Chapter 1 A Rising Tide
Meridian Bay, Mars
"there's been a surge in vex activity in this area something calling them back home"
"yeah"
"we need to find a conflux like the one we saw on Venus to find out were they are coming from"
"yeah okay"
"Are you even listening?"
"sorry what did you say?" said the lone warlock as she lid a fresh mag into her Nox Cantor III and surveyed the piles of broken Vex
Goblins and fallen Cabal Legionaries.
"how the hell have you survived this long with out paying attention?" SIGHED the Guardians rather annoyed ghost "anyway now that I have got your attention
finally we need to find a conflux, you know those big glowing tower things we saw on Venus? Ring any bells?"
"Yeah, yeah I know jeez the Vex are bad enough I don't need you condescending me" the Guardian replied as she called in her sparrow and headed off towards
the energy signature her ghost had suspected to be a conflux.
The Vex guarding the conflux were minimal at best 1 Minotaur plus a handful of goblins they went down easily enough with a few bursts from her
Pulse rifle, gifted to Her
by the mysterious Exo stranger for destroying the Heart of the black garden, though while reloading she had a thought.
"why are the Vex still here?"
"what?" her ghost responded while scanning the Conflux
"the Vex didn't I kill their "god", why are they still here"
"that...is a good question" the ghost said finishing his scan "alright this conflux is part of a bigger surge coming from beneath the buried city"
the Guardian then summoned her sparrow and sped of towards the city
"what do you thinks buried here?" she asked
"not even the crpytarchs truly know" the ghost responded as they reached there destination which appeared to be the entrance to the abandoned
metro system beneath the city
"those are some tough looking Vex" her ghost warned "we should be careful"
"we should but we wont" she said rushing toward the heavily shielded Vex guarding the entrance while Beginning to charge the small crystal hanging around her neck.
The crystal didn't seem significant at all but that made it all to easy to ignore the threat it posed,
while small the moment this crystal was charged with enough energy it would release a blast of void energy
wiping out anything hostile to close to the wearer to run.
She didnt know where the crystal was from she found it when she was "reborn"her ghost and she had given to any one
who could help try and decipher were it could of come from, she'd given it to the Speaker, Master Rahool, Xür and even Eris Morn but the only thing that any of them could confirm was that it was defiantly of Hive origin.
While she didn't know were exactly the crystal was from she couldn't deny its usefulness as it disintegrated all
nearby Vex.
"you need to stop relying on that thing" her ghost chirped
"why exactly?"
"remember when you thought it a good idea to try and punch that Fallen Kell in the face?"
"so what if it didn't WORK we still killed it!"
"Barely you almost died for good that time" scolded her ghost
"oh quit your bitching, were do we go now I don't see a conflux"
"according to the scans it should be deeper below us in the older metro tunnels"
"hurray more dark places" she responded sarcastically passing some ancient graffiti on the wall reading "tunnels snakes rule"
she briefly questioned what it meant before venturing deeper into the dark tunnels.
"looks like it going to be dark for a while down here" her ghost said
"well no shit sherlock" she said looking left and right trying to find the way forward
"just aim for any red light you see-" her ghost was cut off as several harpies materialised and opened fire upon
the warlock barely had time to dive for cover behind an old sign and unfortunately she took a hit get there.
"GAH FUCKING BASTARDS"she shouted in rage grabbing at the rip in her armour were some kind of thermal round had melted through. she could feel were shot had grazed
her skin it hadn't
drawn blood but it had left her with a pretty nasty burn.
she returned fire at the red pinpricks in the dark and got some satisfaction seeing them go out
"we gotta move we don't want them to encircle us" he ghost warned
"WELL THEN EITHER GRAB A GUN OR FIND ME A WAY OUT" the guardian ROARED at her ghost while moving forward to finish of some goblins.
"WAIT" she shouted "I CAN SEE SOME LIGHT OVER THERE" as she stumbled over to the lit door frame blinded by pain.
"Hold on I don't think that's a way-" the ghost was cut off by a Vex Cyclops firing upon them.
"SHIT!" yelled the warlock as she was flung across the room by the force of the blast and crashed into the far wall she groaned in
pain a she tried to raise her gun to kill the rapidly approaching Goblins but the impact with the wall had knocked the breath out of her and she was fairly
certain something was broken,
she reached for her crystal but strong steel hands snatched it from her grasp. "why arent i dead yet" she wondered as the vex dragged her across the floor
by her arms,
she tried to fight back but the injuries from the blast and hitting the wall at the speed she did left her to week to put up much of a struggle.
The Vex dragged her to the foot of the Cyclops and forced her into a kneeling position when it finally clicked for her she was going
to be executed by the Vex, the reason? She guessed for killing the Heart of the black garden. Again she tried to escape but the to goblins
holding her in place kept a firm grip on her keeping her on her knees as a Hobgoblin walked into view the and raised its Line Rifle her head.
"This is it" She thought
she wasn't ready to die but there was nothing she could do and were the hell was he ghost.
The Hobgoblin started to charge up his line rifle but was cut off by a glowing purple ball being thrown and sticking to its head.
the warlock had very little time to recognise it as a Magnetic grenade and did her best to get away as the vex goblins holding her down had already turned to see were it had come from.
She leapt back as best she could with her injuries but that just cause them to hurt more.
The grenade stuck to the Hobgoblins face Exploded once damaging it, then it exploded again completely obliterating the Hobgoblin reducing it to ash.
She turned around as best she could to she who had just saved her life but was meet with the sight of two goblins who had held her down being riddled with glowing blue bullets
which reduced them to scrap as well, before she could process what just happen a large figure landed next to her and opened a large purple Shield over her
wounded form just in time to block a shot from the Vex Cyclops above them, the figure who had just saved her from this shot only said one thing to her before turning his attention back to the vex.
"STAY DOWN"
He then rushed out of the shield to punch Vex goblin in the chest causing it to disintegrate he then pulled the Machine Gun off his back and open fire upon the Cyclops
causing it to frenzy and start firing shots in every direction.
The figure which the warlock had now been able to identify as a titan tried to follow his rampage as he cut a swath through the Vex ranks But a mixture of exhaustion and
pain from her wounds made her slowly begin pass out, the final thing she saw was the Cyclops Explode Violently.
A few hours Later.
The Warlock awoke in pain, she groaned as she tried to lift her self up and tried to work out how she had gotten the conflux she was currently laid down next to.
"Oh thank the traveller your not dead" a familiar voice said as her ghost flew into her line of sight.
"were the FUCK were you?" she responded angrily.
"what would you expect me to do against a room full of angry Vex... you know what don't answer that" he said already knowing she would throw
some form of sarcasm her way
"I called for help"
"you called for help?" she asked inquisitively.
"yeah and by the looks of it some one came" the ghost responded motioning to the far side of the room
the Warlock looked off in the direction the ghost motioned to and saw the Titan who had saved her life early crouched down near a
Vex transfer gate but it was unclear what he was doing.
"Who is he?" she asked
"I'm not sure the only time he spoke to me was after he saved your life he wanted to know what we are doing down here" the ghost responded
"that's all you-" the Warlock was cut off by the sound of a large explosion she turned to find the source only to see the transfer gate completely destroyed and
the Titan walking over to her and her ghost.
"are you going to live?" he ask in That unmistakable tone of voice that only an Exo could make
"yes she's going to-"
"I wasn't asking you...little light" the Titan stated cutting of the ghost
the warlock had to fight back a laugh at this she then responded "Yeah I'm fine"
"Good did you get your scan ghost?" he asked turning his attention to the hovering AI
"yeah I got it"
"good" said the Titan who sat down across from the Warlock "Masterkey!" he said as a ghost with a bronzed shell materialised in next to him
"yes?" it responded in a feminine voice.
"shut this Conflux down" he said as he went to remove his helmet which the Warlock recognised the helm of saint-14
"Right away" the Titans ghost then began to interact with the conflux
with the helmet removed the warlock could see the face of her rescuer, as the voice had given away earlier he was an Exo the metallic Black metal
that made up his skin was riddled with chips and scratches his red eyes stood out well against the rest of his face, the Titans held his hand out
to offer a hand shake, the Warlock excepted, the Exo then spoke again "My name is Ulysses-5 and you are?"
"Aura Void Whisperer" she said as she began to remove her helmet revealing her to be an awoken with light blue skin' bright glowing green eyes and several black markings on her face.
"Aura Void Whisperer" Ulysses muttered quietly "why do awoken always seem to have long winded names"
"Excuse me?" Aura responded
"I didn't mean any offence by that its just that every awoken I have meet seems to have a long name" Ulysses responded defensively
"well then why do Exo's always have a god damned number in there name?" aura responded still a little offended by the Exo's earlier remark
"hey leave him alone"the Titans ghost said as the conflux shut down and flew closer to its guardian "its not like he meets any guardians anyway he
practically lives in these Traveller forsaken tunnels"
"what?" said Aura a little confused
"yeah he-"
"Thats enough Masterkey!" said Ulysses "I stay here because I had a... Disagreement with commander Zavala"
"Zavala? Thats the Vanguard for the Titans in the tower and the guy in charge of the cities defence what did you do to get on his bad side" Auras ghost spoke up
"its not what I did do but what I didn't do" Ulysses responded in a slightly regretful tone
"what do you mean?" Aura said curious as to what the Titan meant by this
"Look Aura I just met you and I don't necessarily trust your motivations or who you are right now" Ulysses responded in a bitter tone
"just be glad I decided to save your life I could have let the Vex blow your Brains out if it wasn't such a good Chance to catch them off guard"
While Exo's lacked any form of showing emotion Aura guessed that Ulysses was probably pretty angry right now she decided that now would be a good time to leave.
She stood up slowly wincing from the pain of her injuries while it had lessened it was still there.
"Thank you for saving me Ulysses but I should probably report back to the tower now" she said putting her helmet back on, her ghost floated to her shoulder height.
"Your guns are behind you and give the stranger my regards" Ulysses said not breaking eye contact with Aura
"you know the stranger?" she asked
"Sometimes I feel as though I know too Much" replied Ulysses as Aura Re-equipped her guns "oh and you may want this back Ulysses said throwing her crystal
at her "i saw the vex take it off you I'm guessing you find it important"
"Uh yeah just a little" Aura said she then turned to leave
"Be safe Guardian the Buried city is not a safe place" Ulysses said as she start to walk away at a slightly hurried pace
"there is no such thing as a safe place anymore" she chimed as she left
Aura would never admit it but something about that Exo worried her, More than the black Garden, More than the Demi-God Crota, more than the unseen masters of
the Stranger and more than the ever encroaching darkness.
In all truthfulness she prayed she would never have to meet him again
If only her prayers were to be answered.