[I] Hourglass
For just a moment, the shadow of a sleek and black-painted Bullhead interrupted the shattered visage of the moon. It flew on, almost silently through the night, soaring above the rolling hills of sand and dry stone outcroppings. The Bullhead slowed as it approached its destination, side panels opening. Sensing its opportunity, the wind tore through the open sides of the aircraft. Moonlight reflected off the silvery hair of the youthful man inside, as the wind disrupted it. Reaching up past the matching pair of blades on his hip, to fix his hair with his free hand, he turned to face the center of the Bullhead. Looking through his visor of tinted blue glass, his gaze fell on his companion, whose single earring shone brightly against the night sky.
"We're here." he said, handing off a Scroll to the young man with the earring. "Wherever 'here' is…"
The Scroll faintly illuminated the deep purple of his jacket as he took it in his hand. The crimson way-point flashed steadily at their current location. He nodded silently and handed it back to the owner, before peering over the edge himself. He saw only sand, with a scattering of natural rock formations. Pillars and arches, eroded by wind and time. A single plateau rose in the distance. As the Bullhead turned in a slow circle, the rocks below him revealed more. Nestled in amongst the weathered stone was a small military base, or what he could only assume was the remains of it. The torn fabric of what used to be tents fluttered in the breeze, the rusted structure of portable buildings sinking slowly into the ground.
He turned back to the man who had handed him the Scroll. "Stay here, Nickelas. Keep me updated on our surroundings. I don't like the look of this place, I'm only seeing one exit." He paused and look down at the ruins half buried in sea of sand, "This is Forward Base Hourglass, then? I'd like to know just what it is the headmaster sent us to retrieve. I don't like the secrecy much, Nickelas. These are the border sands, we're practically in Vacuo."
With that, he turned to the cockpit door and tapped out three quick knocks. "Hey, Magnolia." She turned around in the co-pilot's chair, and even though he couldn't see her eyes through the blindfold she wore, he could tell she was looking directly at him.
"Yes, Thyst?" she responded, with her usual near-hiss of a lisp. Her long white hair was tied back tightly into a ponytail, hints of red hidden within, and it swayed as she turned.
"We've made it to our destination." He looked upwards a moment and collected a few thoughts. "I'll need you on the ground with me," Thyst explained, motioning his head to the side and out the open door. Magnolia uncrossed her legs and stood, her bare feet meeting the metal of the cockpit floor.
"Gladly," she said, stretching her back, and giving the pilot seated next to her a light pat on the shoulder as she walked from the cockpit. "Don't get too lonely without me now."
The pilot let out a single, short noise vaguely akin to a laugh, through the two filters of the gas mask that covered the entire lower half of his face.
"I'll try my best."
"I have no idea what to expect, so I trust you to just have my back while we're down there." Thyst said, addressing Magnolia, "I'll be sure to watch yours." then turned to the pilot, "Drop us right at the entrance, Stick, this should be quick and simple, a routine sweep and clear. We'll call for exfil when we have what we're looking for."
Without turning from the controls, the pilot lifted a single hand and gave a half-hearted, two finger salute.
A single figure fell from the airship, and the ground rushed up to meet her. She spun in the air, and from her elbow length, flowing sleeve, a blade flew out in a blur, burying itself with ease into one of the archways of sandstone. A thin chain, of metal ringlets, trailed behind it, and kept it attached to her person. Using her momentum, she swung cleanly through the archway. Soaring through the air, she braced herself to land, and slid to a surprisingly gentle halt, her toes digging into the sand. With a tug of the chain, she pulled the knife loose, and it quickly retreated back into her outfit.
A moment later, there was a flash of light, a crackling, and then Thyst was standing beside her, the sand beneath his feet instantly transformed into a fine layer of glass. Magnolia turned to him. "You've always loved making an entrance." She said as she ran the tip of her tail through the sand. She enjoyed the sensation.
They stood in silence for a moment before the meager ruins. The wilderness was silent, save for the faint whir of the Bullhead's twin engines, circling in the sky above. The silence was broken by a voice that came to them through an earpiece.
"You've got Grimm moving through the remains of the base, looking about the size of an average Beowolf, nothing you can't handle." Nickelas informed him, "I'm sensing another Grimm just on the other side of the base, a hollowed out section of the rock… it's not a natural cave. It's looking like a Deathstalker... It must have built its lair out of what remains of the base… Oh, but I'm sure with a little effort you two can handle that." he quipped.
Thyst cast a sideways glance at the airship, distaste in his glare. He was thinking of a witty retort when a howl interrupted him, the first Beowolf cresting the hill, between them and the base. It promptly tripped over it's own front legs and tumbled down into the sand. A small knife had found itself nestled between the Grimm's eye sockets.
A few feet off, Magnolia stood ready, her fingers bristling with blades. Her tail swished gently, but then with a twitch, a series of progressively smaller metal plates - whose edges shone with the glint of sharpness - extended from under the sash around her waist, and fitted themselves snugly along the length of her tail. Attached to the smallest segment, at the very end, was a disc of highly reflective metal. From her hand, she threw out a fan of knives, and two more Beowolves turned to pincushions, on the ground.
Meanwhile, Thyst tensed and spun his wrists with a satisfying crack of joints, and in response, twin pairs of subtly curved blades unfolded outwards from his forearms. He took a wide stance as one of the Grimm that escaped the hail of knives charged at him. He sidestepped it with ease, as it drew close, and punched downward with his right arm as it passed, catching it in the torso and shearing it in half with ease. Pulling his left arm back, the pair of blades there collapsed into a sharp angled hexagon, about the size of dinner plate. A second Grimm took a swipe at him, which proved easy to dodge. Ignoring this Grimm, with a step and a follow-through, he hurled this newly formed chakram into the chest of the Alpha of the pack.
In the blink of an eye, Thyst had his feet pressed up against its chest, one hand gripping the thrown weapon, his other arm extended passed the Alpha's ivory maw. He yanked his arm back and removed the head from the beast's shoulders. As it's body began to dissipate and fall, Thyst pushed off its chest and pulled his weapon free, landing softly on ground. He watched as Magnolia turned from another corpse already turning to mist, and swept the legs out from under her next foe, flipping it on its back, then, with a swift strike from her serpentine tail, slashed it's throat open.
Thyst refit the chakram to his wrist, where it folded back into its resting state, along his arm. He raised his fist in the direction of the single remaining Grimm. With two cracks, and two flashes, it fell dead, the barrels mounted on Thyst's left wrist smoking.
"Done." He muttered to himself. But the comms piece in his ear responded, crackling to life.
"You forgot the Deathstalker." Nickelas's said matter-of-factly.
Thyst sighed.
"I didn't forget…"
"It's heading straight at you, Thyst." Nickelas urged.
Thyst turned around and watched as the large scorpion Grimm burst from the broken remains of the base, tearing already ruined tents to shreds, and swept it's glowing eyes from side to side, leaving multiple faint trails of orange in the air. Once it settled the glowing dots of it's eyes on the two Huntsman, the Grimm's stinger rose threateningly.
Magnolia could still clearly hear the constant noise of the Bullhead, but she decided she had more pressing matters to attend to. While Thyst stood his ground, she was already sprinting around the side of the Deathstalker. She thrust her hand downward and took the larger knife in her grip. With a wide swing of her arm, she flung it. The hooked knife flew through the air, trailing it's fine chain behind it. After reaching it's full length, and pulling taut, Magnolia tugged on the chain and caught the oncoming Deathstalker by the tail, wrapping the chain once around tightly, before letting the hook dig into it's flesh. She began to pull the chain in, and rocketed towards the massive scorpion.
Magnolia swung around the Grimm's tail and landed softly on it's back. With a twist of her arm and a tug, the blade detached and retreated into her flowing sleeve. She smiled to herself, reached into the front of her kimono, and flipped out a fresh pair of knives.
Back on the ground, Thyst had begun his counter-charge at the Deathstalker Magnolia had so deftly mounted. The Grimm slowed and reared backwards as she stabbed it in two of it's many eyes. The creature gave a futile attempt to snap at her, but she avoided it's claws with grace and little effort. With it was distracted, Thyst took his chance and lunged for it's legs, removing multiple, in a short flurry of slashes. Silence promptly returned to the sandy expanse,.
The simple chain wire fence had clearly been set up more as a formality, than for any modicum of protection. Upon closer inspection, barely half of it still remained upright. The portions that did stay standing were not untouched, however. Much of the remaining fencing bore large gashes.
While Stick kept the Bullhead in a slow circular flight path, Thyst was kneeling in what remained of (at least, what he assumed used to be) the barracks. At the moment, he was in the middle of sweeping sand off the top of an old locker at the end of a twisted and rust-covered bed frame. Undoing the latches and opening the container yielded a comparatively untouched pocket of space, existing in stark contrast to his current surroundings.
Thyst reached in and removed an empty rifle magazine. After brief inspection, he placed it back where it was, and with little hesitation, he grabbed the item of far superior interest. The rifle inside was clearly battle-worn, but other than a few minor scratches, it was in operable condition. He lifted the weapon from the box, leveled it to his shoulder, and after aiming down the sights, fired a few imaginary shots into the emptiness. The weapon was simple, the kind of standard issue thing used to arm the bulk of soldiers in the Kingdoms' militaries.
"This has to be a collector's item, by now…" Thyst muttered to himself, "Just how old is this base?"
He placed the weapon back down. He had something more important to find. The something that was broadcasting this waypoint, the same something the Headmaster had specifically tasked Thyst's team with retrieving.
Magnolia put her full weight into the metal door, and managed to push it back open, emerging again into the outside world, but not without another groan of complaint from the rusted hinges. Of the three structures with actual walls, Magnolia had opted to begin her search in one of the smaller ones. She had also decided to avoid the one building that was currently in three pieces and half-submerged in the sand. Unfortunately, her search had yielded her nothing of importance. She watched as Thyst emerged from the skeleton of support frames. He shook his head.
They turned their attention to the largest building, largest only by the slightest margin. Judging by the central location, as well as the series of antenna lining the roof, this was the closest thing to a command center that remained.
"Perhaps this would have made a better place to start out search?" Magnolia asked.
Thyst stared at the building for a moment.
"You're not wrong…"
The inside was dimly lit, but by leaving the door open, Thyst had some light to rummage by. The entire room possessed a distinct ashy smell, and the source of the smell littered every surface in sight.
Approaching a flipped table near the door, Thyst went about setting it upright, reaching for the table's legs. They broke off instantly in his grasp. After a pause, he bent down and slid his fingers under the top of the upturned table and flipped it upright. However, what it failed to do was stay in one piece. All that he found underneath were the equally burnt remains of paper. He knelt down to pick the nearest one up, but it crumbled to ash in his hand. He couldn't rightly admit he expected anything else to happen.
A quiet voice sounded from the other side of the room. It was Magnolia's.
"We may need to ask Nickelas for help with this." She said, stepping aside and motioning to what was before her, "I'm not the best with computers…"
Stick pulled the Bullhead in low, and the doors opened to let Nickelas out. Once his feet touched the ground, the doors slid closed and the aircraft ascended rapidly.
Nickelas placed a hand on the doorway, and passed through the opening, where he found his teammates hovering around a computer monitor. They turned to look at him as he entered.
"Someone call for the IT guy?" he said as he approached them. "What seems to be the problem?" The pair stepped aside and let Nickelas through. "Oh, well here's your problem. You didn't turn it on." He took a seat on the floor next to the system's container, and felt around for seams in the metal. After a few seconds, he took a firm grasp with his fingers and pried off the side panel. "There we go…" He muttered, tossing it aside. "Hey, Thyst, down here with me."
Thyst knelt down and peered inside. Nickelas pulled a few wires out and shifted a few pieces inside. "See, the main problem as you may have gathered…" He reached in and pulled out a rather thick wire. "Is that there's obviously-" He tugged the wire and held it to Thyst. "-hold this please- no electricity. "
With that, the computer screen flickered to life.
"Thank you, Thyst." he said as he stood up and let his hands hover above the keyboard. "Let's see… Ah, password protected. As expected." He let out a sigh and reached behind his ear, unplugging a small device from his visor. He replaced it in an open port on the computer. A progress bar appeared before his eyes, covering the small map.
"I'm transferring anything and everything I can salvage." Nickelas said, as he turned to the others. Thyst looked up from he kneeling position on the ground, the wire Nickelas gave him still in his hand.
"I assume this is what we were sent to find?" Thyst asked, staring out the doorway as Magnolia exited the building.
"I'd agree, but I still can't figure out what exactly is sending out this waypoint." Nickelas said, taking off his visor and placing it next to the keyboard. He peered back into the computer's innards. "Maybe it's embedded somewhere in here, it wouldn't need to be that big."
Magnolia had since wandered outside, she knew her skills. She dug her toes into the earth and took a peaceful moment to enjoy the coolness of the sand on her feet.
Back inside, Nickelas's visor displayed the progress bar, as it half covered the map, on which a crimson waypoint blinked regularly.
Magnolia stood still in the moonlight, and took in the world around her. Something in the sand shifted. She could feel it.
"I don't know, Thyst." Nickelas said as he stood up, "I still can't find any kind of-" A slight beep came out of Nickelas's visor on the table. "-oh, the transfer is complete." He removed the device from the computer and placed it back on his visor. He them lifted the visor and put it back on his face. He looked at the new information.
"Hmm… This is a surprisingly small list of files. Thyst, you can drop the wire." Thyst did so, and the computer screen went blank in an instant. "We might as well head back with this, it's all we could find. I'll take a quick browse through the files on the way back to Beacon." The two emerged into the night air once more, and Thyst turned to Nickelas.
"I'm still confused as to where the waypoint signal is coming from." He mused, "Maybe it ended up underground? I wouldn't doubt-."
Magnolia felt the rumbling first. But she had no time to react before the ground erupted in a plume of sand and the building the three of them were in moments before ceased to exist. Thyst and Nickelas were thrown from where they were standing, and came to a skidding halt, prone, and nearly twenty feet from where Magnolia was standing.
In the space where the building once was, a hulking black creature now inhabited it.
It's insectoid body segmented by it's white exoskeleton. Hundreds of writhing limbs covered it's long body, in addition to innumerable spikes and spines of varying sizes. It's wide, triangular head, which was already nearly sharpened to a razor's edge, possessed three long and constantly threshing mandibles.
"I don't want to sound cliché, everyone," Nickelas said, standing up and brushing off his shoulders, before reaching for his swords. He took them in his grip and after a moment, the edges of the blades sprung to life with harsh blue light. "but... According to my visor, I think we've just found the waypoint. Or more accurately, it found us."
The comms crackled to life once again and Stick, having stayed silent up until this point, finally voiced his mind.
"So, about 'quick and simple'..."