I do."

"But why? I'm stuck. You're not. One job, that much glimmer, you could walk away, be a navigator or a gunsmith or something. You could choose another path. Why this one?"

That was a good question.

XxXxXxX

Ikos, the Baron of the House of Bears had been struck by the bullet. Its left arm was shot off. Its ether was draining out out of the missing limb, a gash in its head that had opened clear its skull. Its prized skin was soaked blue and coughing blood.

The sniper limped up to the fallen dreg. She'd retrieved her coat and had Patience and Time slung over her shoulder. This job was almost done.

Ikos looked up, showing confusion on its odd face. It did not recognize the woman who had ended its life.

"Why you?" It croaked out in its alien voice.

Cornelia Dubreau brought up Patience and Time to finish the job. "Because I'm the best."

Description
"Our old worlds have grown feral - rabid beasts with teeth of rust and ruin. But such beasts are meant to be tamed. Or broken."

- The Hunter's Mannifest

She had once hidden in a pile of garbage for three days in order to kill a man. That job had been completed during summer in one of the Last City's lease reputable neighborhoods. It had been miserably hot, and insects had feasted on her continuously. Stinking of filth, badly dehydrated, sun-burned, and sick, she had still made the two-hundred-yard shot on demand the instant her target shown her head. One round. Nice and clean.

That job had been preferable to this one. For two days and two nights now she had hidden, watching as the blanket of white covered the remains of kazakstan. She was chilled to the bone but couldn't light a fire for risk of being seen. It must have been because of the unrelenting cold that she found herself thinking about the wistfully deserts of Mars. The northern tundra of Old Russia had never been intended for man. Fools tried to live here simply because they were too stupid leave, and probably to radiated die.

She had come all this way to put a bullet into a particular one of those stubborn creatures.

Some folks called her a mercenary, others a hired gun. Most would argue he was nothing more than assassin. But to her, she was fulfilling her role as a Hunter. Regardless, of their opinion of how she earned her glimmer, Cornelia Dubreau was the finest sniper in the Sol system. Give her a clean shot and neither the Traveler or Darkness couldn't save you.

The hard part was the waiting.

XxXxXxX

She had spotted them coming long before they saw her. Picking her potential employer out from the crowd had been easy. The hooded woman walked between two heavily armored exos hidden under long cloaks. The common civilians were deferential and moved quickly out of the woman's path. The two machine were program killers, and they couldn't help but act like it, with wary eyes constantly shifting as they scanned the busy market. Their predatory nature made them stand out among the shoppers.

Cornelia preferred to blend in. It made her job easier. She kept her hood held over her luminescent eyes and covered the lower half of face with a scarf, masking her awoken features.

She stepped from the shadows and followed the three discreetly for a time. The gently falling rain barely stifled the merchants' enthusiasm as they loudly hawked their wares. Fall in the City was like spring in any other region. once she was certain this wasn't an elaborate trap and they were isolated from potential eavesdroppers, Cornelia walked up behind the human's guards and waited to be noticed.

It didn't take long. The first bodyguard turned, her hand inside cloak and surely resting on a cheap hand canon. The second moved immediately in front of the woman. They were quick, but he noted that neither looked towards the rooftops. Sloppy.

"I wish to Mistress St. Pierre about a job," Cornelia answered. Her human speech was unaccented, as bland as her appearance. "I was informed she's looking for me."

The woman turned, giving her a glimpse of pale skin and green eyes inside the hood. She was rather young for the leader of a powerful trade family. "You are the one I was told about?" she asked.

Cornelia gave a full bow to her, one that was intentionally giving too much attention to them.

"You're shorter then I expected." She appraised him. "Are you as goo as they say?"

"Are you as rich as they say?"

She nodded.

"Then I'm good enough."

XxXxXxX

It was just another job, though colder than most. There had been so many jobs over the years they had begun to run together. Half up front, find a way to reach the target, take the shot, collect the remainder. Sometimes that meant investigation, preparation, disguises, infiltration, and a lot of cover identities; other times it meant good field craft or an elevated position and some patience. In the end it was the same: get a line of sight and let Patience and Time take control.

When she had been sixteen-standard-years-old hunter recruit, her instructor had given her the most important bit of advice of her entire life. The bullet wanted to hit the target. The was its destiny. It was the shooter's weakness that stood in its way.

Shifting to keep the circulation flowing to her extremities, she checked the boneyard again. The target would have to come through it eventually. She was certain that approaching the isolated and fortified installation of a ambitious fallen would have been a stupid move. Stalking out this position was the surer, but far more uncomfortable, method to get a shot. On most of eastern earth this already be considered a harsh winter, but anyone who actually scouted the cosmodrone during winter knew that the real snow hadn't begun yet. The target was a dreg who would be looking for any scares game for the looking for any more allies, and when it did, it would pass through here, ready for the hint.

Cornelia knew the feeling.

XxXxXxX

Claudine St. Pierre fireplace, staring into the flames. Cornelia's earlier assumption had been correct. She was young, twenty-five at most, and more than likely too inexperienced for this line of work. She'd been informed that her father and older brother had recently been murdered, casualties in the constant struggle between factions of this world. The political nuances were difficult for a foreigner to grasp, but it was a constant source of work. Surely it had been a surprise when the family business had fallen on her.

Cornelia doubted she would survive long in the cutthroat butchery that surpasses for City business, but until then her glimmer would spend as well as any other's.

the city. Her bodyguards waited outside. That told Cornelia this was something she wished dealt with as discreetly as possible.

"Your target is a over ambitious dreg. It used to work for my family. It was very loyal once, but I want it dead for what it did to my family. It is a beast now, a killer." She was looked kind and naive, but there was no mistake for the steel in her voice. "A year ago he betrayed my family. My father trusted this creature, treated it like one of the family. Yet it turned on us and used our most vital assets to build its own house. My brother was murdered because of it. For such treachery there can be no—"

Cornelia held up one hand. "You don't need to explain yourself to me."

The human looked up from the fire, surprised. "You do not care what evil he has done?"

"The bullet doesn't care. Why should I?"

Claudine stopped. The awoken had put her off balance. It was apparent she had already thought through what she was going to say to her hired assassin, as if she needed to justify her decision. "Very well. It goes by the name Ikos, the Baron of Bears."

"You've got more noble guardians at the Tower. Why do you need me?"

"You are not the first I have hired for this work; it has killed all I've sent before. Ikos is a Reaver-class, not shy of bloodshed, cruelty, and unnaturally smart. It is one with the land, as alert as the wolves it used to hunt for us. I've heard it has killed the barons of two other houses and took their assets as well. And he is on of the finest shots on earth."

"That won't be a problem."

She paused to collect herself. "It is gifted. I don't know the full details, as they were a guarded secret, but my father once said it used to serve a Servitor."

A dreg that knows space magic? What the Warlocks would pay to study that. Any form of advance magic or technology always made a job complicated. "My fee just went up."

"Whatever is necessary. I will not rest until I know for a fact that Ikos is dead."

For some reason Cornelia found herself taking pity on the human; not a rare thing but only to the worthy. "A word of advice: I've been doing this for a long time. People, aliens, sentient machines die. Sometimes you're the one to kill them, and other times you need someone else to do it for you. There's no shame in that. You don't need to share your reasons with me. Giving me the order is the same as pulling the trigger. All it takes is the will."

"I have the will." She said, cold as an Old Russian winter.

Perhaps she would last longer than Cornelia first thought. ""Perfect. That and an extra ten thousand pieces of glimmer, with some strange coins, would put that dreg in the ground."

XxXxXxX

The thick furs she'd bought kept her body heat trapped. She'd also purchased a compact device from the warlock order that produced a small measure of warmth for a few hours each time its sunsinger capacitor was wound. If she had been born with warlock abilities there would be no reason for such a device, but it did its job well enough to keep her extremities from freezing off during the night. The device had cost quite a bit in strange coins and some relic iron, but it was worth it: frost bight in her trigger finger could ruin everything.

She allowed herself short naps. In these times she would allow her ghost to take point, but it would do no good if Ikos decided to come out of it's small palace to see what was picking off its scouting parties. The mutated bears and wolves of the tundra stayed away from places like this, so Cornelia had no worries there, it was the other hunters she feared. Fortunately she was a very light sleeper.

In her sleep, Cornelia saw ballistic calculations, wind speed, and trajectories, but never the faces of the hundreds she had killed.

Another snow fell that night, the type that made everything cold and painful. The shivers came next. They would pass soon enough. Cornelia was not afraid that a few shivers would throw off her aim. Only rookies tried to hold perfectly still when shooting. Everyone shook to some degree anyway; breathing, muscles tremors, even a heartbeat could cause the sights to move. Making a difficult shot was all about knowing your body's rhythms and firing at the correct time. An experienced hunter didn't try to hold their breath - that only increased the tremors. The key was to shoot on on the respiratory pause. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze. Bang.

Expect Patience and Time was not like any other gun. Her rifle was comprised in golden age technology that rendered both of them only noise was the buzz of passing bullet, which sounded like a small crack in the air, and the impact, which sounded rather like hitting a melon with a club.

The fallen had witnessed that notion far too well. The first night she came here to search for Ikos, she had found its grounded Ketch, with ten pikes, four skiffs, three servitor, three dozen other fallen of varying ranks, and a walker that had received a new paint job but no recent repairs. Cornelia made sure it never would again.

Sje checked the round of ammunition before reloading. Cornelia used the best components. Fifty-caliber arc cartridges with not a single blemish on the casings. An custom optics, which was a precision glass for better zoom, and a fitted stock to increase her weapon's stability. She had no use from the extra ammo that the field scout attachment offered, one bullet would be enough to deal with the dreg, and if it wasn't she had a few more rounds to take care of the problem.

Patience and Time was checked, cleaned, and reloaded, Cornelia finally tended to her own physical needs. After relieving herself, taking a swig from the mineral elixir in her canteen, and gnawing on some protein bar that was guaranteed to replenish vital nutriments if it didn't break your teeth first, the huntress went back to her frozen vigil as the sun came up.

In the distance, a lone figure appeared, trudging through the snow.

It was time.

XxXxXxX

Claudine St. Pierre poured her a drink and then poured one for herself. "To a successful hunt."

Cornelia ignored the glass she set in front of her and reached out for the other one. A clever assassin would poison the glass rather than the drink. He took up the tumbler and eyed the clear liquid suspiciously.

"You are a paranoid woman, Corneila." Claudine smiled, took the glass originally intended for him, and pounded down the drink in one gulp. "Some of my father's finest vodka. It is older than I am."

He gave her an appreciative nod. "To a successful hunt." A favored drink of Old Earth, it consisted of water and distilled potatoes, brewed to a point that it was so potent that it take the slug off the most foul abomination of the Hive. It burned going down and then sat there like a fiery lump in her stomach, making her sweat. The awoken could see why people enjoyed this drink during the winter months.

She took the bottle and poured them another few finger of the potent liquor. She had already gotten the first half of her fee up front and felt fairly certain she was't being set up, so the huntress took the glass, though she would pace herself in these unfamiliar surrounding. Despite her size and age, Claudine seemed capable of keeping her wits despite strong drink, but that was expected of a human. She gulped down the second and poured herself a third.

"I gotta tell you, Nel, I've dreamed about that creature's death. Since its betrayal I've feared it may someday decide to return and murder the rest of my family. This worry has been knawing at me."

"Whats more important, revenge or protecting your family?"

"In the city, revenge is protection. I want that thing to suffer."

Cornelia took another sip. "If all goes well, it won't."

She eyed the awoken frankly. "There are many stories about you..."

"I'd wager most of them are exaggerated."

"If even a fraction of them are, though, I must ask..." Claudine paused. "Why?"

Cornelia leaned back in her chair and took another, longer, sip. "Why what?"

"Why do you still do this? You have been doing this for a long time, no? How long has it been?"

"That I've been shooting at things for money?" She was drafted by the Tower at the age of six. She had come from the lower regions of the City, the underworld known as Hell's Alley. No mere thug or crime lord resided there, but eliminators who practiced their deadly trade with finesses of the finest arts. Cornelia was being groomed to be one of these eliminators, if it was not for her ghost and her soon to be teacher finding her first. While caught in the act of trying to steal his pocket, the Hunter known as Cayde-6 gave her an option: the tower or her hand. Most would have chose the knife, but three square meals a day, and expert training made giving up the remainder of her short childhood seem like a fair trade. Like most guardians, she did what was expected. Go out into the wilderness, find scraps that supposedly came from the Golden Age, earn good loot, and kill the aliens. Lot and lots of aliens. It was the same, day in to day out. Even the legal bounties she was offered were too low of risk with even less of a reward. It was not until the was offered jobs inside the city where she go the thrill she had been wanting. The money was not half bad either.

"I don't know. Coming up on twenty-five years."

Everyone knew that the Traveler extended life into the far four-hundreds, but Awoken could hold onto their youth into their six-hundreds.

"You must be wealthy now." Claudine nodded at the sack of glimmer and strange coins on the table between them. " You command a substantial fee."

She reached over and hefted the bag, as if she could tell the value of the coins and glimmer by the weight. Cornelia had made made her fortunes and lost them. Glimmer was necessary to live, but she was prepared to leave it behind without hesitation in order to get out of a situation alive. She dropped the sack back on the table. "A girl's gotta eat, and work isn't a guarantee. I'll earn what I can, until I run into somebody better and then I die."

Claudine chuckled sweetly that made Cornelia blush slightly. "Why, you're an amoral, pragmatic fatalist. Are you sure you don't have human blood in you?" She shook her hand, already more serious. "I understand. I am bourgeoisie. My family rose from paysans to les hommes d'affaires with the power of some prestigious groups because our hard work and cunning. And now the business is mine to protect. I did not ask for this life, but when my family was murdered like dogs, this became my life. I had no choice." She finished her drink, the entire glass, with one powerful gulp. "Earn what you can, until you lose it to someone better. I like that."

Cornelia had found an odd fascination with this human. She seemed weak, but she had a inner fire in herself. The awoken huntress could not explain it, but she felt like she wanted to protect this girl. It would be safer and far more secure then dealing with black bounties. But even if it wasn't, it wasn't often that she debated philosophy with an employer.

XxXxXxX

The approaching figure was humanoid, dressed in heavy furs, and approximately five hundred yards away. The drifts were deep enough yet to for snowshows, but the footing along the rusted boneyard still had to be slippery. Regardless, the figure was moving quickly and confidently among the skeleton frames of discarded flying machines.

Lying prone in her insulated fears and water-resistant armor, Cornelia slowly removed the canvas lens cover from her telescopic sight and moved into her shooting position. Patience and Time's hand-guard rested gently on top of a petrified log. She never let the barrel rest against anything, as extra pressure from hand or rest could change the tension on the barrel and affect the accuracy. The platsteel and wood butt was set firmly against her shoulder. Her cheek rested on the stock. The cold glass of the telescopic sight had been coated with a special warlock chemical mixture to keep from fogging up once it was only an inch from the warmth of her face.

The magnifying scope enlarged everything a dramatic seven times, but unlike most it offered an extremely rare affect. While others made it look like they were staring down a long, dark pipe with an enhanced image at the end, Patience and Time allowed her to see everything without being seen. Cornelia found her potential target instantly.

The figure was a fallen dreg, a Reaver-class from the amount of healed battle damage. It cradled a shrapnel launcher like a mother would a newborn. Draped an its shoulder was a bearskin cloak, with the head of the beast pulled over its head. Problem is most fallen wore this as an allegiance to their new house, and Cornelia wasn't being paid ten-thousand pieces of glimmer just to kill any regular dreg. The most damning piece of evidence was also the most disturbing. It was wearing a large amount of dead ghosts around its neck and several hanging off the rifle. That was her target.

A cold tinge ran through Cornelia. Claudine did tell her she had sent many guardians after him, none of which had returned.

She settled for the creature to get closer. Her finger would remain indexed outside the trigger guard until she was ready to fire, but the simple, nearly invisible dot started to shift and twist then revert back to normal. Ikos wasn't alone, it brought help.

Cornelia could recall the first time she had killed her first stealth vandal. She had a hard time to explain it, but it was if nature and light subtly shifted around as it moved. She had taken no chances then and fired, but she couldn't do that now.

Five hundred yards. Her ghost murmured.

Still to far, and now she had to deal with four to six hidden vandals on top of Ikos. Timed right, she could take out Ikos and be gone before the hornets knew what kicked them. If not...

Four hundred meters.

Ikos paused for a second and seemed to study the rusted, snow covered ruins. Pointing to it, an current of electricity sparked into life and began to carve out the emblem of their house.

Ikos was cocky, Cornelia was sure. It believed that it was a rival house that was taking out its scouting parties. It was going to be wrong very soon.

Two hundred fifty yards.

Patience and Time was one of the most accurate firearms that has come out of the Golden Age and Cornelia was one of the best shots. She was deadly with the most cumbersome of rifles; a precision instrument like this simply increased her potential to buyers. Her rifle was a technological marvel, capable of shooting a two-inch target at one hundred yards. She could take Ikos from here but held on, having memorized the layout of every rock, bits of sparse plantlife, and many large abandoned ruins. The dreg was moving between some large rocks, which would provide it with some cover if she missed. Cornelia picked another spot: a mostly open clearing with no true cover for ten-yards in either direction. It would have to do.

Ever so slightly, Cornelia moved the finger of her right hand to bring to life back to them. Then she returned her hand to the firing position on Patience and Time's stock. The huntress shifted her body slightly, as to not put as much pressure on her chest. Her breathing was low and even.

Two hundred...

Ikos walked into the chosen clearing.

Cornelia placed the pad of her finger on the trigger. Half a pound of pressure was all it would take.

The small dot was no longer on the fallen but above and ahead of it. One of Cayde-6's lessons played out in her head. 'It took time for a bullet to travel through the air, so you had to lead the target, allowing the bullet to intersect with it.'

One ninety...

Ikos froze in place.

Cornelia did the same.

At this range the fallen's face was clearly visible through the powered sights. Somehow he knew something was wrong. A sound, smell - it didn't matter. Something was off, and that meant danger. Ikos turned, its hand blazing with with power.

Cornelia pulled the trigger. All the snow in the clearing exploded upward.

Patience and Time made a slight crack, and the recoil still thumped her shoulder, and the scope lifted. A wall of icy of energy crashed throughout the clearing, blowing snow and dirt everywhere and obscuring her target.Cursed magic! Cornelia calmly opened the action allowing the spent casing popped out. Closing the breach she peared down the sight again. Now, where did you run off too.

The chaos had died off and most of the snow fell back to the ground. The was no sign of Ikos.

Now came the tricky part. If the little bastard ran, Cornelia would have a shot, which meant Ikos wouldn't run - it would take cover and allow the remaining Vandals to search for her. If it had taken cover, it would use its own rifle out, and it would be searching for the attacker. The shrapnel rifle was only good at close range, so it would be the spotter.

It was not a complete lose though, the missed bullet had killed one of the invisible vandals and in the self-defense commotion had taken two others. Her radar indicated that there only three targets left, so she would have to use her remaining bullets wisely.

The air shimmered and swam as another vandal peaked out ever so slightly. That was its grievous mistake. The bullet tore through the creature's head, making ether erupt in its death cry. She found a sturdy stick, placed the fur over it, and then shoved it past her spider-hole. A second later the vandal spotted the movement of the fur and fired. The charged thin wire pierced the skin. Cornelia spotted the flash and the arc energy before she heard the shot. The fallen died just like its earlier companion. She moved the stick, letting the coat sway, and then hurled it out and down the cliff side.

Ikos and its remaining guard appeared from their cover, space magic and arc energy tore the furs to pieces thinking they were finishing a wounded opponent, unaware they were chasing empty cloth.

She realized her first mistake. The muzzle of Patience and Time poked out, and the active camouflage had dissolved.

Acting quickly, Cornelia disposed the final vandal guard but lost her chance to end Ikos quickly. It was already summoning a defensive spell, and the snow and wind exploded outward again, strong enough to redirect bullets. She wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice.

The targeting-dot danced across the torrent of ice and wind and earth. Over two days Cornelia had memorized every nuance of the surface. Ikos was in the clearing, no true cover except for its perversion of nature caused by its spacial magic. But there was nothing to trap him. No icicles to shoot down to scewer it, or hidden traps to ensnare it. Just the fallen dreg and her remaining round. Reloading would take too much time, and Ikos could be gone by then. Her heart hammered, but he felt only so cold so deep it burned. Her breath shot out in painful clouds of steam. She was in an awkward improvised position.

It would have been an extremely difficult shot on a nice day in the sun.

The bullet wants to hit the target. That is its destiny. I's the shooters weakness that stands in the way.

Cornelia Dubreau was a consummate professional, and she wasn't about to thwart the destiny of a bullet.

Adjust for distance. Compensate for wind. The targeting dot shook across the surface of the torrent. Hold over. Exhale. Squeeze.

Patience and Time made no noise as the recoil thumped her shoulder.

CRACK.

The bullet disappeared into the blizzard.

XxXxXxX

The young, reluctant leader of a merchant faction poured her one last drink.

Cornelia'd had too much, but the fire was nice, the room warm, the chair was comfortable, and it had been a long time since she had enjoyed the embrace of a beautiful young woman.

"Is that all there is to it, then, Nel? Survival? Money? Power? Is that all there is in life?" Claudine was a little drunk herself. "We do a job that makes us important and vital, and maybe we're good enough at it that we get to live longer. Is that it? You kill people, over and over and over. You've assassinated Cabal Colossi, Vex Gatelords, Hive Knights, including generals, politicians and priests - so many, for so long..."

"It's what I do."

"But why? I'm stuck. You're not. One job, that much glimmer, you could walk away, be a navigator or a gunsmith or something. You could choose another path. Why this one?"

That was a good question.

XxXxXxX

Ikos, the Baron of the House of Bears had been struck by the bullet. Its left arm was shot off. Its ether was draining out out of the missing limb, a gash in its head that had opened clear its skull. Its prized skin was soaked blue and coughing blood.

The sniper limped up to the fallen dreg. She'd retrieved her coat and had Patience and Time slung over her shoulder. This job was almost done.

Ikos looked up, showing confusion on its odd face. It did not recognize the woman who had ended its life.

"Why you?" It croaked out in its alien voice.

Cornelia Dubreau brought up Patience and Time to finish the job. "Because I'm the best."