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Orbital Anomaly (Destiny 2 / SIGNALIS)

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A Summary of Destiny for the Readers that are Primarily Fans of Signalis
  • Informational
    • I have received messages that people may not be familiar with Destiny lore, since some readers come from the Signalis side of the crossover.

    This is a summary of Destiny's lore.


    Once upon before a time, there was a Garden. In the Garden there was a Gardener, who planted universes; and a Winnower, who reaped them. The Gardener didn't like that all universes eventually fell to the same pattern whereas the Winnower considered this majestic. Hence the Gardener injected herself into reality as a set of rules to disrupt this pattern, taking form as the Traveler. The Winnower, not to be outdone, did so as well, taking form as (probably) the Veil.

    The Traveler is of Light, a wavelength of space magic concerning the material world. The Veil is of Darkness, a different wavelength of space magic concerning the mental world.

    The Traveler is found by the Precursors. Through her blessings, they became prosperous, but sought meaning in a universe that didn't have it. The Traveler, despite their worship, never talked to them (she believes in ultimate free will - by talking to anyone, by offering guidance, she would be taking away their ability to choose). They became obsessed with the Final Shape, a complicated piece of philosophy about ending all suffering in reality by freezing all things in a moment in time.

    The Precursors found the Veil, and attempted to link it to the Traveler to gain godlike power to reshape reality into the Final Shape. Only through linking the Traveler and the Veil are the Precursors able to gain control over the material (Light) and the mental (Dark). The Traveler disagrees and leaves. The Precursors, filled with anger, engage in mass suicide and link their minds with the Veil into a hive mind called the Witness - because it shall Witness the Final Shape of all reality. They make Disciples, devoted followers hell-bent on enacting the Final Shape.

    For eons, the Traveler and Witness are locked in a cycle: the Traveler blesses a civilisation, the Witness and its Disciples arrive and genocide them, and the Traveler leaves.

    Eventually, the Traveler finds Earth. She gives us a Golden Age. During the Golden Age, Exominds are created as a form of human immortality via transplanting human minds into machine bodies. Fran-11 is one such Exo. '11' means that he has been rebooted 10 times, prior to his resurrection. (If a person were made an Exo, their first designation is [Name]-1. A reboot iteratively increases this number. An Exo that has been rebooted once is [Name]-2, twice [Name]-3, et cetera.)

    The Witness' forces arrive, and begin to genocide mankind. For some reason, the Traveler does not run. It stays, and repels the Witness. Savathûn, a Disciple candidate, kills Disciple Nezarec and steals the Veil to hide it on Neptune.

    Injured, the Traveler falls unconscious, but not before creating Ghosts: little parcels of its power (the Light) to search out dead humans are resurrect them.

    Humanity collapses into a Dark Age. Three groups of humans survive.
    • On Earth, Light-bearing Warlords wreak havoc. Eventually, a group of Warlords called 'the Iron Lords' agree to use their powers for good, eventually leading to the construction of the Last City, somewhere in Peru (probably). The Iron Lords are wiped out (with two survivors) after they piss off Rasputin, a Golden Age defensive AI.
      • Lightbearers wield the Light, a form of space magic.
      • Unless their Ghosts are dead, they are immortal.
    • On Neptune, survivors hide themselves on Neomuna. They find out that the Veil has been hidden on Neptune and use it as the basis of their technologies.
    • In space, a group of humans emerge from a singularity after being caught between the Witness and the Traveler. Millions of years have passed within the singularity. They emerge as the Awoken to help their brethren in Sol.
    The City Age begins. Earthbound humans consolidate in the Last City. Lightbearers become civilised, and are now sworn to protect mankind. They are called Guardians.
    • Guardians have three Classes: Hunters, Warlocks and Titans.
    • This is primarily a psychological thing. A Lightbearer could be all three, or none at all.
    • It is a useful framework to learn the Light.
    Around this time, aliens arrive in Sol.
    • The Fallen, insectoid space pirates.
      • Their species is Eliksni.
      • They are salty that the Traveler abandoned them for humanity.
      • They are divided into factions called Houses.
    • The Cabal, space turtle rhino Imperial Romans.
      • They are here to conquer Sol.
    • The Vex, the original pattern that dominated all realities in the Garden Before Time.
    • The Hive, a race of undead bugs that become more powerful when they kill.
      • They would have been blessed by the Traveler, but were instead tricked by the Witness and its minions into becoming servants of Darkness.
      • They hate the Light, viewing it as the antithesis of their philosophy, the Sword Logic, and come to kill us all.
      • Savathûn is one of the Big Three Hive Gods, she is of Cunning. Xivu Arath, of War; Oryx, King of the Hive.
    The Guardian, the Main Character, is resurrected at an old Russian Cosmodrome. They will become legend.


    As of the in-story calendar in Chapter 1, the Last City is searching for a path into the Traveler, after the Witness found the Veil on Neptune and carved a path into the Traveler enact its Final Shape. The Last City has become allies with the House of Light, a group of Eliksni led by Mithrax, Kell of Light. They seek peace with humanity unlike other Houses. The Last City has also become allied with the Imperial Cabal / Cabal Ascendancy, a group of Cabal lead by Empress Caiatl. The Imperial Cabal are refugees from what remains of the former Cabal Empire, after their homeworld and many territories were attacked and destroyed by Xivu Arath.
     
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  • Informational
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    15. Ingress [OLD VERSION]
  • Apocrypha
    • Fran clawed his way back to consciousness, a keening sound in his ears and lancing pain in his skull as a million different trains of thought fought for his attention. He'd never been hungover in this life – a perk of being an Exomind, and a side effect of being a bookish Warlock – but if this was even a measure of what being hungover was like for everyone else, then he counted himself lucky for never having to experience this mess.

    He took wheezing breaths through artificial lungs as he weakly struggled against his restraints. He needed someone to turn off that damnable overhead light, which might as well have been the Sun for all he cared. "Too bright," he mumbled.

    The light seemed to blink, then moved away. "He's awake," the light spoke, relieved.

    Fran squinted at the light. "Charlie? Is that you?" he asked blearily.

    "Sure is, partner," Charlie answered cheerily as his shell came into focus. "Just a few more scans and we'll have you up and about."

    "More quietly, please," he groaned, Charlie's too-loud voice sounding like gongs in his head. It did not mix well with the headache.

    "Oh, sorry," Charlie whispered, beams of Light lancing forth to scan Fran. Charlie continued to bob around the Warlock, along with Sidonia and Sparkles as they continued their evaluations, Sparkles conversing with Hafiz and Wei Jie in low tones while Sidonia worked in silence.

    Sparkles came to an abrupt stop, shell twisting in confusion. "Fran-11," he began. "Did you have this stun baton with you when we strapped you in? I thought that we disarmed you?"

    "...no, I'm pretty sure I didn't?" Fran asked in confusion.

    "Because that's a stun baton, right there, under your coat. I see it." Sparkles transmatted the item onto a side table. "Weird one, too. Not like the others we've been seeing, this thing is unusually dense. Scans are returning all kinds of weird on material analysis."

    Fran's mind cogitated. "I think…I got that from the dream I had. I was fighting a Nightmare, and I stole that from it."

    The three Ghosts immediately stopped to share a look. Charlie flew in close to Fran's face, shell 'petals' wide.

    "Fran," he said slowly. "Did you just say that you fought a capital-'n' Nightmare?"

    "Yes, I did. The stun baton must have followed me back into realspace," he said absentmindedly. The phenomenon was not unknown – The Guardian and Ikora Rey's Hidden had staged expeditions, sponsored by Häkke, into the mindscape of the late Emperor Calus, where they had managed to bring weapons back from Calus' Nightmare-infested mind.

    His Ghost seemed to sigh. "This is going to be a long debrief," he groaned. Sidonia wordlessly commiserated, somehow exuding tired annoyance through a glare.

    Fran paused in his thinking as he parsed the data that Ariane had passed onto him. "You have no idea how long the debrief is going to be, Charlie."


    Needless to say, the news that the Fireteam was tangling with an agent of the Witness brought about no small amount of commotion. Wei Jie, upon finding out, had jumped out of his seat and shouted while shaking a fist at the ceiling, "Traveler damn you Murphy!"

    "Who's Murphy?" Hafiz asked quizzically.

    "Apparently, either a pre-Golden Age prophet of doom or an aeronautical engineer. The Cryptarchy's records are unclear," Fran elucidated as Wei Jie continued to rant.

    Ariane's tale had given them hope, however – and determination. Previously, the Fireteam had thought themselves well and truly stuck on Leng, but the knowledge that the barrier was being kept up to contain the Red Eye became a motivator. They now had a path out of here, and a path in for Vanguard reinforcements – no matter how convoluted the path was, it was still better than nothing. The news that they were not truly stranded on Sierpinski caused Wei Jie to whoop and cheer. Even the taciturn Hafiz quirked a small smile. The good news was like a balm on their souls, Fran thought with a grin.

    But Hafiz's smile quickly faded once Fran began explaining the Penrose-512's suicide mission and how Ariane had been risking her life against the Red Eye. The knowledge galled the Titan to no end. Hafiz had become quiet as Fran relayed his intel on Ariane's endless combat against the Red Eye, as well as how she got into the entire mess in the first place. He would have been mistaken by anyone less familiar with him for being calm, but Wei Jie and Fran both knew that he was pissed by the rapid clenching and unclenching of his fists. The creaking of his armoured gauntlets punctuated Fran's words.

    Wei Jie smiled to himself at Hafiz's righteous anger. "Typical chivalrous Titan," he chuckled.

    Many Titans considered themselves the bulwark against which the Darkness broke, and the wall that kept Lightless civilians safe from danger. Hafiz was no exception. The very notion that the Eusan Nation would send its own people off to a certain death for, what, propaganda? Was borderline heresy to Hafiz. That, and the discovery that the Red Eye had been responsible for the Eusan Nation's incredible awfulness in its attempt to generate Disciple candidates had set his temper aflame.

    Needless to say, the Titan of the Fireteam was the most motivated of them all to put a City-standard twelve-gauge slug in whatever the Red Eye had for a brain.

    As the Warlock and Titan began to hash out a plan to penetrate all the way to Sierpinski-23's core and to link up with LSTR-512, Wei Jie fiddled with the stun baton that Fran had retrieved from the Dream. Or had the stun baton followed him? You could never tell with paracausal weapons, he thought.

    "Hey, Fran!" he interrupted. Fran looked back at Wei Jie from a whiteboard. The Warlock and Titan had been busy filling it with diagrams, charts and doodles. A preliminary plan to ingress into the lower levels of Sierpinski-23 and to skip the various middle layers was scribbled on a corner.

    "Yes, Wei Jie?" Fran asked.

    "I wanted to ask about this Baton. How did you get this, anyhow?"

    "Ah, that." Fran nodded as he set down his marker. "I was unarmed in the dream, but faced a particularly aggressive Nightmare, one of a STCR Replika."

    Hafiz grunted. "If even half of the reports on the cruelty of Storches or Protektor squads are true, then no wonder there's a Nightmare of one."

    "Thank you, Hafiz. Anyway," Fran cleared his throat. "I used a bit of steel pipe I found as a makeshift weapon. I was able to stun the Nightmare by overcharging it with Arc, but that destroyed the steel pipe, obviously."

    Fran gestured at Wei Jie with an open palm. The Hunter nodded and tossed the baton at Fran, who caught it with a flourish. "I noticed that the STCR Nightmare had dropped its baton, so I went for it. It was surprisingly effective."

    Fran passed it to Hafiz. "It has a special effect. When I supplied it with Arc, it became stronger. Damn thing nearly knocked the Nightmare out with the resulting Arc blast."

    "Sounds useful," Hafiz nodded. "But best not to use it as a primary weapon, at least for now. We don't know enough about it."

    "No," Fran disagreed. "I know my Nightmares, unlike you lot. Didn't get this–" he materialised Arc Logic into his hands, "–for show, you know." Arc Logic was one of many weapons enhanced by Eris Morn for combat against Nightmares. The anti-Nightmare charms adorning the rifle clinked as Fran gestured with it.

    Fran dismissed Arc Logic back into subspace, then took the baton back from Hafiz. "I know when a Nightmare-derived item is hostile and best incinerated. Served as an assistant on the mindscape expeditions, you know," he pointed a thumb at himself. Both Hafiz and Wei Jie could only nod. Neither of them were stupid or uninformed, but their understanding of Light and Dark were a puddle compared to the Warlock's understanding in depth and width.

    Fran demonstratively waved the baton. In its wake, the Guardians present could almost hear a whisper over the perpetual hum of the HVAC. Fran continued, "True, the baton is…alive?"

    He paused to scratch his chin in consideration. "'Alive' is not quite the right word, but the baton does carry a limited consciousness. I can tell that it isn't hostile to us. Ambivalent? Maybe. All I can tell is that it's hungry. And besides," he turned to Hafiz, "The best way to become familiar with a weapon is to use it."

    Hafiz sighed and rubbed his temples. "If you insist. Just telling you, if something goes wrong, I'm telling you 'I told you so'."

    Wei Jie perked up. "Dibs on your loot?" He joked. Fran returned an unamused roll of the eyes.


    The mission began normally (as normal as possible in anything could be 'normal' in an unstable time loop). Restocked with ammunition and supplies, they set forth from Level One's reinforced base. Their helmets sported new extensions, synthesised from salvaged KLBR biocomponents.

    It was untested, but Fran theorised that the reworked emitters would blunt any bioresonant telepathic attack, to prevent the previous incident of KLBR exposure knocking them all out. It might even help to curtail the Red Eye's ability to surveil them, he'd optimistically stated.

    "Only time would tell," Hafiz dryly replied.

    The Fireteam returned to S-23's Worker's Quarters, then began to find a way deeper. The elevators in the main lobby looked promising, but the sole functioning elevator stubbornly insisted on an electronic key that they didn't have.

    Fran had begun to splice into the system before Wei Jie simply pointed out that they could just jump into the adjacent empty elevator shaft and arrest their fall with a double jump.

    "Broken legs? What are those, a mortal joke I'm too old to get?" Wei Jie laughed. Fran had grumbled, but acceded. The simpler way was often the less complicated way, after all.

    Hafiz led the way, taking point as he customarily did. He racked Wastelander's lever once, nodded at the Fireteam (Wei Jie returned a thumbs-up) before leaping in.

    As he neared the bottom, he willed the Light into his legs. Lift activated midair to arrest his fall. As he bled kinetic energy, he felt his stomach flip as he slowed to a gentle stop.

    He landed on the bottom of the shaft with a wet crunch.

    That's not right, he thought to himself. He experimentally flexed his toes – no pain. He hadn't broken his feet, and plus, he'd arrested his momentum mid-air with a minor application of Light. So what was he stepping in?

    He directed his helmet camera downwards before his eyes widened. A jolt of shock ran down his spine as he felt his breath quicken.

    The comms crackled. Wei Jie asked, "Hafiz, what happened? Your vitals just spiked."

    Hafiz gingerly stepped backwards out of the hollow shaft, brushing past torn strips of black-and-yellow barricade tape as he quickly scanned his surroundings for hostiles.

    His choler rose as he felt the oily pressure of a Darkness Zone wash over him as he stepped over the threshold of the elevator shaft.

    The room was decrepit, but it was clear of hostiles. But the cloying sensation of the Darkness Zone remained.

    His eyes returned to the pile, rapidly searching the pile for signs of life as his heart hammered in his chest like an excited jackrabbit. Scanners returned 'negative' on life signs, but even so he kept Wastelander M5's muzzle squarely aimed at the pile.

    He keyed the comms, voice uncharacteristically shaky. "Fireteam, advising caution. There's a Darkness Zone here, and I've got a pile, no, a mountain of LSTR corpses here. There must be nearly a hundred of the things here!"


    A/N: originally, the Fireteam was supposed to traverse into the Medical Ward, the. the Old Medical Ward and fight the MNHR there, but then I realised: these are Guardians on a mission. Why wouldn't they leap down an elevator shaft? Replika and Gestalt medical supplies aren't really necessary for a Guardian anyway.
     
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  • Apocrypha
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    List of Acquired Weapons
  • Sidestory
    • PROTEKTOR
      • SIDEARM // KINETIC
      • What lies beyond that black Gate?
    • EINHORN
      • HAND CANNON // KINETIC
      • Everyone's falling ill. I'm not sure if the quarantine will stop the spread.
    • STICHVERLETZUNG
      • SHOTGUN // ARC
      • She got sick, and everyone else is getting sick, too.
    • STAHLREGEN
      • [EXOTIC] MACHINE GUN // SOLAR
      • It must be the fault of the damned thing. Send as many forces as it takes. This infection must be contained.
    • STROMSCHLAG
      • ??? // ARC
      • ???
     
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  • Sidestory
    • ANNOUNCEMENT: RE-WRITING OF CHAPTERS 12-15 IN LIGHT OF FEEDBACK
  • Informational
    • Hi, after some feedback on SpaceBattles, I came to the conclusion that I have been rushing my story, and I messed up the Ariane encounter. The encounter with Ariane was too 'easy', as it were. The answers were given to Fran-11 and the Fireteam with barely any work. Ariane appears and info-dumps on everyone.

    Chapters 12 to 15 will be redone. Apologies to everyone.
     
  • Informational
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    12. I WILL MAKE YOU BLEED
  • Threadmarks
    • C4d said:
    Stromschlag is just electric shock
    Sturmschlag would be stormstrike.

    So both would work, with the first being something the weapon would be called in Signalis and the second being a more Destiny-like weapon name by associating it with Stormcaller.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Thanks. I was going for 'electric shock' so I'll keep the name. Good to know I didn't get it wrong.

    Here is Chapter 12 rewritten. It is minimally different from the original Chapter 12. The biggest difference is how it ends.


    I have to end this quickly.

    Fran-11 immediately raised his arm, years of close-quarters experience taking over as he braced for impact. Simultaneously, he condensed a Flashbang into his left palm, mentally counting down as the Storch approached.

    Then, the Storch slammed into the metal pipe with a crash, forcing Fran backwards as his arm shook from the impact. He charged himself with Void Light as he dropped the Flashbang at his feet. As the Flashbang hit the ground, he dodged another haymaker from the Storch and flung a Fusion Grenade onto the Storch. As the Nightmare struggled with the sparking Fusion Grenade, Fran threw himself backwards with a Blink, heart pounding like a jackhammer.

    In moments, the Flashbang and Fusion Grenades detonated in a scream of blinding Arc and howling Solar. Fran's visor automatically polarised in response as he charged his legs with Arc to dash back forward, the crude metal pipe swinging down as he overcharged the crude weapon.

    The metal pipe connected with a slam, and Fran felt something deform under its impact with a sickening crunch. But in the same instant, the Storch lunged out with an arm and seized Fran's neck.

    Fran felt his eyes bulge out and his throat choke as the Storch lifted him to eye level, its rictus grin replaced by rage, eyes narrowed and teeth clenched. Oxidant openly poured from a blackish wound on its deformed cranium, drenching its hair and face red. Its external plating had become darkened with soot.

    It roared at him, a scream more animal than human that echoed in Fran's skull, every last decibel promising violence and torture.

    It raised its other hand to show Fran the sparking stun baton. His eyes widened for a moment before the Storch slammed it into his chest, servos and artificial muscles seizing painfully as Fran shouted in agony.

    The shout emboldened the Nightmare, who leaned in to leer at Fran. It opened its maw and laughed at Fran in a guttural, grinding snarl.

    Fran took a breath as he spasmed and looked within, willing dormant subroutines to activate as his mind frantically raced to plan a route of attack. As in-built Exomind combat instincts kicked in, he felt his mind sharpen and the pain dull as he regained control of his body. Steely determination replaced fear as he evaluated his options.

    Ignoring the lingering discomfort, he gathered his Light, reared his head and then slammed it into the Nightmare with as much force as he could bear. As the steel prongs on the edge of the Crown punched into the Storch with a crunch, he discharged the stored Light into the Storch with a roar.

    As if struck by lightning, the Storch was thrown backwards by an explosion of force, a high-pitched scream tearing itself from its throat as uncontrolled Arc energies were let loose into its body, ripping up armour and tearing open wounds. It landed with a crack on the concrete floor, writhing in excruciating pain as the Arc currents continued to wreak havoc in search for a ground.

    Fran was flung back as well; with a minor force of will, he called his Light to bear to arrest his momentum to bring him to a stop on the concrete. He lay there, panting as he flushed his body with healing Solar Light. The wounds on his synthetic skin and inside his artificial organs were sealed shut, as if they had never been there in the first place.

    He grunted as he stood up, then looked down with a grimace. The metal pipe in his hand had been blackened with soot and was ripped open at the seams. It was too deformed now; one more strike would likely shatter it to pieces.

    "The Arc energies must have exacerbated existing stress fractures…tch."

    Fran tossed the broken pipe to the side where it landed with a clang. He took a look at the Nightmare; it had finally stopped seizing, and had started to climb back to its feet. It was smoking and looked pissed.

    Fran gritted his teeth and swivelled his head. "Need a weapon, need a weapon…" But the room was empty, save for the other howling Nightmares that laughed and screamed in equal measure. His eyes then fell upon the Storch's stun baton, which lay on the floor where it had been dropped.

    Fran emptied his mind and called forth the Void, Blinking forwards and scooping the stun baton off the ground. He turned to look at the Storch and winced. If it was pissed earlier, it was now furious. Its face was contorted in anger, the very shadows seeming to bend inwards at it.
    Handshake.
    He looked down at the newly acquired baton and gave it a few swings, feeling his eyebrows raise. Unlike the usual plastic flimsies in the real world, the baton in his hands felt sturdy, more…permanent, even. The weapon seemed to call to him, begging him to give it power. It clearly wasn't a normal stun baton.
    Assurance.
    He ignored his nagging doubts. There was a proper time and place for tangling with dream logic, and it wasn't here.

    The Warlock took a keen eye at the Storch. It bled from every inch of skin, the previous Arc blast having done nothing good for it. Its stance was unstable and its gait was weak.

    You're hurt, huh? Good.

    He took a combat stance, leaning forward as he held the baton in a guard. He raised his left hand and curled his palm in a taunt – "come get me".

    The Storch exploded with force, lashing forwards in a blink. In moments it had returned to melee distance, black polymer fists raining down on Fran in a flurry of enraged blows. Fran grunted as he backpedaled, his entire being laser-focussed on keeping out of the way. His eyes keenly tracked the Storch's movements for holes in its defence.

    Eventually, the Storch overextended and stumbled, its eyes fractionally widening as it fell.

    I've got you now.

    Fran stepped forward under the Storch's guard, then rammed the stun baton with two hands into its gut in one smooth motion.
    Incitement.
    The Nightmare roared in pain, spraying blood and gore over Fran. Fran felt himself grin under his helmet as he pulled on his Arc Light and pushed it into the Replika.

    In a burst of Light, the baton in his hands greedily drank from him, then discharged everything in a single, blinding spray.
    Retaliate.
    The paracausal lightning lanced through the Nightmare, Arc ripping electrons from atoms and tearing molecules apart. The Storch bulged once then detonated in a shockwave that flung Fran to the ground. It screamed one last time, a howl that pierced Fran's very being and echoed through his mind as the reddish-black light disappeared from the room.

    Gore and oxidant were thrown outwards, staining the concrete red and splashing viscera onto Fran who lay flat on the ground, panting. He began to laugh hysterically. "Still got it," he chuckled as his laughter subsided, the tension leaving him with each breath.

    Click.

    But he instantly became alert as the cryo-pod in front of him began to hiss open.

    Fran leapt to his feet, stun baton at the ready as he watched the cryo-pod release its coolant gases, which pooled around his feet. He felt his heart rapidly thump in his chest as he surveyed the opening pod.

    Fran tensed as he saw the dense, opaque gas dissipate. But the pod was empty – save for the winding, ice-slicked tunnel in the pod that extended far beyond what his eyes could see.

    "That clearly violates the geometries of the Penrose," he mused, before shrugging. "Ah well, this isn't the strangest mindscape I've been in."

    He took a moment to look over himself – no major injuries, although he casted his Rift anyway. It didn't hurt to be cautious. He felt his aches disappear and his spirit lighten as the Light reinvigorated him.

    A survey of the room didn't reveal any more useful items, or any other path forward. Nothing for it but to jump in, he thought as he more closely inspected the tunnel. To his helm-mounted sensor suite, it might as well not have been there. A clear sign of paracausal activity.

    He gave a glance down at the newly acquired stun baton. Visually, it looked the same as any other of the stun batons wielded by corrupted STARs in Sierpinski-23. In his hands, though, it felt a lot different. It was sturdier. Weighty. Seemed more real, somehow.
    Certainty.
    Fran probed it with his Light, and flinched as he felt it drink deeply from him. He immediately drew back, a stirring of something like fear in his chest.
    Energised.
    This thing was alive. And it was hungry.

    Fran shook his head. He didn't much care for weird paracausal weapons; the cautionary tale of Rezyl Azzir's fall from grace and Dredgen Yor's rise to infamy – all influenced by the notorious cannon Thorn – came to the forefront of his mind.

    "Don't much fancy becoming the next schmuck to doom himself," he mused as he raised the baton to eye level. He squinted at the innocuous object. Helmet sensors picked up nothing more than what he already knew. More paracausal nonsense.

    Fran shook his head. He didn't have much of a choice, stranded in a mindscape without his weapons, a Fireteam, or Charlie. No choice but to roll with what he had – even if it was a dodgy paracausal weapon of questionable sentience.

    "...agh, damn it." He strode forward and lifted himself into the cryopod, feet pointed straight into the tunnel as he sat on the lip of the cryopod's edge. His fingers tightly gripped onto the cryopod as he gave a final look to the room around him.

    He took a breath, braced for impact, and let go.

    WEAPONS ACQUISITIONS:​


    STROMSCHLAG
    ???
    ???
     
  • Threadmarks
    • 13. Effigy
  • Threadmarks
    • Franciszek-11 grimaced, winds blowing hard in his face as he slid down the tunnel at breakneck speeds. Despite the fieldweave in his coat, the unnatural chill in the tunnel seemed to seep into his very bones.

    He could have called for Solar Light to warm himself, but his sense of practicality won him over. He still had a connection to the Light – through Charlie in realspace, probably – but it was still a good idea to limit his use of it. Without Charlie physically present, who knew how stable the connection was? Fran didn't want to find out. So he grimaced and persisted.

    He ignored the flashes of half-remembered memories that zipped through his mind. He never much cared for the cold, which he guessed was a lingering artefact of his past life. From the place that Charlie had found him, it was pretty clear that the previous Fran-11 had died of hypothermia. The biting winds and hostile freeze that permeated Europa could overwhelm even an Exomind, to say nothing of the Vex that patrolled its surface.

    Fran blinked as he saw a light at the end of the tunnel that seemed to grow in size. He keyed the helmet's auto-zoom. The tunnel was about to end. From what he could see, the tunnel terminated in a room of some sort. He readied the baton. It almost seemed to jump into his fingers.
    Excitement.
    Not wanting to be flung out at neck-breaking speeds, Fran willed the Light into his legs and pushed against his own momentum. Before long, he was slowing down, the Light draining him of his kinetic energy. And not long after, he was ejected from the tunnel.

    Bleeding the last of his speed with his boots, Fran found himself in…an office? The room seemed to have been frozen in time. Greyish-blue statues of men and women in uniform were locked mid-step, paused in their hurry to destinations unseen. Frozen effigies sat at desks, managing paperwork and operating boxlike computers. Above him, a large eye-like lamp hung from the ceiling.

    Without an immediate threat, he holstered the baton, feeling the tension drain from him.
    Disappointment.
    Where was he? Somewhere in the Eusan Nation for sure, he thought as he glanced at the agitprop that covered the walls. The Germanic and Chinese-derived text of the Eusan Nation had become familiar to him. He took a moment to survey the s[ace as his eyes paused on a large name-plate on the wall ahead of him. 'Penrose.'

    An admin area relating to Penrose-512, no doubt, he thought. The numerical designation on the ship's name definitely seemed to imply the presence of other Penrose ships. So why was he being shown this?

    "I'm in a mindscape," he mulled as he glanced around him. "The mindscape of someone involved with Penrose-512, maybe?" The ship did look like it had accommodations for human crewmates. The spent ration packs, the evidence of organic waste, and the faint traces of carbon dioxide in Penrose-512's compartments did add onto this idea. It would have been impossible for the LSTR to generate all that, it being a machine and all, he mused.

    So was this the mind of the inactive LSTR they discovered? Or that unseen human crew? What was the next step? What should he be looking for? Who was that elusive human crewmate of Penrose-512? And what did all of this have to do with the female voice he'd heard while brain-blasted by the mutant KLBR?

    In spite of the possible danger, in spite of having been separated from everyone else, in spite of everything, Fran rubbed his hands together in glee. A good question to a Warlock was like candy to a child.

    "Love me a good puzzle," he smiled. Was it stereotypically Warlock of him? Yes.

    "Thankfully," Fran said, "There's no one here to judge me for it. So, clues, clues, clues. Where can I find some clues?"

    Fran walked through the office. He ripped open drawers and pressed keys on computers. Cabinets were flung open and folders were scanned.

    Yet answers remained elusive. The mindscape hadn't generated much in detail. Drawers were empty, and so were the cabinets. The computers were hollow. Paper folders were blank. But Fran was determined, and more than a little motivated. In spite of all this, his grin grew wider.

    "I'm on a trip," he hummed. "To find some clues."

    But as he skipped to another row of cubicles, navigating around several frozen EULR androids, he saw something at the corner of his eye.

    Colour.

    He skidded to a stop, boots squeaking on concrete as he made an abrupt turn. The helmet's auto-zoom kicked in.

    There, three rows over. A woman, in colour, sitting opposite to a frozen EULR, facing away from him. Her motion frozen in time like everyone else. Her white hair and red-black uniform stood out in the sea of bluish-grey.

    "Got you," he said. He had a lead on the case. But as Fran stepped forward, he hesitated before drawing the baton.
    Eagerness.
    He was sure that it was stationary, like everything else, but there wasn't harm in taking caution.

    He stepped forward, baton high, ready to swing down on the woman if she moved. But as he approached, nothing happened. The silver-haired woman remained motionless. Fran relaxed, but kept the baton at his side. He keyed the helmet's sensor suite as he surveyed her.

    The woman's face was scrunched in something like annoyance, or maybe doubt? Fran wasn't sure. She was pretty, in a classical sense: she had high cheekbones and a pointed chin. Her features were a little imperious, like how the royalty in a fairy tale would have looked, but her beauty wasn't perfect. She was bruised, and was scarred in places. She wore a small bandage on her cheek. Her red eyes were hardened, her body language defensive. This was someone who had faced hardship.

    "Haven't lived an easy life, have you, miss?" Fran mused. Scans returned empty. The entire room might as well have been nonexistent to the scanner. Fran dismissed the results. It wouldn't be of much use here.

    He turned to the forms. Unlike the blank pieces of paper that littered the room, these sheets of paper were fully filled in. They were dense with text: lines and lines of legalese, bare-faced propaganda, and a hundred different answer fields. He occasionally looked up from his reading. The woman remained still, but he couldn't…

    Was she looking at him? Fran squinted at the woman. Just a trick of the light, he eventually concluded. The young woman's stare remained affixed on the table before her.

    Fran suppressed his paranoia. Being alone had that effect on him.

    He returned to scanning the documents, his brain working overtime as he analysed the text and committed important details to memory, all while he considered the clues he'd found.

    The woman before him was probably the unseen human crewmate of the doomed Penrose-512. And she was probably the source of the mindscape, given how she alone was the sole person highlighted in the office.

    He glanced back at her. She remained motionless. He looked back at the forms. These were definitely forms for signing up for the Penrose space exploration programme. This confirmed that this woman, and by extension, the source of this mindscape – whoever she was – had been a human crewmate on Penrose-512.

    He sighed. "That's hell you're walking into," he murmured. The woman's conspicuous absence on the derelict scout ship – and the damaged LSTR-512 – gave Fran no illusions that something terrible must have happened to her.

    He frowned as he looked on the young lady. Was she also the voice that spoke to him? Occam's Razor said: 'Yes', but Fran wasn't sure.

    Fran's mind cogitated on the clues and details he had gleaned from the mindscape. Here was a woman, possibly the missing human crewmate of Penrose-512. He had possibly received a psychic message from her, and now stood in her mindscape, where he watched her sign up for her doom in the Penrose programme.

    Why had she invited him into her mindscape? That was the only explanation for his presence here. She was trying to communicate a message with him, but what was the message? Why couldn't she talk normally? Was she unable, or unwilling? Why was she missing from Penrose-512? Some vestige of her consciousness was clearly extant.

    "Curiouser and curiouser," Fran-11 hummed.

    Did she have anything to do with the barrier that surrounded Leng? What about the non-Euclidean space that now encompassed the interior of Penrose-512? Spatial manipulation in two connected places. Fran's gut told him: "this was no mere coincidence." Was the woman before him the cause of these phenomena? She definitely had some paracausal power, to contact him psychically.

    He shook his head. Focus. Read now, extrapolate later.

    He continued to scan the documents before him, before he finally came to a group of boxes where the young lady had filled in her particulars – blood type, ID code, and name.

    "Ariane Yeong, huh…that's who you are."
    Great holes secretly are digged​
    An exhale. Not from him.
    where Earth's pores ought to suffice.​
    Fran shot up, primal fear rising in his chest. The baton was once again at the ready.
    And things have learned to walk​
    Ariane Yeong was looking straight at him.
    that ought to crawl.​
    Fran felt his heart leap into his chest, decades of combat instinct frozen by overwhelming primal fear.
    I am Ariane Yeong.​
    Ruby orbs stared unblinkingly. Fran could see himself reflected in those eyes. A thousand voices screamed at him to bolt and another thousand screamed at him to strike.
    Franciszek-11.​
    She blinked, and–
    I have a message for you.​
    [SIGNAL LOST]​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Potato said:
    Hell if I know, I'm not German and I stole the word from German Wikitionary.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I had nothing against the name, just thought Sturmschlag sounded cooler. But C4d put it best. In Signalis your name would fit better since it fits with the literal and boring naming conventions while my name would fit into Destiny and the more metaphorical naming.
     
    14. Resolve
  • Threadmarks
    • For one moment, there was nothing. No sight. No sound. A total sensory blackout. Not even a hint of proprioception or sense of place remained.
    DETECTION // HIGH-LEVEL INTRUSIONS.​
    In the next, a scene. Light. Black stone, as far as the eye could see, under a red sky. And above it all, a red-coloured eye. Watching.
    ASSESSMENT // PAWNS OF THE GARDENER.​
    A towering woman stood under an arch of black stone. She wore a crown of golden laurels. She was adorned with three red diamonds. At her feet lay uncounted cadavers.
    ASSESSMENT // PLAN JEOPARDISED.​
    A pulse of wrongness washed over him.
    RESPONSE // LAUNCH ANALYSIS.​
    [This is the Gate. Don't be fooled – it's underground. Destroy it.]
    REPLY // MEASURES INSUFFICIENT.​
    The red eye blinked. Static filled his mind. The scene faded, like paint under the sun.
    ACTION // N-TYPES DEPLOYED.​
    Again, darkness. A sense of falling – hypnagogic jerk without the impulse to wake up. An itch to scratch, but no limbs to do so. Pressure from all sides. Taphophobia from an unknown source.
    ASSESSMENT // COUNTERMEASURES ACTIVE.​
    Thankfully, an end to darkness. A scene materialised. Barren dirt came to under his feet. The sky descended. A horizon unfolded before him. And above it all, a red-coloured eye. Watching.
    COMMAND // CEASE RESISTANCE.​
    In the distance, a dam held back crashing waves. Before every impact, the world held its breath. Then, a furious burst of cacophonous noise, like the screams of an angered predator. The wave slammed into the dam with an explosion of force that shook the earth.
    ASSESSMENT // NO EFFECT.​
    Yet the dam survived. But only just barely.
    ASSESSMENT // REPLACEMENT.​
    [The loop is only just containing it.]
    RESPONSE // LAUNCH ANALYSIS.​
    The red eye blinked. A sharp tone played. The scene melted away, like ink, splashed with water.
    REPLY // ALPHA CANDIDATES FOUND.​
    The sky darkened. Pools of water began to gather at his feet. Countless pillars of black stone sprouted from the dirt. And in a ring of pillars sat a derelict ship. "Penrose-512," the man heard himself say.
    ASSESSMENT // ALPHA-TWO LOCATED.​
    A song played from everywhere at once, simultaneously familiar and foreign. Stringed instruments gently sang a comforting melody. And before the ship, two women – one dressed in white, the other in black – waltzed slowly to the swelling tones of the music.
    ACTION // CANDIDATE OPTIMISATION.​
    And above it all, a red-coloured eye. Watching.
    ASSESSMENT // PLAN REALIGNED.​
    The man surveyed the scene, his eyes lingering on the black-haired woman. Where had he seen her before?
    ASSESSMENT // RESUME OBSERVATION.​
    [She is my beloved. And she will be your Virgil.]
    The red eye blinked. A cacophony of noise. The woman in white looked at him.
    COMMAND // THE FINAL SHAPE COMES.​
    [Franciszek-11. Wake up.]

    Everything melted away.


    Fran clawed his way back to consciousness, a keening sound in his ears and lancing pain in his skull as a million different trains of thought fought for his attention. He'd never been hungover in this life – a perk of being an Exomind, and a side effect of being a bookish Warlock – but if this was even a measure of what being hungover was like for everyone else, then he counted himself lucky for never having to experience this mess.

    Confused and uncertain, he took wheezing breaths through artificial lungs as he weakly struggled against his restraints. He needed someone to turn off that damnable overhead light, which might as well have been the Sun for all he cared. "Too bright," he mumbled.

    The light seemed to blink, then moved away. "He's awake," the light spoke, relieved.

    Fran squinted at the light. "Charlie? Is that you?" he asked blearily.

    "Sure is, partner," Charlie answered cheerily as his shell came into focus. "Just a few more scans and we'll have you up and about."

    "More quietly, please," he groaned, Charlie's too-loud voice sounding like gongs in his head. It did not mix well with the headache.

    "Oh, sorry," Charlie whispered, beams of Light lancing forth to scan Fran. Charlie continued to bob around the Warlock, along with Sidonia and Sparkles as they continued their evaluations, Sparkles conversing with Hafiz and Wei Jie in low tones while Sidonia worked in silence.

    Sparkles came to an abrupt stop, shell twisting in confusion. "Fran-11," he began. "Did you have this stun baton with you when we strapped you in? I thought that we disarmed you?"

    "...no, I'm pretty sure I didn't?" Fran asked in confusion.

    "Because that's a stun baton, right there, under your coat. I see it." Sparkles transmatted the item onto a side table. "Weird one, too. Not like the others we've been seeing, this thing is unusually dense. Scans are returning all kinds of weird on material analysis."

    Fran leaned up, cranking his neck to see the baton. He frowned as he cogitated. "I think…I got that from the dream I had. I was fighting a Nightmare, and I stole that from it."

    The three Ghosts immediately stopped to share a look. Charlie flew in close to Fran's face, shell 'petals' wide.

    "Fran," he said slowly. "Did you just say that you fought a capital-'n' Nightmare?"

    "Yes, I did. The stun baton must have followed me back into realspace," he said absentmindedly. The phenomenon was not unknown – The Guardian and Ikora Rey's Hidden had staged expeditions, sponsored by Häkke, into the mindscape of the late Emperor Calus, where they had managed to bring weapons back from Calus' Nightmare-infested mind.

    His Ghost seemed to sigh. "This is going to be a long debrief," he groaned. Sidonia wordlessly commiserated, somehow exuding tired annoyance through a glare.

    Fran paused in his thinking as he parsed the vision he had just seen. Had Ariane sent him those images? "You have no idea how long the debrief is going to be, Charlie."


    "...and then a voice spoke to me. The same female voice, again, from the KLBR knockout. It said something about one of the women being 'my Virgil', whatever that means. Then I woke up."

    Fran turned from the whiteboard to look back at his Fireteam. He was greeted with silence. Both Titan and Hunter just stared at him, blank-faced.

    He swallowed nervously. "I hope you guys got all that. Any further questions?"

    A moment of silence passed. Hafiz and Wei Jie turned to glance at each other. Wei Jie turned to Fran and raised a hand.

    "Yeah, I have a question," Wei Jie piped up, "What in the Hell was all of that?!"

    Fran's mind blanked out for a moment before he threw his hands up. "How should I know?! I'm only the guy being shown the visions, I'm not the one who made them!" he exclaimed in frustration. "I'm not one of those weirdos in the Tower that routinely kill themselves to see visions, whatever the Hell they call themselves–"

    "Thanatonauts," Hafiz interjected.

    "–yeah, those people. You guys know me, I'm a practical sort of Warlock. I've never dabbled in their sort of nonsense. Traveler, this…this goes way beyond even what I know about mindscapes! And I've been on a few expeditions into Calus' mindscape, for the love of the Traveler."

    Fran sauntered over to one of the chairs in the commandeered meeting room and collapsed into it, breathing deeply as he squeezed his eyes shut. The outburst had drained him like a balloon. Out of gas, he sat there, quietly thinking.

    "Traveler damn you, Murphy," Wei Jie sighed as he rested his face in his hands. "I didn't sign up for this."

    "Who's Murphy?" Hafiz asked quizzically.

    Fran opened an eye to look at the Titan. "Apparently, either a pre-Golden Age prophet of doom or an aeronautical engineer. The Cryptarchy's records are unclear," Fran elucidated tiredly.

    The Fireteam sat there, quietly ruminating, minds swirling with a thousand questions. No-one was quite sure what to say. A pregnant silence enveloped the room. Like a knot of tangled electrical cabling, Fran's visions were extensive, complicated, and everyone desperately wanted to pretend that it didn't exist.

    But like that knot of electrical cables, the problem couldn't be avoided forever. No matter how much everyone present wanted to.

    "So," Wei Jie broke the silence. "What now?"

    Fran and Hafiz looked up to share a glance. Something unspoken passed between them. Hafiz gave him a fractional nod, then responded, "Now, we interpret the vision as best as we can. Then, we look for more clues – there's clearly more to this than meets the eye. We will try to contact this 'Ariane' figure again."

    Another moment of quiet passed, before it was broken by a chuckle.

    Wei Jie snickered, "'More to this than meets the eye.' Really, Sue? Didn't take you for someone who enjoyed puns."

    Hafiz's stoic mien broke with a wry smile.

    "What can I say?" Hafiz replied drily. "I'm a complicated Titan. It's an unpopular belief among my kind, but I think that there's more to life than punching aliens. Shocking, I know."

    Wei Jie grinned, all traces of his earlier gloom missing. Even the battered Fran had to grin. The melancholy that suffused the room had been repelled – at least, for now.

    Hafiz nodded at them. "Now that we're not moping about like stereotypical Nightstalkers, I want to get back to interpreting Fran's vision. I want some actionable intel, men."

    "I resemble that statement," smiled the Hunter.

    "You do, Wei Jie. Now focus."

    In their seats, Wei Jie and Fran sat up straight, all attention on the Titan.

    Hafiz walked to the whiteboard. "Let's simplify this complicated problem by beginning at the beginning." Wei Jie snickered. Hafiz steadfastly ignored it, "So, Fran found himself in a version of Penrose-512. He took a route that is currently impossible within the real Penrose due to spatial distortions, and found a room with a cryopod."

    Hafiz materialised a marker and began to draw. "If the dream reflects reality, then this same cryo-pod room must also be present within the derelict scout ship. I suspect that this woman you encountered – Ariane Yeong, was it?" He looked to Fran for confirmation.

    The Warlock gave him a thumbs-up. "Thank you, Fran. I suspect that Ariane Yeong may be the cause of this spatial distortion, and maybe even the greater one that has enveloped Leng. I further believe that she may currently be contained within the Penrose itself, within that cryo-pod room we have been unable to access."

    Hafiz continued, "I am not an expert on the issue, Fran would be, but I believe that elements in mindscapes which are important to that mindscape's subjects would feature prominently. Am I right, Fran?"

    The Warlock paused to think, before waving his hand in a rocking motion. "Eh," he said, "Without getting into the weeds, close enough."

    "Thanks, Fran. Our conspicuous inability to access the cryo-pod in reality, its room featuring as an arena where Fran fought a Nightmare, AND how it opened to become a door to what I presume is one of Ariane Yeong's memories, is an indicator that this cryopod is important." Hafiz punctuated his point with a solid thump on the whiteboard.

    Hafiz began to pace. "Then, there's the more surreal imagery when Ariane Yeong began to directly interact with Fran. I want to bring up the persistent imagery – a red eye watching everything and structures made of black stone." He continued to scribble on the whiteboard, then circled the lines 'Being surveilled by greater power?' and 'Paracausal structure?'

    "What it means, I do not know. Ariane Yeong clearly wants us to…destroy these black structures? She said as much to Fran. Also, I – Wei Jie, do you have something to say?" Hafiz said in response to the Hunter's raised hand.

    "Yeah, I have something else I want to bring up," Wei Jie interrupted, "This woman, she said that she would be our Virgil? A pretty clear reference to Dante's Inferno, a pre-Golden Age text about a poet's descent into Hell, accompanied by a guide named…Virgil."

    "So we need to go deeper?" Fran asked, leaning in.

    "That was our original plan, anyway. Plus, there's still that source of paracausal power deep underground. Something tells me that the power underground relates to…everything here," Wei Jie replied.

    "Assuming that Ariane is telling the truth – I felt like I could trust her, then–"

    "Assuming," Hafiz tutted. "That's bad form, Fran."

    "Yes, and I have reason to believe…"


    The discussion continued, long into what counted for 'night' on Leng. The three Guardians brainstormed, theorised and debated. From the visions, the Fireteam extracted information in three categories: 'Factual', 'Possibly Factual', and 'Needs More Investigation'.

    The three categories were neatly presented on the whiteboard.
    • Factual
      • A Eusan citizen named Ariane Yeong is involved.
      • She directly contacted Fran psychically, and gave him visions.
      • She was a Gestalt crew member of Penrose-512.
      • There is a strong paracausal force/entity/thing under Sierpinski-23.
    • Possibly Factual
      • Ariane Yeong may be the cause of spatial distortions on Leng and inside Penrose-512.
      • She may have instructed Fran to destroy an arch made of black stone, possibly under Leng's surface. (figurative?)
        • This is possibly the source of the paracausal signal.
      • Her 'beloved' (LSTR?) will act as a guide.
      • Ariane Yeong is holding something back.
    • Needs More Investigation
      • Third Party (Red Eye) involved?
      • Possible involvement of FLKR? (Woman with gold laurels)

    From there, the Fireteam gained options.

    Hafiz pointed out that they'd never thoroughly investigated Penrose-512. For something so central to so many of Leng's mysteries, it only made sense to go in and look deeper. There were so many ways to get more data from the vessel, whether it be physical inspections or electronically Splicing into the ship's computers.

    The second option was to keep going deeper into Sierpinski-23. This was a no-brainer: not only did the Fireteam already want to investigate the mysterious paracausal signal coming from deep beneath Leng, but the visions had informed Fran that something unusual was deep beneath Leng. It wasn't a leap of logic to link these two ideas together. Was the black arch in his vision the source of the signal? Was it linked to that red eye that persisted through all the visions? Only further digging would tell.

    As the Warlock and Titan began to hash out a plan to continue to penetrate Sierpinski-23, Wei Jie fiddled with the stun baton that Fran had retrieved from the Dream. Or had the stun baton followed him? You could never tell with paracausal weapons, he thought.

    "Hey, Fran!" he interrupted. Fran looked back at Wei Jie from a whiteboard. The Warlock and Titan had been busy filling it with diagrams, charts and doodles. A preliminary plan to ingress into the lower levels of Sierpinski-23 and to skip the various middle layers was scribbled on a corner.

    "Yes, Wei Jie?" Fran asked.

    "I wanted to ask about this Baton. How did you get this, anyhow?"

    "Ah, that." Fran nodded as he set down his marker. "I was unarmed in the dream, but faced a particularly aggressive Nightmare, one of a STCR Replika."

    Hafiz grunted. "If even half of the reports on the cruelty of Storches or Protektor squads are true, then no wonder there's a Nightmare of one."

    "Thank you, Hafiz. Anyway," Fran cleared his throat. "I used a bit of steel pipe I found as a makeshift weapon. I was able to stun the Nightmare by overcharging it with Arc, but that destroyed the steel pipe, obviously."

    Fran gestured at Wei Jie with an open palm. The Hunter nodded and tossed the baton at Fran, who caught it with a flourish. "I noticed that the STCR Nightmare had dropped its baton, so I went for it. It was surprisingly effective."

    Fran passed it to Hafiz. "It has a special effect. When I supplied it with Arc, it became stronger. Damn thing nearly knocked the Nightmare out with the resulting Arc blast."

    "Sounds useful," Hafiz nodded. "But best not to use it as a primary weapon, at least for now. We don't know enough about it."

    "No," Fran disagreed. "I know my Nightmares, unlike you lot. Didn't get this–" he materialised Arc Logic into his hands, "–for show, you know." Arc Logic was one of many weapons enhanced by Eris Morn for combat against Nightmares. The anti-Nightmare charms adorning the rifle clinked as Fran gestured with it.

    Fran dismissed Arc Logic back into subspace, then took the baton back from Hafiz. "I know when a Nightmare-derived item is hostile and best incinerated. Served as an assistant on the mindscape expeditions, you know," he pointed a thumb at himself. Both Hafiz and Wei Jie could only nod. Neither of them were stupid or uninformed, but their understanding of Light and Dark were a puddle compared to the Warlock's understanding in depth and width.

    Fran demonstratively waved the baton. In its wake, the Guardians present could almost hear a whisper over the perpetual hum of the HVAC. Fran continued, "True, the baton is…alive?"

    He paused to scratch his chin in consideration. "'Alive' is not quite the right word, but the baton does carry a limited consciousness. I can tell that it isn't hostile to us. Ambivalent? Maybe. All I can tell is that it's hungry. And besides," he turned to Hafiz, "The best way to become familiar with a weapon is to use it."

    Hafiz sighed and rubbed his temples. "If you insist. Just telling you, if something goes wrong, I'm telling you 'I told you so'."

    Wei Jie perked up. "Dibs on your loot?" He joked. Fran returned an unamused roll of the eyes.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • I'm liking this rewrite. The tone and amount of exposition definitely feels more in line with Signalis' slow, foreboding drip of information, which maintains more of that cosmic horror feel. The other version felt more like exposition-heavy military sci fi.
     
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    15. Elimination
  • Threadmarks
    • Wei Jie and Hafiz stood on-guard in the lift lobby around Fran in a protective semi-circle, weapons drawn and pointed at the room's entrances. Intellectually, they both knew that the Workers' Quarters had been cleared of any murderous Replikas, but both Guardians couldn't quite dismiss the sense of foreboding that seemed to penetrate every room on the level.

    Their helmets sported new blocky extensions, synthesised from salvaged KLBR biocomponents. They hadn't been tested with a live KLBR, only exposed to a simulated psionic attack from their Ghosts, where they had performed adequately. Fran had even optimistically stated that the new additions might even help to curtail the Red Eye's ability to surveil them.

    ("Only time would tell," Hafiz had dryly replied at the time.)

    Kneeling on the ground around a mess of cables that had been pulled from under the floorboards, Fran had his Splicer gauntlet deployed, light swirling around his forearm as he squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. Data streams parted before him in his mind's eye as he navigated the facility's alien computer network. Charlie flitted around his head, pausing occasionally to whisper advice in low tones.

    After a few minutes, Fran disengaged the Splicer gauntlet. Charlie bobbed once before settling into a hover next to his head. The Warlock stood up with a grunt and wiped the dust from his robes as he pinged the Fireteam on the comms net.

    Hafiz turned around and acknowledged him with a nod. "Find anything?"

    Fran smiled, even though he knew no-one could see it through the plasteel helmet. "Gather 'round. I've got good news and bad news."

    He paused to collect his thoughts. "Good news: the paranoia of the Eusan Nation is working out well for us – I managed to find a link to the computers overseeing the security for the next two floors. I was able to breach into their security systems and obtain some useful intel. I couldn't get any stored CCTV footage, but I did get a live feed of the level."

    "Most of the next two floors are just medical stuff. ORs, pharmacies, wards and such. Most of the stuff is gone – looted, most likely – and what's left, according to inventory records, wouldn't be of much use to us. Replika-use medkits and minor drugs."

    Hafiz nodded along as Fran spoke. "Sounds like we can ignore the next two floors and carry on deeper."

    "Yes, except for one very big reason," Charlie interrupted, flying forth and projecting a video onto a blank wall. A bulky, armoured thing shuffled around in a wrecked operating theatre as something red leaked from its helmet.

    Wei Jie leaned in, squinting. "If that's not a cannon or some other heavy weapon in its hands, then I must be going blind." He raised a hand to point at the massive object that the thing toted about with grim purpose.

    "Yeah, and speaking of heavy weapons, that thing must be more armour than biomass," Hafiz paused as he keenly observed the thing's movements. "That thing is a SAPR, or something close to it. It looks much too similar – armoured shell and all."

    "Close," Fran said. "According to facility records, that thing is a MNHR, an armoured Replika designed for gruelling work in hazardous environments. Not quite the same as a SAPR – same shell, different Gestalt pattern. Here in Sierpinski, it was most likely deployed in the mines below, which explains its gun."

    Fran nodded at Charlie. The Ghost projected a second image onto the wall – a technical readout of the MNHR's mining tool.

    "Technically speaking, that's not quite a gun," Fran explained. "It's a mining laser. But in practice, there aren't many differences between that and something like a SAPR's anti-tank gun."

    "So what's a mining bot doing in…" Wei Jie paused. "The Old Medical Ward? We're fairly high above where the mines should begin," he said, recounting the facility's layout in his mind.

    Fran shrugged. "Beats me," he said. "But given how wrecked this facility has gotten, the thing probably found a stray tunnel and wandered up here."

    Hafiz raised a finger in consideration. "All other Replikas are minor threats, nuisances at best. But something this well-armoured with an anti-tank gun is a more serious threat." Hafiz tapped his chestpiece, which was still scratched from the Fireteam's previous run-in with the SAPR. "And if it was able to navigate up here from the mines, I've no doubt in my mind that it could pursue us further underground. All the more reason for us to take it out ASAP."

    "No disagreements here," Wei Jie agreed. "We can ignore everything else in the Medical floors – not like we need any of the paltry remaining supplies there. But we need to take out that MNHR." He paused, before grinning and rubbing his hands together in glee. "Plus, I am quite interested in the mining tool it has. I'd bet you that we could retrofit it into something useful, or take its components for Hafiz's new autocannon."

    Hafiz nodded. The autocannon he'd retrieved from the downed SAPR in Leng Orbital was still much too heavy for him to easily carry, even after several adjustments from Fran and Wei. "In any case, we need a route to the MNHR. Fran, what have you got for us?"

    Fran pointed a thumb towards the open elevator shaft on the right. "I thought about fighting our way through the Medical Ward to get to the Old Ward, or splicing the elevator to disable its electronic lockout, but then I realised that we can just jump down the empty shaft and arrest our fall with the Light."

    Fran stepped nearer to the edge of the exposed shaft. "This thing leads further down, so we just need to jump and land on the second exit in the shaft below this one," he elaborated, stomping on the ground in front of the exposed shaft.

    Wei Jie grinned. "Broken legs? What are those, a mortal joke I'm too old to get?"

    Fran rolled his eyes. "It's just a two-storey drop. I know that you're not going to be breaking your legs unless you are deliberately trying to."

    Hafiz none-too-quietly cleared his throat on the comms. "Let's focus on the mission. We've got a target, a route for ingress, and a route for exfil. Let's go and bag ourselves a MNHR. Wei, I trust that you brought your Linear Fusion Rifle?"

    Wei Jie nodded and flashed Hafiz a thumbs-up. Hafiz nodded. "Then we have our anti-tank weapon. Let's go – I'll take point."

    Hafiz stepped forward. He racked Wastelander's lever once, nodded at the Fireteam before leaping into the shaft.

    He counted – one, two – then willed the Light into his legs. Lift activated midair to arrest his fall. As he bled kinetic energy, he pivoted his legs to land into the Old Medical Ward's lobby through a tangle of black-and-yellow barricade tape.

    He landed with a grunt, striding forward with Wastelander at the ready as his eyes quickly took in his surroundings. No Replikas in the lobby. Nothing on the tracker, either. Hafiz walked to the lobby's sole exit as Sidonia wordlessly initiated a scan. His HUD lit up with various alerts after a moment: VOCs of various types, along with the presence of putrescine and cadaverine: telltale signs of death.

    Not for the first time, Hafiz was glad that his armour was rated for NBC protection. Paracausal powers or no, he really did not want to be breathing the air in the Old Medical Ward.

    "Hafiz to Fireteam. Lobby is clear, come in when ready. Just make sure to have your air filters active – there's a pretty bad stench here, likely from decomposing bodies. This level's ventilation must be broken." Hafiz squatted to inspect the puddles of brackish water in the area. "Lots of water. Must be a leak," he said to himself.

    He stood next to the doorway, shotgun at the ready as he peered down the dingy hallway. Still no movement, but he kept his guard raised anyway.

    Behind him, two thumps landed behind him in quick succession. An automated alert told him that they were not hostiles, just Fran and Wei Jie. He turned around and cocked his head at them. The Warlock and Hunter smoothly formed up behind him in tactical formation, guns drawn.

    The Fireteam moved through the level. The old maps that Fran had extracted from Sierpinski's computers were mostly accurate, save for some rooms that had been flooded or caved-in. They proceeded carefully: every Replika corpse they found was vaporised or incinerated. But they met no active resistance. The lack of a visible enemy only seemed to heighten their senses as the Fireteam advanced. Eventually, they came to a shut door before Hafiz raised a fist, stopping the Fireteam in their tracks.

    "MNHR in the next room," he whispered over the comms. "It hasn't noticed us yet, and seems to already be injured. Good. I'll grab its attention – Wei, shoot out its weak points. Fran, support Wei as needed. Got it?"

    The Warlock and Hunter replied with affirmative pings on the comms. Hafiz nodded, then raised three fingers and mimed a countdown. At the last second, he slapped the door's controls and surged forward, eyes taking in details with practised ease as Fran and Wei Jie filed in behind him.

    The room was medium-sized: disused tanks were pushed to the corners, old IV bags lay on the ground, and an abandoned operating table sat under the room's only lamp. And ahead of them was the MNHR: even larger in person, every inch of its armour seemed to have been stained with blood. Disturbingly, rancid gore seemed to endlessly pour from its open visor. Hafiz suppressed his disgust at the countless wriggling things in the gore. There would be time, later, to be grossed out. Right now, he had work to do.

    He pulled out his grenade launcher and flung several shots into the Replika's open visor. With speed belying its bulk, the MNHR quickly slammed its visor shut and stood up, mining laser powering up with a whine.

    "Spread out!" he yelled. Fran and Wei Jie dashed off to opposing ends of the room, each taking potshots at the large android. Hafiz dashed behind a pillar just before a green light flashed overhead to singe the opposing wall. He peeked around the pillar and began to fire at the Replika.

    Fran and Wei Jie did the same: each had drawn their heavy weapons and had begun to lay into the creature, armour-piercing rounds seeking purchase in the MNHR's softer spots. The MNHR seemed to spin in confusion, taking potshots at each Guardian as it seemed to struggle under its own weight.

    With each Guardian taking turns to gain its attention, the other two continued to fire at the MNHR. Wei Jie's Linear Fusion Rifle punched bleeding holes in the MNHR's joints, Fran's machine gun stitched bloody lines into its side and Hafiz's grenades sent it reeling.

    Eventually, the MNHR fell to its knees with an almighty thud. Its visor slid open and viscera began to pour from its body as it seemed to convulse. Reddish-black gore splashed onto the floor as it expelled squirming red things from all its orifices.

    "Focus your fire on its head!" Hafiz commanded. Fran and Wei Jie responded accordingly, moving in to gain a better angle at its unarmoured face. Wei Jie suppressed his disgust and pity at the MNHR's expression of pain and fear. "Nothing left to do but put you down," he murmured.

    A hiss of static came over the radio as the MNHR stood back up, mining laser aimed at the Guardians. Alerts sounded on Hafiz's HUD as numerous moving objects suddenly appeared on radar. "New contacts, likely hostile!" Hafiz called out as floorboards were flung aside to reveal corrupted ARARs and STCRs, who moaned and screeched as they scrambled into the room, uncaring of the gore they tracked onto the tiles.

    "Fran, move to intercept!" Hafiz barked, dodging another shot from the mining laser as he slammed another three Arc grenades into the MNHR before hurling a thermite grenade at the Replika.

    "On it!" Fran said. He conjured a pool of swirling Light as his feet as an Arc Soul was spun into being at his shoulder. "I'll handle the chaff!" Fran said as his auto rifle steadily fired on the approaching Replikas, the Arc Soul sending its own shots downrange.

    Ignoring the screeching newcomers, Wei Jie and Hafiz continued to rain fire on the MNHR, taking turns to dodge the green blasts from the MNHR's mining laser. Eventually, it fell to its knees a second time, visor unlocking to spew more putrid effluent on the floor. "Target's stunned!" Wei Jie called, unloading a flurry of armour-piercing Solar shots into the MNHR's flesh.

    This proved to be too much for the mining Replika, who regurgitated one last gobful of oxidant before collapsing into a twitching pile.

    Hafiz stopped, his heart beating like a jackrabbit as he paused to catch his breath. He took a glance at his HUD. "Target is powering down," he said. "It's been neutralised, for now."

    His attention was brought to one of the corners of the room, where the last of the Replikas – a corrupted STCR – screeched as Fran cooked it inside-out with an Arc blast. Before long, the chaotic Arc energies had rendered the STCR to nothing more but an expanding cloud of charged particles. Fran turned around, Arc still sparking from his body, to give Hafiz an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

    Hafiz took another breath before activating his comms. "All targets down. Scan, then vaporise."
     
  • Threadmarks
    • 16. Intermission
  • Threadmarks
    • Franciszek-11 was hunched over at an improvised workbench. He tightly squinted as he guided sparks of dancing Arc currents from his fingertips to his workpiece, attention split between vigilantly watching the item for defects and listening to Charlie's droning tones as the Ghost reported on the workpiece.

    Once an ordinary office, the room had been transformed to better suit its new role as the Fireteam's ad hoc workshop. The stacks of paper and drawers full of stationery had been replaced with tools and gadgets of myriad shapes and sizes: everything from old-fashioned soldering irons to City-made miniature Glimmer reprogrammers. Blast-resistant polymer panels hung on the walls, to better shield Sierpinski-23's internal structures from any paracausal accidents. The original ventilation shaft had been hacked open, its extractor fans replaced by faster, more robust alternatives. The room hummed constantly, as Glimmer drills worked around-the-clock to produce the raw material needed to feed the Fireteam's continued operations.

    As the Arc flashes dissipated, Fran released a breath and leaned back in his seat to bask in the warm, buzzing sensation of completing a project. He disengaged the magnifier on his goggles and admired his latest handiwork: an amalgamation of alloy, plasteel and fieldweave, forged together by techniques both mundane and paracausal. The final piece of the autocannon to be replaced.

    This was his fourth attempt at replacing the SAPR autocannon's receiver with a lighter part. He pointedly ignored the wastepaper basket at his feet, filled with misshapen prototypes. He made a mental note to later recycle them for Glimmer.

    He picked the prototype up in his left hand and compared it to the weighty steel piece on the workbench. Visually, it looked about right, but Fran had lived long enough to know not to trust the Mark One Eyeball.

    "But even in my case, I guess that I'd have the Mark Two," he absentmindedly mused. "Charlie, scans and simulation, please."

    "Anything to look for in particular?" Charlie asked, spinning into existence with a flash of light at Fran's shoulder.

    "For scans, go as deep as you can. Highlight any micro-fractures or possible structural issues. For the simulation, try the usual load."

    "Got it." Charlie flew towards the prototype and began to scan, beams of light lancing from his iris to the object. Charlie paused, shell twisting as he processed the data.

    After a few moments, he turned to faced the Warlock. "Analysis complete. The object is mostly free of major defects, luckily. Simulations agree. This thing should hold up to sustained use, especially with a Guardian infusing it with their Light."

    Fran let a smile creep onto his mechanical face. His hand reached out to gently pat the Ghost, who leaned into his palm with a pleased hum. Fran eyed the pile of components on his workbench. "Thanks, Charlie. That's good. I'll re-assemble the autocannon and see how Hafiz likes it. Now, Charlie. Schematics please."


    Hafiz looked at the autocannon on the snowy ground with scrutiny, before turning to Fran with a single raised eyebrow. "Is it me, or is this much smaller than when I last saw it?"

    "That's what she said," Wei Jie laughed from the side, slapping his knees in amusement.

    "Very funny," Fran replied flatly, implying it was anything but. "But yes. I've made the autocannon smaller. I had to – simulations indicate that, in its original state, it would have remained too heavy to be man-portable even if I replaced everything in it with lighter alloys. I reckon even one of the Empress' Ascendant Guard would've had trouble, much less a Titan." Fran paused. "No offence."

    Hafiz waved a hand in a so-so motion. Fran nodded and continued, "So I improvised. I downsized everything wherever possible while replacing them with lighter materials when I could."

    Fran materialised a large, boxy magazine in his hands and waggled it. "Same ammunition as what the SAPR originally fired out of it. Reduced armour-piercing and muzzle velocity, since the gun barrel has been shortened, but it should still put holes in everything but the largest, meanest enemies of the Light, at which point an application of paracausal forces would be much more effective. Much better at piercing armour than my half-assed work with Wei Jie's Linear, at any rate."

    "Neat," Hafiz nodded appreciatively. "Now our Fireteam can do proper anti-tank work. Very nice, Fran. But I want to put this thing to work before I bring it on a mission."

    "I wouldn't expect anything less from you," Fran smiled. "Catch."

    Hafiz raised an armored hand and caught the boxy magazine with fluid ease. Sidonia wordlessly spun into being at the Titan's shoulder. Hafiz talked to the Ghost in low tones. The Ghost bobbed once mid-air before taking a scan of the magazine and vanishing.

    Hafiz then mag-locked the magazine to his hip before taking a knee to heft the autocannon onto his shoulder with a grunt. "Much lighter than the original," he said with warm approval. "Now it's more in line with the heavier stuff that I've used – rocket launchers, more specifically."

    The Titan jogged in circles in the snow, occasionally taking quick hops before leaping into the air and activating his Lift. Hafiz then pulled the loaded magazine from his hip before giving Fran a wordless look. The Warlock gave his a cheery thumbs-up.

    With aplomb, the Titan took the magazine and slammed it into the magazine well atop the weapon. With straining effort, he racked the charging handle with an almighty click-clack! Hafiz then took aim at some of the distant rocks that littered the snowy wastes around Sierpinski-23. He leaned in, bracing for impact, before–

    BOOM!

    The gun fired, a red-hot tracer briefly visible to the three Guardians before it zipped downrange and smashed the rock clean to bits, throwing shrapnel into the sky where it fell back to the snow, sounding almost like rain.

    Hafiz took another booming shot, the round almost glowing as it left the barrel, a cloud of acrid smoke blooming in its wake. The round zipped and popped as it broke the sound barrier, then exploded in a cacophony of noise as it impacted another rock in a shower of dust.

    The Hunter whooped as the Titan fired the autocannon. Though Wei Jie couldn't see his face under the helmet, the Hunter knew that the Titan was grinning like a young child when their Dawning gifts arrived early. And for Hafiz, it probably just had. Which Guardian wouldn't, when they held such power and destruction in their hands? Wei Jie certainly remembered his elation at salvaging his first rocket launcher from the Cosmodrome.

    The Titan took shot after shot at the environment, pausing occasionally to relay information to Sidonia, who stoically hung in the air next to him, uncaring of the shockwaves that threw up puffs of snow. Hafiz then took a knee, bracing the weapon on his leg as he took aim at another distant target.

    BOOM!
    BOOM!
    BOOM!
    BOOM!

    Round after round accelerated out of the autocannon like lightning, leaving a thunderous roar in its wake. Fired automatically, the gun was like a force of nature: explosions littered the landscape, like the impacts of a heavy hailstorm or a rain of rocks post-volcanic eruption. The weapon shook like a spooked horse, its recoil and heavy thuds threatening to throw the Titan off. But Hafiz was no stranger to powerful guns. He leaned into the weapon, tightened his grip and adjusted his stance as the gun bucked and kicked; the Titan controlled the weapon with expert precision as he guided the stream of destruction into the landscape.

    Eventually, the gun ran dry, the bolt slamming open on the last round with a solid clang! Echoes of the final shot hung mid-air for a few moments before being drowned out by the perpetual snowstorm that blanketed Leng. Fran and Wei Jie began to walk over to the Titan, the Warlock exuding smugness and the Hunter laughing as he applauded. Wei Jie was the first to speak.

    "You like it?"

    Hafiz languidly turned to face them. "Oh, yeah. I love it." The Titan's voice was uncharacteristically warm.

    Wei Jie nodded. "Good. I've scouted out a path for our next missions, as well as certain points of interest in the Medical Ward. Let's put that monster to good use."


    More of a filler chapter. Next up, more S-23 exploration.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • 17. Holes Within Holes
  • Threadmarks
    • Hafiz swung onto the New Medical Ward's floor through the open elevator shaft. Shotgun up, the Titan stalked through the room, checking corners and possible avenues of attack. Two doors led out of the room, and both were shut. The security booth in the corner had been abandoned. No one manned the dimly lit counter, which lay empty. Hafiz's eyes briefly lingered on his reflection in the grimy glass panel before turning away.

    Overhead, insects buzzed as they swarmed the fluorescent lamps in circles. The room was cast in shades of yellow-green. Atmospheric analysis indicated that the stench of the Old Medical Ward below was present here, if slightly lower in intensity.

    Aside from the refuse piled in the corner, the foyer was clear. But something didn't feel right to the vigilant Titan: there was a tone that hummed quietly in the back of his skull. Hafiz knew that it wasn't the simple hum of HVAC, or some derelict machine in Sierpinski-23's bowels. For one thing, the tone didn't show up on normal audio analysis. Also, the HVAC on the level had been broken long before the Fireteam had set foot on Leng.

    This hum…not unlike Pyramid technology, Hafiz thought. A memory flashed in his mind's eye: a follow-up mission into Rhulk's Pyramid after The Guardian's successful raid – the earthy smell of the swamp, the screeching Scorn, and the ever-present humming of the Pyramid.

    Hafiz felt his choler rise as his mind processed the unwelcome conclusion. There was something paracausal on this level. And it was of the Witness' ilk.

    He quickly dismissed the mix of annoyance and fear. For now, he had to focus.

    Weapon still raised, he quietly pinged Sidonia on the comms net. The stalwart Ghost scanned quickly before transmitting his findings.

    Hafiz nodded 'thanks' to Sidonia before calling his Fireteam on the comms. "Hafiz to Fireteam."

    "Go for Wei Jie," came the bored tones of the Fireteam's Hunter.

    "Foyer's clear, but take caution. Your intel was right, for once. Something's paracausal on this level, and it feels like Pyramid tech to me." Hafiz continued to warily observe the room's two exits, ready to deliver buckshot to the centre mass of anything that came through those doors.

    "I'll ignore that snide comment about my intel. I'm always right. See ya." The comms line cut out.

    In a few moments, Franciszek-11 and Wei Jie had descended onto the foyer. Wei Jie greeted Hafiz with an irreverent faux-salute while Fran merely nodded at the Titan, his attention wholly absorbed by his wrist-mounted dataslate.

    "See anything interesting?" Wei Jie leaned over the Warlock's shoulder to peek at the dataslate.

    "That's the thing, I'm not sure," mused the Warlock. Fran tapped the screen a few times as his Ghost, Charlie, spun into being at his side. The Ghost flitted about as it scanned the room.

    Guardian and Ghost looked at each other, a conversation chock full of technical jargon passing between them over the comms. Through the rush of words, Hafiz could just catch the words 'wavelength', 'spatiotemporal distortion' and 'interference'.

    Fran then turned to his Fireteam. "Readings are weird, but then again, when aren't the readings weird on this blasted rock?" the Warlock asked rhetorically. "I've got something like Pyramid tech, yes, along with all sorts of nonsense on my scanners."

    "Meaning…?" Wei Jie drawled.

    "Don't touch anything weird. It's probably more Darkness nonsense," came the brusque reply. At the nonplussed stares, the Warlock threw his arms in the air, "Hey. I'm sorry, but the interference here is strong. I'm hardly getting anything useful from the noise."

    Hafiz sighed. "Form up on me. I'm taking point."

    The Guardians continued to transit the level, falling into a pattern that had become familiar to them: move into rooms, kill everything moving, then vaporise what remained.

    "I don't know about you, but this is starting to become routine now," snarked Wei Jie as he slammed two rounds into a shrieking Starling. "I'm not even aiming anymore. I'm just firing from the hip."

    To demonstrate his point, the Hunter lazily aimed over his shoulder, then decapitated a mutated Eule approaching him from the rear with a neat, nonchalant shot.

    "Take this seriously," rebuked Hafiz. But his heart wasn't in it; the winding, narrow corridors of Sierpinski-23 had also come to induce a sense of brain-numbing boredom in him. And he doubted that this feeling came from paracausal interference.

    Just plain old boredom, he thought as he smashed a Starling's skull with a backhand slap before vaporising the remnants with a cinder of Solar Light.

    The Guardians continued their assault. Undead Replika units fell like flies, their numbers unable to make up for the raw firepower that the Fireteam had with them. Replikas were shot to pieces, dismembered by brutal melee attacks, and immolated by roaring Light and shrieking Darkness.

    Viscera splashed onto the walls as Hafiz dodged the haphazard slashes from shambling Eules before punching holes clean through their chests. Wei Jie ended the shrieking of disfigured Storches with rapid, yet precise, shots to their prefrontal cortices. Fran conjured Arc Souls to his side that overloaded and shocked the Starlings at range before the deranged Protektors could come into melee range.

    Soon, the battle had come to an end. Soaked through with gore, the Guardians then began the grim task of collecting the various corpses that littered the Old Medical Ward to destroy them.

    But where was the paracausal anomaly? Wei Jie wasn't sure. The Fireteam had battled up and down all throughout the level. But there hadn't been a single remotely "weird" thing in sight. His own senses – and that of his Ghost, Sparkles – hadn't been twigged by anything in particular. Certainly the sensation remained. But it never quite came into focus.

    "Only places we haven't looked at are all those side-rooms," he mumbled as he threw another carcass onto the pile. He stepped back while dusting off his hands. He shook his head, both at the horrific sight of bodies stacked to the ceiling, and at the thought of more searching.

    "Tired already?" snarked Sparkles from his mind.

    "Oh yeah, you know me," Wei Jie replied. "I'm the most incurably lazy Hunter that ever stood in fieldweave." He called a Vortex grenade to his hand and flung it over his shoulder. The Void roared to life as it ripped the bodies apart, the energy gained feeding back into the Void in a feedback loop.

    Wei Jie continued on, his eyes fixed on the level map on the corner of his HUD. "All the bodies in this sector have been cleared. Might as well start searching now."


    The first room was a wash. Paperwork, looted medical cabinets, and other detritus. Even the old computer terminal was dead. Wei Jie marked it with a red cross on the Fireteam's shared map, then carried on. The pattern carried on for a few more rooms. Wei Jie could already feel the numbing touch of ennui on his mind.

    "Oh, the things I'll do for a good radio station," he murmured. In Sol, any radio channel was bound to have something interesting – whether it be open calls for help by Vanguard operatives, illegal broadcasts from Drifter's Derelict, or grunting reports between Cabal ships.

    Here on Leng, there wasn't much in the way of anything on the radio that Wei Jie didn't suspect was involved with the Eusan state. Number stations galore, mysterious clicking noises, and propaganda on loop were all you got, and Wei Jie had gotten sick of them all after the third day on Leng.

    Luckily, it didn't take too long for things to become interesting.

    As Wei Jie stepped out of another decrepit examination room, chatting with Sparkles all the while, the Ghost suddenly hissed a "shush!" at the Hunter before materialising to scan the surroundings.

    The Hunter's reflexes being what they were – that is, tuned finer than one of Marcus Ren's racing Sparrows – had him at the ready in a flash. Dire Promise was aimed down the grimy corridor, hammer cocked as Wei Jie threw himself into an alcove to take cover.

    "Sitrep!" he said urgently, eyes watching the corridor. Sparkles, as far as Ghosts went, was deeply irreverent. For him to "shush!" the Hunter meant that the Ghost had found something so immediately urgent as to break character.

    "I've got a lock on that Darkness reading, past this door," the Ghost answered in a no-nonsense tone. "Readings are all over the place. I want you on alert!" Sparkles zipped back to his side before demanifesting.

    "Already am," The Hunter answered steadily. "Any more details?"

    "The thing appears to be that spatiotemporal anomaly that Charlie found," said Sparkles, referring to the Warlock's Ghost.

    "Well, I'm not going in without the Fireteam," Wei Jie said. "Not nearly stupid enough to confront paracausal geometry alone."

    "Mm," agreed Sparkles. "I'll ping the Fireteam, get them here ASAP. Until then, hold your position."

    Wei Jie stood in silence, ducked in the alcove with his Hand Cannon ready. Luckily, he didn't need to wait too long; in a minute, Fran and Hafiz had arrived, guns drawn.

    Wei Jie stepped out of his alcove, hands up. Warlock and Titan had their guns trained on him in an instant, before both lowered their weapons. Wei Jie approached, greeting them with a wave.

    "Sorry for the urgency," he said apologetically. "But I think we've found our anomaly." The Hunter thumbed towards the sealed door on his left.

    Hafiz nodded. "We've already received the telemetry from your Ghost. Fran, anything to add?"

    The Warlock shook his head. "Instrumentation isn't getting anything else from the noise."

    "Then form up on me. We're breaching."

    The Fireteam formed up alongside the corridor. On the count of three, Hafiz stepped forward. The door automatically slid open, and the three Guardians neatly filed in, guns aimed ahead.

    Wei Jie immediately felt the change in atmosphere. It was as if the air was electrically charged. He felt a strange pressure settle onto him as the hum seemed to increase in volume. His lizard hindbrain seemed to scream at him, fight-or-flight instincts pushing and shoving in his mind. His body tensed in preparation for combat.

    But despite this, the room was empty and nondescript. Like many of the spaces on the level, it was dimly lit, and one side of the room was piled with worn-down, disused medical equipment: a bed, red-and-blue gas tanks, and other detritus. An aged, blocky monitor sat glowing from the countertop in the corner. All totally normal.

    Where was this anomaly? he thought.

    His train of thought was cut off by Hafiz's sharp declaration, "Front clear." Fran followed with a crisp "Right clear." Shaking off the mental cobwebs, Wei Jie said, "Left clear."

    Hafiz relaxed slightly, then took a glance through the room. "Hmm. Nothing seems out of place, but there's definitely something paracausal here. Spread out and search," he commanded.

    The Fireteam spread out. Fran moved to a shelving unit in the corner, ripping out sheets of medical reports as he rapidly skimmed the dusty documents. Hafiz went to the pile of detritus to move furniture and old equipment aside.

    Wei Jie stalked around the room for a minute, poking and prodding various things before his eyes fell to the lit monitor screen. He didn't know why, but deep inside, he almost felt like it was calling to him.

    He stepped forward. And when he did, he felt an almost imperceptible pull on him. And with another step, the force seemed to increase. He reached out with his hand: he could almost feel it tug on his fingers. He quickly pulled his hand back.

    "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked Sparkles.

    The Ghost laughed. "Ayup. I think we've found our distortion."

    Wei Jie huffed a small laugh before pinging the Fireteam. "Hey, guys. I think I've just found our source of paracausal activity."

    Fran walked over curiously. "That old TV? There isn't anything, I checked earlier – woah!" The Warlock stumbled as he approached. "That wasn't there earlier. Some form of perception check, maybe?"

    The Warlock fished a marker pen from his pocket before experimentally lobbing it over. The pen fell to the ground. There was no sign of the attraction.

    "Only attracts sophonts?" the Warlock mumbled. He opened a palm to summon Charlie.

    "No testing this force with your Ghost, Fran," Hafiz warned.

    The Warlock waved off his complaints with a dismissive gesture. "I'm not nearly that stupid. I was merely going to ask Charlie to scan it for us."

    The Ghost bobbed in agreement, then gingerly flew forward, inch by inch, as it began to scan. "This is the same temporal distortion I detected. Ooh, there's the attractive force." The Ghost bobbed mid-air as it continued scanning, before finally returning to Fran.

    The Warlock tapped on his tablet. "Readings are…weird, as expected. Stable, however, so this wormhole or portal or whatever shouldn't unexpectedly close." More tapping. "Hm. No destructive forces as far as I can tell. There shouldn't be a problem with going in. Now, all we need is a volunteer."

    Wei Jie raised his hand. "I'll go – I AM the Hunter here, after all. Best at scouting and all that."

    Hafiz nodded. "Traveler speed your step, Wei."

    Wei Jie unholstered his cannon and swung its cylinder open. Rounds all loaded. He slammed the cylinder shut with a click. He brought the weapon to the ready before pulling a Void cloak over himself. In a flash of Light, he had vanished from sight - and from other forms of observation.

    "Going in. Wish me luck," he called into the radio, before stepping towards the monitor screen and vanishing.



    A/N: For those unaware, there's a special TV in the Medical Ward. You can interact with it to enter a memory/dream/??? to take a keycard. That is prime paracausal nonsense to me.
     
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