No Particular Trouble, A Destiny story.

Chapter 1

Castide-1 lay, lounging really, along the trunk of a long dead tree resting upon it's more living brethren. Leveled just high enough above a thicket that the mottled barrel of his rifle laced with netting and leavings of local plant-life blended well with the branches and detritus that made up his makeshift hide.

His left arm folded under the stock as his right hand traced the piece of warsat shrapnel lodged just above his right eye, a reminder that it's best to just waste the ammo rather than coax a hundred, screaming thrall into the path of sure damnation, just because you'd like to see it happen.

"Almost got it Cas…"

In an almost unnervingly quiet motion he adjusted his weight to roll and look down at his ghost, who spent the last five minutes cracking a memory core.

"And?" Castide said.

"Well, I'm positive it's not the crypt, cause that's on mars no doubt." She said, mostly to herself. "There is definitely something here. I saw something about secondary data centers being in this region, so it's not nothing, But…" She paused to emphasize "There are SEVEN different facilities within a ninety-mile radius that fit the description of what we found in the archives on Venus, and…"

Castide grunted as rolled back to peer through the scope of his rifle surveying the rows of buildings half a kilometer away.

She shot up to hover a foot behind him.

"And!..." she resumed. "Like I've been telling you, we should be on mars. We should be finding the crypt! It would have answers for you and hundreds of others…"

"Aggy please…" Cas interrupted.

Agama squared her shell towards her guardian, he never said please, unless…

"what is it?" she asked

"Ketch, just over the next range, house of winter from the look of it." Cas moved back so she could move in to look through the scope

"Great" she grumbled as she hovered closer.

The ketch lay low in a ravine several yards from the buildings they were surveying. Almost unnoticeable if it wasn't for the dim glow of the servitors moving back and forth behind the trees.

"looks like that would be the main approach to the compound" Cas pointed towards the dimming lights.

"So, we go in there." Agama replied, gesturing towards the section of buildings not quite towards the south end.

Castide dropped from the tree landing with a barely audible thud next to where his sparrow lay. Strapping his rifle to the frame, he opened a saddle bag procuring two hand-cannons, securing one to his hip and one to the small of his back. The first gun was a typical Tex Mechanica build modified with a heavy muzzle break of his own design, limiting it's recoil so much it barely kicks harder than most of the sidearms most guardians carry as holdout weapons, and is such the odd guardian habit of naming their possessions, he named it "Third Ring". The second in which he never named but always referred to it as "The Bastard", not too dissimilar to his primary weapon, but forged for a larger caliber, and a peculiar barrel shroud that extended past the muzzle and forming a succinctly wicked looking bayonet. He immediately had Agama synthesize shotgun rounds from his ammo stiocks and adjusted the load order to slug-shot-slug, just in case things got a little too close.

It was a recent acquisition he found next to a dead ghost shortly after they landed in the Cascadian wastes, the ghost's guardian seemed to be missing, and upon Agama's scan of the dead ghost's memory, found that the guardian it belonged to, was a recent resurrection. Only a few months into his second life and now without a ghost, if he was still alive.

Castide pulled one remaining gun out of the saddlebag and fastened it to the straps on his armor so that it dangled close enough to use it when he needed, but not far enough to trip him up when he didn't. A suppressed SMG from one of the new foundries that popped up in his absence, and purchased during on one of his clandestine visits to the city.

"Hake? Hawk? whatever." He thought.

He had a considerable pile of glimmer stashed in a safe house close to the outer wall of the city, and the gun's cost barely cut into it, he didn't need fancy, he just needed it to work.

He tested the action of the charging handle, slammed home a magazine and racked the weapon once more, finalizing the machine's readiness for lethality with an oddly satisfying "SHLACK".

"Guess we'll find out, won't we?" he mumbled to himself.

"I know you're not too fond of the transmat system, but maybe we can bring along something with some… well… ya know…" Agama cocked her shell at an angle "oomph" she expressed. Angling her body to the tube-shaped apparatus strapped to the front-left stabilizer.

Cas turned to look at her with one bright green eye tapping the side of the sheath strapped at an angle, handle down, positioned just so that that at a moment's decision, he can decide on bastard or blade.

"No need." He said as he resumed pulling out magazines and a secondary satchel.

"Fine, be that way." Agama sighed

She watched her guardian methodically ready the gear he needed. "Patchwork Exo" She overheard some in the tower call him, not to his face of course, nobody wanted that kind of attention from him since his days in the crucible. Other ghosts questioned her as to why she never fixed him, and the reply has always been the same, "that's how I found him."

Castide stood at 6 feet tall, even, no more, no less. Like most exos his body is at perfect proportions, all except for his face. His right eye was deep glowing green ocular module as seen in most of his kind, but the left was a sensory panel seamlessly integrated with the rest of his plasteel skull. An explosion from a warsat had blown off his right "horn" leaving in it's place a piece of the aforementioned warsat. He made her leave it in "for balance", since she failed to find said lost horn. His matte gunmetal "skin" with one blood red horn and mirrored wound with his mis-matched eye made for an intimidating visage. So much so that not even Cayde-6 was so cavalier towards him, but they haven't spoken him since Andal Brask was lost.

For years they have been in a sort of self-imposed exile from the city. Ever since finding a golden age manifest listing his designation in a particularly daring raid on a fallen outpost. Besides the occasional pit stops for ammo and news, they've been "on the range" ever since the vanguard decided not to back his investigation, only stopping into the city for supplies and company up until Andal Brask's death. "No reason to visit if I ain't got anyone to answer to." was Castide's final decision the matter.

Castide moved parallel along the tree line bordering the compound with barely a whisper as he passed foliage and fencing, as his footfalls came as snow on pillows. He stopped as he saw several intermittent flashes to his left. Infrared semaphore, Aggy found an entrance…

Cas darted out of the tree line straight to his waiting ghost, a black blur amongst the starlit background, coming to rest against the concrete structure and peering out around the corner as Agama wafted down just above his right shoulder.

"200 yards straight back, blown door, heads down, they have been busy, but haven't found it yet." Agama's message flickered in the visor of his helmet. An odd trick they found for themselves after committing themselves to a mantra after too many unwelcome surprises. "No sound is the best sound."

Agama transmatted into a mesh netted satchel on his shoulder as Castide leaped to the roof of the building where they met. Moving fast and low he sped to the adjacent side of the rampart he was using to conceal himself. Only stopping and breaking silhouette to track the dregs and servitors ransacking the topside buildings near the approach to the ketch.

He peered over the deteriorated building's façade and scanned his surroundings for his secondary target, a fallen terminal, just to see what it was they were looking for, found, or if they beat him to his prize.

There! Next to an ether resupply tank and… "oh shit." He rattled out barely audible.

"What's oh…" Agama pipped onto his visor as she materialized low next to him "Shit." She finished out loud.

"Tekris" they grumbled almost in unison.

Tekris the Baron towered over the scurrying dregs, calmly surveying this outpost they found. Almost by sheer luck, or bad luck, they broke jump coming down directly on top of the old bastion. In her upper most arms she cradled a 3-barreled line rifle, her own design, while her lower right arm crossed against her torso where she would absently caress the hilt of her shock-blade. Or if irritated she would tap the metallic cap covering her docked left lower arm, as she was doing now.

There is no kell on her ship just Taksis and Vikram, two captains loyal to her, and their Archon Grigis. Far to old and demented to be any real form of leadership. But if there was it'd be her, the archon just muses away his time with his pilot playing hatchling games. If it wasn't for his insistence to sack this place she would have moved on, this place made her ether sour, and now that she was here, stank of those ghouls, She'lot. If this turns out badly she would dock that old doddering fool herself.

Out of her peripheral she noticed movement and snapped up her rifle in the direction. Leaves swirling down for the top of the strange buildings. Growling as she turned away, the stump of her docked arm started to itch. "DRADAH ABA!" she bellowed to the dregs moving too slowly for her taste. She does not like this place, turning her head towards the unexplored sectors where the leaves still fall. "Di do tus." She hissed.

She does not like it at all.

Castide slowly lowered the hammers of his hand cannons back into place as Tekris stomped off towards a scattering group of dregs.

"If I needed to breathe…" he murmured "Then it would be a sigh of relief." Agama chimed in.

Castide raced down the corridor while Agama held steady above his head shining light down the tunnel ahead and on to every placard he stopped at.

Workstation theta…

Personnel offices…

Bathrooms…

Workstation gamma…

Maintenance… (caved in)

Sliding to a stop and whipping his suppressed SMG to aim down the way they came as shuddering groan echoed down from whence they came.

"this place is old Cas." Agama said as she tilted her light back and forth between two cracked concrete support pillars.

"I'm guessing early golden age, maybe even pre-golden age" she remarked as a few loose pieces clattered to the ground

"We're not here for that kind of history lesson Aggy. Just let me know if you feel something" He said as he turned to continue on

"I don't feel things Cas, I detect, sense and scan. Ooh look! A magnetic data storage device." She prattled back.

"Hard drive." He said as he glanced at the discarded device laying on a desk in an alcove.

How did he know that? He's never seen on in all his time since Agama woke him up in that desert, so just how the hell did he know what that thing was?

"That's what were here to find out." he answered himself aloud.

"Oooh! it's got various sound files! I really think you would like this Judas… what was that?" Agama asked, interrupted from her ramblings.

"nothing, just talking to myself" said Castide as he pulled himself away from his thoughts.

"No, THAT" she quipped as she flew closer to a door labeled maintenance with a still glowing keypad imbedded into the wall.

"There's still power here Cas, and I didn't notice until now. OH, TRAVELER'S CRACKS! Am I defective!? Cas! We need to go back to the city! I – I – I need to find another ghost t-t-to scan me and see if I'm…"

A loud bang and screech of metal on metal interrupted her as Castide kicked off the opposite wall to ram his shoulder into the door, knocking it off it's hinges and clattering down the catwalk steps it was guarding.

"You're fine Aggy." He consoled her as he lightly set his hand on the top of her shell.

"Now do you feel it?" he asked as they moved through the opening.

"I don't need to, I can see it" she remarked as they looked down into the maintenance shaft they uncovered.

The entire room was lit up from all four corners from imbedded lights. The catwalk dizzyingly spiraled down for what seemed like an eternity, and the entire shaft was made up of a completely different construction than the corridor leading to it, and the compound above.

Castide stepped onto the catwalk as if testing its stability, and then deftly up onto the railing, balancing easily as if he were born on a tightrope.

"C'mon Aggy, let's make this quick." He said

"You can't smile, but I know you're smiling, and I… EEEEEEP! She yelped out, as he snatched her out of the air and stepped out into nothing.

The wind passing by them almost seemed to howl as they fell, even through the confines of Castide's denim Jacket he wore over his armor in which Agama was cradled. The catwalk seemed to morph into a hypnotic spiral as she feverishly scanned doors, openings and listings printed onto the walls as they fell. "Ooh an armory" she thought to herself, as an odd sound seemed to phase into hearing. His cloak stretched up and flapping insanely above them seemed to be laughing. His cloak is laughing? She thought. No… no. Her eye dimmed, and the top of her shell moved down to halve her eye in disdain. "He's laughing" she sighed to herself.

A shimmer almost seemed to envelope the lower half of Castide's body as their descent slowed, blurring out details as its intensity climbed until completely vanishing as he stepped from the air to the ground with such ease, as if stepping off the catwalk stairs.

"You're no warlock, so best not to let any of them catch you using their tricks like that Cas." She mused as she extracted herself from her plasteel and denim nest to zip around the room.

"They wouldn't say anything, just grumble to each other about someone letting a hunter get at their textbooks." He retorted

"Still, who taught you that? Most warlocks don't talk to you, Andal and Cayde had enough reason to poke into their business, but only to the point where they could best point their noses to the largest pile of glimmer." She asked.

"Ikora." He returned while continuing down the overly large and seemingly brand new corridor.

"IKORA!? I thought she hated you?" she gasped.

"Rivalry ain't hate, no matter which way you spin it Aggy, and you got that right on Andal, but Cayde? Hah! Ya gotta be blind not to see what he's sweet on." He said.

Stopping to lean against the wall next to a access console.

Agama stopped inches from his visor. "Fine fine…, So. What do we do now in this dead end?"

Spinning to indicate the perfectly squared of ending to the corridor

Castide tilted his head and jerked his head towards the large door at the end of the corridor they were moving down.

"looks like a big ass door Aggy. Show me your moves girl."

Agama slowly rotated towards the large bunker door that at first glance looked exactly like the paneling that covered most of the sub structure, and tilted towards a console off to the left. "Always with the doors with you guys isn't it?" she asked as she seemingly deflated a little.

Agama wasn't your typical ghost, didn't quite have that coward streak that ran through most other guardian's ghosts. When she found Castide in the North American southwest dunes, a lone exiled dreg was attempting to exhume Castide's long oxidized corpse from a wrecked jump ship, she immediately recognized the Traveler's touch on that lifeless frame, and she acted. Speeding towards the unsuspecting eliksni, she transmatted a piece of scrap metal and quickly grafted it to the bottom quadrant of her shell, driving it deep into the neck of the hapless creature, all three twisting and falling to the sand. When she extricated her self from the shocked and dying form, she stared directly into the wretches' eyes through a haze of escaping ether and simply, coldly said. "Mine."

She has changed quite a bit since. Adopting vex armor plating on her shell, noticing it tends to deflect most energy based weapons, while keeping her frontier class pilot lights she grafted a couple of harpy sensor whips to the back of her shell. Manually manipulating things while you're

Interfaced has proven quite useful.

Oh, and you know she kept that jagged piece of steel from the day she found her guardian.

"Got it!" Agama exclaimed as the massive bunker gate shuddered to life.

Castide looked up from his task of honing the blade that was the muzzle end of the bastard.

"Well… lets see if this is the goose were looking for." He said while sliding his gun into the holster strapped to his back.

As they moved through the opening into a large octagonal room, banks of consoles, server racks, and monitors whined and flickered to life. Warning lights snapped on bordering two large gates on either end of the room, casting soft yellow light in a lazy spin across the track system running from one gate to the next.

In the center of the room an enormous construct that looked like a mechanized octopus crossed with a brain stem sat in a large carriage. Large cables and conduits stretching out from underneath it's large frame to rest in half-completed junction boxes clamped to the frame of the carriage.

"This isn't good." Castide said. Reaching to detach a satchel clipped to his harness.

"That's a warmind!" Agama exclaimed while careening around the room interfacing and scanning every console, monitor, and dusty data-pad in sight.

"And it's incomplete, nothing but infrastructure, just a shell with power relays, and connections. It seems to be in the middle of manufacturing, no memory cores, no logic drives…"

"What is this place Aggy?" Castide asked as he went to work adhering demolition charges to the warmind shell, and structural supports around the room.

"Warmind production facility "Agamemnon"." She responded.

"There's an archive access sixty yards down the assembly line southbound, opening the gates now." She added

Klaxons sounded, and the warning lights increased their tempo as the gates started to raise, and track sections rotated in to reconnect in the gates absence.

Castide turn to face the emergency exit in which they came, leveling his SMG to the empty corridor.

"Think our upstairs neighbors might complain about the noise?" He quipped while arming the detonator on his belt.

"Well it is past quiet hour, but I don't think they're the type to call the peace keepers." She shot back.

They met each others gaze for a split second, and they were off. Castide at a full sprint with Agama knifing through the air right at his side.

Tekris drank deep of her ether as she shouldered past Taksis ignoring his growl of protest, moving off the gangplank of the ketch towards the compound.

The servitors have grown agitated groaning, and braying while moving with haste around the buildings close to the enormous hatch blocking their access to whatever lies beneath this cursed place, looking for a way to activate it. Not even the constructor shanks have had much progress eating their way through the massive door.

She stood seething while watching their wasted efforts.

"False gods, all of them." She breathed out in disgust.

She turned to glare towards the ketch and started to move with the intent of finally fully docking her incompetent archon and removing his tainted pilot servitor and leaving them in this "Goden di" wasteland. Then she heard it.

She turned her head towards the faint sound, back and towards the field of rusted bodies of ships belonging to ancient she'lot.

"Bring me my weapons! Call the shanks!" she barked at a nearby dreg.

She proceeded towards the small building emanating the sound as servitors began to congregate around her.

She stopped short of the entrance of the small sloped building, peering into the darkness. Too small for the servitors to enter.

"Send the shanks in." Taksis suggested. "There is nothing here, just a waste of time provoked by the old fool." He added.

Tekris snatched her rifle from the hands of the waiting dreg she sent to rally her crew.

"No. Check the other buildings and give me four vandals." She spat at him.

"Stay here and kill everything not of our banner. I know this stench and it will be my prize."

Four vandals came and grouped around her readying their shrapnel launchers and bearing their shock-blades. Tekris cradled her rifle in her one lower arm while she clambered down into the void. Her left lower arm had just started to grow back pushing against the metal cap protecting the old wound. She remembered the pride she felt as her kell removed the clamps from her lower arms, after she marched into his chamber to throw down the shattered pieces of a she'lot's pet at his feet.

Draksis was dead now, scattering her house away from that garden world they fled to after breaking themselves against the She'lot. Grayliks had no sway over her, so she took her ketch and the ancient deposed archon to start her own house, her own banner. Now she remembered the shame of losing her arm to that one-eyed ghoul, she had the drop on him, it was sheer luck that she happened upon it.

The thing was just laying there watching some of its brethren in the distance attempt to open some Lun stronghold. She readied her blade while bearing down the hapless thing when a sharp pain to the side of her head, blinded her and sent her reeling.

The damned she'lot's pet had rammed her, yet the ghoul had barely moved still, when she redoubled her efforts it was almost too late.

She had not noticed the odd tube angled out beneath his arm, it spoke out fire before she had a chance to dodge completely.

The immediate loss of weight coupled with the searing pain unsteadied her for a moment, long enough to see the bastard turn to aim his weapon through the haze of ether spilling out of her broken mask, and she could smell him. The second shot caught her in the chest, forcing her back and off the embankment, causing her to lose her footing and tumble back towards a ravine. She howled every curse she ever knew as she fell, while he just stood there hold watching her fall.

She lay at the bottom of the ravine staring back up at that silhouette committing to memory the visage of that hateful being as he lifted her separated arm over her and let if fall from his fingertips as if it were nothing, and her vision faded centered on that one green eye.

Tekris opened her eyes from the memory in the pitch black of the corridor. The rage she felt compounding and welling inside her.

She roars down into the depths.

"She'lot vi! Gu tosh, re ma! NE ASUKT KA CHU!"

As her words rattled down the never-ending blackness she turned to one of her accompanying comrades.

"Bring the rest of the barons, and their regiments. And get that hatch open!"

The vandal screeched in accordance and ran back the way it came.

"This thing will not have the better of me again." She seethed out.

As she continued on, this time her massive footsteps fell lighter as she trudged down to the dim glow at the end of the corridor.