The Guardians, Knights Errants within the City Age, Warlords within the Dark Age. A hundred names across hundreds of years. Across them, certain Brilliant Lights rose up. First Ruby Rose, then Penny Polendina, then Pyrrha Nikos, and finally...
Reforged in the Light (RWBY/Destiny)
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Chapter 1
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
"What are we looking at?" Ruby asked as she stepped into the tower CIC. Ikora looked up with a grim expression on her face.
"Oryx," Ikora said, "the Hive God-King."
"I know who Oryx is, Ikora," Ruby snarked, before reaching the table, "So, what do we have? Pyrrha woke up something worse when she killed the Prince?"
"Looks like it," Ikora said, pulling up an image of a long, chitinous rectangle with a long trench gouged in it on the holographic projector in the center of the table, "They entered the Solar System last night, and made it to Saturn before the Reef's forces engaged them."
"How'd that go?"
"Badly. Mara Sov is confirmed to have died, and Uldren is presumed dead. But they managed to at least stop the ship in orbit around Saturn."
Ruby worked her jaw, thinking. Before she could say anything, a sharp alarm spread through the CIC, breaking her thoughts and drawing Zavala from where he was giving hurried orders to various waiting Ghosts. All three Vanguards looked as a map of the Last City popped up from the holographic projector. A red blip appeared outside of the walls, growing in size
"Get all non-essential personnel manning the walls to sector B7," Zavala ordered grimly, "Ruby, you stay here."
"We're about to be attacked!" Ruby said, the lightning crackling under her skin.
"They shouldn't be this close to the city already," Zavala said, "I don't trust that if they can get this close, they can't get into the City, and if that happens, you, on Bumblebee, are the fastest sparrow rider I have. I'm not asking you to stay because it's dangerous, I'm asking you to stay for the safety of people in the City.*
The Arcstrider paced, breathing in and out, "I don't like this, Zav."
"I know," Zavala said, "You trust me?"
"To the end," Ruby said, "otherwise I would have left before now. I'm calling in the Wolfpack."
"Call back anyone who isn't banished," Zavala said, "I'm doing the same."
"Ruby," Ruby turned to Blossom, who spoke in Penny's voice.
"Penny," the Mother of Wolves said.
"Pyrrha and I just got a request to deploy at Sector B7, we're on our way, but what's going on?"
"It's a long story, I'll tell you both when I get home," Ruby said, "Might be Hive, be careful."
"This close to the City?" Penny said with horror in her voice.
—
Pyrrha turned on the emergency lights on her sparrow as Ruby's voice came out of Nick. It had taken her months to get the proper paperwork filed to let her add them to the sparrow because, well, most Guardians, even Titans, were irresponsible enough to abuse having them to get somewhere in the City faster.
Airships and cabs pulled away as she gunned the Sparrow at top speed, heading for the spot Victoria had marked. The choker around her neck glimmered with gold and purple engrams before they transformed into red and bronze plasteel armor, her Khvostov 7G-0X appearing on her back and a Roseworks forged shotgun at her waist. Behind her, she heard the whipping of air as the Warlock friend deployed her own armor
"We got sight on them," Ruby said, before saying, "What the heck? Ikora, are you seeing this? They look like shadows…"
"They're not," a familiar, detached voice said from Nick.
"Eris?" Ruby prompted, "You know what these are?"
"Toland spoke of them," Eris Morn said, "They are inhabited, exalted and rendered into their final shape. They are the shock troops of Oyrx, taken by him and rendered more real than they were…"
"...Ok, then," Ruby said after a moment of silence, "Taken then. Girls, be careful. If Oryx is willing to spend them on a face first assault on the City, I doubt they're particularly elite, but this is an unknown threat. How far out are you?"
"Seconds," Victoria said as they crested over the top of the walls, eyes landing on the black blister in reality pouring negative light and Darkness onto the ground, and out of the puddle were crawling jittering shadows in the shape of Hive, Fallen, Vex and Cabal. They stood up, hoisting weapons that were fused to their arms, and began firing at the already gathered Titans firing back, "Eyes up, Guardian."
Pyrrha threw herself off the sparrow, whipping the Khvostov off her back and zeroing an Acolyte's shadow within the first two seconds. Above her, she felt like a sun had blossomed, a slash of pure Solar fire flying from where Penny hovered, consuming four Thralls and scattering the Darkness that made them up.
Pyrrha landed, switching her Khvostov for the shotgun and blowing a Vandel away. Or she would have, if it didn't throw up a barrier like a Titan's Ward of Dawn to absorb the void powered shot and a swing of flames.
Well Pyrrha wasn't a champion of the Crucible because she was afraid to risk it all. She tore through the barrier, slam firing three shells into the Vandel and two Acolytes in as many seconds. Two Thralls charged her at once, only to be consumed by the fire from Penny.
Pyrrha ejected the last shell, beginning to reload when a warning cry came from the other Titans. The Knight that had crawled from the sludge was blown away in a storm of shot and shell.
Pyrrha watched it from where her head landed separately from her body, before everything went black. For a second, she was back at Beacon, a stabbing in her chest as she died her First Death.
She watched Ruby lunge at Cinder with a primal shrike of rage that reminded Pyrrha, every time she was forced to live through it, that Ruby was Yang's sister. Cinder nocked another arrow, before lodging the arrow in Ruby's throat and causing her to collapse gagging. Then a silver light exploded out of Ruby's eyes and-
Pyrrha caught her shotgun as Penny tossed it to her in between dueling a Captain with one flaming blade of Floating Array. The android Guardian deftly parried four hands worth of blades with one hand. Pyrrha, without hesitation, blew the head off the Captain.
The cyst in reality ruptured then, spilling out a deludge of darkness from which crawled a shadowy Ogre and Wizard.
—-
Penny drew the pistol off her hip as Floating Array MK 2 flashed that the enhanced mode was going to end before ejecting the energy clip. Seconds later, her Daybreak sputtered and failed as she ran out of energy to feed it. As she fell back, she watched a purple shield blossom into existence on Pyrrha's wrist, her other hand brushing the switch on the Khvostov's receiver as she spun in place. The shield, Penny calculated, would fly straight at the wizard.
Penny brought up the Traveler's Chosen, the mass produced, light sidearm designed for Guardians still had a heavier trigger pull than something designed for civilians. Not that civilians could easily get guns in the Last City, but occasionally you saw people come in from the wild too shell shocked by what they had seen in their exodus to what was once Chile to give up their guns. Otherwise, it was a clear sign you were a member of Ikora's hidden or the Future War Cult.
The survivors were more forgiven than the Cultists. The former had seen the horrors that existed beyond the Last Safe City, the latter obsessed with a war most didn't expect to come despite having grown up in the beating heart of safety. The city had been under siege for over a century, and it hadn't broken.
And it would not today.
Penny fell back to the Titan gun line as she thought about this, diving behind a deployed barrier as the Ogre sprayed blasts of energy at them. Slotting another powerpack into Floating Array, she popped up in time to see the Wizard swing it's arms up like a conductor, shadows, real shadows, not the fake shadows that made up the Wizard and Ogre, peeled off the ground in the form of Thralls and charged Pyrrha as she caught the shield. The Titan braced her gun on the shield and fired full auto at the charging shadow Thralls.
Penny rushed out of cover, firing at the horde before switching targets to the Ogre as it opened fire on them again. Dodging the shots as best as she could, the Warlock approached the Ogre from one cover to another. Finally exploding from the wall right under the Ogre, she drove Floating Array into its bulbous head and pulled the trigger, Solar flames igniting and tearing into the monster as it continued to try and fire, not even flinching until it finally exploded and died.
Falling and landing on her feet, Penny turned towards the Wizard just in time to see Pyrrha finish emptying a clip onto her, she exploded into shadow and anti light, leaving the Guardians to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Nick," Penny said, "call Ruby again, please?"
"You done then?" Ruby said.
"Yes," Penny sighed.
"Well, that's good news. Now I got bad news, Zav wants you up in the Tower as fast as possible for a debriefing. I can conduct it if you want, but someone's gotta grill you on what just happened. We're gonna go over everyone, so don't feel like we're picking on you, but you guys aren't on guard duty so we can afford to have you brought up first. Ok?"
"I suppose," Penny sighed. She didn't know how she would have survived in the Atlasian military, she hated debriefings. "We came, we saw, we shot it dead" was good enough for most of the time.
"Ok, good. Love you both, now get your butts up here so we can get this over with.
—
"Guardian?" Weiss's eyes squeezed shut at the voice pulling her from sleep, "Guardian? Eyes up, Guardian…"
Weiss opened her eyes to see a litle robot floating in front of her, a single blue-white eye staring at her from the star-shaped shell, "What-?"
"Oh, good, you're awake," the robot said, the shell flying out from the eye and orbiting his body for a second before returning to the star-shaped form, "Come on, get up. We've got incoming."
"What are you?" Weiss asked, thinking back, last thing she remembered, she had been on a bullhead bound for Mantle, then… then nothing.
"I'm a Ghost… your Ghost," the little robot said, "and that's… important, we're important. You're what we call a Guardian, and that's… I don't have time to explain it. Come on, we need to find you a weapon before the Fallen find you."
Weiss reached for her hip, only to grab air where Myrtenaster should have been. Looking around wildly, her eyes finally landed on her beloved rapier… only to find it broken and rusted at her feet, "What- how long was I unconscious?"
"... Guardian, it's going to be hard to tell you this, but you weren't unconscious. You were dead, that's why you can't remember-"
"Can't remember what!?" Weiss snapped, turning to the Ghost.
"Anything? Try and think of your parents, you can't, right-?"
"Jacques and Willow Schnee," Weiss snapped again, "I remember things."
"That… that shouldn't be possible, I've never heard of- well, there were rumors that the Hunter Vanguard can remember her past life but… I always thought those were just rumors… No, it doesn't matter. You were dead, Guardian."
"My name is Weiss!" Weiss snapped out, grabbing the rusted form of Myrtenaster.
"Weiss, ok. They call me Mikael," Mikeal said, "You can name me something else later if you want, but we need to find you a gun. The Fallen will be here soon."
"What are the Fallen?" Weiss asked, looking around the building. They were in what appeared to be a broken apartment complex, no sign of the Bullhead, "Are they a type of Grimm?"
"Grimm?" Mikael asked, blossoming again and eye spinning in place, "What's a Grimm?"
"You… don't know what a Grimm is?" Weiss said.
"Were they something during the Golden Age?" Mikael asked, "you know that sword, was it something you fought during the Golden Age? I found a gun, follow me!"
Weiss Scooped up Myrtenaster, storing the rusted sword and following Mikael. Mikeal dived down into a courtyard outside the building. Sighing, and deciding she was in for a lien, Weiss slid over the guardrail and plummeted four stories before landing on a cold, hard piece of ground. Mikeal flew around a body that had decayed to bone, and some places, not even that.
"A Seventh Seraph carbine?" Mikeal said as Weiss knelt down at the bone hand. Muttering a quiet apology, Weiss pried the rifle from the dead body, "we got lucky! Seventh Seraph gear normally works even after all these years, even if it isn't as good as we wish. My supply of Glimmer is enough that I should be able to create plenty of ammo! Come on, let's try to find another gun before we head for where we look for a jumpship!"
—-
Woo, boy. I always said I would revisit this idea despite regarding the original Forged in the Light as an Old Shame. And well, here we are. Yes, there is a reason why RWNP remember their pasts, yes, it has to do with canon Destiny, no I won't directly say what unless someone guesses it until the proper time.
"Oryx," Ikora said, "the Hive God-King."
"I know who Oryx is, Ikora," Ruby snarked, before reaching the table, "So, what do we have? Pyrrha woke up something worse when she killed the Prince?"
"Looks like it," Ikora said, pulling up an image of a long, chitinous rectangle with a long trench gouged in it on the holographic projector in the center of the table, "They entered the Solar System last night, and made it to Saturn before the Reef's forces engaged them."
"How'd that go?"
"Badly. Mara Sov is confirmed to have died, and Uldren is presumed dead. But they managed to at least stop the ship in orbit around Saturn."
Ruby worked her jaw, thinking. Before she could say anything, a sharp alarm spread through the CIC, breaking her thoughts and drawing Zavala from where he was giving hurried orders to various waiting Ghosts. All three Vanguards looked as a map of the Last City popped up from the holographic projector. A red blip appeared outside of the walls, growing in size
"Get all non-essential personnel manning the walls to sector B7," Zavala ordered grimly, "Ruby, you stay here."
"We're about to be attacked!" Ruby said, the lightning crackling under her skin.
"They shouldn't be this close to the city already," Zavala said, "I don't trust that if they can get this close, they can't get into the City, and if that happens, you, on Bumblebee, are the fastest sparrow rider I have. I'm not asking you to stay because it's dangerous, I'm asking you to stay for the safety of people in the City.*
The Arcstrider paced, breathing in and out, "I don't like this, Zav."
"I know," Zavala said, "You trust me?"
"To the end," Ruby said, "otherwise I would have left before now. I'm calling in the Wolfpack."
"Call back anyone who isn't banished," Zavala said, "I'm doing the same."
"Ruby," Ruby turned to Blossom, who spoke in Penny's voice.
"Penny," the Mother of Wolves said.
"Pyrrha and I just got a request to deploy at Sector B7, we're on our way, but what's going on?"
"It's a long story, I'll tell you both when I get home," Ruby said, "Might be Hive, be careful."
"This close to the City?" Penny said with horror in her voice.
—
Pyrrha turned on the emergency lights on her sparrow as Ruby's voice came out of Nick. It had taken her months to get the proper paperwork filed to let her add them to the sparrow because, well, most Guardians, even Titans, were irresponsible enough to abuse having them to get somewhere in the City faster.
Airships and cabs pulled away as she gunned the Sparrow at top speed, heading for the spot Victoria had marked. The choker around her neck glimmered with gold and purple engrams before they transformed into red and bronze plasteel armor, her Khvostov 7G-0X appearing on her back and a Roseworks forged shotgun at her waist. Behind her, she heard the whipping of air as the Warlock friend deployed her own armor
"We got sight on them," Ruby said, before saying, "What the heck? Ikora, are you seeing this? They look like shadows…"
"They're not," a familiar, detached voice said from Nick.
"Eris?" Ruby prompted, "You know what these are?"
"Toland spoke of them," Eris Morn said, "They are inhabited, exalted and rendered into their final shape. They are the shock troops of Oyrx, taken by him and rendered more real than they were…"
"...Ok, then," Ruby said after a moment of silence, "Taken then. Girls, be careful. If Oryx is willing to spend them on a face first assault on the City, I doubt they're particularly elite, but this is an unknown threat. How far out are you?"
"Seconds," Victoria said as they crested over the top of the walls, eyes landing on the black blister in reality pouring negative light and Darkness onto the ground, and out of the puddle were crawling jittering shadows in the shape of Hive, Fallen, Vex and Cabal. They stood up, hoisting weapons that were fused to their arms, and began firing at the already gathered Titans firing back, "Eyes up, Guardian."
Pyrrha threw herself off the sparrow, whipping the Khvostov off her back and zeroing an Acolyte's shadow within the first two seconds. Above her, she felt like a sun had blossomed, a slash of pure Solar fire flying from where Penny hovered, consuming four Thralls and scattering the Darkness that made them up.
Pyrrha landed, switching her Khvostov for the shotgun and blowing a Vandel away. Or she would have, if it didn't throw up a barrier like a Titan's Ward of Dawn to absorb the void powered shot and a swing of flames.
Well Pyrrha wasn't a champion of the Crucible because she was afraid to risk it all. She tore through the barrier, slam firing three shells into the Vandel and two Acolytes in as many seconds. Two Thralls charged her at once, only to be consumed by the fire from Penny.
Pyrrha ejected the last shell, beginning to reload when a warning cry came from the other Titans. The Knight that had crawled from the sludge was blown away in a storm of shot and shell.
Pyrrha watched it from where her head landed separately from her body, before everything went black. For a second, she was back at Beacon, a stabbing in her chest as she died her First Death.
She watched Ruby lunge at Cinder with a primal shrike of rage that reminded Pyrrha, every time she was forced to live through it, that Ruby was Yang's sister. Cinder nocked another arrow, before lodging the arrow in Ruby's throat and causing her to collapse gagging. Then a silver light exploded out of Ruby's eyes and-
Pyrrha caught her shotgun as Penny tossed it to her in between dueling a Captain with one flaming blade of Floating Array. The android Guardian deftly parried four hands worth of blades with one hand. Pyrrha, without hesitation, blew the head off the Captain.
The cyst in reality ruptured then, spilling out a deludge of darkness from which crawled a shadowy Ogre and Wizard.
—-
Penny drew the pistol off her hip as Floating Array MK 2 flashed that the enhanced mode was going to end before ejecting the energy clip. Seconds later, her Daybreak sputtered and failed as she ran out of energy to feed it. As she fell back, she watched a purple shield blossom into existence on Pyrrha's wrist, her other hand brushing the switch on the Khvostov's receiver as she spun in place. The shield, Penny calculated, would fly straight at the wizard.
Penny brought up the Traveler's Chosen, the mass produced, light sidearm designed for Guardians still had a heavier trigger pull than something designed for civilians. Not that civilians could easily get guns in the Last City, but occasionally you saw people come in from the wild too shell shocked by what they had seen in their exodus to what was once Chile to give up their guns. Otherwise, it was a clear sign you were a member of Ikora's hidden or the Future War Cult.
The survivors were more forgiven than the Cultists. The former had seen the horrors that existed beyond the Last Safe City, the latter obsessed with a war most didn't expect to come despite having grown up in the beating heart of safety. The city had been under siege for over a century, and it hadn't broken.
And it would not today.
Penny fell back to the Titan gun line as she thought about this, diving behind a deployed barrier as the Ogre sprayed blasts of energy at them. Slotting another powerpack into Floating Array, she popped up in time to see the Wizard swing it's arms up like a conductor, shadows, real shadows, not the fake shadows that made up the Wizard and Ogre, peeled off the ground in the form of Thralls and charged Pyrrha as she caught the shield. The Titan braced her gun on the shield and fired full auto at the charging shadow Thralls.
Penny rushed out of cover, firing at the horde before switching targets to the Ogre as it opened fire on them again. Dodging the shots as best as she could, the Warlock approached the Ogre from one cover to another. Finally exploding from the wall right under the Ogre, she drove Floating Array into its bulbous head and pulled the trigger, Solar flames igniting and tearing into the monster as it continued to try and fire, not even flinching until it finally exploded and died.
Falling and landing on her feet, Penny turned towards the Wizard just in time to see Pyrrha finish emptying a clip onto her, she exploded into shadow and anti light, leaving the Guardians to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Nick," Penny said, "call Ruby again, please?"
"You done then?" Ruby said.
"Yes," Penny sighed.
"Well, that's good news. Now I got bad news, Zav wants you up in the Tower as fast as possible for a debriefing. I can conduct it if you want, but someone's gotta grill you on what just happened. We're gonna go over everyone, so don't feel like we're picking on you, but you guys aren't on guard duty so we can afford to have you brought up first. Ok?"
"I suppose," Penny sighed. She didn't know how she would have survived in the Atlasian military, she hated debriefings. "We came, we saw, we shot it dead" was good enough for most of the time.
"Ok, good. Love you both, now get your butts up here so we can get this over with.
—
"Guardian?" Weiss's eyes squeezed shut at the voice pulling her from sleep, "Guardian? Eyes up, Guardian…"
Weiss opened her eyes to see a litle robot floating in front of her, a single blue-white eye staring at her from the star-shaped shell, "What-?"
"Oh, good, you're awake," the robot said, the shell flying out from the eye and orbiting his body for a second before returning to the star-shaped form, "Come on, get up. We've got incoming."
"What are you?" Weiss asked, thinking back, last thing she remembered, she had been on a bullhead bound for Mantle, then… then nothing.
"I'm a Ghost… your Ghost," the little robot said, "and that's… important, we're important. You're what we call a Guardian, and that's… I don't have time to explain it. Come on, we need to find you a weapon before the Fallen find you."
Weiss reached for her hip, only to grab air where Myrtenaster should have been. Looking around wildly, her eyes finally landed on her beloved rapier… only to find it broken and rusted at her feet, "What- how long was I unconscious?"
"... Guardian, it's going to be hard to tell you this, but you weren't unconscious. You were dead, that's why you can't remember-"
"Can't remember what!?" Weiss snapped, turning to the Ghost.
"Anything? Try and think of your parents, you can't, right-?"
"Jacques and Willow Schnee," Weiss snapped again, "I remember things."
"That… that shouldn't be possible, I've never heard of- well, there were rumors that the Hunter Vanguard can remember her past life but… I always thought those were just rumors… No, it doesn't matter. You were dead, Guardian."
"My name is Weiss!" Weiss snapped out, grabbing the rusted form of Myrtenaster.
"Weiss, ok. They call me Mikael," Mikeal said, "You can name me something else later if you want, but we need to find you a gun. The Fallen will be here soon."
"What are the Fallen?" Weiss asked, looking around the building. They were in what appeared to be a broken apartment complex, no sign of the Bullhead, "Are they a type of Grimm?"
"Grimm?" Mikael asked, blossoming again and eye spinning in place, "What's a Grimm?"
"You… don't know what a Grimm is?" Weiss said.
"Were they something during the Golden Age?" Mikael asked, "you know that sword, was it something you fought during the Golden Age? I found a gun, follow me!"
Weiss Scooped up Myrtenaster, storing the rusted sword and following Mikael. Mikeal dived down into a courtyard outside the building. Sighing, and deciding she was in for a lien, Weiss slid over the guardrail and plummeted four stories before landing on a cold, hard piece of ground. Mikeal flew around a body that had decayed to bone, and some places, not even that.
"A Seventh Seraph carbine?" Mikeal said as Weiss knelt down at the bone hand. Muttering a quiet apology, Weiss pried the rifle from the dead body, "we got lucky! Seventh Seraph gear normally works even after all these years, even if it isn't as good as we wish. My supply of Glimmer is enough that I should be able to create plenty of ammo! Come on, let's try to find another gun before we head for where we look for a jumpship!"
—-
Woo, boy. I always said I would revisit this idea despite regarding the original Forged in the Light as an Old Shame. And well, here we are. Yes, there is a reason why RWNP remember their pasts, yes, it has to do with canon Destiny, no I won't directly say what unless someone guesses it until the proper time.
Last edited:
Tawsnrrtsyip
Rick's Law Enthusiast
- Location
- Terra, Sol System, Orion Arm, Milky Way
- Pronouns
- Nice/Try/FBI/Pricks
Little bit early, but at a guess? Memory being partly soul-based in RWBY, the aura-infused weapons of the team so far helping keep their memories around, and the evacuation portal pocket dimension being somehow connected to the Ascendant Plane of Destiny?
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
They died before that point. Ruby died in Volume 3 here (we see her get shot by Cinder in Pyrrha's section), with Weiss's death being implicitly in Volume 5.
Chapter 2
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
Weiss stepped out into the cold, watching her breath puff out of her mouth as she did, "Where are we?
"Novosibirsk, in what was once Siberia," Mikeal said. Siberia… "Come on, once we get out of the city we can decrypt your sparrow and head for the cosmodrome to find a jumpship."
"I don't know what any of those things are," Weiss said, bemused.
"...What Age are you from? I could picture a Dark Ager not knowing what they are, but they would definitely know what the Fallen are."
"I don't… I don't know," Weiss said, "We didn't have a name for our age, it was just when we lived, Mikael."
"Ok, well a sparrow is like a motorbike. You had bikes in your age, right? It's like a bike that flies."
Weiss's mind immediately traveled to Bumblebee, Yang's bike, "We did, but I don't know how to drive one."
"You'll learn," Mikeal said, "all Guardians learn how to use sparrows to cross large distances. Meanwhile, a cosmodrome is a place to launch spacecraft while a jumpship is a relatively small, personalized spacecraft. The first one you find probably won't be capable of warp travel, unless we get really lucky, but we aren't looking to leave Earth orbit. We're heading to the Last City."
"There's only one left?" Weiss asked.
"That's why we call it the Last City," Mikeal said, "There are small settlements, but- oh, no…"
Weiss watched the six armed creature exit the building and stare at her. Then, it grabbed a speaf off its back and began to rush at her, chittering as it went. More of them came pouring out of the buildings as Mikeal flew under a broken car, "Fallen!"
These were the Fallen? They weren't Grimm, that was for sure. They were unlike any creature Weiss had ever seen. What had happened to Remnant while she was gone?
Weiss pushed aside the thought as the Fallen stabbed for her, the spear, which was spitting electricity, hit her Aura and stopped. Weiss snapped up her new gun and pulled the trigger, white, wispy energy rising from each gunshot wound before the Fallen dropped. Two more, these ones smaller and two armed, with stumps where the lower two arms should have been, lunged at her with electric knives. A single shot for each brought them down.
Whoever that Seraph had been, they had clearly valued stopping power. Unfortunately, killing the two had apparently enraged the other six two armed Fallen, who charged at her with chitters of rage. Before Weiss could bring the gun up, Mikeal called, "Use the Light!"
The Light? Weiss paused, just for a second, to focus on a part of her that felt strange and different from the rest of her. Reaching into it on instinct, Weiss was dimly reminded of using her Semblance. A purple glyph appeared on the palm of her hand, and she threw it out so a ball of purple light flew from her hand before exploding in a burst of energy that disintegrated the charging Fallen. The other six armed one spat some chittering at her, before going down on all sixes and running away.
"Mikeal," Weiss said.
"Yes?"
"We're gonna talk about what that was once we're on the road."
"We'll have plenty of time," Mikael said.
—
Pyrrha watched Ruby sag in her office chair, the eternally fifteen year old Vanguard looking fractionally closer to her actual age. The exhausted sigh heaved from her lips, and the knife she had been playing with throughout the debriefing finally stopped moving.
"So to sum it up," Ruby said, "We have another war and a new enemy to fight."
"That's what it looks like," Penny said.
"Great," Ruby said, voice bitter, "I swear, we deal with one problem and another rises."
"We'll deal with it," Pyrrha said.
"That's the spirit," Pyrrha whipped around at the voice in the doorway. Leaning in it was a tall Exo with a horn on his head and blue-white eyes, as he spoke, yellow light came from his mouth. Behind him was another Exo with a yellow cloak and yellow markings and a human with dark hair and a small goatee. Three fifths of the Wolfpack, "So, who's this new problem and how're we handling it?"
"Cayde, Andal, Shiro" Ruby said, "how are you?"
"Do we really have time for this?" Shiro said.
"We always have time for this," Ruby said.
"...I'm doing fine, mom," Shiro sighed.
"We're all doing fine," Cayde agreed, and Andal nodded, "What's up?"
"We need the best pilot in the system that isn't Amanda," Ruby said, unloading Wolf's Howl, her wrist mounted, impulse controlled grenade launcher, "Eris… offered her ship for a stealth mission. Your job is to fly it into orbit around close proximity to Oryx's ship around Saturn, transmat onto it and set up a transmat zone so we can deploy more people to it. However, only you and Andal are going, Cayde. I need Shiro to go find Tevis."
"Two man sucide run, eh?" Cayde grinned.
"We can't risk more until we get the Transmat zone up and running. You'll have reinforcements the minute you do. The Firebreak Order has put forth four fireteams ready to go, while the Praxis Order put forth two."
"Ruby," Zavala's voice came out of Blossom.
"What's up, Zav?" Ruby asked.
"Send Pyrrha to my office once you're done with her."
"She'll be there in a minute," Ruby said, nodding to Pyrrha, who stood up, ducking out of the office and making her way down the hall. Knocking on the metal door, Pyrrha waited for the commander to open the door.
Once he did, she stepped in to his grim face, "Commander."
"Pyrrha," Zavala said, "Ruby's planning her secret mission to the Dreadnaught, I take it?"
Pyrrha blinked, opening her mouth and sharing a look with Victoria. Finally she said, "Yes, sir."
"Good. I can't officially endorse the mission, but we need boots on the ground there as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I need you to go to Venus."
"Venus?" Pyrrha said, "Why?"
"We have reports of the Sunbreakers deploying there. They're a Titan Order who left the City with Osiris, after I terminated the contract between them and the City due to finding it… unacceptable. Now, it's time to bring them home, so the Hammer of Sol can guard the City through the night to come. And if they can't, then we need the best of us to take up the Hammer and bring it back. That's you, Pyrrha Nikos, Crota's Bane. They respect strength, and there's no one stronger than the killer of the Hive God-Prince."
—
Weiss stopped the sparrow on top of the hill, climbing off the bike and stretching her legs. It was surprisingly easy to use, push forwards on the handles to speed up, pull back to slow down, press a button with your thumb for emergency breaking.
Pushing that thought aside, she watched Mikael return it to the small white gem it had been held in, an "Engram" and scooped it up, storing it in one of her pouches before letting Mikeal settle into it and flipping it shut. Walking along the road lined with cars and bodies she asked, quietly, "What happened here?"
"People tried to get on Exodus ships during the Collapse," Mikeal said, "It didn't work, Last City records say nobody got further out than the Astroid Belt."
"But they got into space?" Weiss said, "We hadn't done that in my age, I don't think."
"So your pre-Golden Age?" Mikeal asked.
"Maybe?" ,Weiss said, "It'd help if I knew anything about what the Golden Age was."
"It was at the start of the twenty first century," Mikeal said causing Weiss to pause. Twenty first century? Twenty First Century after what? The Great War? The fall of Vale? Something else? If it was any of those, she had been dead for a long, long time.
"How long after the Great War was that?" Weiss asked.
"Great War? You mean World War One?" Weiss shot a startled look at Mikeal's pouch, "About a century. Anyways, the Traveler, the source of the Light, came to the Sol System and began terraforming it. Nobody knows why, but that's how the Golden Age started."
"I still can't believe we left Remnant," Weiss said.
"Remnant? What's that?"
Weiss stopped again, having barely made it into the shadow of the large wall, "Remnant, here?"
"This is Earth," Weiss couldn't help the incredulous snort that came out of her nose, "What!?"
"Earth," Weiss said, "Like the stuff under our feet?"
"That's what they call this world! I've never heard of a Remnant before."
"That doesn't make any sense," Weiss said, as they stepped into the broken down security checkpoint, "Why would they rename the planet-"
"It's always been Earth," Mikeal insisted, "We can ask the Exos when you get to the Last City, they'll tell you. Nobody's heard of Remnant, I'll bet you."
Weiss decided to take that bet, if only to stave off a panic attack over the idea that Mikeal might be telling the truth. If this wasn't Remnant, how had she gotten to "Earth"?
"Let's find this ship already," Weiss said.
—
"Novosibirsk, in what was once Siberia," Mikeal said. Siberia… "Come on, once we get out of the city we can decrypt your sparrow and head for the cosmodrome to find a jumpship."
"I don't know what any of those things are," Weiss said, bemused.
"...What Age are you from? I could picture a Dark Ager not knowing what they are, but they would definitely know what the Fallen are."
"I don't… I don't know," Weiss said, "We didn't have a name for our age, it was just when we lived, Mikael."
"Ok, well a sparrow is like a motorbike. You had bikes in your age, right? It's like a bike that flies."
Weiss's mind immediately traveled to Bumblebee, Yang's bike, "We did, but I don't know how to drive one."
"You'll learn," Mikeal said, "all Guardians learn how to use sparrows to cross large distances. Meanwhile, a cosmodrome is a place to launch spacecraft while a jumpship is a relatively small, personalized spacecraft. The first one you find probably won't be capable of warp travel, unless we get really lucky, but we aren't looking to leave Earth orbit. We're heading to the Last City."
"There's only one left?" Weiss asked.
"That's why we call it the Last City," Mikeal said, "There are small settlements, but- oh, no…"
Weiss watched the six armed creature exit the building and stare at her. Then, it grabbed a speaf off its back and began to rush at her, chittering as it went. More of them came pouring out of the buildings as Mikeal flew under a broken car, "Fallen!"
These were the Fallen? They weren't Grimm, that was for sure. They were unlike any creature Weiss had ever seen. What had happened to Remnant while she was gone?
Weiss pushed aside the thought as the Fallen stabbed for her, the spear, which was spitting electricity, hit her Aura and stopped. Weiss snapped up her new gun and pulled the trigger, white, wispy energy rising from each gunshot wound before the Fallen dropped. Two more, these ones smaller and two armed, with stumps where the lower two arms should have been, lunged at her with electric knives. A single shot for each brought them down.
Whoever that Seraph had been, they had clearly valued stopping power. Unfortunately, killing the two had apparently enraged the other six two armed Fallen, who charged at her with chitters of rage. Before Weiss could bring the gun up, Mikeal called, "Use the Light!"
The Light? Weiss paused, just for a second, to focus on a part of her that felt strange and different from the rest of her. Reaching into it on instinct, Weiss was dimly reminded of using her Semblance. A purple glyph appeared on the palm of her hand, and she threw it out so a ball of purple light flew from her hand before exploding in a burst of energy that disintegrated the charging Fallen. The other six armed one spat some chittering at her, before going down on all sixes and running away.
"Mikeal," Weiss said.
"Yes?"
"We're gonna talk about what that was once we're on the road."
"We'll have plenty of time," Mikael said.
—
Pyrrha watched Ruby sag in her office chair, the eternally fifteen year old Vanguard looking fractionally closer to her actual age. The exhausted sigh heaved from her lips, and the knife she had been playing with throughout the debriefing finally stopped moving.
"So to sum it up," Ruby said, "We have another war and a new enemy to fight."
"That's what it looks like," Penny said.
"Great," Ruby said, voice bitter, "I swear, we deal with one problem and another rises."
"We'll deal with it," Pyrrha said.
"That's the spirit," Pyrrha whipped around at the voice in the doorway. Leaning in it was a tall Exo with a horn on his head and blue-white eyes, as he spoke, yellow light came from his mouth. Behind him was another Exo with a yellow cloak and yellow markings and a human with dark hair and a small goatee. Three fifths of the Wolfpack, "So, who's this new problem and how're we handling it?"
"Cayde, Andal, Shiro" Ruby said, "how are you?"
"Do we really have time for this?" Shiro said.
"We always have time for this," Ruby said.
"...I'm doing fine, mom," Shiro sighed.
"We're all doing fine," Cayde agreed, and Andal nodded, "What's up?"
"We need the best pilot in the system that isn't Amanda," Ruby said, unloading Wolf's Howl, her wrist mounted, impulse controlled grenade launcher, "Eris… offered her ship for a stealth mission. Your job is to fly it into orbit around close proximity to Oryx's ship around Saturn, transmat onto it and set up a transmat zone so we can deploy more people to it. However, only you and Andal are going, Cayde. I need Shiro to go find Tevis."
"Two man sucide run, eh?" Cayde grinned.
"We can't risk more until we get the Transmat zone up and running. You'll have reinforcements the minute you do. The Firebreak Order has put forth four fireteams ready to go, while the Praxis Order put forth two."
"Ruby," Zavala's voice came out of Blossom.
"What's up, Zav?" Ruby asked.
"Send Pyrrha to my office once you're done with her."
"She'll be there in a minute," Ruby said, nodding to Pyrrha, who stood up, ducking out of the office and making her way down the hall. Knocking on the metal door, Pyrrha waited for the commander to open the door.
Once he did, she stepped in to his grim face, "Commander."
"Pyrrha," Zavala said, "Ruby's planning her secret mission to the Dreadnaught, I take it?"
Pyrrha blinked, opening her mouth and sharing a look with Victoria. Finally she said, "Yes, sir."
"Good. I can't officially endorse the mission, but we need boots on the ground there as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I need you to go to Venus."
"Venus?" Pyrrha said, "Why?"
"We have reports of the Sunbreakers deploying there. They're a Titan Order who left the City with Osiris, after I terminated the contract between them and the City due to finding it… unacceptable. Now, it's time to bring them home, so the Hammer of Sol can guard the City through the night to come. And if they can't, then we need the best of us to take up the Hammer and bring it back. That's you, Pyrrha Nikos, Crota's Bane. They respect strength, and there's no one stronger than the killer of the Hive God-Prince."
—
Weiss stopped the sparrow on top of the hill, climbing off the bike and stretching her legs. It was surprisingly easy to use, push forwards on the handles to speed up, pull back to slow down, press a button with your thumb for emergency breaking.
Pushing that thought aside, she watched Mikael return it to the small white gem it had been held in, an "Engram" and scooped it up, storing it in one of her pouches before letting Mikeal settle into it and flipping it shut. Walking along the road lined with cars and bodies she asked, quietly, "What happened here?"
"People tried to get on Exodus ships during the Collapse," Mikeal said, "It didn't work, Last City records say nobody got further out than the Astroid Belt."
"But they got into space?" Weiss said, "We hadn't done that in my age, I don't think."
"So your pre-Golden Age?" Mikeal asked.
"Maybe?" ,Weiss said, "It'd help if I knew anything about what the Golden Age was."
"It was at the start of the twenty first century," Mikeal said causing Weiss to pause. Twenty first century? Twenty First Century after what? The Great War? The fall of Vale? Something else? If it was any of those, she had been dead for a long, long time.
"How long after the Great War was that?" Weiss asked.
"Great War? You mean World War One?" Weiss shot a startled look at Mikeal's pouch, "About a century. Anyways, the Traveler, the source of the Light, came to the Sol System and began terraforming it. Nobody knows why, but that's how the Golden Age started."
"I still can't believe we left Remnant," Weiss said.
"Remnant? What's that?"
Weiss stopped again, having barely made it into the shadow of the large wall, "Remnant, here?"
"This is Earth," Weiss couldn't help the incredulous snort that came out of her nose, "What!?"
"Earth," Weiss said, "Like the stuff under our feet?"
"That's what they call this world! I've never heard of a Remnant before."
"That doesn't make any sense," Weiss said, as they stepped into the broken down security checkpoint, "Why would they rename the planet-"
"It's always been Earth," Mikeal insisted, "We can ask the Exos when you get to the Last City, they'll tell you. Nobody's heard of Remnant, I'll bet you."
Weiss decided to take that bet, if only to stave off a panic attack over the idea that Mikeal might be telling the truth. If this wasn't Remnant, how had she gotten to "Earth"?
"Let's find this ship already," Weiss said.
—
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
It needs to be emphasized, Ruby is old. She might be physically 15, but she's a Dark Age Risen, she makes her coworkers look like toddlers, and people like Cayde, Shiro and Andal look like babies (counting just the time since their reincarnation).Damn you, you tease.Kinda want some Ruby badassery, and did those grown men just call Ruby mom?
A conservative estimate, since Destiny stubbornly refuses to explain how long the Dark Age and City Age are beyond the latter being "centuries" long is that Ruby would be in her early three hundreds. She's an old woman in a young woman's body, and personally brought Cayde, Andal and Shiro (and Tevis and Jaren, before the latter's death) under her wing when they came to the City.
She's done a lot, and the exact depth of her backstory will only be unpacked as time goes on.
Unfortunately, Ruby's confined to a desk job so nobody else has to be, so her badassery is gonna be a while off.
Chapter 3
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
Weiss walked through the building that Mikeal had guided her towards, examining the dusty exhibits showing various form fitting suits while a large vehicle loomed in the background. Mikeal popped out of his pouch slightly to stare at them, "What are these?"
"Space suits," Mikeal said, "I have a new one encrypted, but you won't have to put it on until we find a jumpship."
"I have to wear one?" Weiss asked, tightening her lips.
"You can wear it under your dress if you're uncomfortable," Mikeal said, "but we're going to be leaving Earth's atmosphere for a bit, so you definitely need to wear one in case we have a hull breach. I'm not sure how we'll put on a helmet with your hair, but safety is important!"
"How do most long haired Guardians wear helmets?" Weiss asked.
"I don't think I've ever seen one?" Mikeal said, "I might need you to cut your hair, at least for this trip."
Thank goodness she wasn't Yang.
Yang…
If Weiss had been dead for so long Remnant had renamed itself, or whatever was going on, did that mean Yang was dead? Blake?
Her heart squeezed at the idea she would never see her team again. Her friends, her family, everyone.
"Can't we just risk it, this once?" Weiss weezled, running her hand through her ponytail.
"No! No, absolutely not," Mikeal snapped, before seeming to fake a breath in as he calmed down, "What happens if there's a hole in the ship? You'd be stuck in a constant loop of asphyxiating to death and trying to pilot it to the Last City. I don't want to put you through that. It'll be safer to risk it once we have shipwrights to look over it and make sure it's good to go."
Weiss swallowed slightly and nodded, "Ok. What should I cut it with?"
"Uh, all Ghosts are required to keep a survival knife encoded, give me a second and-" Weiss caught the knife as it appeared in a flash of light. A long, serrated one with a familiar emblem engraved on one surface.
"Mikeal," Weiss said, hope blossoming in her chest as she stared at the emblem, "Does the name Ruby Rose mean anything to you?"
"What- why?" Mikeal said, "it does, she's the Hunter Vanguard and owner of the Roseworks weapons foundry. But how do you know her?"
"We were combat partners," Weiss said, bundling up her hair and bringing the knife up to it. The idea that Ruby was alive again, was around here, made her willing to make the sacrifice.
"Huh," Mikeal said, "small solar syste- look out!"
Weiss whipped around in time to see a larger, four armed Fallen crawl out of the wall, dropping her severed hair and scooping up the Seraph gun. Mikeal flew away to find some place to hide as the first rounds flew from both Fallen and Guardian. Weiss's Aura flashed as burning metal crashed into it and stopped, while a blue barrier appeared around the Fallen as she shot at it.
Another shot smashed into her Aura from the crude shotgun, and Weiss grabbed onto the Light, throwing a ball of purple energy at the Fallen and burning through the barrier around them. Firing the gun at their head, Weiss watched white gas explode out as they tipped backwards and stopped moving, walking over to pick up the shotgun.
"You… actually took out a Captain? In one life?" Mikeal said, popping out of their hiding place as Weiss sighed. She missed Myrtenaster already. She'd have to ask Ruby about where she could get a replacement when they saw each other.
"Yes," Weiss said, "Give me the spacesuit, and turn around. It isn't proper for a boy to watch a girl while they're changing."
—X Pyrrha X—
Pyrrha guided her ship down towards the Ishtar Academy on Venus, reaching up and opening herself to all channels as she spoke, "Hello, this is Pyrrha Nikos to the Sunbreaker Order. I repeat, this is Pyrrha Nikos to the Sunbreaker Order, do you copy?"
"Pyrrha Nikos," a voice said after a second, "So Crota's End has come searching for us, but for what reason?"
"To reforge connections between the Sunbreakers and the Last City," Pyrrha said.
"So Zavala finally acknowledges he needs us," the voice said, "land at the Academy and make your way to the open Vex gate. That will be your first step to us."
Pyrrha reached back and grabbed her helmet, sharing a glance with Victoria, who asked, "Who is this?"
"I am the third Empyreal Magistrate of the Sunbreaker Order, Ouros."
"The Ouros?" Victoria asked, "Three Ahamkara Ouros? Six Fronts Ouros?"
"The latter battle is one many can claim credit towards," Ouros said in amusement, "but as for the former, yes, that is me. Do they still tell my story at the Tower, Little Light?"
"Of course they do!" Victoria said, "You're one of the greatest Titans to ever defend the Walls!"
"And so I still do," Pyrrha transmatted as they continued to talk, landing in front of a group of four Vex goblins, brass robots with white cores and a single red eye. Slinging her shotgun off her back, Pyrrha blew one away and cycled the pump as white liquid, radiolaria, poured out of the shattered core, "the Vanguard is too complacent, too obsessed with the idea that the Walls ends at the Walls. The Great Disaster you avenged when you killed Crota scared them. Caused them to skulk like an injured wolf instead of the glorious hunters we are. Tell me, Crota's End, what threat has come to cause them to beg for our help?"
Pyrrha clenched her lips shut, refusing to respond to the mocking of the Commander, of Ruby. Ruby wasn't a coward, she wasn't complacent. Instead, she deployed her shield, just for a second, and smashed the barrier of Void light into another goblin, throwing it against the wall of the Academy where it shattered in an explosion of brass and radiolaria.
"Did I wound your reverence?" Ouros continued, "Is Crota's End still a loyal hound to the Vanguard? You are still young, I wouldn't blame you."
"We have a friend on the Vanguard," Victoria said, "I don't think-"
"Who is it? Ikora, who betrayed Osiris? Zavala, who betrayed us? Or is it Ruby, who stood by as both betrayals happened, nothing more than a wolf shackled?"
"Ruby isn't a wolf shackled," Pyrrha said quietly, shooting another Vex dead.
"Do you know what she did, in the time before the City? Has she told you what she once was? Or does she shirk from her past?"
"She was an Iron Lord," Pyrrha said.
"For a time, yes, but what of before that? Does she speak of what she was before Radegast came and recruited her?" Pyrrha hesitated, "Ask her, when you return to the Last City. Ask her what she was."
— X Weiss X—
Weiss was glad for autopilot as they reentered the atmosphere. She wasn't sure she would be able to pilot this "jumpship" on her own.
"We should be able to see it any second now," Mikeal said as they entered the atmosphere over the ocean.
"The Last City?" Weiss said though the helmet Mikael had given her. It was white and sleek, with a reflective faceplate in front that Weiss looked through displaying various information.
"And the Traveler," Mikeal said, floating next to her head, "There he is now!"
Weiss blinked at the large, white, orb that appeared over the horizon, a metropolitan sprawl spreading out below it, "That's the Traveler?"
"Yep!" Mikeal said, "He's where I was born, where I started looking for you, years ago. I always wanted to be able to bring a Guardian back to the City, and now I can."
"He?"
"Nobody knows what gender the Traveler is, if any. But I think he's a bo-"
"Unknown jumpship, this is Tower Control, do you copy?" Weiss jumped as the voice came out of the speaker above her. She reached up, pressing the flashing button.
"Um, yes, hello. This is the unknown jumpship, I'm guessing?" Weiss said, "My name is Weiss Schnee?"
"Well, Miss Schnee," the voice said, in a drawling accent, "We have a couple of questions for you really quick. First off, are you a civilian or a Guardian?"
"Guardian," Weiss said.
"Good to hear, good to hear," the voice said, "Second question, do you feel comfortable landing that baby you're in, or do you need someone to take control and land it for you?"
"I need someone to take control, this is my first time in a jumpship," Weiss said.
"No shame in that, keeps us from having to scrape you off the side of the Tower," the voice said, "Sending a take over request now, you see it? Should be a blinking switch on the dash. Flick it up."
Weiss did so obediently, feeling the ship shudder as she did. Then they slowed dramatically, and began to tilt downwards.
"Alright, why don't you go wait by the exit, I got it from here, Miss Schnee," Weiss did so, walking with Mikeal floating beside her. The jumpship flew towards a large tower built into a wall looming over the City, before landing.
Weiss stepped out to, well, several men and women walking towards the jumpship, wearing coveralls and carrying toolboxes. Finally, one called out, "Where'd you find this?"
"Siberia!" Mikeal called back, "killed a Fallen captain for it!"
"Really now," the same drawling voice that had spoken over the speaker came from an office, out of which stepped a blond haired, green eyes wearing a sleeveless vest with a sleeve tattoo on her right arm, a red bandana and welding goggles around her neck, "You sound proud of that, Little Light. You green, Guardian Schnee?"
"I'm new," Weiss said, reaching up to take her helmet off. Once she did, chuckles came from the gathered mechanics, "What?"
"You have to cut your hair on the road, Schnee?" The woman said, "We can tell, it's a rough cut. Don't worry about them. Alright, you all, get that ship out of here! Cayde and Andal are comin' through on a take off in a few minutes, and I don't want it being delayed!"
"Sorry," Weiss said.
"Aw, I ain't blaming you," the woman said, "ships gotta land, and we can always delay a launch, you never know how much longer a ship from the wild can go without landing. We just gotta get it out of the way. I'm Chief Shipwright Amanda Holliday, by the way, I'm in charge of making sure every ship is in working order. It'll take a day or two to check everything, but we'll make sure your jumpship is in tip top shape."
"I don't have any money," Weiss said.
"Vanguard'll pay for it, I reckon," Holliday said, "They put aside a fund for equipping new Guardians every year. Cheaper to use the glimmer to make replacement parts than a whole new Jumpship and an Arcadia like this is… well, you found yourself a good baby, I know experienced Guardians that would kill for one of them."
"I see," Weiss said, "You're a jumpship fanatic, I guess?"
"Guess you can call me that, yeah," Holliday said, "Now, I ain't gonna hold you any longer, Schnee-"
"Call me Weiss," Weiss interjected hurriedly.
"Amanda, then," Amanda said, "See that hallway over there? It'll lead you to the courtyard, from there, you'll see a large opening. Take that, and you'll find the Vanguard."
"Thanks," Weiss said, beginning to make her way through the hallway. Amanda gave a friendly wave as Weiss went. She made her way through it, up a couple flights of stairs and into a courtyard at the top of the Tower with several robots milling about, the Traveler visible in out a wall and a couple of men wearing cloaks and long flowing coats having a… dance battle?
"Guardians do stuff like that," Mikeal said quietly.
"You new?" One of the cloaked men called, and Weiss nodded. He shot a grin at her and pointed down a large tunnel, "That way! Ignore Shaxx, he doesn't bite, can't with that helmet on, and the Vanguard are around the table. Ask 'em why we're grounded, while you're at it, maybe they'll tell you!"
Weiss cracked a small smile as laughter rose from the gathering, before heading down the tunnel where a tall man was standing with his hands on his hips, wearing a helmet with one broken and one intact horn and comparatively heavy armor, talking with a pair of robots, one emblazoned with a white, double headed bird clutching a sword in its talons while the other was emblazoned with Ruby's emblem. Walking into a room at the end of the tunnel, Weiss looked over the bald, blue skinned man wearing similar heavy armor and a woman with close cropped hair and a purple long coat before… before landing on Ruby.
She didn't look a day older than the last time Weiss had seen her, though her black dress had been replaced with an equally black spacesuit, bulletproof armor over the chest and several knife sheaths sticking out over it. Weiss swallowed, then called, "Ruby?"
Ruby didn't look up at first, too busy talking with the man. Weiss raised her voice, "Ruby!"
"I'm a little busy right now, so if this isn't important-" Ruby stopped as she turned around, staring at Weiss, "Weiss?"
— X Ruby X—
Ruby stared at Weiss for a second, taking in the messily cut short hair, the gray space suit barely visible under her dress, the modified Khvostov frame and Fallen shrapnel launcher hanging off her back and a rusted Myrtenaster at her hip. Weiss stared at Ruby for a second longer before rushing forwards and pulling Ruby into a hug, breathing, "You're alive…"
Ruby awkwardly reached around to give the shorter, and that alone was surreal because Ruby had gotten used to being the shortest person around, girl a hug. Her eyes traveled to the Ghost floating behind Weiss, worry in its eye, "I've been alive for a long time, Weiss. You're a Guardian now?"
"I went to your funeral," Weiss said quietly, "We, we couldn't find your body so we put up a headstone next to your mother's."
Well, that was a brand of morbidity Ruby didn't feel like thinking about. Instead she just said softly, "We're both alive now, that's all that matters, ok? Let me introduce you to my friends, the other members of the Vanguard. This is Commander Zavala, the head of the Vanguard."
"Weiss Schnee, correct?" Zavala said, the mountain of a man pushing up from the table, "Ruby has spoken about you."
"It's nice to meet you, sir," Weiss said, taking the offered hand and being shook with the force of the handshake.
"And this is Ikora Rey," Ruby said, and Ikora gave a thin smile.
"It's a pleasure putting a face to a name," she said, "Penny and Pyrrha will be sure to be happy to have another Remnantian around."
"Penny and Pyrrha are here?" Weiss asked.
"They aren't in the City at the moment," Ruby said, "They're busy running a couple of missions for Zavala and Ikora, but they're around, yeah. What happened to your hair?"
"I had to cut it to put on my helmet," Weiss said, "I used a knife with your emblem on it?"
"Hey! Told you those Rosework knives weren't useless, Zav," Ruby cheered, "I'll take you to the woman who does my hair when I'm done my shift in, uh, fourteen hours?"
"Fourteen hours," Weiss said, "did you just start for the day?'
Ruby barked a laugh, rubbing her eye "I wish, I'm on my hundred twentieth."
"Straight?" Weiss said, with shock and horror in her voice.
"Except for meal breaks," Ruby said, "Guardians don't need to sleep. I normally drop out for a few hours here and there, but we got stuff going on."
"Ruby," Blossom said, a warning in her voice.
"Uh, anyways," Ruby said, "this is my Ghost, Blossom."
"And this is Mikeal," Weiss said, gesturing to the Ghost with a standard shell.
"Nice to meet you," Ruby said, walking to the table and grabbing a briefcase from underneath it, "Let's get you a starter kit, why don't we? Glimmer to make sure that gun of yours is in working order, and replace that Fallen gun with something from the City."
"What about Myrtenaster?" Weiss said, "It broke-"
"You're gonna have to build up the glimmer for that on your own," Ruby said, handing the briefcase full of blue, cubic matter to Weiss, "Roseworks will take the commission when you do, but I can't play favorites and give you more Glimmer for non standard gear. Sorry, Weiss, I've got responsibilities now."
"Space suits," Mikeal said, "I have a new one encrypted, but you won't have to put it on until we find a jumpship."
"I have to wear one?" Weiss asked, tightening her lips.
"You can wear it under your dress if you're uncomfortable," Mikeal said, "but we're going to be leaving Earth's atmosphere for a bit, so you definitely need to wear one in case we have a hull breach. I'm not sure how we'll put on a helmet with your hair, but safety is important!"
"How do most long haired Guardians wear helmets?" Weiss asked.
"I don't think I've ever seen one?" Mikeal said, "I might need you to cut your hair, at least for this trip."
Thank goodness she wasn't Yang.
Yang…
If Weiss had been dead for so long Remnant had renamed itself, or whatever was going on, did that mean Yang was dead? Blake?
Her heart squeezed at the idea she would never see her team again. Her friends, her family, everyone.
"Can't we just risk it, this once?" Weiss weezled, running her hand through her ponytail.
"No! No, absolutely not," Mikeal snapped, before seeming to fake a breath in as he calmed down, "What happens if there's a hole in the ship? You'd be stuck in a constant loop of asphyxiating to death and trying to pilot it to the Last City. I don't want to put you through that. It'll be safer to risk it once we have shipwrights to look over it and make sure it's good to go."
Weiss swallowed slightly and nodded, "Ok. What should I cut it with?"
"Uh, all Ghosts are required to keep a survival knife encoded, give me a second and-" Weiss caught the knife as it appeared in a flash of light. A long, serrated one with a familiar emblem engraved on one surface.
"Mikeal," Weiss said, hope blossoming in her chest as she stared at the emblem, "Does the name Ruby Rose mean anything to you?"
"What- why?" Mikeal said, "it does, she's the Hunter Vanguard and owner of the Roseworks weapons foundry. But how do you know her?"
"We were combat partners," Weiss said, bundling up her hair and bringing the knife up to it. The idea that Ruby was alive again, was around here, made her willing to make the sacrifice.
"Huh," Mikeal said, "small solar syste- look out!"
Weiss whipped around in time to see a larger, four armed Fallen crawl out of the wall, dropping her severed hair and scooping up the Seraph gun. Mikeal flew away to find some place to hide as the first rounds flew from both Fallen and Guardian. Weiss's Aura flashed as burning metal crashed into it and stopped, while a blue barrier appeared around the Fallen as she shot at it.
Another shot smashed into her Aura from the crude shotgun, and Weiss grabbed onto the Light, throwing a ball of purple energy at the Fallen and burning through the barrier around them. Firing the gun at their head, Weiss watched white gas explode out as they tipped backwards and stopped moving, walking over to pick up the shotgun.
"You… actually took out a Captain? In one life?" Mikeal said, popping out of their hiding place as Weiss sighed. She missed Myrtenaster already. She'd have to ask Ruby about where she could get a replacement when they saw each other.
"Yes," Weiss said, "Give me the spacesuit, and turn around. It isn't proper for a boy to watch a girl while they're changing."
—X Pyrrha X—
Pyrrha guided her ship down towards the Ishtar Academy on Venus, reaching up and opening herself to all channels as she spoke, "Hello, this is Pyrrha Nikos to the Sunbreaker Order. I repeat, this is Pyrrha Nikos to the Sunbreaker Order, do you copy?"
"Pyrrha Nikos," a voice said after a second, "So Crota's End has come searching for us, but for what reason?"
"To reforge connections between the Sunbreakers and the Last City," Pyrrha said.
"So Zavala finally acknowledges he needs us," the voice said, "land at the Academy and make your way to the open Vex gate. That will be your first step to us."
Pyrrha reached back and grabbed her helmet, sharing a glance with Victoria, who asked, "Who is this?"
"I am the third Empyreal Magistrate of the Sunbreaker Order, Ouros."
"The Ouros?" Victoria asked, "Three Ahamkara Ouros? Six Fronts Ouros?"
"The latter battle is one many can claim credit towards," Ouros said in amusement, "but as for the former, yes, that is me. Do they still tell my story at the Tower, Little Light?"
"Of course they do!" Victoria said, "You're one of the greatest Titans to ever defend the Walls!"
"And so I still do," Pyrrha transmatted as they continued to talk, landing in front of a group of four Vex goblins, brass robots with white cores and a single red eye. Slinging her shotgun off her back, Pyrrha blew one away and cycled the pump as white liquid, radiolaria, poured out of the shattered core, "the Vanguard is too complacent, too obsessed with the idea that the Walls ends at the Walls. The Great Disaster you avenged when you killed Crota scared them. Caused them to skulk like an injured wolf instead of the glorious hunters we are. Tell me, Crota's End, what threat has come to cause them to beg for our help?"
Pyrrha clenched her lips shut, refusing to respond to the mocking of the Commander, of Ruby. Ruby wasn't a coward, she wasn't complacent. Instead, she deployed her shield, just for a second, and smashed the barrier of Void light into another goblin, throwing it against the wall of the Academy where it shattered in an explosion of brass and radiolaria.
"Did I wound your reverence?" Ouros continued, "Is Crota's End still a loyal hound to the Vanguard? You are still young, I wouldn't blame you."
"We have a friend on the Vanguard," Victoria said, "I don't think-"
"Who is it? Ikora, who betrayed Osiris? Zavala, who betrayed us? Or is it Ruby, who stood by as both betrayals happened, nothing more than a wolf shackled?"
"Ruby isn't a wolf shackled," Pyrrha said quietly, shooting another Vex dead.
"Do you know what she did, in the time before the City? Has she told you what she once was? Or does she shirk from her past?"
"She was an Iron Lord," Pyrrha said.
"For a time, yes, but what of before that? Does she speak of what she was before Radegast came and recruited her?" Pyrrha hesitated, "Ask her, when you return to the Last City. Ask her what she was."
— X Weiss X—
Weiss was glad for autopilot as they reentered the atmosphere. She wasn't sure she would be able to pilot this "jumpship" on her own.
"We should be able to see it any second now," Mikeal said as they entered the atmosphere over the ocean.
"The Last City?" Weiss said though the helmet Mikael had given her. It was white and sleek, with a reflective faceplate in front that Weiss looked through displaying various information.
"And the Traveler," Mikeal said, floating next to her head, "There he is now!"
Weiss blinked at the large, white, orb that appeared over the horizon, a metropolitan sprawl spreading out below it, "That's the Traveler?"
"Yep!" Mikeal said, "He's where I was born, where I started looking for you, years ago. I always wanted to be able to bring a Guardian back to the City, and now I can."
"He?"
"Nobody knows what gender the Traveler is, if any. But I think he's a bo-"
"Unknown jumpship, this is Tower Control, do you copy?" Weiss jumped as the voice came out of the speaker above her. She reached up, pressing the flashing button.
"Um, yes, hello. This is the unknown jumpship, I'm guessing?" Weiss said, "My name is Weiss Schnee?"
"Well, Miss Schnee," the voice said, in a drawling accent, "We have a couple of questions for you really quick. First off, are you a civilian or a Guardian?"
"Guardian," Weiss said.
"Good to hear, good to hear," the voice said, "Second question, do you feel comfortable landing that baby you're in, or do you need someone to take control and land it for you?"
"I need someone to take control, this is my first time in a jumpship," Weiss said.
"No shame in that, keeps us from having to scrape you off the side of the Tower," the voice said, "Sending a take over request now, you see it? Should be a blinking switch on the dash. Flick it up."
Weiss did so obediently, feeling the ship shudder as she did. Then they slowed dramatically, and began to tilt downwards.
"Alright, why don't you go wait by the exit, I got it from here, Miss Schnee," Weiss did so, walking with Mikeal floating beside her. The jumpship flew towards a large tower built into a wall looming over the City, before landing.
Weiss stepped out to, well, several men and women walking towards the jumpship, wearing coveralls and carrying toolboxes. Finally, one called out, "Where'd you find this?"
"Siberia!" Mikeal called back, "killed a Fallen captain for it!"
"Really now," the same drawling voice that had spoken over the speaker came from an office, out of which stepped a blond haired, green eyes wearing a sleeveless vest with a sleeve tattoo on her right arm, a red bandana and welding goggles around her neck, "You sound proud of that, Little Light. You green, Guardian Schnee?"
"I'm new," Weiss said, reaching up to take her helmet off. Once she did, chuckles came from the gathered mechanics, "What?"
"You have to cut your hair on the road, Schnee?" The woman said, "We can tell, it's a rough cut. Don't worry about them. Alright, you all, get that ship out of here! Cayde and Andal are comin' through on a take off in a few minutes, and I don't want it being delayed!"
"Sorry," Weiss said.
"Aw, I ain't blaming you," the woman said, "ships gotta land, and we can always delay a launch, you never know how much longer a ship from the wild can go without landing. We just gotta get it out of the way. I'm Chief Shipwright Amanda Holliday, by the way, I'm in charge of making sure every ship is in working order. It'll take a day or two to check everything, but we'll make sure your jumpship is in tip top shape."
"I don't have any money," Weiss said.
"Vanguard'll pay for it, I reckon," Holliday said, "They put aside a fund for equipping new Guardians every year. Cheaper to use the glimmer to make replacement parts than a whole new Jumpship and an Arcadia like this is… well, you found yourself a good baby, I know experienced Guardians that would kill for one of them."
"I see," Weiss said, "You're a jumpship fanatic, I guess?"
"Guess you can call me that, yeah," Holliday said, "Now, I ain't gonna hold you any longer, Schnee-"
"Call me Weiss," Weiss interjected hurriedly.
"Amanda, then," Amanda said, "See that hallway over there? It'll lead you to the courtyard, from there, you'll see a large opening. Take that, and you'll find the Vanguard."
"Thanks," Weiss said, beginning to make her way through the hallway. Amanda gave a friendly wave as Weiss went. She made her way through it, up a couple flights of stairs and into a courtyard at the top of the Tower with several robots milling about, the Traveler visible in out a wall and a couple of men wearing cloaks and long flowing coats having a… dance battle?
"Guardians do stuff like that," Mikeal said quietly.
"You new?" One of the cloaked men called, and Weiss nodded. He shot a grin at her and pointed down a large tunnel, "That way! Ignore Shaxx, he doesn't bite, can't with that helmet on, and the Vanguard are around the table. Ask 'em why we're grounded, while you're at it, maybe they'll tell you!"
Weiss cracked a small smile as laughter rose from the gathering, before heading down the tunnel where a tall man was standing with his hands on his hips, wearing a helmet with one broken and one intact horn and comparatively heavy armor, talking with a pair of robots, one emblazoned with a white, double headed bird clutching a sword in its talons while the other was emblazoned with Ruby's emblem. Walking into a room at the end of the tunnel, Weiss looked over the bald, blue skinned man wearing similar heavy armor and a woman with close cropped hair and a purple long coat before… before landing on Ruby.
She didn't look a day older than the last time Weiss had seen her, though her black dress had been replaced with an equally black spacesuit, bulletproof armor over the chest and several knife sheaths sticking out over it. Weiss swallowed, then called, "Ruby?"
Ruby didn't look up at first, too busy talking with the man. Weiss raised her voice, "Ruby!"
"I'm a little busy right now, so if this isn't important-" Ruby stopped as she turned around, staring at Weiss, "Weiss?"
— X Ruby X—
Ruby stared at Weiss for a second, taking in the messily cut short hair, the gray space suit barely visible under her dress, the modified Khvostov frame and Fallen shrapnel launcher hanging off her back and a rusted Myrtenaster at her hip. Weiss stared at Ruby for a second longer before rushing forwards and pulling Ruby into a hug, breathing, "You're alive…"
Ruby awkwardly reached around to give the shorter, and that alone was surreal because Ruby had gotten used to being the shortest person around, girl a hug. Her eyes traveled to the Ghost floating behind Weiss, worry in its eye, "I've been alive for a long time, Weiss. You're a Guardian now?"
"I went to your funeral," Weiss said quietly, "We, we couldn't find your body so we put up a headstone next to your mother's."
Well, that was a brand of morbidity Ruby didn't feel like thinking about. Instead she just said softly, "We're both alive now, that's all that matters, ok? Let me introduce you to my friends, the other members of the Vanguard. This is Commander Zavala, the head of the Vanguard."
"Weiss Schnee, correct?" Zavala said, the mountain of a man pushing up from the table, "Ruby has spoken about you."
"It's nice to meet you, sir," Weiss said, taking the offered hand and being shook with the force of the handshake.
"And this is Ikora Rey," Ruby said, and Ikora gave a thin smile.
"It's a pleasure putting a face to a name," she said, "Penny and Pyrrha will be sure to be happy to have another Remnantian around."
"Penny and Pyrrha are here?" Weiss asked.
"They aren't in the City at the moment," Ruby said, "They're busy running a couple of missions for Zavala and Ikora, but they're around, yeah. What happened to your hair?"
"I had to cut it to put on my helmet," Weiss said, "I used a knife with your emblem on it?"
"Hey! Told you those Rosework knives weren't useless, Zav," Ruby cheered, "I'll take you to the woman who does my hair when I'm done my shift in, uh, fourteen hours?"
"Fourteen hours," Weiss said, "did you just start for the day?'
Ruby barked a laugh, rubbing her eye "I wish, I'm on my hundred twentieth."
"Straight?" Weiss said, with shock and horror in her voice.
"Except for meal breaks," Ruby said, "Guardians don't need to sleep. I normally drop out for a few hours here and there, but we got stuff going on."
"Ruby," Blossom said, a warning in her voice.
"Uh, anyways," Ruby said, "this is my Ghost, Blossom."
"And this is Mikeal," Weiss said, gesturing to the Ghost with a standard shell.
"Nice to meet you," Ruby said, walking to the table and grabbing a briefcase from underneath it, "Let's get you a starter kit, why don't we? Glimmer to make sure that gun of yours is in working order, and replace that Fallen gun with something from the City."
"What about Myrtenaster?" Weiss said, "It broke-"
"You're gonna have to build up the glimmer for that on your own," Ruby said, handing the briefcase full of blue, cubic matter to Weiss, "Roseworks will take the commission when you do, but I can't play favorites and give you more Glimmer for non standard gear. Sorry, Weiss, I've got responsibilities now."
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Chapter 4
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
I'm stressed out, have a chapter
---
Weiss blinked at the way Ruby said "responsibilities", not bitter, but with a weight behind it. She nodded, reaching out to take the briefcase from Ruby, "Ok. How would I get the Glimmer for that, then?"
"Sorry if I seem like I'm rushing," Ruby said, "I gotta get on the console in a few minutes. Can't go into more than that, Vanguard only. Anyways, normally you'd do bounties for Xander, Shaxx or the Consensus members, but all outbound traffic is currently restricted to Vanguard authorized missions. Shouldn't be for more than a couple days, it never is, but it's annoying, I know. Give that to Banshee, he's out to the left when you leave, and he'll get you equipped. If you're really hungering for Glimmer, you could sell that gun and go with some cheaper ones for now."
"Thanks," Weiss said.
"It's good to see you again, Weiss, I can't wait to be off the clock so we can catch up, but I gotta do Vanguard stuff at the moment."
"Ruby!" A voice called, one of the Ghosts floating along the wall, "Cayde is asking for you!"
"Alright!" Ruby gave Weiss a smile, "See you in fourteen hours or so?"
"See you then," Weiss agreed.
"Someone get me Eris!" Ruby ordered suddenly, voice changing to be loud and authoritative, whipping around with her cloak snapping with the motion and striding towards the Ghost, falling into the chair next to it and grabbing a headset, sliding it on.
"We're really sorry about this, Weiss," Zavala said, "normally I would give Ruby the rest of the day off to show you around and get you settled, but we have a slight emergency going on and are in crisis management mode. Once it's dealt with, I'll give her some vacation time."
"How long has Ruby been a Guardian for?" Weiss asked, "she seems… different."
"Ruby was already a stable figure of the Last City when I arrived," Zavala said, "and that was centuries ago."
"Centuries?" Weiss said in shock, "but she doesn't-"
"Guardians don't age," Zavala explained, "We stay the age we were when we were resurrected for the first time. Anyways, I have my own responsibilities to tend to, it was nice to meet you Weiss, I hope you'll join the Titans but, given what Ruby has said about you, I suspect you'll be a Warlock."
"Titan? Warlock?" Weiss asked.
"I don't have time to explain the Guardian Classes right now," Zavala said, "Ask Ruby when she's done for the day."
Weiss nodded, making her way out of the hall and past the horned man, who stopped talking with the two robots to look at her, "A new Guardian?"
"Yes," Weiss said, "Weiss Schnee."
"I am Lord Shaxx," the man said, "handler of the Crucible. A pleasure to meet you."
"The Crucible?" Weiss asked, "What's that?"
"Live fire exercises," Shaxx said, "There is nothing in this solar system more dangerous than another Guardian. If you learn to triumph over them, you can triumph anywhere. I always suggest new Guardians try the Crucible to learn the ropes of combat."
"Oh," Weiss said, "I'll think about it. Ruby said you give Glimmer for it?"
"If that's what you want. Why do you need Glimmer already?"
"To repair my sword," Weiss drew Myrtenaster off her hip.
"Funny, I was just contracting Roseworks to have some swords made for the Crucible," Shaxx said, "They aren't as… elegant, as yours, but I do think Guardians should use swords more often. Come talk to me or Arcite if you want to join the Crucible, Weiss."
Weiss continued out of the tunnel as Shaxx turned back to the two robots, turning to the left and landing her eyes on a blue robot with a yellow mark on his face and yellow hands. Weiss walked over to it, "Are you Banshee?"
"Hmm?" The robot blinked, looking over her before saying in a rasping voice, "Do I know you, Guardian?"
"No, I'm new," Weiss said.
"Alright then, didn't want to offend," the robot said, holding out his hand, "I'm Banshee-44, Tower's gunsmith. Let me open a file for you. What's your name?"
"Weiss Schnee," Weiss said, before spelling it, watching Banshee type her name into the console by his side.
"Alright, Weiss, what did you need?" Banshee said and Weiss slung the carbine off her back, placing it on the table in front of him with the briefcase Ruby had given her.
"I was hoping to sell this and replace it with something cheaper," Weiss said.
"Auto rifles not to your liking?"
"I prefer my sword," Weiss said.
"Fair enough," Banshee said, "I can't help you with that right now, beyond getting you in contact with a weapon's foundry when you get the Glimmer you need, but I can equip you with cheaper gear if that's what you wanna risk. Which do you prefer, Pulse Rifle, Scout Rifle, or Hand Cannon?"
"What hand cannons do you have?" Weiss said after a moment.
"For cheap? Let's see, I've got… a Minuet-12, SUROS make, though not as customizable as their more expensive gear," Banshee reached back and grabbed a trio of handguns without even looking, two revolvers and one not, placing them on the table before lifting one with a slight curve to it, "SteadyHand Hand Cannon Sight or TrueSight depending on what you prefer, bullets are known to ricochet, nine rounds, .44 Magnum. Or, we got the Mos Ultima II, Cassoid make, SteadyHand or HitMark, less muzzle flip and felt recoil, but a heavy trigger pull, ten rounds, also in .44 Magnum," he showed her a revolver with the barrel at the six o'clock position, before picking up the gun that wasn't a revolver, instead being a heavy pistol with a box like design and a broomhandle grip, "And finally, we got the RWHC IIC, Rosework make. IronSights only, can handle explosive payloads if you want it, ten rounds, .45 ACP. I'd offer you a RWHC IC instead, they tend to be more popular, since they're revolvers, but I'm sold out at the moment."
"Roseworks is Ruby's foundry, right?"
"Mhh, don't think I'm pushing you towards that one though, Ruby tends to get upset if that happens. They're reliable guns, all Roseworks guns are Dark Age reliability, but they aren't the best for starters. Ruby refuses to put an aim assistant on anything that isn't a "Roseworks Original", and even then only if you ask. It's the type of gun you use if you're confident in your own aiming skills, or are gonna be in the wild for a long time and don't want it to jam. Popular among Hunters because they're generally both, but you don't see 'em as often on Warlocks or Titans."
"And the SUROS and Cassoid?"
"More likely to jam, but also have some level of aim assistant in the sights. Also, both of them are loaded in a stronger round, so there's that to consider. You'll probably take two or three shots to take down a Cabal with the RWHC."
"I trust Ruby," Weiss said, taking the pistol.
"Mh," Banshee nodded, "Well, your choice. If you're sellin' this rifle, you need another gun? Maybe something for close encounters?"
"What would you suggest for that?" Weiss asked.
"Shotgun, Fusion Rifle, SMG, Auto Rifle, or Pulse Rifle," Banshee said, "and since you're selling a perfectly good Auto Rifle, I'm gonna assume you want a Pulse, Fusion, SMG or a Shotgun."
"What's the difference between Pulse and Fusion Rifles?"
"Pulse fires a burst, three rounds for most foundries or four for Häkke," Banshee said, "Fusion is an energy gun. Fries people good, but you need closer range, and ammo is harder to get."
"I think I'll go with a Pulse Rifle, please," Weiss said.
"You're a polite one, wonder how long that'll take to disappear," Banshee turned, picking up two guns from a rack, "alright, I got a Pulsar MSe, Nadir make, bullpup design, twenty four rounds, 5.56mm. But trust me, unless you're really devoted to the idea of a gun that'll only serve you at close range, in which case I strongly suggest going with a shotgun or a fusion rifle, you don't want this piece of junk. The other is the Cadenza-11, SUROS make, bullpup design, 33 rounds, 5.56mm, SLO-12 or SPO-57 sights for ranged or CQC firing and does Solar damage. It's a bit more expensive, but better in every way."
Then I'll take that one," Weiss said.
"Alright," Banshee nodded, handing over the guns and taking the Glimmer.
"Thank you for your help, Banshee," Weiss said.
"'S what I'm here for," Banshee said, typing notes down, "For what it's worth, you seem like a good kid, Weiss. Was nice meeting you, I hope I remember you next time we meet."
"Is… something wrong with you?" Weiss asked.
"Too many reformats, Exos aren't supposed to go above twenty, makes it so I have trouble focusing and remembering," the Exo said.
—
Andal spoke as they exited NLS, "Ruby?"
"I'm here," Ruby said, voice coming out of Sundance, Cayde's Ghost, "Give me a second to patch into your feed and- alright, I got eyes on you."
"It's a big ship," Cayde threw out as he disengaged the engines, leaving them floating towards the ship as if they were a derelict.
"Throws my plan out of the water," Andal said, "I was gonna say we find some place out of the way and set up the transmat zone there, but I'm pretty sure if we put this anywhere that can be called "out of the way" on this big boy, the Titans will never find their way out."
Ruby snorted over the comms, and then a breathy, detached voice said "Yes, they would, wouldn't they? Best to place the transmat zone somewhere where they can begin fighting the moment they come in."
"Eris," Andal said to the former Hunter, "You're on console for this mission?"
"Someone needs to guide you through the Dreadnaught," Eris said, "Especially through breaking the necrotic bonds of the eversion pulse. If it is not deactivated, then any attempt to land on the Dreadnaught in force will end with us like the Awoken."
"Five minutes until we're in Transmat range," Sundance threw out. Both Hunters settled into the heavy metal chairs. Cayde pulled Ace of Spades off from his hip, checking the well used hand cannon as they flipped so they were staring out into Saturn's rings and the void of space.
"So, how's this gun work, exactly, Eris?" Andal asked.
"To call it a "gun" takes away from the magnitude of what it is," Eris said, "It operates by momentarily everting Oryx's Throne World onto real space in a way similar to the Oversoul used by Crota. From there, every molecular bond is forced to confront the power of the Taken King and the Sword Logic and is found wanting, severing them and reducing anything in its radius to the composite atoms."
"Ok, then," Andal said, not quite sure what the former Hunter meant.
"We're there," Andal grabbed No Land Beyond, his trusty sniper rifle, at Sundance's words and slid on his mask, feeling it pressurize to his face, "Transmat firing in three, two, one-"
Andal watched his body disintegrate into blue white light, Cayde doing the same next to him before they were reformed on a ledge on the Dreadnaught exposed to space. They stepped into the Dreadnaught as Eris's ship bumped against the hull.
"Alright," Ruby said, "Next up, we- what's that?"
Another ship left NLS then, a massive thing easily a hundred times larger than Eris's dropship. A Cabal warship.
"Blossom!" Ruby ordered hurriedly.
"Running it through City's archives.. found it!" Blossom spoke, "The Dantalion Exodus VI, flagship of the Cabal Skyburners."
"What are they doing?" Ruby said.
"They're speeding up," Andal said.
"Currently at .1% of Lightspeed and getting faster," Blossom said, "If I had to guess..."
"They're ramming the Dreadnaught!" Eris said, sounding delighted.
"Hold onto something, boys!" Ruby ordered, seconds before the ship rammed home, shaking the entire Dreadnought, "That'll keep the Hive busy for a bit, if I had to guess. Find the eversion gun and deactivate it!"
—
Pyrrha exited the Vex Gateway to stare at the sun. She hadn't meant to, it was just so big and obvious when they arrived, taking up the whole horizon, "Where are we?"
"Mercury?" Victoria said, "That's what the telemetry data is saying."
"Mercury is a Vex world, isn't it?" Pyrrha said, looking around at the various spires of Vex metal on every side.
"Very much so," Ouros's voice said from the sun, walking towards Pyrrha until she could finally see the Empyreal Magistrate. A burning Titan mark hung from her hip, orange and gold armor covering her body and her head, a burning maul on her back, "We survive here to prove we can survive anywhere. You have arrived just in time, the Vex, like clockwork, approach. They wish to snuff out the dawn."
"What do we do?" Pyrrha asked.
Ouros nodded towards a circle in the center of the Vex buildings, "Approach and reach for the power, Crota's End. If you're worthy, the Hammer will come. Use it to set history ablaze."
Pyrrha walked forward, feeling the Solar flame's heat through her armor. As she approached, the flames flared, larger and larger until they licked the edges of her armor. Pyrrha reached back, and then plunged her hands into the flames. Her hands wrapped around something in it and she ripped it from the fire, an arc like a solar flare stretching from her wake.
In her hand sat a hammer that was shaped like a bird, the claw its beak, eyes and folded wings engraved into the body and the other end spiked like a meat tenderizer. Turning to Ouros she blinked beneath her helm as she realized the older Titan had disappeared. In her place marched the Vex. Goblins, Minotaurs, Harpies and even a couple of Hydras, with rotating shields.
Flames coiled around Pyrrha's hand from the hammer, and she launched herself forwards. Solar Light answered her call in a way it never had before, covering her body as she slammed the hammer into the first Minotaur. The flames burned through the Void shield it had around it, the hammer hit home on the "juicebox", crushing it and sending Radiolaria splattering out, just for a second, before the Solar energy swallowed the Minotaur and melted it down to liquid brass.
Eyes landing on a group of five Goblins, Pyrrha did what came naturally. She threw the hammer, watching it smash into the ground in the center of the five and explode into a well of Solar energy, melting them.
Pyrrha couldn't help herself, she laughed as she charged another Minotaur, pulling the Hammer back in her hand using her Semblance instead of using her Light to create another.
—
Penny climbed up the skyscraper in Freehold, looking out the window as she did. The martian sky was choked with thick, black clouds that visibly crackled with lightning. Before she could do anything, Ikora's voice came out of Nick, "Tell me, Penny, do you know what makes a Warlock? If you ask a Titan, they will tell you it's our preference for academia. If you ask a Hunter, it is that we spend time in our libraries. They miss the larger picture. A Warlock studies because knowledge is power. Hunters create tools to channel their Light, trip bombs, Golden Guns, a Nightstalkers bow, if they can't hold it, they don't trust it. Titans get closer, but hold no restraint in what they do. So, what makes a Warlock?"
"Power restrained?" Penny asked.
"Power understood. Respected. Channeled. We understand the Sun's Song, we understand that Void Light is not Darkness, but Light through a prism, a controlled Casimir effect. And now it's time for you to learn the last. The Storm is raw power, the Trance the understanding to control it. To be a Stormcaller is the thesis statement of what it means to be a Warlock. Meditate within the storm, Penny, and then, when the moment comes, call, and it will answer."
Penny stepped out into the storm unlike a storm in the Last City. There was no rain, just howling wind and distant thunder cracks. Far below her, great clouds of red dust rose up and swallowed the smaller buildings of Freehold. Her green and white long coat snapped around her and Nick struggled to stay even with Penny. She opened a pocket and he zoomed in as quickly as possible.
A bolt of lightning crashed down onto a lightning rod on a building a small distance away, causing an all consuming roar and the burning smell of ozone. Penny refused to move, even as Nick cowered in the pocket, speaking for the first time, "I'm detecting incoming hostiles. Are we sure this is a good idea?"
"Ikora thinks it is," Penny said.
"And what if she's wrong? We've been hit by a Titan's Fist of Havoc before, it isn't fun."
"You'll be here to revive me," Penny breathed in, reaching up with one hand, then the other. Centering herself, she thought of Ruby using the Arc, holding Crescent Rose on one hand and flowing from one attack to another. She thought of Pyrrha, coming down with the force of a rocket as she smashed the ground and created an explosion of Arc energy, it dancing off the spiky tips of both's hair.
She thought of both her lovers, and brought her arms down like a conductor. With it came a bolt of lightning from the sky which struck her. Penny felt her Aura war with it, just for a second, before it let the bolt pass into her body. Her circuits roared, and her hair stood on end, Arc energy jumping from strand to strand, from finger to finger. Finally, she landed, turning to see Vex begin to enter the rooftop.
"They're here for the Arc," Ikora said, "Show them the Arc."
—
Thoughts, question, opinions? Good? Bad? Meh?
---
Weiss blinked at the way Ruby said "responsibilities", not bitter, but with a weight behind it. She nodded, reaching out to take the briefcase from Ruby, "Ok. How would I get the Glimmer for that, then?"
"Sorry if I seem like I'm rushing," Ruby said, "I gotta get on the console in a few minutes. Can't go into more than that, Vanguard only. Anyways, normally you'd do bounties for Xander, Shaxx or the Consensus members, but all outbound traffic is currently restricted to Vanguard authorized missions. Shouldn't be for more than a couple days, it never is, but it's annoying, I know. Give that to Banshee, he's out to the left when you leave, and he'll get you equipped. If you're really hungering for Glimmer, you could sell that gun and go with some cheaper ones for now."
"Thanks," Weiss said.
"It's good to see you again, Weiss, I can't wait to be off the clock so we can catch up, but I gotta do Vanguard stuff at the moment."
"Ruby!" A voice called, one of the Ghosts floating along the wall, "Cayde is asking for you!"
"Alright!" Ruby gave Weiss a smile, "See you in fourteen hours or so?"
"See you then," Weiss agreed.
"Someone get me Eris!" Ruby ordered suddenly, voice changing to be loud and authoritative, whipping around with her cloak snapping with the motion and striding towards the Ghost, falling into the chair next to it and grabbing a headset, sliding it on.
"We're really sorry about this, Weiss," Zavala said, "normally I would give Ruby the rest of the day off to show you around and get you settled, but we have a slight emergency going on and are in crisis management mode. Once it's dealt with, I'll give her some vacation time."
"How long has Ruby been a Guardian for?" Weiss asked, "she seems… different."
"Ruby was already a stable figure of the Last City when I arrived," Zavala said, "and that was centuries ago."
"Centuries?" Weiss said in shock, "but she doesn't-"
"Guardians don't age," Zavala explained, "We stay the age we were when we were resurrected for the first time. Anyways, I have my own responsibilities to tend to, it was nice to meet you Weiss, I hope you'll join the Titans but, given what Ruby has said about you, I suspect you'll be a Warlock."
"Titan? Warlock?" Weiss asked.
"I don't have time to explain the Guardian Classes right now," Zavala said, "Ask Ruby when she's done for the day."
Weiss nodded, making her way out of the hall and past the horned man, who stopped talking with the two robots to look at her, "A new Guardian?"
"Yes," Weiss said, "Weiss Schnee."
"I am Lord Shaxx," the man said, "handler of the Crucible. A pleasure to meet you."
"The Crucible?" Weiss asked, "What's that?"
"Live fire exercises," Shaxx said, "There is nothing in this solar system more dangerous than another Guardian. If you learn to triumph over them, you can triumph anywhere. I always suggest new Guardians try the Crucible to learn the ropes of combat."
"Oh," Weiss said, "I'll think about it. Ruby said you give Glimmer for it?"
"If that's what you want. Why do you need Glimmer already?"
"To repair my sword," Weiss drew Myrtenaster off her hip.
"Funny, I was just contracting Roseworks to have some swords made for the Crucible," Shaxx said, "They aren't as… elegant, as yours, but I do think Guardians should use swords more often. Come talk to me or Arcite if you want to join the Crucible, Weiss."
Weiss continued out of the tunnel as Shaxx turned back to the two robots, turning to the left and landing her eyes on a blue robot with a yellow mark on his face and yellow hands. Weiss walked over to it, "Are you Banshee?"
"Hmm?" The robot blinked, looking over her before saying in a rasping voice, "Do I know you, Guardian?"
"No, I'm new," Weiss said.
"Alright then, didn't want to offend," the robot said, holding out his hand, "I'm Banshee-44, Tower's gunsmith. Let me open a file for you. What's your name?"
"Weiss Schnee," Weiss said, before spelling it, watching Banshee type her name into the console by his side.
"Alright, Weiss, what did you need?" Banshee said and Weiss slung the carbine off her back, placing it on the table in front of him with the briefcase Ruby had given her.
"I was hoping to sell this and replace it with something cheaper," Weiss said.
"Auto rifles not to your liking?"
"I prefer my sword," Weiss said.
"Fair enough," Banshee said, "I can't help you with that right now, beyond getting you in contact with a weapon's foundry when you get the Glimmer you need, but I can equip you with cheaper gear if that's what you wanna risk. Which do you prefer, Pulse Rifle, Scout Rifle, or Hand Cannon?"
"What hand cannons do you have?" Weiss said after a moment.
"For cheap? Let's see, I've got… a Minuet-12, SUROS make, though not as customizable as their more expensive gear," Banshee reached back and grabbed a trio of handguns without even looking, two revolvers and one not, placing them on the table before lifting one with a slight curve to it, "SteadyHand Hand Cannon Sight or TrueSight depending on what you prefer, bullets are known to ricochet, nine rounds, .44 Magnum. Or, we got the Mos Ultima II, Cassoid make, SteadyHand or HitMark, less muzzle flip and felt recoil, but a heavy trigger pull, ten rounds, also in .44 Magnum," he showed her a revolver with the barrel at the six o'clock position, before picking up the gun that wasn't a revolver, instead being a heavy pistol with a box like design and a broomhandle grip, "And finally, we got the RWHC IIC, Rosework make. IronSights only, can handle explosive payloads if you want it, ten rounds, .45 ACP. I'd offer you a RWHC IC instead, they tend to be more popular, since they're revolvers, but I'm sold out at the moment."
"Roseworks is Ruby's foundry, right?"
"Mhh, don't think I'm pushing you towards that one though, Ruby tends to get upset if that happens. They're reliable guns, all Roseworks guns are Dark Age reliability, but they aren't the best for starters. Ruby refuses to put an aim assistant on anything that isn't a "Roseworks Original", and even then only if you ask. It's the type of gun you use if you're confident in your own aiming skills, or are gonna be in the wild for a long time and don't want it to jam. Popular among Hunters because they're generally both, but you don't see 'em as often on Warlocks or Titans."
"And the SUROS and Cassoid?"
"More likely to jam, but also have some level of aim assistant in the sights. Also, both of them are loaded in a stronger round, so there's that to consider. You'll probably take two or three shots to take down a Cabal with the RWHC."
"I trust Ruby," Weiss said, taking the pistol.
"Mh," Banshee nodded, "Well, your choice. If you're sellin' this rifle, you need another gun? Maybe something for close encounters?"
"What would you suggest for that?" Weiss asked.
"Shotgun, Fusion Rifle, SMG, Auto Rifle, or Pulse Rifle," Banshee said, "and since you're selling a perfectly good Auto Rifle, I'm gonna assume you want a Pulse, Fusion, SMG or a Shotgun."
"What's the difference between Pulse and Fusion Rifles?"
"Pulse fires a burst, three rounds for most foundries or four for Häkke," Banshee said, "Fusion is an energy gun. Fries people good, but you need closer range, and ammo is harder to get."
"I think I'll go with a Pulse Rifle, please," Weiss said.
"You're a polite one, wonder how long that'll take to disappear," Banshee turned, picking up two guns from a rack, "alright, I got a Pulsar MSe, Nadir make, bullpup design, twenty four rounds, 5.56mm. But trust me, unless you're really devoted to the idea of a gun that'll only serve you at close range, in which case I strongly suggest going with a shotgun or a fusion rifle, you don't want this piece of junk. The other is the Cadenza-11, SUROS make, bullpup design, 33 rounds, 5.56mm, SLO-12 or SPO-57 sights for ranged or CQC firing and does Solar damage. It's a bit more expensive, but better in every way."
Then I'll take that one," Weiss said.
"Alright," Banshee nodded, handing over the guns and taking the Glimmer.
"Thank you for your help, Banshee," Weiss said.
"'S what I'm here for," Banshee said, typing notes down, "For what it's worth, you seem like a good kid, Weiss. Was nice meeting you, I hope I remember you next time we meet."
"Is… something wrong with you?" Weiss asked.
"Too many reformats, Exos aren't supposed to go above twenty, makes it so I have trouble focusing and remembering," the Exo said.
—
Andal spoke as they exited NLS, "Ruby?"
"I'm here," Ruby said, voice coming out of Sundance, Cayde's Ghost, "Give me a second to patch into your feed and- alright, I got eyes on you."
"It's a big ship," Cayde threw out as he disengaged the engines, leaving them floating towards the ship as if they were a derelict.
"Throws my plan out of the water," Andal said, "I was gonna say we find some place out of the way and set up the transmat zone there, but I'm pretty sure if we put this anywhere that can be called "out of the way" on this big boy, the Titans will never find their way out."
Ruby snorted over the comms, and then a breathy, detached voice said "Yes, they would, wouldn't they? Best to place the transmat zone somewhere where they can begin fighting the moment they come in."
"Eris," Andal said to the former Hunter, "You're on console for this mission?"
"Someone needs to guide you through the Dreadnaught," Eris said, "Especially through breaking the necrotic bonds of the eversion pulse. If it is not deactivated, then any attempt to land on the Dreadnaught in force will end with us like the Awoken."
"Five minutes until we're in Transmat range," Sundance threw out. Both Hunters settled into the heavy metal chairs. Cayde pulled Ace of Spades off from his hip, checking the well used hand cannon as they flipped so they were staring out into Saturn's rings and the void of space.
"So, how's this gun work, exactly, Eris?" Andal asked.
"To call it a "gun" takes away from the magnitude of what it is," Eris said, "It operates by momentarily everting Oryx's Throne World onto real space in a way similar to the Oversoul used by Crota. From there, every molecular bond is forced to confront the power of the Taken King and the Sword Logic and is found wanting, severing them and reducing anything in its radius to the composite atoms."
"Ok, then," Andal said, not quite sure what the former Hunter meant.
"We're there," Andal grabbed No Land Beyond, his trusty sniper rifle, at Sundance's words and slid on his mask, feeling it pressurize to his face, "Transmat firing in three, two, one-"
Andal watched his body disintegrate into blue white light, Cayde doing the same next to him before they were reformed on a ledge on the Dreadnaught exposed to space. They stepped into the Dreadnaught as Eris's ship bumped against the hull.
"Alright," Ruby said, "Next up, we- what's that?"
Another ship left NLS then, a massive thing easily a hundred times larger than Eris's dropship. A Cabal warship.
"Blossom!" Ruby ordered hurriedly.
"Running it through City's archives.. found it!" Blossom spoke, "The Dantalion Exodus VI, flagship of the Cabal Skyburners."
"What are they doing?" Ruby said.
"They're speeding up," Andal said.
"Currently at .1% of Lightspeed and getting faster," Blossom said, "If I had to guess..."
"They're ramming the Dreadnaught!" Eris said, sounding delighted.
"Hold onto something, boys!" Ruby ordered, seconds before the ship rammed home, shaking the entire Dreadnought, "That'll keep the Hive busy for a bit, if I had to guess. Find the eversion gun and deactivate it!"
—
Pyrrha exited the Vex Gateway to stare at the sun. She hadn't meant to, it was just so big and obvious when they arrived, taking up the whole horizon, "Where are we?"
"Mercury?" Victoria said, "That's what the telemetry data is saying."
"Mercury is a Vex world, isn't it?" Pyrrha said, looking around at the various spires of Vex metal on every side.
"Very much so," Ouros's voice said from the sun, walking towards Pyrrha until she could finally see the Empyreal Magistrate. A burning Titan mark hung from her hip, orange and gold armor covering her body and her head, a burning maul on her back, "We survive here to prove we can survive anywhere. You have arrived just in time, the Vex, like clockwork, approach. They wish to snuff out the dawn."
"What do we do?" Pyrrha asked.
Ouros nodded towards a circle in the center of the Vex buildings, "Approach and reach for the power, Crota's End. If you're worthy, the Hammer will come. Use it to set history ablaze."
Pyrrha walked forward, feeling the Solar flame's heat through her armor. As she approached, the flames flared, larger and larger until they licked the edges of her armor. Pyrrha reached back, and then plunged her hands into the flames. Her hands wrapped around something in it and she ripped it from the fire, an arc like a solar flare stretching from her wake.
In her hand sat a hammer that was shaped like a bird, the claw its beak, eyes and folded wings engraved into the body and the other end spiked like a meat tenderizer. Turning to Ouros she blinked beneath her helm as she realized the older Titan had disappeared. In her place marched the Vex. Goblins, Minotaurs, Harpies and even a couple of Hydras, with rotating shields.
Flames coiled around Pyrrha's hand from the hammer, and she launched herself forwards. Solar Light answered her call in a way it never had before, covering her body as she slammed the hammer into the first Minotaur. The flames burned through the Void shield it had around it, the hammer hit home on the "juicebox", crushing it and sending Radiolaria splattering out, just for a second, before the Solar energy swallowed the Minotaur and melted it down to liquid brass.
Eyes landing on a group of five Goblins, Pyrrha did what came naturally. She threw the hammer, watching it smash into the ground in the center of the five and explode into a well of Solar energy, melting them.
Pyrrha couldn't help herself, she laughed as she charged another Minotaur, pulling the Hammer back in her hand using her Semblance instead of using her Light to create another.
—
Penny climbed up the skyscraper in Freehold, looking out the window as she did. The martian sky was choked with thick, black clouds that visibly crackled with lightning. Before she could do anything, Ikora's voice came out of Nick, "Tell me, Penny, do you know what makes a Warlock? If you ask a Titan, they will tell you it's our preference for academia. If you ask a Hunter, it is that we spend time in our libraries. They miss the larger picture. A Warlock studies because knowledge is power. Hunters create tools to channel their Light, trip bombs, Golden Guns, a Nightstalkers bow, if they can't hold it, they don't trust it. Titans get closer, but hold no restraint in what they do. So, what makes a Warlock?"
"Power restrained?" Penny asked.
"Power understood. Respected. Channeled. We understand the Sun's Song, we understand that Void Light is not Darkness, but Light through a prism, a controlled Casimir effect. And now it's time for you to learn the last. The Storm is raw power, the Trance the understanding to control it. To be a Stormcaller is the thesis statement of what it means to be a Warlock. Meditate within the storm, Penny, and then, when the moment comes, call, and it will answer."
Penny stepped out into the storm unlike a storm in the Last City. There was no rain, just howling wind and distant thunder cracks. Far below her, great clouds of red dust rose up and swallowed the smaller buildings of Freehold. Her green and white long coat snapped around her and Nick struggled to stay even with Penny. She opened a pocket and he zoomed in as quickly as possible.
A bolt of lightning crashed down onto a lightning rod on a building a small distance away, causing an all consuming roar and the burning smell of ozone. Penny refused to move, even as Nick cowered in the pocket, speaking for the first time, "I'm detecting incoming hostiles. Are we sure this is a good idea?"
"Ikora thinks it is," Penny said.
"And what if she's wrong? We've been hit by a Titan's Fist of Havoc before, it isn't fun."
"You'll be here to revive me," Penny breathed in, reaching up with one hand, then the other. Centering herself, she thought of Ruby using the Arc, holding Crescent Rose on one hand and flowing from one attack to another. She thought of Pyrrha, coming down with the force of a rocket as she smashed the ground and created an explosion of Arc energy, it dancing off the spiky tips of both's hair.
She thought of both her lovers, and brought her arms down like a conductor. With it came a bolt of lightning from the sky which struck her. Penny felt her Aura war with it, just for a second, before it let the bolt pass into her body. Her circuits roared, and her hair stood on end, Arc energy jumping from strand to strand, from finger to finger. Finally, she landed, turning to see Vex begin to enter the rooftop.
"They're here for the Arc," Ikora said, "Show them the Arc."
—
Thoughts, question, opinions? Good? Bad? Meh?
Chapter 5
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
Pyrrha flew her red and bronze Echo-class Jumpship over the Last City, hitting the switch to let one of the pilots waiting in the hangar take over and transmatted onto the Tower courtyard. Encrypting her helmet, she looked around the Tower. Master Rahool looked up, interest in the hooded Awoken's eyes. Pyrrha shook her head, before pausing and walking over to the Cryptarch, "Hello, Rahool."
"Hello, Pyrrha. An Engram for me to decrypt, I assume?" He said.
"No, I had a question for you. About the past. Post Collapse. I know, not your area of expertise. But-"
"I have plenty of information from after the Collapse, I just don't particularly care about sitting around telling stories from that time," Rahool said, "but I'll make an exception for you. What did you want to know?"
"What did… What did Ruby do before she joined the Iron Lords?"
"Ruby?" Rahool repeated, "She was a Warlord. The land that became the Last City was ruled over by her."
There it was, the confirmation Pyrrha didn't want to hear. She quietly thanked Rahool and began to walk towards the Vanguard building. In the hall before it, however, she was stopped by Shaxx.
"Pyrrha!" The boisterous Titan said, before seeming to notice her expression, "Is something wrong?"
"I need to talk to Ruby."
"I believe she's on the console now," Shaxx said, "You know we're not allowed to interrupt the Vanguard in those circumstances outside of an emergency. What's wrong?"
"Ruby was…" Pyrrha swallowed and said, "Ruby was a Warlord."
"You didn't know?" Shaxx's voice dropped, becoming soft as he took her by the shoulder, guiding her into his office, "No, of course you didn't know, Ruby would never willingly tell you what she did back then."
"You knew?" Pyrrha asked.
"Of course I knew, we traded, on occasion," Shaxx said, and Pyrrha jerked.
"You…?"
"Why do you think I call myself Lord Shaxx, Pyrrha?" Shaxx said, as gently as he could, "I was a Warlord too, yes. Because I believed, and I think Ruby was the same given how quickly she gave leadership to the Speaker and joined the Iron Lords, that the people under us needed a leader. I won't pretend we weren't harsh at times, it was a necessity in those times, but we were never harsh without reason."
"But… I can't imagine Ruby as…"
"A slaver, a tyrant, a monster that needed to be stopped? All the things we paint the Warlords as to keep Guardians from getting any ideas?" Pyrrha nodded, "She wasn't any of those things. The worst she, we, did was execute people for breaking laws, because we didn't have the resources to keep them jailed. And Ruby and I, we tried to keep our laws just. Who made you think about this line of questioning?"
"Ouros," Pyrrha said.
"And you trusted her?" Shaxx said, "Ouros thinks the Vanguard should be a military dictatorship, that they should remove the Speaker and the Consensus and rule like they were Warlords again. She didn't know who Ruby was during those times, just that she was a Warlord."
"So, what should I do?"
"That is up to you. You can choose to forgive Ruby for keeping this a secret, you can choose not to. She may have done it so as to not hurt your opinion of her, but she did tell a lie of omission."
"I think… I think I need time to think it over."
"That's understandable," Shaxx said, patting her on one pauldron and letting Pyrrha leave. As she stepped back into the courtyard, a voice called for her.
"Pyrrha?"
—
Weiss watched the woman with short, spikey crimson red hair stop and turn towards her, emerald green eyes blinking, "Weiss?"
Pyrrha had on heavy, or what seemed to pass as heavy for Guardians, bronze and red armor. Mostly bronze, but the few places where her spacesuit was visible underneath were clearly red, and she had a long strip of red fabric hanging from her hip, emblazoned with her emblem and, more prominently, the image of a broken, rough hewn sword.
"Hello," Weiss said, feeling slightly awkward. Before she could say anything else, Pyrrha had crossed the small gap between them, hoisted Weiss up from the bench she was sitting on and pulled her into a tight hug. Weiss, despite the awkwardness of being crushed against the plastic-like armor, immediately returned the hug.
"What are you doing out here?" Pyrrha asked.
"Waiting for Ruby," Weiss said, "I-"
"Victoria, call Ruby," Pyrrha said, and a Ghost with a red and bronze shell appeared next to her shoulder. After a second, a voice that definitely wasn't Ruby came from it.
"What?" The voice said, sounding irritated.
"Hello, Blossom. I was hoping to talk to Ruby really quick?"
"She's on the console. I'll take a message."
"Tell her I'm taking Weiss down to the apartment, please."
"Fine," the voice said, then went silent as Pyrrha's Ghost shook itself.
"I hate her, she's such a jerk."
"She doesn't like talking is all," Pyrrha defended, before being covered in a flash of light. When she exited it, she was no longer wearing her armor but instead a pair of jeans and a sleeveless, backless sweater that caused Weiss to swallow uncomfortably, a necklace with purple and gold engrams dangling from it, "This is my Ghost, Victoria."
"This is-" Weiss turned to see Mikeal ducking behind her, staring at Pyrrha with a wide eye, "Mikeal?"
"How are you talking to her so casually?" Mikeal said.
"What?"
"She's Pyrrha Nikos, Crota's End," Mikeal said.
"I don't know who that is," Weiss said, "but I know Pyrrha, we went to school together."
"It's alright, Little Light. I'm not offended at her talking to me like we're friends because we are friends. She can even join my fireteam, if she wants."
"Fireteam?"
"Groups of Guardians between two and six," Pyrrha said, as they began to walk, "I'm on one with Penny, but I'm sure she'll be happy to have you."
"You mentioned an apartment we're going to?" Weiss asked as they stepped into an elevator.
"The Vanguard each has a floor a bit down," Pyrrha said, typing in a number to the keypad, "Me and Penny share the Hunter one with Ruby. I'm sure Ruby would be happy to have you, even if you have to stay on the couch until we can get a bed delivered, probably tomorrow or the day after! It's easier than having to find a place to stay inside the City."
"You'd let me?" Weiss said.
"Of course. You're as good as family, Weiss. None of us are gonna make you stay in one of the barracks or something until you can get enough Glimmer for a house."
Weiss shot a thankful smile at Pyrrha.
—
Penny brought her LRv1 Javelin down into the Tower hanger, landing it gently and stepping out. Amanda looked over from where she was in a cage working on an Arcadia-class Jumpship.
"Hello, Amanda," Penny said, walking over to the cage.
"Hiya, Pen," Amanda said, "How are ya doing?"
"I'm doing sensational," Penny said, "New ship?"
"Came in from the wild a couple of hours ago with a new Guardian," Amanda said, "It's a bit of a mess, missing paneling, leaking fuel, missing NLS drive. It's gonna take a couple of days to get it up to standards. Still an Arcadia, though, so should run like a beut once we get everything fixed up. Did ya need something, or just lookin' for small talk?"
"Just checking in," Penny said, "I'm going to go home and get this radiolaria off."
"Sortied against the Vex, then?" Amanda asked rhetorically, "Good idea. See you around, Penny."
"See you later, Amanda," Penny said, walking towards the elevator to bring her down to her apartment. Stepping into it, she hummed to herself as it brought her down thirty floors. Opening to a hallway with a single door, Penny walked by the frame wiping the floor and typed in the four digit pass code to the apartment, stepping in to Pyrrha's voice.
"That's Ruby's office," she said to a girl with short, messy white hair, "It's where she works when she's called in suddenly or is working on a Roseworks Original."
"Does she ever take a break?" Penny locked up at the voice from the white haired girl.
"Vanguard isn't a position that allows for much in the way of breaks," Pyrrha said, "she takes a day off per week, but she's still technically on call during that time."
"I can't imagine Ruby taking on a position like that," Weiss said, "What happened?"
"Tallulah challenged her to the Vanguard Dare before she died," Penny said, before rushing forwards and pulling Weiss into a bone crushing hug.
—
Weiss gasped for air the minute Penny finished hugging her, looking over the other girl. She was wearing a gray bulletproof vest, with her signature power sign on it in green, under a long green coat with black accents, and a band around her bicep with the same power symbol.
"Penny!" Weiss breathed.
"Weiss!" Penny said, "It's good to see you! Welcome to the Last City."
"Thank you," Weiss said, "So, what's the Vanguard Dare?"
"It's how the Hunters decide on their Vanguard. The current Vanguard dares someone to take on the position. At least, they would if Ruby hasn't held the position since Tallulah died. What happened to Myrtenaster?"
Weiss drew the rusted sword off her hip ruefully, "It broke while I was dead. I need to make enough Glimmer to get it fixed."
"We could pay," Penny immediately offered, and Pyrrha nodded.
"You'd do that?" Weiss asked, "Ruby-"
"Can't show favoritism in where she puts Glimmer, we know," Pyrrha said, "We all were missing equipment when we got to the Tower. But we're not members of the Vanguard, we can use our Glimmer for anything we want, which means getting you some clothes, both civilian and Guardian equipment, and Myrtenaster fixed. Have you picked which Class you're going to join?"
"They didn't tell me about Classes," Weiss said.
"They really are busy," Pyrrha commented.
"I need to go get cleaned off," Penny threw out, walking towards one of the rooms and opening the door to reveal a bathroom with a jacuzzi bath and a shower, "I'll see you both in a few minutes."
"All Guardians are divided into three classes," Pyrrha explained, "Titan, Hunter and Warlock. Titans… we're the tip of the spear, the wall that doesn't break. The Wall we're on, the one that protects the City from the Fallen? Titans man it, occasionally the other classes too, but always Titans. Zavala is our Vanguard."
"So, heavy armor I guess?" Weiss asked, and Pyrrha nodded, causing Weiss to pull a face, "I don't think that's for me. No offense, Pyrrha."
"It's important to pick a class that works for you," Pyrrha said, "Hunters are frontiersmen, they prefer to be out in the wild, scavenging, hunting single, important targets, taking them out with a shot they never saw coming, or a knife to their back.
"Assassins?" Weiss asked. She couldn't picture Ruby leading assassins.
"Legalized outlaws," Pyrrha corrected, "I've never met a Hunter that hasn't broken the law. Ruby keeps them on the level, but even the Wolfpack, Ruby's handpicked group of Hunters, do smuggling runs. They do the dirty work nobody else wants to do, so the Consensus turns a blind eye so long as they behave in the Last City."
"Definitely not," Weiss said, "Warlocks?"
"Warrior-Scholars," Pyrrha said, "They study the Light, learn to use it to fight. A Hunter will light their knife on fire, a Warlock will throw out bolts of fire to incinerate their target."
Weiss held out her hand, a ball of purple energy forming in it, "Like this?"
"Yes," Pyrrha nodded.
"Then I guess I'll be a Warlock," Weiss said, closing her hand. Pyrrha nodded again.
"Victoria, call Ikora."
"Hello, Pyrrha, what is it?" Ikora said
"Could you send a Warlock bond down to Ruby's apartment?"
"Weiss chose to join us?"
"Yes, ma'am," Weiss said.
"I'm glad to hear that," Ikora said, "I'll send the bond down right away."
Victoria shook herself as soon as the call was done… and then Weiss's stomach rumbled.
"Sorry?" She squeaked, blushing.
"Have you had anything to eat since you were revived?" Weiss shook her head, "you must be starving! Penny, me and Weiss are going out!"
"Ok!" Penny called.
—
Thoughts, questions, opinions? Good? Bad? Meh?
"Hello, Pyrrha. An Engram for me to decrypt, I assume?" He said.
"No, I had a question for you. About the past. Post Collapse. I know, not your area of expertise. But-"
"I have plenty of information from after the Collapse, I just don't particularly care about sitting around telling stories from that time," Rahool said, "but I'll make an exception for you. What did you want to know?"
"What did… What did Ruby do before she joined the Iron Lords?"
"Ruby?" Rahool repeated, "She was a Warlord. The land that became the Last City was ruled over by her."
There it was, the confirmation Pyrrha didn't want to hear. She quietly thanked Rahool and began to walk towards the Vanguard building. In the hall before it, however, she was stopped by Shaxx.
"Pyrrha!" The boisterous Titan said, before seeming to notice her expression, "Is something wrong?"
"I need to talk to Ruby."
"I believe she's on the console now," Shaxx said, "You know we're not allowed to interrupt the Vanguard in those circumstances outside of an emergency. What's wrong?"
"Ruby was…" Pyrrha swallowed and said, "Ruby was a Warlord."
"You didn't know?" Shaxx's voice dropped, becoming soft as he took her by the shoulder, guiding her into his office, "No, of course you didn't know, Ruby would never willingly tell you what she did back then."
"You knew?" Pyrrha asked.
"Of course I knew, we traded, on occasion," Shaxx said, and Pyrrha jerked.
"You…?"
"Why do you think I call myself Lord Shaxx, Pyrrha?" Shaxx said, as gently as he could, "I was a Warlord too, yes. Because I believed, and I think Ruby was the same given how quickly she gave leadership to the Speaker and joined the Iron Lords, that the people under us needed a leader. I won't pretend we weren't harsh at times, it was a necessity in those times, but we were never harsh without reason."
"But… I can't imagine Ruby as…"
"A slaver, a tyrant, a monster that needed to be stopped? All the things we paint the Warlords as to keep Guardians from getting any ideas?" Pyrrha nodded, "She wasn't any of those things. The worst she, we, did was execute people for breaking laws, because we didn't have the resources to keep them jailed. And Ruby and I, we tried to keep our laws just. Who made you think about this line of questioning?"
"Ouros," Pyrrha said.
"And you trusted her?" Shaxx said, "Ouros thinks the Vanguard should be a military dictatorship, that they should remove the Speaker and the Consensus and rule like they were Warlords again. She didn't know who Ruby was during those times, just that she was a Warlord."
"So, what should I do?"
"That is up to you. You can choose to forgive Ruby for keeping this a secret, you can choose not to. She may have done it so as to not hurt your opinion of her, but she did tell a lie of omission."
"I think… I think I need time to think it over."
"That's understandable," Shaxx said, patting her on one pauldron and letting Pyrrha leave. As she stepped back into the courtyard, a voice called for her.
"Pyrrha?"
—
Weiss watched the woman with short, spikey crimson red hair stop and turn towards her, emerald green eyes blinking, "Weiss?"
Pyrrha had on heavy, or what seemed to pass as heavy for Guardians, bronze and red armor. Mostly bronze, but the few places where her spacesuit was visible underneath were clearly red, and she had a long strip of red fabric hanging from her hip, emblazoned with her emblem and, more prominently, the image of a broken, rough hewn sword.
"Hello," Weiss said, feeling slightly awkward. Before she could say anything else, Pyrrha had crossed the small gap between them, hoisted Weiss up from the bench she was sitting on and pulled her into a tight hug. Weiss, despite the awkwardness of being crushed against the plastic-like armor, immediately returned the hug.
"What are you doing out here?" Pyrrha asked.
"Waiting for Ruby," Weiss said, "I-"
"Victoria, call Ruby," Pyrrha said, and a Ghost with a red and bronze shell appeared next to her shoulder. After a second, a voice that definitely wasn't Ruby came from it.
"What?" The voice said, sounding irritated.
"Hello, Blossom. I was hoping to talk to Ruby really quick?"
"She's on the console. I'll take a message."
"Tell her I'm taking Weiss down to the apartment, please."
"Fine," the voice said, then went silent as Pyrrha's Ghost shook itself.
"I hate her, she's such a jerk."
"She doesn't like talking is all," Pyrrha defended, before being covered in a flash of light. When she exited it, she was no longer wearing her armor but instead a pair of jeans and a sleeveless, backless sweater that caused Weiss to swallow uncomfortably, a necklace with purple and gold engrams dangling from it, "This is my Ghost, Victoria."
"This is-" Weiss turned to see Mikeal ducking behind her, staring at Pyrrha with a wide eye, "Mikeal?"
"How are you talking to her so casually?" Mikeal said.
"What?"
"She's Pyrrha Nikos, Crota's End," Mikeal said.
"I don't know who that is," Weiss said, "but I know Pyrrha, we went to school together."
"It's alright, Little Light. I'm not offended at her talking to me like we're friends because we are friends. She can even join my fireteam, if she wants."
"Fireteam?"
"Groups of Guardians between two and six," Pyrrha said, as they began to walk, "I'm on one with Penny, but I'm sure she'll be happy to have you."
"You mentioned an apartment we're going to?" Weiss asked as they stepped into an elevator.
"The Vanguard each has a floor a bit down," Pyrrha said, typing in a number to the keypad, "Me and Penny share the Hunter one with Ruby. I'm sure Ruby would be happy to have you, even if you have to stay on the couch until we can get a bed delivered, probably tomorrow or the day after! It's easier than having to find a place to stay inside the City."
"You'd let me?" Weiss said.
"Of course. You're as good as family, Weiss. None of us are gonna make you stay in one of the barracks or something until you can get enough Glimmer for a house."
Weiss shot a thankful smile at Pyrrha.
—
Penny brought her LRv1 Javelin down into the Tower hanger, landing it gently and stepping out. Amanda looked over from where she was in a cage working on an Arcadia-class Jumpship.
"Hello, Amanda," Penny said, walking over to the cage.
"Hiya, Pen," Amanda said, "How are ya doing?"
"I'm doing sensational," Penny said, "New ship?"
"Came in from the wild a couple of hours ago with a new Guardian," Amanda said, "It's a bit of a mess, missing paneling, leaking fuel, missing NLS drive. It's gonna take a couple of days to get it up to standards. Still an Arcadia, though, so should run like a beut once we get everything fixed up. Did ya need something, or just lookin' for small talk?"
"Just checking in," Penny said, "I'm going to go home and get this radiolaria off."
"Sortied against the Vex, then?" Amanda asked rhetorically, "Good idea. See you around, Penny."
"See you later, Amanda," Penny said, walking towards the elevator to bring her down to her apartment. Stepping into it, she hummed to herself as it brought her down thirty floors. Opening to a hallway with a single door, Penny walked by the frame wiping the floor and typed in the four digit pass code to the apartment, stepping in to Pyrrha's voice.
"That's Ruby's office," she said to a girl with short, messy white hair, "It's where she works when she's called in suddenly or is working on a Roseworks Original."
"Does she ever take a break?" Penny locked up at the voice from the white haired girl.
"Vanguard isn't a position that allows for much in the way of breaks," Pyrrha said, "she takes a day off per week, but she's still technically on call during that time."
"I can't imagine Ruby taking on a position like that," Weiss said, "What happened?"
"Tallulah challenged her to the Vanguard Dare before she died," Penny said, before rushing forwards and pulling Weiss into a bone crushing hug.
—
Weiss gasped for air the minute Penny finished hugging her, looking over the other girl. She was wearing a gray bulletproof vest, with her signature power sign on it in green, under a long green coat with black accents, and a band around her bicep with the same power symbol.
"Penny!" Weiss breathed.
"Weiss!" Penny said, "It's good to see you! Welcome to the Last City."
"Thank you," Weiss said, "So, what's the Vanguard Dare?"
"It's how the Hunters decide on their Vanguard. The current Vanguard dares someone to take on the position. At least, they would if Ruby hasn't held the position since Tallulah died. What happened to Myrtenaster?"
Weiss drew the rusted sword off her hip ruefully, "It broke while I was dead. I need to make enough Glimmer to get it fixed."
"We could pay," Penny immediately offered, and Pyrrha nodded.
"You'd do that?" Weiss asked, "Ruby-"
"Can't show favoritism in where she puts Glimmer, we know," Pyrrha said, "We all were missing equipment when we got to the Tower. But we're not members of the Vanguard, we can use our Glimmer for anything we want, which means getting you some clothes, both civilian and Guardian equipment, and Myrtenaster fixed. Have you picked which Class you're going to join?"
"They didn't tell me about Classes," Weiss said.
"They really are busy," Pyrrha commented.
"I need to go get cleaned off," Penny threw out, walking towards one of the rooms and opening the door to reveal a bathroom with a jacuzzi bath and a shower, "I'll see you both in a few minutes."
"All Guardians are divided into three classes," Pyrrha explained, "Titan, Hunter and Warlock. Titans… we're the tip of the spear, the wall that doesn't break. The Wall we're on, the one that protects the City from the Fallen? Titans man it, occasionally the other classes too, but always Titans. Zavala is our Vanguard."
"So, heavy armor I guess?" Weiss asked, and Pyrrha nodded, causing Weiss to pull a face, "I don't think that's for me. No offense, Pyrrha."
"It's important to pick a class that works for you," Pyrrha said, "Hunters are frontiersmen, they prefer to be out in the wild, scavenging, hunting single, important targets, taking them out with a shot they never saw coming, or a knife to their back.
"Assassins?" Weiss asked. She couldn't picture Ruby leading assassins.
"Legalized outlaws," Pyrrha corrected, "I've never met a Hunter that hasn't broken the law. Ruby keeps them on the level, but even the Wolfpack, Ruby's handpicked group of Hunters, do smuggling runs. They do the dirty work nobody else wants to do, so the Consensus turns a blind eye so long as they behave in the Last City."
"Definitely not," Weiss said, "Warlocks?"
"Warrior-Scholars," Pyrrha said, "They study the Light, learn to use it to fight. A Hunter will light their knife on fire, a Warlock will throw out bolts of fire to incinerate their target."
Weiss held out her hand, a ball of purple energy forming in it, "Like this?"
"Yes," Pyrrha nodded.
"Then I guess I'll be a Warlock," Weiss said, closing her hand. Pyrrha nodded again.
"Victoria, call Ikora."
"Hello, Pyrrha, what is it?" Ikora said
"Could you send a Warlock bond down to Ruby's apartment?"
"Weiss chose to join us?"
"Yes, ma'am," Weiss said.
"I'm glad to hear that," Ikora said, "I'll send the bond down right away."
Victoria shook herself as soon as the call was done… and then Weiss's stomach rumbled.
"Sorry?" She squeaked, blushing.
"Have you had anything to eat since you were revived?" Weiss shook her head, "you must be starving! Penny, me and Weiss are going out!"
"Ok!" Penny called.
—
Thoughts, questions, opinions? Good? Bad? Meh?
- Location
- none of your business
Chances are they go to Cayde's favorite Ramen place?
- Location
- new york
they sound a chaotic fun bunch to run with
- Location
- none of your business
Case in point: Cayde-5 (Ruby being Vanguard means that Andal's still around)
Interlude I: Taken War
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
"Where are we going?" Weiss asked as the elevator descended to the bottom floor.
"There's a Chinese place we like to pick up food from, Victoria, can you put in the order? Make it for three, please."
"Sure," Victoria said.
"Chinese?"
"It was a country on Earth, before the Collapse," Pyrrha explained, "It was a bit like Mistral. We like to pick up food from there because we can bring it back to the apartment."
Pyrrha reached onto her necklace and plucked off a golden engram flicking it into the air where Victoria shot it with a laser from her eye. The crystal unfolded into a red and bronze sparrow with a sharp chassis, a wolf head ornament on the top and two wings on either side.
"Wow," Weiss said.
"Like her?" Pyrrha said, patting a hand on the bike, "I paid Crux/Lomar, that's a weapons foundry, a lot of Glimmer for her. She's called the Gjallarswift."
"Weapons foundries make Sparrows?" Weiss asked.
"A lot of them do. Roseworks doesn't, outside of Ruby's personal Sparrow Bumblebee. Gjallarswift is the third fastest Sparrow out there, after whatever monstrocity Marcus Ren's riding at any particular moment and Bumblebee."
"I feel like there's a story behind Marcus," Weiss said, decrypting her own Sparrow. Or, well, having Mikeal decrypt it. Next to the Gjallarswift, it was very plain looking and unimpressive. Pyrrha decrypted her helmet, and Weiss did the same, sliding it on.
"Marcus is one of the best Hunters in the system," Pyrrha said, her voice coming out of a small speaker next to Weiss's ear as she began to drive. Weiss followed her into the city, "He's also the best Sparrow racer in the system and tends to come up with various insane Sparrow ideas. Last I heard, he was working on getting a NLS drive working in his Sparrow for some reason. Nobody could pilot that safely, not even Ruby, and her reflexes are insane between the Light enhancing them and her Semblance."
"I'm surprised there aren't restaurants in the Tower," Weiss said as they began moving, carefully adjusting the speed of her sparrow to stay even with Pyrrha.
"Oh, there are. Almost any kind you can think of short of gourmet restaurants, we just prefer this one over the Tower's Chinese place. That, and I figured you would like to see the Last City up close."
"A lot of skyscrapers," Weiss offered, as they rode through a suburban neighborhood towards the "lot of skyscrapers".
"Expanding the Last City out is a difficult prospect," Pyrrha explained, "We'd have to build an extension to the Wall, assign a new barracks of militia and Guardians. They've done it before, but it requires a supermajority vote from the Consensus, that's the Last City's governing body. So instead, we tend to expand up. Nothing as big as the Towers, obviously, but up is where we go."
"Ruby mentioned them," Weiss said, "She said I could work for them to make Glimmer?"
"You could, but I wouldn't," Pyrrha said, "except for the Vanguard, the Consensus members are… questionable, in my opinion."
"The Vanguard is on the Consensus?"
"They're three of the seven votes," Pyrrha said, "one for each Vanguard leader."
So Ruby had become a political figure? That was… hard for Weiss to imagine, she was used to her hyper team leader.
—
Petra Venj, Queen's Wrath and acting regent of the Awoken strode out onto 2 Pallas, loading her Vestian Dynasty as she did. A seven woman unit of Reef Corsairs followed her out of her ship, a Ceres Galliot, each holding a Chrysura Melo to go along with their Vestian Dynasty sidearms and Black Talon swords, "Check your targets, I don't want us accidentally shooting our own."
In the sky above 2 Pallas, what few Galliots remained after the Battle of Saturn flew, shooting down the second wave of Hive seeder ships. Petra led her squad towards one of the ships that had already landed, drawing one of her talon-like knives. The settlement on Pallas had shut their doors, sealing the people within. And the Hive were trying to get in, well over a dozen thralls scratched at the door, only to be shoved aside by a hulking knight clutching a Hive cleaver, raising it above his head.
Petra's sidearm snapped up, braced on the hand holding her knife, and went off. The knight's head snapped forwards, blood splattering as it dropped its cleaver. The thralls stopped, turning towards them and staring, just for a second, before they charged, shrieking wildly as they came, "Open fire!"
At Petra's order, the corsairs fired long sweeping brusts of their Melos, scything down the thralls. Before they were done, more poured out of the seeder, accompanied by acolytes holding shredders, knights with boomers and cleavers and a wizard flying above. The squad immediately split, rushing for cover as the thralls chased them and the many guns went off. Most of them got to cover, three weren't so lucky.
One was hit dead on by a boomer shot, Arc energy exploding through them and frying them dead. The second had a shredder round go through their knee, dropping them and letting the thralls catch up. They drew their Black Talon, cutting down what they could before they were torn limb from limb. The third though, had it the worst. The wizard focused on them and then gestured with a hand, and the young woman exploded in green soulfire, burning to ash in less than a second.
Pulling out a pair of grenades, Petra pulled the pins on both and tossed them out, blowing the thralls to pieces and taking a couple of knights with them. More grenades came from the survivors of her squad seconds later, saturating the area with Arc energy, wiping out the entire hoard.
—-
Shiro-4 shot the Vex minotaur with Trespasser, walking over to the object it had been standing over… and promptly swore under his breath "Son of a bitch- Suzume, please tell me that isn't-?"
"I wish I could," Suzume popped out, scanning the broken Ghost, "It's Sasha, Shiro."
"Where's Tev, then?" Shiro's eyes trailed to the open Vex gate, "You don't think he went in there, do ya?"
"I'm picking up Light emissions. They're weak, but they're there," Suzume said.
"Well, we better go after him, before he gets his dumb ass killed," Shiro said, plunging into the portal and coming out in a field with red flowers as far as the eye could see, a large mesa in the distance, "You picking up any shortwaves, Suzu?"
"One, hooking up now," Suzume said, before a gritty, rasping voice came from her.
"Who's there?"
"Tev, it's Shiro. Ruby sent me looking for you, we need you back at the Tower. Or, well, needed you. Sasha's… she's gone."
"Probably gonna follow her soon, brother," Tevis said, before coughing a bloody, phlegm filled cough, "I took a slap rifle round to the chest. It ain't healin' without Sasha and I got a minotaur comin'. Don't have much ammo left either."
"I'm coming to get you, don't you dare die," Shiro ordered as Suzume lit Tevis's location on his HUD.
"Ain't that easy," Tevis coughed, "Do me a favor. Don't bury me next to Jaren. It's stupid, I know, but I always wanted to be launched into the sun. Figured that'd be a fun way to go."
"Tev, you better not-" the sound of a torch hammer came from Suzume, and Shiro went silent. He slowly stored the Trespasser in his hip holster, drawing his bowie knife. The Arc crackled, and Shiro blinked forwards, landing on the mesa and seeing Tevis lying there, his messy hair singed and his chest caved in. Another blink and Shiro was on the minotaur that had done the deed, driving the large blade knife into its juicebox before ripping it out. Walking over to Tevis, he looked down, "Suzume, call Ruby."
"What?" Blossom snapped, "She's on the console."
"I need to talk to her, Blossom. It's… it's Tev."
"What's up, Shiro?" Ruby asked, and the Exo sighed, picking up Hawkmoon and putting it in Tevis's hand.
"Tev… didn't make it. Got stuck in the Black Garden without Sasha and… took a torch hammer to the chest."
"Bring him home," Ruby said after a second, voice devoid of emotion.
"He wanted… he wanted to be shot into the sun, the showboater," Shiro said.
"We'll do that once everyone's home," Ruby said, "but that'll take a few days. Bring him home for now."
—
"There's a Chinese place we like to pick up food from, Victoria, can you put in the order? Make it for three, please."
"Sure," Victoria said.
"Chinese?"
"It was a country on Earth, before the Collapse," Pyrrha explained, "It was a bit like Mistral. We like to pick up food from there because we can bring it back to the apartment."
Pyrrha reached onto her necklace and plucked off a golden engram flicking it into the air where Victoria shot it with a laser from her eye. The crystal unfolded into a red and bronze sparrow with a sharp chassis, a wolf head ornament on the top and two wings on either side.
"Wow," Weiss said.
"Like her?" Pyrrha said, patting a hand on the bike, "I paid Crux/Lomar, that's a weapons foundry, a lot of Glimmer for her. She's called the Gjallarswift."
"Weapons foundries make Sparrows?" Weiss asked.
"A lot of them do. Roseworks doesn't, outside of Ruby's personal Sparrow Bumblebee. Gjallarswift is the third fastest Sparrow out there, after whatever monstrocity Marcus Ren's riding at any particular moment and Bumblebee."
"I feel like there's a story behind Marcus," Weiss said, decrypting her own Sparrow. Or, well, having Mikeal decrypt it. Next to the Gjallarswift, it was very plain looking and unimpressive. Pyrrha decrypted her helmet, and Weiss did the same, sliding it on.
"Marcus is one of the best Hunters in the system," Pyrrha said, her voice coming out of a small speaker next to Weiss's ear as she began to drive. Weiss followed her into the city, "He's also the best Sparrow racer in the system and tends to come up with various insane Sparrow ideas. Last I heard, he was working on getting a NLS drive working in his Sparrow for some reason. Nobody could pilot that safely, not even Ruby, and her reflexes are insane between the Light enhancing them and her Semblance."
"I'm surprised there aren't restaurants in the Tower," Weiss said as they began moving, carefully adjusting the speed of her sparrow to stay even with Pyrrha.
"Oh, there are. Almost any kind you can think of short of gourmet restaurants, we just prefer this one over the Tower's Chinese place. That, and I figured you would like to see the Last City up close."
"A lot of skyscrapers," Weiss offered, as they rode through a suburban neighborhood towards the "lot of skyscrapers".
"Expanding the Last City out is a difficult prospect," Pyrrha explained, "We'd have to build an extension to the Wall, assign a new barracks of militia and Guardians. They've done it before, but it requires a supermajority vote from the Consensus, that's the Last City's governing body. So instead, we tend to expand up. Nothing as big as the Towers, obviously, but up is where we go."
"Ruby mentioned them," Weiss said, "She said I could work for them to make Glimmer?"
"You could, but I wouldn't," Pyrrha said, "except for the Vanguard, the Consensus members are… questionable, in my opinion."
"The Vanguard is on the Consensus?"
"They're three of the seven votes," Pyrrha said, "one for each Vanguard leader."
So Ruby had become a political figure? That was… hard for Weiss to imagine, she was used to her hyper team leader.
—
Petra Venj, Queen's Wrath and acting regent of the Awoken strode out onto 2 Pallas, loading her Vestian Dynasty as she did. A seven woman unit of Reef Corsairs followed her out of her ship, a Ceres Galliot, each holding a Chrysura Melo to go along with their Vestian Dynasty sidearms and Black Talon swords, "Check your targets, I don't want us accidentally shooting our own."
In the sky above 2 Pallas, what few Galliots remained after the Battle of Saturn flew, shooting down the second wave of Hive seeder ships. Petra led her squad towards one of the ships that had already landed, drawing one of her talon-like knives. The settlement on Pallas had shut their doors, sealing the people within. And the Hive were trying to get in, well over a dozen thralls scratched at the door, only to be shoved aside by a hulking knight clutching a Hive cleaver, raising it above his head.
Petra's sidearm snapped up, braced on the hand holding her knife, and went off. The knight's head snapped forwards, blood splattering as it dropped its cleaver. The thralls stopped, turning towards them and staring, just for a second, before they charged, shrieking wildly as they came, "Open fire!"
At Petra's order, the corsairs fired long sweeping brusts of their Melos, scything down the thralls. Before they were done, more poured out of the seeder, accompanied by acolytes holding shredders, knights with boomers and cleavers and a wizard flying above. The squad immediately split, rushing for cover as the thralls chased them and the many guns went off. Most of them got to cover, three weren't so lucky.
One was hit dead on by a boomer shot, Arc energy exploding through them and frying them dead. The second had a shredder round go through their knee, dropping them and letting the thralls catch up. They drew their Black Talon, cutting down what they could before they were torn limb from limb. The third though, had it the worst. The wizard focused on them and then gestured with a hand, and the young woman exploded in green soulfire, burning to ash in less than a second.
Pulling out a pair of grenades, Petra pulled the pins on both and tossed them out, blowing the thralls to pieces and taking a couple of knights with them. More grenades came from the survivors of her squad seconds later, saturating the area with Arc energy, wiping out the entire hoard.
—-
Shiro-4 shot the Vex minotaur with Trespasser, walking over to the object it had been standing over… and promptly swore under his breath "Son of a bitch- Suzume, please tell me that isn't-?"
"I wish I could," Suzume popped out, scanning the broken Ghost, "It's Sasha, Shiro."
"Where's Tev, then?" Shiro's eyes trailed to the open Vex gate, "You don't think he went in there, do ya?"
"I'm picking up Light emissions. They're weak, but they're there," Suzume said.
"Well, we better go after him, before he gets his dumb ass killed," Shiro said, plunging into the portal and coming out in a field with red flowers as far as the eye could see, a large mesa in the distance, "You picking up any shortwaves, Suzu?"
"One, hooking up now," Suzume said, before a gritty, rasping voice came from her.
"Who's there?"
"Tev, it's Shiro. Ruby sent me looking for you, we need you back at the Tower. Or, well, needed you. Sasha's… she's gone."
"Probably gonna follow her soon, brother," Tevis said, before coughing a bloody, phlegm filled cough, "I took a slap rifle round to the chest. It ain't healin' without Sasha and I got a minotaur comin'. Don't have much ammo left either."
"I'm coming to get you, don't you dare die," Shiro ordered as Suzume lit Tevis's location on his HUD.
"Ain't that easy," Tevis coughed, "Do me a favor. Don't bury me next to Jaren. It's stupid, I know, but I always wanted to be launched into the sun. Figured that'd be a fun way to go."
"Tev, you better not-" the sound of a torch hammer came from Suzume, and Shiro went silent. He slowly stored the Trespasser in his hip holster, drawing his bowie knife. The Arc crackled, and Shiro blinked forwards, landing on the mesa and seeing Tevis lying there, his messy hair singed and his chest caved in. Another blink and Shiro was on the minotaur that had done the deed, driving the large blade knife into its juicebox before ripping it out. Walking over to Tevis, he looked down, "Suzume, call Ruby."
"What?" Blossom snapped, "She's on the console."
"I need to talk to her, Blossom. It's… it's Tev."
"What's up, Shiro?" Ruby asked, and the Exo sighed, picking up Hawkmoon and putting it in Tevis's hand.
"Tev… didn't make it. Got stuck in the Black Garden without Sasha and… took a torch hammer to the chest."
"Bring him home," Ruby said after a second, voice devoid of emotion.
"He wanted… he wanted to be shot into the sun, the showboater," Shiro said.
"We'll do that once everyone's home," Ruby said, "but that'll take a few days. Bring him home for now."
—
Chapter 6
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
Cayde put a round in the knight's head, the explosive bullet detonating half a second later and blowing the head clean off. With his other hand, he drew a throwing knife and plunged it straight into another knight's throat, Solar flames burning it to ash.
A horde of thralls poured into the room as Andal planted the sixth of eight thermite grenades around the power source for the big gun. Cayde reached in deep as he stored the Ace of Spades, leaping high into the air as his Light roared out, flash forging throwing knives roaring with Solar light. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty knives drove home into the thralls and turned them to ash. Landing, he turned in time to see Andal plant the last charge and fall back with the detonator in hand. Pulling the trigger on it, Andal set off the charges, briefly lighting up the gloomy room like a sun had gone off.
The chitin dried out and crumbled, the energy beam between the two layers flickering before it died.
"Alright," Cayde said, "We got the gun down, time to find a place to set up Transmat."
"Good to hear," Ruby said, voice sounding hollow.
"Ruby?" Andal asked, "Everything alright?"
"Everything's fine-"
"Tevis Larsen is dead," Eris cut in, and Cayde sucked in a breath at the same time as Andal.
"Eris!" Ruby snapped.
"You aren't going to be entirely with us, Ruby," Eris said, sounding as detached as ever, "They deserve to know why, and you deserve to be able to mourn."
"How'd he die?" Cayde asked as he and Andal exited the room they had been in.
"Vex," Ruby said, "We're bringing him home. I already scheduled out some time at the bar for everyone who knew him to say goodbye, then… the show off wants to be launched into the sun."
"Of course he does," Cayde said, "Sundance, can you track Cabal emissions? I think we should set up the Transmat beacon where they are. Hive'll be busy dealing with them."
—
Andal Brask walked into the tavern to the sound of laughter, five people sitting around a card table. He approached it, and one woman looked up from her cards. She had dusty skin and short, cornrowed hair, wearing a brown leather coat, "Ho? Who are you?"
"Andal Brask," he said.
"Ah, the one Micah warned me about," the woman said.
"Warn you about what?" Andal protested, "I was just raised, all I've done with my life is vomit into the Pacific!"
The woman laughed, slapping Andal on the back so hard he swore he died. His legs definitely buckled, and he was left on his knees in front of the group.
"I am Tallulah Fairwind," the woman said, before gesturing around the table, "this is Caliban-8-"
The robot raised a shot glass in greeting, red eyes staring into Andals, "Nice to meet ya."
"-Tevis Larsen-"
The bear of a man with brown messy hair and an unruly beard grunted, throwing a few chips into the center of the table.
"-Jaren Ward-"
The young man with dark, windswept hair and eyes like embers nodded, offering Andal a thin smile.
"-And Ruby Rose," the short girl with silver eyes raised a beer bottle in a clear toast before tossing in her own chips, a red cloak with wolf skull shaped clasps wrapped around her and sheathed knives bristling under it, "Last round, I have a job for the Wolfpack."
"What's that, Tallu?" Ruby asked.
"That House of Devils' Jumpship is still around?"
"The one I've been tracking? Yeah, it should be, why?"
"Our new friend needs a Jumpship," Tallulah said.
"We don't need the whole Wolfpack for that," Ruby said, "I'll take the kid and we'll get it."
"Kid?" Andal said, "I'm not a kid."
"You are compared to me," Ruby said, standing up and stretching.
"Don't take it personally, Andal," Tallulah laughed, "We are all kids compared to Ruby, she saw the Dark Age."
"Come on over here," Ruby said, walking and grabbing Andal by the back of his shirt and dragging him to a bin near the door. Various guns and a bow hung off it. Ruby drew a pistol from the holster and held it out towards Andal, "Here, take this. You don't have a gun, right?"
"Right," Andal said.
"Keep your finger off the trigger," Ruby ordered, handing it to him, "it's a FAMAE FN-750, not the best gun I've ever used, but what I could scavenge recently. Suppressed, so you won't make as much noise as you could, but they'll still be able to track you if you fire at the wrong time. I'll be offering fire support from a ridge near where they're set up. Come on, let's go be bandits."
—
Ruby loaded the Häkke sniper rifle she had been using recently, wishing, not for the first time, that she hadn't designed Crescent Rose to use ammo that had become so rare in the Collapse. She could only use her baby for sniping on the rare occasions she could justify .50 BMG… she should make her own Foundry. Tex was close to Dark Age reliability, but they didn't quite make it there, and then she could afford to produce ammo for Crescent Rose.
"Alright," Ruby said, Blossom appearing next to her to act as her spotter as she closed her non-dominant eye, bringing her other eye to the scope as she did. Finding Andal, she spoke, "I got you."
Adjusting her aim to the nearest Fallen to him, a vandel berating two dregs, she said, "I'm taking out the vandal, that's the four armed one. You should be able to handle the dregs."
Breathing out a long, calm breath, Ruby pulled the trigger, watching blue blood explode out the back of the vandal's head. Andal came out of the shadows as the dregs jerked in surprise. The first was gunned down before it had time to respond, while the other drew a shock pistol and dagger, lunging for Andal.
He dodged the dagger strike, grabbing the hand and twisting it wide, he shoved the pistol under the dreg's chin and pulled the trigger, the dreg collapsing dead. Ruby swung her rifle towards two approaching vandals, breathing in and then blowing one's brains out across the Chilean sands.
—
Andal dodged the stab from the dreg, grabbing the arm and shoving it so it was wide out from them both before shoving the pistol Ruby had given him under the chin and pulling the trigger. The gun gave a dull bang, and the dreg collapsed dead, Andal reaching down and grabbing the knife.
As he stood up, he saw two vandals making their way through the camp towards him. As Andal raised the gun and knife, a loud bang came from the cliff behind him and one of the two collapsed in a burst of blue blood and white gas. A few seconds later, the other joined the first in the same spray.
"Thanks!" He said, and Ruby hummed over the comms as he made his way closer to the jumpship, a lopsided thing with one wing and a red and white color scheme. Before he got any further, a loud whipping crack went overhead and he dove for cover. Ruby's voice came a second later.
"Don't worry, that wasn't aimed at you," Ruby said, voice casual, "They're trying to find me. I see them, three vandals with wire rifles right below the jumpship. They have a tied up Exo, I'll draw them away, you get him and take out the captain, ok Andal?"
"Yeah," Andal said, nodding. The next shot that went off over his head crackled with blue energy, hitting one of the vandals. The other two scattered, and rushed forwards, over the dead vandal and to the roughed up Exo, a blue and gray robot with a horn and white eyes. Before he could do anything, the robot stood up from where it was kneeling, spinning a shard of metal in between his fingers.
"Hey there," they said, "Thanks for the assist, wasn't looking forwards to taking those three out myself, but your sniper friend'll keep 'em busy, I'll guess. Cayde-6."
"Andal Brask," Andal said, watching Cayde walk over to a pile of equipment and pull out a revolver, "What're you doing here."
"Figured I could sell this ship for a good price at the Last City, space authorized Guardians are pretty rare, you know?" Cayde said, "What about you, Brask."
"Stealing the ship," Andal admitted, "I think they want me to be a space authorized Guardian."
"Ah, damn. Well, we gonna take out the Captain then? She's got my Ghost.*
Before Andal could respond, a sharp pain blossomed across his back and a loud bang echoed across the pit. The next thing he knew he was being raised in a flash of Light, Cayde trading shots with a giant Fallen holding a shotgun. Andal lay there as the Fallen got closer, hand wrapping around his weapons, waiting. Waiting… now!
Andal surged upwards, driving the dagger into the Fallen Captain's throat and unloading the magazine into their head. Blue blood leaked from the holes, but it didn't fall, instead grabbing Andal's arms with its lower pair and began to pull. Before it got too far in the process of tearing Andal's arms off, six bangs came from behind them and holes blew in the captain's head, dropping it.
"And that, is why we carry something with stopping power," Cayde said with a grin, "come on, let's check out our new ship."
—
"Firebreak," Blitz-21 sat straight up as the hollow voice came from the console above his head, "This is Vanguard Rose, you are go for insertion, I repeat, you are go for insertion. The main gun is down and the Transmat zone will be open by the time you reach them. Zavala, we've got teams coming onto the Dreadnaught, take over for me would you?"
"Ruby," Commander Zavala said, his deep baritone voice hesitating, "I read the report. Take some time off, you did a lot today. I'll take over from here."
"Thanks," Ruby said, voice tight.
"This is Commander Zavala," Zavala said after a second, "Team commanders, report in."
"This is Deputy Commander Sloane."
"Blitz-21," Blitz said, turning on his Calisto Lancer's thrusters.
"Elriq."
"Callisto Yin."
"Siegfried," the first Praxic order Fireteam called in.
"Shayura," the other said.
"Even you, Sloane?" Zavala said, though he didn't sound nearly as offended as he should have.
"We need a beachhead on that ship, Commander, I believed that when I saw its picture, and I think that even more now that I've seen it up close," Sloane said.
"Transmat Zone up in 3, 2, 1," Zavala counted down, then a glowing light appeared on the dashboard, "Parxic, in first. Bring the Void."
"Understood," Siegfried said, even though the Titan obviously wasn't the member being directed towards. Through the giant hole in the ship, Blitz watched four Nova Bombs go off, giant explosions of Void energy swallowing dozens of the hundreds of teaming Hive.
"Firebreak, now," Zavala ordered, and Blitz punched the button on his console, vanishing in a flash of blue light and appearing in the Transmat zone below. The teal and white Exo landed next to Cayde-6, who was blowing the head off a knight with his white and black hand cannon.
"Glad you could join us!" Cayde called, shooting another knight and causing it to explode into fire.
"Glad to be here!" Blitz called back, swinging Sweet Business off his back and grabbing the grip as he pulled the trigger. The rotary gun spun up, 7.62x51mm rounds spraying left, right and center as the Exo swept it across the gigantic room. Knights, acolytes, thralls were all torn to shreds by Sweet Business. Finally, the gun ran empty, and Blitz swung it open to grab the canister magazine and throw it aside. Before he could have his Ghost create another, a knight lunged out of cover, sword bared for his neck.
Sloane stepped between them, Crown-Splitter clashing with the cleaver. She wielded the massive sword one handed, the other bringing up an Annual Skate, a white and red SUROS-make revolver, and blasted off the head of the knight before kicking the body away. Blitz finished reloading, laying down suppressing fire on a coven of wizards that flew into the room. At the same time, slug rifle shots went off from the Cabal ship, legionnaires charging out and firing with their explosive payloads.
The war on the Dreadnaught had begun, and by god was Blitz gonna enjoy it.
—
A horde of thralls poured into the room as Andal planted the sixth of eight thermite grenades around the power source for the big gun. Cayde reached in deep as he stored the Ace of Spades, leaping high into the air as his Light roared out, flash forging throwing knives roaring with Solar light. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty knives drove home into the thralls and turned them to ash. Landing, he turned in time to see Andal plant the last charge and fall back with the detonator in hand. Pulling the trigger on it, Andal set off the charges, briefly lighting up the gloomy room like a sun had gone off.
The chitin dried out and crumbled, the energy beam between the two layers flickering before it died.
"Alright," Cayde said, "We got the gun down, time to find a place to set up Transmat."
"Good to hear," Ruby said, voice sounding hollow.
"Ruby?" Andal asked, "Everything alright?"
"Everything's fine-"
"Tevis Larsen is dead," Eris cut in, and Cayde sucked in a breath at the same time as Andal.
"Eris!" Ruby snapped.
"You aren't going to be entirely with us, Ruby," Eris said, sounding as detached as ever, "They deserve to know why, and you deserve to be able to mourn."
"How'd he die?" Cayde asked as he and Andal exited the room they had been in.
"Vex," Ruby said, "We're bringing him home. I already scheduled out some time at the bar for everyone who knew him to say goodbye, then… the show off wants to be launched into the sun."
"Of course he does," Cayde said, "Sundance, can you track Cabal emissions? I think we should set up the Transmat beacon where they are. Hive'll be busy dealing with them."
—
Andal Brask walked into the tavern to the sound of laughter, five people sitting around a card table. He approached it, and one woman looked up from her cards. She had dusty skin and short, cornrowed hair, wearing a brown leather coat, "Ho? Who are you?"
"Andal Brask," he said.
"Ah, the one Micah warned me about," the woman said.
"Warn you about what?" Andal protested, "I was just raised, all I've done with my life is vomit into the Pacific!"
The woman laughed, slapping Andal on the back so hard he swore he died. His legs definitely buckled, and he was left on his knees in front of the group.
"I am Tallulah Fairwind," the woman said, before gesturing around the table, "this is Caliban-8-"
The robot raised a shot glass in greeting, red eyes staring into Andals, "Nice to meet ya."
"-Tevis Larsen-"
The bear of a man with brown messy hair and an unruly beard grunted, throwing a few chips into the center of the table.
"-Jaren Ward-"
The young man with dark, windswept hair and eyes like embers nodded, offering Andal a thin smile.
"-And Ruby Rose," the short girl with silver eyes raised a beer bottle in a clear toast before tossing in her own chips, a red cloak with wolf skull shaped clasps wrapped around her and sheathed knives bristling under it, "Last round, I have a job for the Wolfpack."
"What's that, Tallu?" Ruby asked.
"That House of Devils' Jumpship is still around?"
"The one I've been tracking? Yeah, it should be, why?"
"Our new friend needs a Jumpship," Tallulah said.
"We don't need the whole Wolfpack for that," Ruby said, "I'll take the kid and we'll get it."
"Kid?" Andal said, "I'm not a kid."
"You are compared to me," Ruby said, standing up and stretching.
"Don't take it personally, Andal," Tallulah laughed, "We are all kids compared to Ruby, she saw the Dark Age."
"Come on over here," Ruby said, walking and grabbing Andal by the back of his shirt and dragging him to a bin near the door. Various guns and a bow hung off it. Ruby drew a pistol from the holster and held it out towards Andal, "Here, take this. You don't have a gun, right?"
"Right," Andal said.
"Keep your finger off the trigger," Ruby ordered, handing it to him, "it's a FAMAE FN-750, not the best gun I've ever used, but what I could scavenge recently. Suppressed, so you won't make as much noise as you could, but they'll still be able to track you if you fire at the wrong time. I'll be offering fire support from a ridge near where they're set up. Come on, let's go be bandits."
—
Ruby loaded the Häkke sniper rifle she had been using recently, wishing, not for the first time, that she hadn't designed Crescent Rose to use ammo that had become so rare in the Collapse. She could only use her baby for sniping on the rare occasions she could justify .50 BMG… she should make her own Foundry. Tex was close to Dark Age reliability, but they didn't quite make it there, and then she could afford to produce ammo for Crescent Rose.
"Alright," Ruby said, Blossom appearing next to her to act as her spotter as she closed her non-dominant eye, bringing her other eye to the scope as she did. Finding Andal, she spoke, "I got you."
Adjusting her aim to the nearest Fallen to him, a vandel berating two dregs, she said, "I'm taking out the vandal, that's the four armed one. You should be able to handle the dregs."
Breathing out a long, calm breath, Ruby pulled the trigger, watching blue blood explode out the back of the vandal's head. Andal came out of the shadows as the dregs jerked in surprise. The first was gunned down before it had time to respond, while the other drew a shock pistol and dagger, lunging for Andal.
He dodged the dagger strike, grabbing the hand and twisting it wide, he shoved the pistol under the dreg's chin and pulled the trigger, the dreg collapsing dead. Ruby swung her rifle towards two approaching vandals, breathing in and then blowing one's brains out across the Chilean sands.
—
Andal dodged the stab from the dreg, grabbing the arm and shoving it so it was wide out from them both before shoving the pistol Ruby had given him under the chin and pulling the trigger. The gun gave a dull bang, and the dreg collapsed dead, Andal reaching down and grabbing the knife.
As he stood up, he saw two vandals making their way through the camp towards him. As Andal raised the gun and knife, a loud bang came from the cliff behind him and one of the two collapsed in a burst of blue blood and white gas. A few seconds later, the other joined the first in the same spray.
"Thanks!" He said, and Ruby hummed over the comms as he made his way closer to the jumpship, a lopsided thing with one wing and a red and white color scheme. Before he got any further, a loud whipping crack went overhead and he dove for cover. Ruby's voice came a second later.
"Don't worry, that wasn't aimed at you," Ruby said, voice casual, "They're trying to find me. I see them, three vandals with wire rifles right below the jumpship. They have a tied up Exo, I'll draw them away, you get him and take out the captain, ok Andal?"
"Yeah," Andal said, nodding. The next shot that went off over his head crackled with blue energy, hitting one of the vandals. The other two scattered, and rushed forwards, over the dead vandal and to the roughed up Exo, a blue and gray robot with a horn and white eyes. Before he could do anything, the robot stood up from where it was kneeling, spinning a shard of metal in between his fingers.
"Hey there," they said, "Thanks for the assist, wasn't looking forwards to taking those three out myself, but your sniper friend'll keep 'em busy, I'll guess. Cayde-6."
"Andal Brask," Andal said, watching Cayde walk over to a pile of equipment and pull out a revolver, "What're you doing here."
"Figured I could sell this ship for a good price at the Last City, space authorized Guardians are pretty rare, you know?" Cayde said, "What about you, Brask."
"Stealing the ship," Andal admitted, "I think they want me to be a space authorized Guardian."
"Ah, damn. Well, we gonna take out the Captain then? She's got my Ghost.*
Before Andal could respond, a sharp pain blossomed across his back and a loud bang echoed across the pit. The next thing he knew he was being raised in a flash of Light, Cayde trading shots with a giant Fallen holding a shotgun. Andal lay there as the Fallen got closer, hand wrapping around his weapons, waiting. Waiting… now!
Andal surged upwards, driving the dagger into the Fallen Captain's throat and unloading the magazine into their head. Blue blood leaked from the holes, but it didn't fall, instead grabbing Andal's arms with its lower pair and began to pull. Before it got too far in the process of tearing Andal's arms off, six bangs came from behind them and holes blew in the captain's head, dropping it.
"And that, is why we carry something with stopping power," Cayde said with a grin, "come on, let's check out our new ship."
—
"Firebreak," Blitz-21 sat straight up as the hollow voice came from the console above his head, "This is Vanguard Rose, you are go for insertion, I repeat, you are go for insertion. The main gun is down and the Transmat zone will be open by the time you reach them. Zavala, we've got teams coming onto the Dreadnaught, take over for me would you?"
"Ruby," Commander Zavala said, his deep baritone voice hesitating, "I read the report. Take some time off, you did a lot today. I'll take over from here."
"Thanks," Ruby said, voice tight.
"This is Commander Zavala," Zavala said after a second, "Team commanders, report in."
"This is Deputy Commander Sloane."
"Blitz-21," Blitz said, turning on his Calisto Lancer's thrusters.
"Elriq."
"Callisto Yin."
"Siegfried," the first Praxic order Fireteam called in.
"Shayura," the other said.
"Even you, Sloane?" Zavala said, though he didn't sound nearly as offended as he should have.
"We need a beachhead on that ship, Commander, I believed that when I saw its picture, and I think that even more now that I've seen it up close," Sloane said.
"Transmat Zone up in 3, 2, 1," Zavala counted down, then a glowing light appeared on the dashboard, "Parxic, in first. Bring the Void."
"Understood," Siegfried said, even though the Titan obviously wasn't the member being directed towards. Through the giant hole in the ship, Blitz watched four Nova Bombs go off, giant explosions of Void energy swallowing dozens of the hundreds of teaming Hive.
"Firebreak, now," Zavala ordered, and Blitz punched the button on his console, vanishing in a flash of blue light and appearing in the Transmat zone below. The teal and white Exo landed next to Cayde-6, who was blowing the head off a knight with his white and black hand cannon.
"Glad you could join us!" Cayde called, shooting another knight and causing it to explode into fire.
"Glad to be here!" Blitz called back, swinging Sweet Business off his back and grabbing the grip as he pulled the trigger. The rotary gun spun up, 7.62x51mm rounds spraying left, right and center as the Exo swept it across the gigantic room. Knights, acolytes, thralls were all torn to shreds by Sweet Business. Finally, the gun ran empty, and Blitz swung it open to grab the canister magazine and throw it aside. Before he could have his Ghost create another, a knight lunged out of cover, sword bared for his neck.
Sloane stepped between them, Crown-Splitter clashing with the cleaver. She wielded the massive sword one handed, the other bringing up an Annual Skate, a white and red SUROS-make revolver, and blasted off the head of the knight before kicking the body away. Blitz finished reloading, laying down suppressing fire on a coven of wizards that flew into the room. At the same time, slug rifle shots went off from the Cabal ship, legionnaires charging out and firing with their explosive payloads.
The war on the Dreadnaught had begun, and by god was Blitz gonna enjoy it.
—
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
Her age is still up in the air. As I said, that's conservative. Realistic, I view her as being at least six hundred years old, and maybe older than that.
Chapter 7
ThatOnePsycho
Tilting his Vanes and Ennobling His Spires
I'm dealing with serious depression, have a chapter
Ruby stepped out of the elevator, punching in the passcode to her apartment and watching the door slide open. Penny, Pyrrha and Weiss were sitting around the coffee table, eating from cardboard Chinese boxes, passing them around and adding food to plates.
"Siberia?" Pyrrha said, "Of course I know it, most of my first couple of weeks as a Guardian were spent patrolling the old cosmodrome."
"That's where I got my jumpship," Weiss said.
"She killed a Captain for it!" Mikeal said with pride, bobbing at Weiss's shoulder, "and didn't even die once!"
"Good job," Ruby praised, drawing attention to her as she walked into the apartment. The trio turned, and Ruby forced a happy smile onto her face despite not feeling it, "not many Guardians using random equipment can claim that on their first day. You're gonna go far, Weiss, I can feel it."
Of course, it was hard not to feel it when every Remnantian Guardian had made waves. Ruby had fought at a thousand battles, including Six Fronts, the Ahamkara Hunt, the Great Disaster and Twilight Gap. Penny had been beside her for the Great Disaster and Twilight Gap, on top of killing Atheon, and Pyrrha had killed the Heart of the Black Garden, Skolas the Rabid and Crota.
"Ruby!" Weiss said, turning and smiling at her, "It hasn't been fourteen hours yet!"
"We're out of crisis mode," Ruby shrugged, falling into the couch beside her and grabbing a plate, adding some lo mein to it, alongside a chicken wing and crab rangoon, "So Zavala gave me time off. I'm probably gonna crash for a couple of hours, then we can go get your hair cleaned up, then we can relax for the rest of the day."
"I thought Guardians didn't need to sleep," Weiss said.
"We don't need to, doesn't mean we can't enjoy it. You can stay on the pullout until we get an actual bed delivered, you don't mind, do you?"
"No. Thank you for letting me stay with you," Weiss said.
"It's fine," Ruby said around a mouthful of food, waving a hand, "an entire floor for each Vanguard was way too much space to begin with. We can easily give you your own little section, Pyrrha and Penny have theirs."
"Still, thank you," Weiss said, "I missed you, Ruby."
"I missed you too, Weiss," Ruby said, "It's been… centuries, since I saw you."
"Commander Zavala said that," Weiss said, "What about you two-?"
"It's been a couple of centuries," Penny admitted, eyes on Ruby.
"Just a year," Pyrrha said, shaking her head.
"Ruby," finally, Penny said, "What's wrong?"
Ruby locked up. Trust one of them to notice something was wrong.
"It's nothing," Ruby said.
"Do you really expect me to believe that?"
"...Tev's dead," Ruby said, "Vex in the Black Garden."
Before she could blink, both Pyrrha and Penny had stood up and rushed to the couch she was on, pulling her into a three way hug.
"Go get some rest, you'll feel better when you aren't this sleep deprived, we'll watch a movie with Weiss in the meantime," Penny said.
Ruby nodded, walking into their bedroom and disarming as she went. First Wolf's Howl, then Gambol Shroud, then Crescent Rose, then her knives. Changing into her pajamas, Ruby snuggled into bed, Blossom appearing over her and then settling on the end table.
"Tevis was a real son of a bitch," Blossom said, voice fond.
"Yeah, he was."
"Just remember, Ruby, no matter who else comes and goes, I'll be with you to the end."
"Love you, buddy," Ruby said, softly.
"I love you too," Blossom said.
—-
Sloane went back to back with a Cabal wielding a slug rifle and a severus, baring Crown-Splitter as thralls charged them on all sides. The sword, so heavy it would have taken a Hunter or Warlock both hands to wield, blazed with Void Light as it tore through the half formed chitin and left the bodies to disintegrate at her feet. Her eyes locked on the strange knight pacing in the distance, lifting Aunual Skate as she did.
His chitin armor was silvered, and he wore a red bolts of cloth from his shoulders. But the strangest part was that he hadn't fired his boomer since entering the room, content to pace as other knights charged passed him, as wizards flew overhead and goaded shrieking hordes of thralls into the battle, he just paced.
The Annual Skate went off, a barrier forming around the strange knight and causing the shot to glance wide. He finally raised his boomer, aiming it directly at Sloane, who moved as quickly as she could, throwing up a barricade of Void Light as quickly as she could and letting the Arc bolt wash across it.
At the entrance of the Cabal ship came a Cabal the size of a tank, clad in red and white armor and firing a heavy slug thrower. Each shot blew a hole in a knight, or a wizard, or a horde of thralls and acolytes.
"Primus Ta'aun," Zavala's voice came from Síocháin, "The Primus of the Skyburners Legion, the highest ranked Cabal in the system. If they deployed him here, they really are just as desperate as us."
"Titans!" Sloane ordered loudly, calling on her Light, "bring some Havoc!"
—
Weiss stepped out of the bathroom, neatly folding her spacesuit like Klein had taught her as she did. Holding it out as Mikeal came rushing over from where he was shyly talking to the other two Ghosts, he quickly encrypted it into a white engram that Weiss stored.
"Thank you," Weiss said to Penny and Pyrrha, who were arguing, quietly, about what movie they were going to show Weiss, "That wasn't the most comfortable thing I've bad to wear."
"You get used to it," Pyrrha consoled, "I know some Guardians who refuse to go anywhere without one."
"I don't think I'll ever be one of those," Weiss said, stopping by the table of weapons Ruby had left behind before going to bed. Glancing into the bedroom, she met the scanning red eye of the Ghost in a shell shaped like a flower bulb. When it didn't look like she was going to stop Weiss, Weiss looked down at the table, immediately noticing an awl shaped like, "Myrtenaster?"
It was a faithful, if miniaturized, recreation of her rapier. Weiss picked it up, staring at the equally faithful recreation of the Schnee emblem emblazoned on the bottom. Eyes scanning over the other weapons, she looked at the polymer gun with a black flower on the grip, a second, smaller one just visible on the slide in its holster. Finally, she looked over the grenade launcher Ruby had held on her arm, noticing Yang's yellow flame across the black and red weapon with wolves engraved on the barrel. And, of course, Crescent Rose, the red paint worn and chipped but otherwise in serviceable condition.
"You seem surprised," Pyrrha said.
"Ruby's just been… distant, since I arrived," Weiss said, "I guess I expected her to be all over me, like she was with RWBY back at Beacon."
"She was like that when I showed up too," Pyrrha said, shaking her head, "it isn't anything personal, I just think she didn't expect to see us again and takes a bit to get used to us being around."
"What do you mean?" Weiss asked.
"Ruby's centuries old, and has run with many groups during that time," Penny said, "The Iron Lords, Tallulah Fairwind's group, the Wolfpack and now she's officially on a Fireteam with Zavala and Ikora. Team RWBY is just one group she's been part of over the years, and while you were the first, that made her assume she wouldn't see you again. The chances of us being raised, unless the Traveler planned for it, seemed low. She'll be more enthusiastic once she's gotten used to you being around, I promise."
Weiss glanced back at the sleeping form of her team leader, heart aching. She had missed Ruby so much, that the idea that Ruby had moved on at all hurt.
—
Thoughts? Questions? Opinions? Good? Bad? Meh?
Ruby stepped out of the elevator, punching in the passcode to her apartment and watching the door slide open. Penny, Pyrrha and Weiss were sitting around the coffee table, eating from cardboard Chinese boxes, passing them around and adding food to plates.
"Siberia?" Pyrrha said, "Of course I know it, most of my first couple of weeks as a Guardian were spent patrolling the old cosmodrome."
"That's where I got my jumpship," Weiss said.
"She killed a Captain for it!" Mikeal said with pride, bobbing at Weiss's shoulder, "and didn't even die once!"
"Good job," Ruby praised, drawing attention to her as she walked into the apartment. The trio turned, and Ruby forced a happy smile onto her face despite not feeling it, "not many Guardians using random equipment can claim that on their first day. You're gonna go far, Weiss, I can feel it."
Of course, it was hard not to feel it when every Remnantian Guardian had made waves. Ruby had fought at a thousand battles, including Six Fronts, the Ahamkara Hunt, the Great Disaster and Twilight Gap. Penny had been beside her for the Great Disaster and Twilight Gap, on top of killing Atheon, and Pyrrha had killed the Heart of the Black Garden, Skolas the Rabid and Crota.
"Ruby!" Weiss said, turning and smiling at her, "It hasn't been fourteen hours yet!"
"We're out of crisis mode," Ruby shrugged, falling into the couch beside her and grabbing a plate, adding some lo mein to it, alongside a chicken wing and crab rangoon, "So Zavala gave me time off. I'm probably gonna crash for a couple of hours, then we can go get your hair cleaned up, then we can relax for the rest of the day."
"I thought Guardians didn't need to sleep," Weiss said.
"We don't need to, doesn't mean we can't enjoy it. You can stay on the pullout until we get an actual bed delivered, you don't mind, do you?"
"No. Thank you for letting me stay with you," Weiss said.
"It's fine," Ruby said around a mouthful of food, waving a hand, "an entire floor for each Vanguard was way too much space to begin with. We can easily give you your own little section, Pyrrha and Penny have theirs."
"Still, thank you," Weiss said, "I missed you, Ruby."
"I missed you too, Weiss," Ruby said, "It's been… centuries, since I saw you."
"Commander Zavala said that," Weiss said, "What about you two-?"
"It's been a couple of centuries," Penny admitted, eyes on Ruby.
"Just a year," Pyrrha said, shaking her head.
"Ruby," finally, Penny said, "What's wrong?"
Ruby locked up. Trust one of them to notice something was wrong.
"It's nothing," Ruby said.
"Do you really expect me to believe that?"
"...Tev's dead," Ruby said, "Vex in the Black Garden."
Before she could blink, both Pyrrha and Penny had stood up and rushed to the couch she was on, pulling her into a three way hug.
"Go get some rest, you'll feel better when you aren't this sleep deprived, we'll watch a movie with Weiss in the meantime," Penny said.
Ruby nodded, walking into their bedroom and disarming as she went. First Wolf's Howl, then Gambol Shroud, then Crescent Rose, then her knives. Changing into her pajamas, Ruby snuggled into bed, Blossom appearing over her and then settling on the end table.
"Tevis was a real son of a bitch," Blossom said, voice fond.
"Yeah, he was."
"Just remember, Ruby, no matter who else comes and goes, I'll be with you to the end."
"Love you, buddy," Ruby said, softly.
"I love you too," Blossom said.
—-
Sloane went back to back with a Cabal wielding a slug rifle and a severus, baring Crown-Splitter as thralls charged them on all sides. The sword, so heavy it would have taken a Hunter or Warlock both hands to wield, blazed with Void Light as it tore through the half formed chitin and left the bodies to disintegrate at her feet. Her eyes locked on the strange knight pacing in the distance, lifting Aunual Skate as she did.
His chitin armor was silvered, and he wore a red bolts of cloth from his shoulders. But the strangest part was that he hadn't fired his boomer since entering the room, content to pace as other knights charged passed him, as wizards flew overhead and goaded shrieking hordes of thralls into the battle, he just paced.
The Annual Skate went off, a barrier forming around the strange knight and causing the shot to glance wide. He finally raised his boomer, aiming it directly at Sloane, who moved as quickly as she could, throwing up a barricade of Void Light as quickly as she could and letting the Arc bolt wash across it.
At the entrance of the Cabal ship came a Cabal the size of a tank, clad in red and white armor and firing a heavy slug thrower. Each shot blew a hole in a knight, or a wizard, or a horde of thralls and acolytes.
"Primus Ta'aun," Zavala's voice came from Síocháin, "The Primus of the Skyburners Legion, the highest ranked Cabal in the system. If they deployed him here, they really are just as desperate as us."
"Titans!" Sloane ordered loudly, calling on her Light, "bring some Havoc!"
—
Weiss stepped out of the bathroom, neatly folding her spacesuit like Klein had taught her as she did. Holding it out as Mikeal came rushing over from where he was shyly talking to the other two Ghosts, he quickly encrypted it into a white engram that Weiss stored.
"Thank you," Weiss said to Penny and Pyrrha, who were arguing, quietly, about what movie they were going to show Weiss, "That wasn't the most comfortable thing I've bad to wear."
"You get used to it," Pyrrha consoled, "I know some Guardians who refuse to go anywhere without one."
"I don't think I'll ever be one of those," Weiss said, stopping by the table of weapons Ruby had left behind before going to bed. Glancing into the bedroom, she met the scanning red eye of the Ghost in a shell shaped like a flower bulb. When it didn't look like she was going to stop Weiss, Weiss looked down at the table, immediately noticing an awl shaped like, "Myrtenaster?"
It was a faithful, if miniaturized, recreation of her rapier. Weiss picked it up, staring at the equally faithful recreation of the Schnee emblem emblazoned on the bottom. Eyes scanning over the other weapons, she looked at the polymer gun with a black flower on the grip, a second, smaller one just visible on the slide in its holster. Finally, she looked over the grenade launcher Ruby had held on her arm, noticing Yang's yellow flame across the black and red weapon with wolves engraved on the barrel. And, of course, Crescent Rose, the red paint worn and chipped but otherwise in serviceable condition.
"You seem surprised," Pyrrha said.
"Ruby's just been… distant, since I arrived," Weiss said, "I guess I expected her to be all over me, like she was with RWBY back at Beacon."
"She was like that when I showed up too," Pyrrha said, shaking her head, "it isn't anything personal, I just think she didn't expect to see us again and takes a bit to get used to us being around."
"What do you mean?" Weiss asked.
"Ruby's centuries old, and has run with many groups during that time," Penny said, "The Iron Lords, Tallulah Fairwind's group, the Wolfpack and now she's officially on a Fireteam with Zavala and Ikora. Team RWBY is just one group she's been part of over the years, and while you were the first, that made her assume she wouldn't see you again. The chances of us being raised, unless the Traveler planned for it, seemed low. She'll be more enthusiastic once she's gotten used to you being around, I promise."
Weiss glanced back at the sleeping form of her team leader, heart aching. She had missed Ruby so much, that the idea that Ruby had moved on at all hurt.
—
Thoughts? Questions? Opinions? Good? Bad? Meh?