Praxis-11

You look confused, soldier.  Of course the Hunter wants your boots.  They're nice boots.  Oh, he just wanted the one boot?  Well... they're like that.  Whatever they can put together that works.

I had this friend once.  A Hunter by trade.  Calmest, quietest little fellow.  Walked everywhere.  Liked to smell the roses, you know? No, I mean literally.  I saw him bend over and take a huge whiff in the Cosmodrome one time.  Full enviro-suit.  No air in-or-out.  Still, he stops, takes a huge bloom in his hand, and puts it to his face for a long, loving breath.  Hunters are weird.

I see you looking at me like that.  A Hunter?  As a friend?  Not really their way.  Bunch of loners.  Hardly ever see two of them in the same place, let alone playing nice.  Each one, thinking they're the best there is, the be all and end all.  But they're smarter than they look.. which I know, is not saying much.  They know there's things out there they can't handle... not alone, leastwise.  You ever had a hunter come up to you, and tell you they found a Hive hole that only a madman would try and clear?  Or a Wolfpack you'd need a deathwish to want to fight?  Yeah... They played you.  Used you as bait so they could get their work done.  And when it was over, you got their comm info from their Ghost right?

Yeah, that's friends to them.  Bait, friends, walking target, their vocab is pretty limited.  All that time in the field, talking to nobody but their Ghost. So yeah, they make friends.  Just not like you and I.  They want people they can hide behind, people that can flush out the target, not people to stand side by side with.  They figure if they're standing next to you then something's gone seriously wrong.

Anyway, this friend of mine.  We went way back.  He once waited in the same frozen hole in the ground for six days to get a shot at an Archon.  Just needed the one.  Rest of the group scattered as soon as their big buddy's head evaporated.

How do I know?  Oh I was there.  He called me after five days, said he found an Archon that needed killing, and where it was.  I told you, we were "friends".   So once I got good and swarmed, he got his shot.

After, he comes sauntering down the side of the hill he'd been dug in.  Takes him a good fifteen minutes to make it to my position.  Picks up a few stones on the way, pockets them.  Why? I dunno.  Maybe he likes rocks?  He didn't say.

Once he gets to me, gives me a little wave.  Like to say "Oh good, you made it".  And he pulls out that weird knife and just starts chopping on the Archon!  Like it was a buffalo.  I'm mid-sentence in talking about the fight and how I could have used some close support for the fiftieth time, and I just stop.  The guy is whistling while he works.

There's blue blood everywhere, he's soaked to the elbows.  Every once in a while he'll pull some mass of wires and neurons out, and hold it up for his Ghost.  It makes one of those intrigued beeps they make, and takes a scan before he chucks it over his shoulder.

I spend the next five minutes dodging Archon body parts.  Every once in a while, there's a mutter like "Oh this is good." or "Won't work, won't work... not compatible." or something similar.  Eventually he pauses, and sits stock-still... in that creepy way they do.  He turns around, and pulls his hood back to look at me.

"How've you been?" he asks me.  Completely soaking in blue alien blood, hands full of cybernetics, he's talking like he just bumped into me at the dispensary.

So I give him the full report, concise and thorough.  Takes a bit, haven't seen him in almost a year.  The whole time, the only thing that moves on him is his cloak in the wind.  He's like a statue.  I finish up, and ask him the same question.

"Good".  He tells me.  That's it.  One word.  We stare at each other for a minute or so.  Akward as you can imagine.  I'm just about to leave when he gets up and marches over to me, and with a flick of his knife he slices off my left cuisse.  All of it!  The whole damn thing, in one motion.  Didn't even know you could do that.  So now I'm shouting at him, no thigh armour, wondering what in the hells he thinks he's doing, when he clamps a piece of the Fallen Archon's forearm armour around my leg.  His ghost gives it a few blasts, and what do you know... best fitting, toughest piece of armour I've ever worn.

Yep, this piece right here.  Told me I favour my left leg forward in an engagement, it needs the most protection.  I never even noticed.  This piece here took a Vandal blade full swing not two days later... would have taken my leg clean off with the old armour.  Instead, the blade broke.  That guy saved my life.

That's why we need the Hunters.  That's why they get what they want when they come asking.  That's why you'll see old Titans happily hand over a piece of armour they've had for years.  A gun that's saved their lives a hundred times.  Any supplies they can.  Because those of us that have been around long enough see the fight how it is.  The Warlocks, bless 'em, are working every day to reclaim our past.  And us, we fight for the people here.  We hold the walls of the city against the darkness every day, fighting every battle to preserve the present.  You won't see a Hunter on the walls with you, you won't catch them in The Breach fighting back wave after wave to keep the City safe today.  And you should be glad.  Because while we fight for what we have, they're out there trying and dying to find us something better.

Don't let them fool you with the machismo and the bravado, it's not the next big kill or the next great fight they're hunting for.  They're hunting for a future. For our future.  And you'd best hope they find it, because there's fewer of us every day.  I'll hold this city until I can't draw one breath more, but I've had lots of squadmates that said the same thing.  And they did just that. We can't do it forever.

So when a Hunter asks for your boot, you give it to him.  And you hope that he's wearing it when he finds the way to get us out of this mess.