boot_start…
boot_complete , memory Beginnings restored
mem#45
playback_error
auto_recovering...
recovered ("unexpected error logged in #1")
damage to data stores detected – operation is not recommended in this state
continue? Y/N
:y
initializing...
It was getting harder and harder to tell reality apart from the dreamscape that his kind had been cursed with. The scenes rarely fit together anymore – once neatly aligned they now connected as jagged and shattered memories of a forgotten past, like puzzle pieces that had been forced together through brute strength. He couldn't remember how they went, or what order they were supposed to be in; no matter how hard he tried, they never quite lined up. Everything was all displaced and mismatched – he was missing pieces but always trying to put it together anyway whether he wanted to or not. It was always at the edge of his mind.
He thought it was funny that the closest he ever came to solving it all was in the Crypt. Maybe it was 'cause that was where it all began or maybe it was 'cause of all the familiar faces that nibbled at his thoughts as he opened fire and reloaded and stabbed and slashed, but in the Crypt he felt closest to every instance that he knew something that mattered – like standing beside himself and swapping stories or something. Never had got much time before he fell though – never made it to that tower. Might have been the familiarity, but in that black field it was hardest to shoot straight. Oh he was no saint – he had killed almost as many Fallen as he had friends at this point – but never enough to get to that goddamned tower.
And he had tried so many times. Every time you closed your eyes the tower would be waiting for you in a field of black roses, and under a flaming sky you would try whether you wanted to or not – and you never wanted to, but a part of you did. He heard it was something to do with what they were built for, and in a way he knew they were right; only a monster made for war could dream of death and violence so consistently, and it took the man inside along for the ride every time.
The old Hunter grunted something about dreams and voodoo bullshit as he tossed his half-finished cigar and stepped on it, crushing the smouldering stick of tobacco and paper beneath his heel. No one knew if they would kill him or not, but they hadn't yet – Shanks had come closer if he were being completely honest with himself and no one else. Shanks had come closer and they were made from the hopes of the Fallen and shit salvaged from the Cosmodrome.
He was still feeling groggy and out of sorts, but the dark tendrils of sleep were receding and the haze was ascending as things began to make sense again. He had been drifting off again – must be something wrong with his somatics. He'd add it to the list of broken shit he'd need to get fixed at some point but would put off to the last dying second; it would be right up there with the broken volume dial on his radio and the helmet visor that only worked proper half the time. The list had been growing for as long as he could remember and he had yet to cash it in, so there was no telling how long it would be before he tried to patch it all up.
Beneath his boots, water ran in a stream and carried the flame-consumed cancer stick away to who knows where, bumping off of rocks that stuck up out of the rushing tide like miniature islands. It felt cool when he crouched down to run his steely fingers through it, and when he pulled his hand out small strands of plant fibers had wrapped around each digit like natural verdant gloves. He had been to many planets in his time, but Venus had always been his favorite – the moisture in the air increased the need for maintenance and the majority of the wildlife wanted to kill you and wear your ass like a hat, but the view was dead-on. Nothing else in the galaxy like it – and he would know.
Venus was also one of the few planets that had a breathable atmosphere. Terraforming or some shit years ago had cleared the harmful radiation and allowed plant life to thrive. Now with only the Vex and a handful of animals roaming the surface, breathing in on the dense forest-covered world felt like breathing for the first time. Even a robot with fake lungs could appreciate it – that was just how good it was; no smog or shit filling the air here like it did the Last City. Only problem was the Vex and occasional Fallen scouts; they sometimes showed up, and he had gone through the effort to make it clear that this zone was off limits to their kind; any that roamed to close to the village were sent back in pieces or dead as a door nail.
"Colt."
His integrated visor snapped shut reflexively, the mag rails humming as the plasteel plates slid down over his optics to protect them from shrapnel and other dangers. The piece of shit had been overly sensitive recently – probably a problem with the mag rails he guessed. No way to know for sure without removing the mods himself, but if the casing had become ionized over the years it was a good guess – could be messing with the computers. Oughta look into it later, a small part of his brain noted as his hand dropped to the gun hanging from his belt.
He could have drawn his iron and fired off rounds in the direction of the voice in a single smooth movement, but thankfully did not as a hand fell on his shoulder. His frame did tense up a bit at the contact, but that was nothin' compared to what he would have done if it was a bad guy. Instead he looked over his shoulder, his unreadable visor being bored into by a pair of unseeing emerald eyes.
Colt-45 didn't remember much, but the eyes that looked down at him were so familiar it made his head hurt something fierce. The green irises were spotted with milky white scrapes, like paint rubbed off of a Sparrow, but the pupils had remained intact and dark despite the scarring to the rest of her orbs. They were so dark it was easy to get lost in them – not in a good or bad way, just in a hypnotizing way. The girl that looked down at him stood in the stream like he did, but her bare feet just floated on the surface – walkin' on it like it was ground as solid as stone. He almost pulled away from her touch, and it would have been easy to with her tiny hand being so loosely draped on his shoulder.
But he didn't.
He watched her, and even though she was blind she too watched him. Like some sorta ghost or phantom, she didn't blink or move further – it was like a staring contest of sorts. Exo didn't have to blink, but every time this happened the outcome was predictable and always the same.
He blinked.
"Colt. I want to go back," she said, tugging at his cloak as his visor slid open again. His helmet was held under her other arm – she liked to hold onto it for some reason. He didn't have the slightest clue why when it was a piece of shit that was as old as he was, but he had never bothered to ask so long as it made her happy. Her own cloak was swaying in the light breeze, and where the hem dipped into the water it darkened from a grey to black as the tides tugged at it and washed over it. It was an old scrap of fabric he had managed to salvage from his ship – nothing more than junk, but he'd always had good hands for makin' and repairing stuff – but she seemed to like it too. This one wasn't such a mystery; she said she wore it because she thought it made her look like him. Didn't seem to understand it wasn't so easy being him, but what the hell. "It's starting to rain again."
Her voice was soft as silk and quiet to boot, in a beautiful and mysterious way. She was a little lady, not much older than ten or so, but so different from the other kids of the village. They never spurned her for it – they were raised good they were – but she was the shy type and seemed to like hanging around adults more than anything else. She liked to go on patrol with her mother and, when her mother wasn't available, him. She couldn't see any of it, he knew, but she could hear and feel it. And that made it worth it to everyone else, him included.
Colt wiped the plant fibres off of his hands and put his glove back on, buckling it up. The old knife strapped to his other one was a bit loose, so he readjusted that too before standing up and taking her hand. She was a bit taller than usual standing on the water, and the area around her feet turned all still like glass or a lake, allowing the waves to flow around it as she moved. She pulled her hood up, fiddling with the rim of the cowl nervously. "They're coming closer you know. I can feel it."
He frowned, but not at her. "Right now, or every day?"
"Both."
He nodded, looking around and scanning the surrounding forestry. It was dangerous wandering this far from the settlement, but he had a gun and a good pair of eyes. She didn't have those little tools at her disposal, and for a moment he wondered if it was still safe to take her. She wouldn't be happy to hear his thoughts on the matter so he kept his trap shut, but it was still there like the memoir enigma he had been considering moments earlier.
She was a big girl. She could follow orders, and so long as she followed his he could keep her safe. Her ma might not see it that way, but none were so blind as those that choose not to see – and he knew if they tried they would both see the Traveler's Light in the girl's eyes, tangling with The Darkness like wild animals. Both were in her, both strong. She would have made a fine Guardian if she could see – but even then no one deserved to be asked to sacrifice everything as so many before had been, least of all her.
He had come here to get away from that shit. They all had, and he'd be damned if he let it come close. Any of it.
As the rain began to fall he pulled his cowl up to protect himself from the downpour before leading her out of the stream, carefully as to not trip her over one of the rocks. She was blind – there was no doubt about it, and he'd known her almost 's long as she'd been alive so he really would know – but the way she navigated could fool him otherwise. He'd never really understood how it worked, but it did so he didn't try to understand it either. So long as it worked, it was all he needed to know. He didn't much know how the Void worked or how Arc energy worked or how Exo worked, but he just knew it all did. She was a Warlock's kid – that pretty much explained everything that needed explaining.
In the distance, he could hear trees being toppled and heavy branches snapping with hollow cracks like gunfire. Closer than ever before – she'd gotten that much right, and probably the rest of it too. She knew these things and he knew she knew, so they both kinda knew. All the same it made him pick up the pace a bit, leading her back to the rusted Sparrow that barely worked but still got him where he needed to go.
They climbed aboard.
Error!
sequence_end
data_corruption_detected
attempt_recovery? Y/N
:y
attempting_recovery
fatal_error ("path=null, files may have been moved or deleted")
errorcode: 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010
.end
start.
rebooting…
continuing_from_last_known_sequence
initialized
"Nice bike."
The old Hunter didn't acknowledge the comment for all its dripping sarcasm, instead focusing on taping down the loose superconductors and clearing away the spiderwebs that had been spun under the hood. The entire thing smelled like burning hair, and he wondered how many had died riding this very same Sparrow – before realizing, of course, that he was perfectly fine with never knowing the answer to that question. It was a piece of shit, but it was his piece of shit – half dated and unsafe technology and half incredibly illegal tech installed with gracious amounts of elbow grease and duct tape. He tore another piece free from the roll and taped down another cable – lots of duct tape, lots of elbow grease.
A couple years back – maybe ten, he thought. It was hard to keep track of time when you didn't age like humans did – he'd come here to get away from the Tower and the Traveler and the Darkness and all that crap. He'd seen one too many Guardians die for a better tomorrow and decided tomorrow wasn't worth the trouble. He found that he'd rather worry about today and see what he could get done there. A guy he once knew said you can wait for tomorrow all you want, but you'll only ever live in the today. He was right – so he bailed. Took a french leave and found himself wandering Venus, chasing a rumor.
He found it, and he'd known Aveline and the kid and everyone else since. Other Guardians that gave up on the Traveler.
"It's comin' along nicely I'd reckon," he said after finishing up with his patch-job, ignoring her sarcasm. The Awoken was circling the bike with a smug smile, her untamed feathery hair still wet from the rain. His garage – unfortunately – was not water proof, and there were various banged-up buckets scattered across the ground, catching dripping water. He'd fix it up, but he was running out of tape. "Old boy needs a bit of work, but if I ride it I can almost guarantee I ain't gonna get dusted."
"Dusted?" she asked, looking at him curiously. It wasn't the first time he had been given a look like that, and it wouldn't be the last – was like nobody knew what he was saying half the time or something.
"Thrown off. Dusted."
"Right." She stopped and fixed him with a hard stare. His visor was open and his optics were exposed, and he felt like she could see into his head and read his mind just by lookin' at his eyes. He had been guessing she wasn't here to chat, but had hoped maybe she was gonna ask to go for drinks or something of the like – never so lucky, he decided. If he ever got a good hand something would come in and ruin it anyway. It was the Dead Man's Hand, as he knew it best. "How was your patrol?"
"Just dandy," he told her, his visor sliding shut like a welding mask as he tried to reseal the battery – thing was leaking acid, but he didn't have a new one. Maybe it would be alright, but he was guessing it was probably just gonna explode next time someone turned it on. Maybe it was high time to get a new bike… "Emmil's gettin' better at seeing those Vex coming. Let me-"
"Emmil told me about the Vex," she said with a nod, watching him weld the battery shut as acid spilled everywhere. He could tell she didn't think it was gonna work by the way she eyed it, but what the hell did she know 'bout Sparrows? That being said, he probably oughta get someone else to give it a test drive – just in case. She strolled around to stand beside him, and with a deft movement flicked the Arc Welder off, and the plasma jet died away. "I'm just wondering why I didn't hear it from you first, Colt."
"Hey, I've only got one of these you know!" he exclaimed, annoyed as his mask slid open and he set the tool on the shoddy table beside the hover bike. "As for the Vex, they didn't even come close to us." She eyed him again, and with a sigh he slumped onto the hand-crafted pipe-stool that sat beside the table. He knew she was gonna get her dander up about it, but he also knew that until her daughter gave a first-hand account about the encounter she was gonna have a bit of trouble grasping how serious the situation was. Seemed that even hearing it from her didn't quite do the trick, as she still looked pretty pissed. "Don't tell me this is about them movin' closer."
"It's very much about them moving closer," she said, folding her arms and fixing him with a hard stare as she leaned against one of the corrugated metal beams that held the roof over their heads. He cringed internally as it groaned in protest, and silently prayed she didn't lean on it too hard – he didn't trust the thing to not give out. If it did, they could both kiss their asses goodbye. "I rely on each member of the patrol to-"
"Every day, Ave," Colt said loudly, cutting her off as he reached past her and took a clean rag from his little rag-rack. It was a shitty looking rack, if he was being completely honest, and he should never have built it. But he was too proud to take it down now. Dipping the cloth under one of the streams that dripped down from the ceiling, he wetted it before using it to wipe the grease smudges off of his chest and hands. As he did so, he noted the rough patches where the smooth finish had been scraped away, or rusted – needed to get some new parts maybe. Or some polish and rust remover. He tossed the rag over into the corner, where a small pile had begun to build up – there were more in the pile than on the rack at this point, and Laundry Day was gonna be a battle to remember when it came 'round. "Every day," he repeated with a raised finger, "The Vex come a lil' bit closer, and every day we watch them do it. But what happens when they stop testin' boundaries and push comes to shove?"
Aveline watched him as he waved his arms around, matte plates flexing as he looked to the sky for an answer from the lord himself. He hadn't really been expectin' much, so he wasn't much disappointed when nothing happened except another hole springing in the ceiling. A steady stream of water poured down and nailed the Gunslinger between the eyes, droplets of wet rebounding off of the plate of his forehead and splashing very gently across her cheek.
"When push comes to shove, we shove harder than the Vex," she said haughtily, her nose turning up slightly as her violet eyes gave him a once over in a sorta sexy way. He had come to know it as Awoken pride, and it annoyed him to no visible end. She said shove harder, but it left the Hunter wondering if she knew how many Vex there were on Venus alone – and that was discounting the fact that they could warp from planet to planet in less than a second. He'd learned quite a few things about Vex when working for the Vanguard, and it all summed up to 'They're scary motherfuckers', though many were capable of putting it a spot more gracefully than he did. "This camp is our home, Colt. I refuse to roll over and let it be destroyed because I decided to run again. I will fight, and we'll kill them all if we have to."
"But- come now, don't jump the gun Ave," he said, trying to calm her down. She almost sounded excited at the prospect of fighting the Vex, and while he knew it was likely the opposite it scared him all the same – she was gonna run her people into the ground if she didn't start thinkin' straight. He stepped closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "You ain't thinking this through much-"
She silenced him with a wave of her hand, a single finger coming up to press against his mouth and effectively shutting him up. She didn't seem angry with him anymore, but he also didn't think she was about to ask him to go get drinks. "Peace, Colt," she said after he made it clear he wasn't going to talk. Her other hand came up, and she rested it gently on the metal hand that he had wrapped around her shoulder. Slowly his grip loosened at the warm touch, and she moved it off of her shoulder. She smiled at him the sort of smile that made his legs feel weird and soft and made his head race. If he had a heart it might've jumped a little bit, but instead all he could do was hold his breath to silence the gasp that almost escaped between his lips. Shit was makin' him soft and stuff. "I have heard your council. I trust you – you know I trust you. Trust me now, yeah?"
He had frozen up, and for a couple of silent seconds he thought something had shorted out and caused his limbs to lock up – but as she removed his finger and he found he could move again, he just let out an airy chuckle and gave her a soft nod of acknowledgement.
"You've always had quite a way with words, Ave," he breathed, though still a bit sadly as he stepped away from her to give her some space. She continued to smile at him, and for one awful moment he could see her dead, just as she was in Deep Stone Crypt. Things would be different in real life, he knew, but what about the big bad outcome? Could they fight off an army of Vex with just a couple of guns and a girl that can see nothing but could see everything? God he hoped so, 'cause it was all in right about now. If they lost, they lost everything. "You can talk circles around me any day. Just make sure they don't get us all killed, ya hear?"
"I'd sooner die than put Emmil in danger, and you know this. It will work out," she said, and he knew it true. For all her pride, he knew she'd throw it all away in a second to keep her kid safe. This wasn't just about pride for her – it was sounding like more of that Tomorrow shit. But she was right; this was their home, and when every instinct in the musty husk of metal he called a body told him to run, he thought he would stay. He'd been the only scout t' get clear of the Vault of Glass out of five, and they'd nothing to show for it but information on what the inside looked like. He'd seen the metal monsters at their strongest time and time again, but if they wouldn't run he couldn't run. If he ran alone, even when he kept his life he'd still lose everything. Emmil, Ave, his home and his friends. Nina would die and he'd have no one to play cards with.
"Right." He sighed and sat back down on his stool. This time it felt like his body actually was locking up, and he didn't think it had anything to do with the Awoken Warlock anymore. He was just old and tired and grumpy and rusty and a buncha other shit he couldn't bother to recite. Maybe he sighed a little too loudly, because she came over to stand beside him, checking him over, but when she reached for his arm he waved her off. "'M fine, just need a second. I'll be right as rain in a hot minute."
"You're falling apart," she told him without any mincing of words, and despite his protests she examined his arm. The flexible grey plates were dashed with spots of faded brown paint, and in some areas he could even see the wires and superconductors and other chunks of Golden Age tech that ran beneath the surface. All corroded and rusted – surprised him that it still worked at all. "I need you ready to fight when they come, Colt," she said, lifting his arm by the bicep and letting it fall. "Go talk to Diesel when you are done here." She chuckled as he rolled his optics – it was a rarer sound from her than it was from her daughter, and had become rarer as the years went by. Times were tougher than ever before. "You're not as old as you pretend," she paused, looking him in the eye knowingly, "you just don't look after yourself."
"... Emmil told ya about the smoking, huh?" he grunted, somewhat resigned as he became all too aware of the musty box of hand-rolled stogies in his back pocket. He'd made 'em himself a month ago, and it was already almost empty. Tobacco was gettin' tougher to come by now a days. Tower stopped stocking on it some time back – something about the smoke being dangerous or some shit, like they weren't already living in a world where every day could be their last. With the jig up, he pulled the packet out and flicked another stick out the top. He grabbed it with his teeth. "Just when ya think you know a gal."
"She's just worried," Aveline assured him as she turned to leave, apparently not thinkin' his company to be worth the smoke that would soon fill the air. Couldn't blame her – he'd seen what they could do to non-Exo. Nasty stuff – be a damn shame if it happened to her. She glanced over her shoulder at him, watching him as he pulled out a lighter. "I am too."
He paused as she left, the flame of his lighter flickering in the slight draft that blew through the room from the open door. In the silence, all he had were his thoughts and the plunkety plunk of water dripping into buckets. His mouth was frowning around the unlit cigar as he stared after her.
He flicked the light closed, returning to working on his bike and deciding he didn't really need another.
Not yet.
.end
Continue? Y/N