MP: One of these days either I or your constantly increasing workload will kill you. You know that, right?
Necro: Yes, but I felt the need for this! And so, we start anew!
MP: You'll at least work on your other fics, right?
Necro: Aye, sir! Now onward my faithful readers!
So many times had he repeated this process. This endless cycle of life and death. So many universes, so many worlds, so many people. He had seen so much because of this ceaseless resurrection, but even so, there was always something new. Just like this universe he now found himself in. The Earth he stood upon this time was missing something. Something he had grown so fond of in his time among them. Where were the humans? Where were the creatures he had grown to care for so much? The city before him was crumbling, overrun with nature, signs and cars rusted almost to nothingness. Where had they all gone?
CRUNCH! He froze and turned his attention to the thing under his foot. Based on the sound of the object when he focused on it, it was bone, so old that it snapped readily when he stepped on it. He crouched and picked up the larger of the pieces and listened. It was human. But centuries old. Its original, unique, and, admittedly, somewhat dull sound had begun to change to match the ground it had rested on for so long. "Where are the rest? Where are your friends? Your family?" He didn't particularly require an answer from the bone. Now that he was aware of the changed sound, he could hear the bones of millions, resting as peacefully as they could in the fading city. "I felt something when I breathed for the first time in this world. An evil beyond anything I could ever imagine. Is that what did this? What drove you from your home? And ultimately killed you?" Again, he needed no answer from the bone and it did not provide one. He felt that evil even now, but as he had adjusted to its presence, he had realized that it did not originate from the planet he stood upon, but rather its moon. And beyond that, far out, into the farthest reaches of the solar system, there was something even greater. Some pressure that felt familiar, yet disturbingly foreign.
Setting the bone down, the man stood once more and let out a breath. "I would bring you with me, but you have earned your rest. Don't worry about me. I shall find livelier company." He paid his respects then began to walk. He knew not where he was going yet, but he did know one thing for sure: humanity was not dead. No, humans were far too stubborn to die so easily. Of course, he mused, if that was the only thing to humans, he would be far more human than them.
Several months passed as the man wandered, occasionally coming across creatures that clearly did not belong on this world. At least, they hadn't centuries ago. At first, he thought them the new inhabits of Earth and was content to watch them. Eventually, he noticed that there were different creatures. As far as he could tell, there were two different species, each with its own subspecies. The first ones he encountered were filled with a strange substance. He couldn't tell if it was gas and some quasi-solid…thing. But he noticed that some of them were bigger than him by as many as five times and had four arms and hands, all of which seemed occupied by a weapon of one form or another. Others were smaller and, in some cases, missing two of their arms. After some time observing them, he discovered that the sometimes four armed creatures were scavengers, scouring the ruins of the cities of any usable scrap. He had had to do the same so as to have clothes that actually fit his body.
The second species he came across reminded him of grotesquely over evolved bugs. He could think what kind of bugs they reminded him of, but he knew that messing with them would be like kicking a hornets' nest. So of course, he continued to observe quietly as he passed through the old cities and new forests. These creatures were also separated into different sects, but the differences were…noticeable, to say the least. There were two distinct sects that were his size, one though was incredibly skinny and fast and made strange howling noises before they attacked. The other of the smaller beings were built sturdier and used rifles. They seemed only slightly more intelligent than the skinny ones. The ones he had to watch out for the most were the two big sects. Creatures that wielded swords and things that could fly and command some form of magic. He found out the hard way how much of a pain the flying ones could be when he stumbled upon one on its own. He succeeded in taking it down, but without a weapon, it had been rather difficult, especially in broad daylight.
Over time, it became much easier to avoid both new species and as he watched, he noticed something: they were afraid. He didn't yet know of what, but there was definite fear buried within them. A few months into his journey, he didn't know exactly how long since he'd stopped counting the days after five months passed, the fear within the bug-like creatures skyrocketed and he felt the presence from the moon vanish. Whatever had been up there, was now dead, and they knew it. Something similar happened with the four-armed ones, but far more gradually, and a few months after whatever happened with the bugs. Something or someone was fighting them. Fighting back.
More time passed. The man had managed to cross an ocean and now he was fairly certain that he was in what was left of Europe. It was there he first observed them. The ones fighting back. They were a mixed bunch, made up of humans, some form of sentient machines, and an alien race he wasn't quite familiar with. Regardless of what information he did or did not have, they were certainly fighters, often cutting through the four-armed aliens and the bugs, sometimes with extreme prejudice.
Over time, the man noticed that some of the fighters left their ships hovering where they stopped, while the owners ran off to do whatever it was they came for, be it clearing away the enemy or gathering resources. Regardless of the task, the fighters were often gone long enough that, if the man had a mind to, he could have easily hitched a ride. Of course, he wouldn't dream of doing so without ensuring he wouldn't be caught in the act, so he settled for simple observation until he found a suitable target.
It took nearly a month of testing to be sure, but the man was finally convinced of something: when it came to the security of their ships, the fighters were sorely lacking. When he could, he would the security of the ships left behind. Much to his surprise, the ships were often left under-defended. Sometimes, he would come across a ship with security measures in place, but it was not often. And so, after discovering the oversight, the man did the only thing he could think to do: he took advantage of it and managed to sneak into the small cargo hold of one of the ships and hitchhiked.
To say it was an uncomfortable ride would be a bit of an understatement, but the man arrived in one piece and, once he was certain that he wouldn't be spotted, he slipped out of the cargo hold and into a large, open space filled with other ships of various sizes and models. "Hangar. Hangar means people." The man commented as he set off in search of an exit. Or food. Whichever he came across first.
Turned out it was an exit, one that led to what he assumed was a launch pad. A launch pad that was, at least, a couple thousand feet in the air. "Well, that's not helpful." He grumbled and began examining the launch pad, hoping for an elevator or even stairs, though an elevator would be preferable. Thankfully there was a service elevator, but it required a passcode and, very unfortunately for him, he was blind and had no idea what was written on the keys. "I guess audio-based vision is useless for this shit..." He mumbled, pulling a small knife made of bone from his left sleeve and using the point to unscrew the cover. "Wires, wires, and look, a chip. So, if I just..." He fiddled with the chip for a moment then one of the wires. After a moment, the gears made a clunking sound and began to whir. He quickly fixed the cover and hid behind a barrel nearby as he waited. It turned out to be a good idea, as when the doors opened, it revealed several workers pushing carts filled with the same kind of barrel he was hiding behind.
"Offload these in the main hangar so the fuel team can get to work, then grab those old ones!" A woman called out from the front of the group, pointing at a group of barrels near where the man was hiding. The man briefly considered hiding inside one of the barrels but figured that his added weight would be a concern to the workers. No, he would simply have to take his chances and find a way to hide inside the elevator. Barring that, he supposed he could try riding on top of it. "Hurry up!" There was the woman's voice again. "It's the last load of the day, so come on!" Well, if he was going to do anything, now would be the time. He actually did end up having to ride on top of the elevator and had to wait for the workers to finish their job before he could descend.
After an incredibly long elevator ride, and listening in on a variety of personal conversations that he hoped to forget in the near future, they finally reached the bottom and he was able to disembark. His first thought, once he was safely away, was that wherever he was, it was big. The second thought was that he was in a massive city, built by humanity's hands. The thought immediately following that one was, in his opinion, the most important: he needed new clothes or he would never blend in. Granted, for the most part, he went unnoticed, regardless of what he looked like, but he had a feeling about this city.
Just as he was about to set off in search of a clothing store, his stomach growled. "Oh…food." He hesitated, then set off in a different direction, the same one the workers from earlier had taken moments before. "Food first." As he walked, the man realized his assessment of the city was wrong. It wasn't just massive. It rivaled even the biggest cities he had seen on his journey. It was so large that he lacked a word to describe it. And the city did not just sprawl outwards but reached high into the sky as well. Most of the buildings were skyscrapers and there were even levels to the streets in some areas. It was in one such area that he found a restaurant, somewhere in the middle of the many levels, that he was sure would have found to his liking. It was one of the few single-story buildings he'd come across but had a surprising amount of space when he walked inside, the smell of various spices, vegetables, and even some meat.
"Welcome! Have a seat and we'll be right with you!" Someone called from the kitchen in the back when the man entered. Per the request, he chose a seat at the counter, next to one of the sentient machines he had first observed some time ago. The machine was currently enjoying a large bowl of noodles. If he were less experience in the abnormal, the man may have found that strange, but as it was he decided to ask a question instead.
"Excuse me, but I'm new here. Any recommendations?"
The machine slurped up a mouthful of noodles and turned to answer the man. "The spicy ramen is pretty...good…." The machine man, the voice was definitively male, trailed off and the flesh and blood man got the sense that he was being starred at. "You know, with that…thing wrapped around your head, you remind me of someone I know."
"I sincerely hope that's a good thing, Mr…?"
"Cayde-6. No mister. And you are?"
"Jaxon." He replied, holding his hand out. Cayde-6 shook it then pointed at the rags Jaxon had used to hide his face.
"What's with that? Person I knew wore them to hide these freaky eyes they had."
"Oh, nothing like that. Just something I'd prefer no one to see."
"Like triple eyes leaking...goop.
Jaxon had to pause at that. He was old and, after the length of time he'd been alive, he thought he was used to weird things, but that still threw him for a loop, even if it didn't make his top one hundred list. "Uh...no, nothing like…you have some odd friends, don't you?"
Cayde-6 simply shrugged and returned to his bowl. Just as he was about to take in another mouthful of noodles, a smaller machine materialized in front of him, the back and front half of its symmetrical body spinning frantically. "Cayde! Ikora and Zavala need you at the tower now!"
"What's the matter? I'm gone for five minutes and suddenly they need me back? I just want to enjoy my noodles."
"I don't know, communication is all over the place right now, but Zavala is very insistent."
"Seems like you've got a busy night ahead of you." Jaxon commented.
"Yeah. Tell you what, you hold my spot for me, I'll pay for your ramen." Cayde-6 said as he stood up to go.
"Really? And here I thought I was gonna have to work for a bowl. Thank you."
"No problem," Cayde-6 replied as he headed out, Jaxon taking the seat next to his. It turned out that spicy ramen was very good and Jaxon, who realized he hadn't much in the way of real food during his wandering, was halfway through his second bowl when he heard the explosions.
Forever attempting the route of optimism, Jaxon asked the shopkeeper if there may have been a celebration going on somewhere nearby. He never got his answer, as the shopkeeper was interrupted by another thunderous boom, this time much closer and accompanied by the sound of screaming. "What the hell is going?!" Jaxon bolted up and outside, where he immediately encountered a wall of smoke, forcing him back inside. "I think we may need to find a way out."
"Why? What's going-" The shopkeeper was interrupted once again, this time by gunfire from out in the street. Gunfire from what sounded like massive weapons.
"Well, dear ramen maker, if I had to guess? Your city has just been invaded." Jaxon responded, hopping over the counter and heading for the kitchen.
"What? No, that can't…the City can't have been invaded! The Guardians would…they would stop anyone who tried!" The older man said as he frantically followed Jaxon.
"Yes, well, if I had the time, I could recount almost every single time any form of defending group failed to defend, but we could possibly die at any moment, so if you have a gun or something, now would be the time to grab it." He said as, after some quick searching, he held up a large knife he'd found in a drawer. He turned to regard the shopkeeper, who had taken Jaxon's words seriously and was now holding a sidearm in his trembling hands, and smiled as reassuringly as he could. "Alright, Mr. Shopkeeper, I need you to take a nice deep breath and calm down. I'm going to get you somewhere safe and I'm going to get you there alive and in one piece. Ok?" The man did as Jaxon instructed and smiled back, his trembling subsiding slightly. "Better?"
"A little…but can you really get me to safety? With that?" The man pointed at the knife in Jaxon's hand.
"This," he asked, waving the knife, "oh, hell yeah." He grinned. "Now, do you have a back exit or something?" The shopkeeper nodded and led the way out back. "Alright," Jaxon said, a hand on the door ready to push it open, "once we get out here, you'll have to tell me where we're going. Can you do that?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I can."
"Excellent. Out we go then." That said, the two started on their way. Their journey to the nearest safe point, though relatively short in distance, turned out difficult, long, and incredibly dangerous. Along the way, Jaxon cut down many of the invaders, creatures that dwarfed him, and the taller shopkeeper, by several feet and were covered head-to-toe in armor that had to weigh several times their body weight, let alone Jaxon's. Their weapons, in some cases, seemed almost as big as the knife-wielding man. And despite all that, he found it far too easier to kill them. The locking mechanism for their helmets was weak enough that a well-placed stab sliced straight through it and into the neck. And their air supply, apparently. Eventually, they met a Guardian that informed them that any survivors were to get to someone named Shaxx, that the usual shelters had been destroyed, some with people inside. The Guardian escorted them most of the way until she ran into someone named Zavala, who had managed to make a defensive line protecting the new safe area. Jaxon and the shopkeeper ran the rest of the way and were greeted by a tall, well-built man wearing armor and wearing a helmet with a horn on one side and a broken stump on the other. As the man, presumably this Shaxx person they were meant to meet, led them up into a towering structure until they reached a hallway packed with other people.
"We wait here for now, until the way has been cleared." Shaxx informed them, his name now confirmed as some of the survivors greeted him with a respectful "Lord Shaxx".
Jaxon, finally able to put his knife away, sat down with his back against a wall and let out a breath. It had been a long time since he'd had to fight something so much bigger than him. He had almost broken his promise to the shopkeeper several times on the way here. Not too long after he arrived, a commotion started up further down the hallway. From what he could hear, a Guardian had shown up, one that everyone seemed to have a great deal of faith in. Shaxx spoke with them for a moment before forcibly pulling open the doors to an armory for them. The Guardian left soon after and they were all left with the sounds of the distantly raging battle and the soft murmur of the survivors as they tried to reassure one another.
Almost an hour passed before something else happened. Unfortunately, it was not a victory. To everyone else in the room, Shaxx had merely slumped against the wall. It was still worrying, of course, but to Jaxon, who could feel the energy that he, and all other Guardians, carried within him suddenly cut off, he knew the situation was far more serious than it appeared. He left the others to look after him, but that did not last.
"Everyone…" Shaxx announced, leaning against the wall as he stood, "we need to leave the City. An evac route is being established, so we need to move." Organizing the survivors took some effort and cost them some time, but, eventually, they were all moving out, Jaxon near the front of the group, just a little ways behind Shaxx. They reached the outside quickly enough, but it soon became apparent just has bad everything was. Their evacuation route had been cut off, and dead Guardians littered the ground. Jaxon didn't any of his abilities to know how everyone around him felt. The shock? The fear? For the first time in millennia, he felt it. But something he felt from few in the crowd, something that was surprisingly welling up inside of him now, was anger. He didn't know why. He just knew it was there. And he was going to do something about it.
Jaxon's thoughts, however, were cut off by cries rising up from the survivors as several of the creatures came into view, weapons at the ready. Everyone began trying to get back inside the tower, trying to take what shelter they could from what was certain death. Shaxx was doing his best to calm them, to get them inside without getting themselves hurt, but it was hopeless. Just as the first rockets and massive slugs were about to hit the panicking crowd, a dome made of the darkest shadows enclosed them and the entrance to the tower, Jaxon standing at the edge facing the outside, listening as the projectiles slammed into it, and failed to penetrate.
There was a moment of stunned silence, then Shaxx was pointing at a gun at Jaxon and demanding, "Who are you? How did you accomplish this?"
"Currently I'm going by Jaxon. And I'm gonna need your sword." He replied casually, turning to face the others with a smile. "Or we're likely all going to die here."
"My sword? Why would I hand you my sword, when you control Darkness?"
"Because I can't use my knife against that many whatever-they-are and I didn't bring my own. Now are you going to let me save these people, or are you going to shoot me and save those monsters a bullet?" The silence that followed was long and only broken by the sound of rounds slamming into the shield made of shadows. Finally, Shaxx lowered his gun and handed over the sword. Jaxon swung it a few times to test it and nodded. "Thank you. Does it have a name?"
"Raze Lighter."
"Nice name. Come along then, Raze Lighter. We've got work to do." Jaxon smiled at the sword and turned to face the dome he had put up. "Damn, I wish I had my music. Don't Stop Me Now would work excellently…" He muttered to himself. To the group at large, he said, "Everyone get inside. I can fight better if I'm not concentrating on shielding you." Once alone, Jaxon shrunk the shield to cover just himself and shifted his weight on his feet a few times. "Ok. How'd it go? Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time? Yeah, that's it. Come on now, Freddie, don't let me down." He let out a sharp exhale and dropped the shield when he heard the distinct click of the guns reloading.
While he certainly knew that weapons behaved strangely in this universe, Jaxon wasn't fully expecting the sword to literally turn some enemies into piles of ash. However, once he did know…let's just say that few things in existence are quite as vicious, efficient, or so effective in a fight as Jaxon when he begins to enjoy himself. Lacking any other way of describing the…slaughterhouse that was this fight, I will take it upon myself, in a complete break from my usual writing style, to tell you the only thing that you, the dear reader, need to know about the outcome is that while body parts, and occasionally ash, are in no way strangers to battlefields, that which was left behind by Jaxon in his…enthusiasm would make anyone sick to look at it and even makes me ill just to imagine it and try to figure out how to convey that. So instead, I have chosen to spare you the details, on the off chance I should draw a younger crowd than others my age. Now, we may return to the story.
Jaxon knocked on the door to the tower, Raze Lighter resting on his shoulder, and caught it before it could swing open and reveal him in gore covered clothing. "Is that Shaxx?"
"N-No…he's right h-here though…" A nervous man replied.
"Get him then. I'm not exactly presentable right now and I don't think the kids in there need to see me." He was met with silence before the door opened far enough to allow Shaxx to exit. He seemed to be carrying himself more easily now, his body finally having adjusted to the weight of his armor without his power to help hold it up.
"I didn't think you'd be returning alive."
"I surprise people like that all the time. I cleared the way, but it won't stay like that. I'm going to go on ahead and keep it as safe as possible."
"I guess that means you will need to continue borrowing my sword."
"Indeed. Don't worry though. I'll make sure it's nice and clean when I give it back." He grinned and turned to go then turned back and added, "By the way, how did you break the other horn?"
"Why do you wear those rags around your face?"
Jaxon opened his mouth then shut it. He thought about it for a moment before chuckling and nodding. Then he left to ensure the route's safety.
Necro: I feel like that was a little weak tends to the end.
MP: Especially with that insert. No need for that.
Necro: Shut up. I literally got a little sick just thinking of how I wanted to describe the aftermath. And I really wish I could describe the fight. But actually describing fights is pretty useless in a lot of cases, at least in my opinion it is. Anyway, the next chapter should have a better feel to it, so bear with this for now, please? And hey, you can find me on Tumblr by searching for my personal hashtag Necro's Writings. And you can buy me a hot chocolate at ko-fi S6S49BLT!
MP: Also, we don't keep an upload schedule. New chapters go up when we both feel that they're ready. This was the best we could do for this particular chapter, but things will improve.
