Intro.
A new place in time.
She hated Vex tech.
She hated it with a passion!
One minute she was out solo patrolling when suddenly the ground under her feet opened up and she got swallowed up by some Traveller damned portal and flung to who knows where and now she was hunkered down, low on all ammo, armour broken and cracked and utterly useless against who knew how many Vex she was now surrounded by.
"Bing, ideas?" She asked ducking down as a shot blasted past her shoulders. "Fuck!"
"Um... Don't die?" The small silver Ghost suggested through the coms, currently hiding in her helmet. "Because I have no idea where we are or where is safe to revive you again."
"Not helping!" She yelped over the gun shots.
"Sorry." Bing apologized.
She growled, realizing what was left of her hiding place would soon be destroyed, leaving her with no shelter and likely meaning she died. "I need a new hiding place!" She told her Ghost, "Now!"
"I'm looking Rose, I'm looking." her Ghost assured then gave a light 'bing' sound. "We can go up!" Bing said marking a higher ledge. "Jump for it!"
"Bing, I can't jump that high!" She yelled then yelped and hit the ground to try and avoid another shot. "Call for help! Someone has to be nearby that can help us!"
"I'm trying." Bing said trying desperately get off a distress signal as he tried to find another way out of this mess they were in. "Look out!"
"Oh shit." Rose cursed again and dived out of the shattered remains of her shelter and rolled, hoping that by whatever luck she'd had so far she could survive just that little longer... And then she saw the three large cannons aimed at her from behind the countless smaller targets she'd been shooting.
"Ok... plan R." She said and took a deep breath.
"What's plan R?" Bing asked.
"I call it, RUN AWAY!" She yelled took off running down the first corridor she saw ducking and jumping to avoid what gun shots she could. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!"
"Someone?! Anyone!? We need help! Please! Hurry!" Bing's signal finally got through and pinged off every frequency he could get on to as he and Rose made a mad dash for freedom... or death...
"Stop!" Bing yelled in warning suddenly, seeing something Rose had not.
"Whoa!" Rose yelled and skidded to a halt at the edge of a long dark drop off, letting Bing out knowing he could at least fly and make his way down to her if this ended badly.
"Rose!?" Bing cried trying to help by pushing his small shell against her chest.
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" She yelled using her arms to try and somehow keep herself from falling off the edge and with a little help from Bing, she managed to get back from the edge only to look back and find she had nowhere to go.
"Now what?" Bing asked.
Rose opened her mouth to speak but the words came out as a yelp as a shot skimmed her shoulder and she ducked behind a wall, pulling Bing with her. She checked her weapons and found she had one rocket, one grenade, two bullets in her sniper rifle and two clips worth in her scout rifle. "Oh come on!"
He sighed as his team made their way through the many passages of the Vault of Glass, searching trying very hard not to get involved in yet another fight the two were having.
"I am telling you we need to go back and take a left." The Warlock stated, her usually calm was filled with annoyance and anger.
"And I am telling you we are going the right way and we just have to keep going." The Titan assured, "We just have to go… um…"
"We're lost." The Warlock stated.
"We are not lost!" the Titan growled and spotted the portal ahead of them, "See that's the way in."
He sighed and reminded himself why they were here, in the Vault of Glass, going around in near darkness since only his Ghost was with them, searching for some sort of Vex gate yadda-yadda, something about death and destruction yadda-yadda...
He sighed again and with a slight wince, focused on the Arc energy that was building up in his arms, feeling the Void energy in his chest tighten in a possessive way. It was a painful reminder that he was a Nightstalker but it helped him ignore the bickering back and forth between his Fireteam members as he waited for his light to build up enough to ease the pain from the Void's squeezing on his chest.
They began shouting at each other about which way to go when suddenly he heard shots over the shouts.
"You know, Vex slap rifles fix 100% of marital problems." He said with a smirk, Thorn at the ready.
"Oh shut the fuck up Vlad! Besides if we were married I'd be way less pissed!" the Warlock of his Fireteam snarled, the lights on her helmet seeming to flare in response to her anger.
"Thanks, thanks for that babe." The Titan stated and though his face was hidden under his helmet the Hunter knew he was red faced with embarrassment and moments later, the two were bickering more and more before they realized they could also hear gun fire.
"Oh shit, Slap rifle fire." The Warlock yelled.
"Gee, imagine that?" He looked to his ghost. "Any data yet, Sovereign?"
His ghost shook itself in a no fashion, continuing to try and scan for anything that was helpful. "Nothing yet Vladamir. The Vex have the firewall pretty well fortified, doing what I can." He said in a deep voice as Vladamir-66 leapt down, sparks could be heard from behind the stone block as he burst from behind it, dragging his lightning knife along the ground, sending a wave of destruction and electricity along the path, frying some of the smaller units.
The Minotaur Vex turned as they realized their shields had taken damage and began to fire void plasma at the Exo. Another two waves and his super ended.
Leaping behind another block, Vlad drew his sword, the Void Edge, he'd bathed it in the blood of a thousand enemies and rather than the normal purplish glow it once gave off from the stone at the hilt the sword now giving off a darker eerie glow. "Hey! Are you two coming down or not? Got three Minotaur Ultras down here!"
"No response, too much static from whatever it is they keep down here." Sovereign sighed. "You're going to wing it, ain't you?"
"Always do."
"Hey the big ones aren't shooting us anymore!" Bing said ducking for cover with his Guardian after noticed the larger Vex had fallen. "We got help Rose!"
"Pray they have better ammo then me!" Rose yelled and opened fire with her primary rifle, aiming for the shiny plating that seemed to be the only weak spot on these Vex, only to find her bullets did very little is any damage. "Fuck!" She screamed in frustration.
"What about your Super?" Bing asked. "Can't you use that?"
"Not enough energy yet..." She admitted and pulled the pin in her grenade and tossed it, "Fire in the hole!" she yelled in warning hoping whoever was helping her now was at least smart enough to duck.
Vlad burst from the block, cleaving the Minotaurs in two with a spinning slash of void energy, smirking as he popped his smoke grenade and switched to Thorn, popping each of the little Goblin's once, the burning damage from his bullets melting away the machines from the inside out.
His team mates landed behind him, the Warlock giving a slight huff before seeing the damage around them already done before they heard the warning call and ducked watching the smoke settle and realized a good half of the Goblin Vex were focused on someone else entirely at the end of the hallway. "Sovereign."
"Scanning." The Ghost stated his outer shell twisting slightly. "Another Guardian, a Hunter right at the back, behind the wall. And she's hurt bad."
Vlad went silent as he spotted the Hunter, a female armour broken, cracked and missing fragments that he could now see littered around the room. "Umm... she isn't supposed to be here... is she?" he heard the Titan of his team ask.
"Here goes nothing..." Rose growled and reloaded her rifle and then aimed, feeling something take over and this time her shots did more damage, taking down the Vex she hit with ease, for all of ten seconds before the super burned out and she was left exposed and slightly drained. "And I'm fucked..."
Bing spotted the fire team and almost blew a fuse. "A whole fire team, we're in luck Rose!" he said then yelped as Rose was hit hard in the chest again, breaking through the plating. "Rose?!"
"Fuck! Shit that hurt!" She hissed and staggered back behind her little wall for some protection. "Leave me alone! I'm only a little girl!" She yelled at the Vex, taking short burst of fire at them.
"Umm, that would be a no, she's WAY to low on the scale to be in here." Sovereign stated. "Heck her Ghost isn't even out of its first shell yet... How did she get here?"
"What the hell? Why is she here? Who is she? How the hell does a new recruit get this deep into the Vault of Glass?" the Warlock demanded unloading several bullets deep into the juice boxes of the Vex that were now focusing on them.
"I'm not even positive we are in the vault any more... I think this is some sort of pocket dimension the Speaker was worried about- Whao!" the Titan said then ducked under a shot. "Hey! I'm talking here!"
"Less talking more killing." Vlad said looking at the Hunter at the end of the hall, her armour was weak and her guns would barely scratch a Knight, much less Minotaurs. "Lucky it wasn't a Cabal threat," he said and looked over at Sovereign. "Go heal her, mend her Armor while you are at it, looks like it's her Ghost's first time in this kind of situation."
His ghost nodded and went to Bing and Rose. "Let's take a look, shall we?" he said kindly.
Bing turned a complete circle as if to show he was unharmed, "I'm fine, Rose is the one to worry about." He said, "And I don't suppose you could tell us where the heck we are? Last I checked Venus's Patrols didn't bring you to a dark deep pit full of Vex." He asked as the new Ghost covered Rose in a soft blueish light, healing the injuries and mending the broken armour.
"They don't Bing..." Rose winced, "Fuck... this hurts... a lot..." She hissed trying to stop the pain to her chest. "I really wish I had better armour..." she said right before a very loud and very ominous sound suddenly echoed around the darkness. "That... Does not sound good." She said daring to peek out from her hiding place.
"Vlad! Did you jinx us again?!" Sovereign yelled back as some kind of portal several more Minotaurs stepped out and instantly opened fire. "You did! You damn fool!"
Vlad yelped this time and hid behind the wall. "Damnit!"
The Titan with them smirked and began to start glowing and burning the air around him. "Welp, now everything dies." He burst into flames and dove out of the cover, flinging his hammer over and over, the blazing Sol returning over and over again. Each explosion bigger than the last.
Bing very quickly ducked behind cover from the flaming Titan's attacks. "Wow... he's good." he said watching the Sol Hammer hit over and over again, until there was very little left to kill, safe the small Vex dotted about.
"Thank you." Rose managed to say as Sovereign finished healing and fixing her armour and she was able to stand up again.
"So... umm... how do we get out of here?" Bing asked.
Vlad looked around before spotting something in the back of the room. "Well, There's a Vex gate over there, it could lead home, or at least, back to the vault and then home."
Sovereign looked up as he finished. "Or it could lead to a different galaxy or even a different TIME." He stated, "You know what the Vex portals are like."
"I think that one is safe... We fell in here from way up in the air, higher than the ground that's for sure... The fall was rather... Disorientating." Bing admitted.
"'Disorientating' he says," Rose half chuckled, "We landed upside down and back to front." she reminded, "And then everything started shooting at us."
"Hey, I couldn't help that, the floor just swallowed us..." Bing said. "And... well, then we ended up in here... that was... rather... well..." he started pausing as he tried to find words.
"So... what now?" Rose asked, "We climb out and go the way you guys came in or just stand here and wait for more Vex?"
The Titan looked like he was about to talk only to be cut off by the Warlock. "You both killed everything! Why do you even bring me along if you two can solo these runs with blindfolds on!?"
"Hey it's not my fault! They were shooting at us and we had no shields." He said.
"Oh fuck you, Orion! You would have a shield if you had Wrex." She snarled.
"Arielle, I don't need that floating junk box." The Titan, Orion stated. "He's too slow for this kind of mission."
"He wouldn't be if you got him virus checked and got him a new shell." The Warlock snapped.
Sovereign sighed. "And the arguments begin anew."
Vlad shook his head and ignored the rant, letting the two lovers bicker as he looked around. "Well, the way we came is a long, long climb. We might die that way, going through the gate could be the best solution. And worst case we just turn around and go back to the vault the way we came."
"What's the vault?" Rose asked. "And... where are we?" she added, "I mean I guess we are on Venus still but... Where?"
"I'm not sure I've ever heard of a Vault or this kind of place." Bing admitted with a confused beep as he scanned the area.
Rose looked at the two arguing guardians. "Are they always like that?" She asked.
Vlad chuckled and nodded. "Every damn day. Name's Vladimir-66 by the way," he introduced, "The Ghosts with the sarcastic humour is Sovereign." He added then turned to his team mates. "Hey! Knock it off and make yourselves useful, you're making a bad example for the recruit here!"
"Oh Sorry." Orion said. "Name's Orion," he introduced.
"Arielle." The Warlock added, "And who are you?"
"Rose, this is Bing." The hunter said nodding to her Ghost as he scanned everything again.
"How long have you been a Guardian Rose? Your light is so dull I can barely see it." Arielle said.
"Um, six weeks I think." Rose said looking at Bing. "How long?"
"Six weeks, two days, nine hours and ten minutes." Bing affirmed. "Where are we?" he asked again.
The three looked over Rose, she was in a mismatch of armour, some parts too big or just that bit too small and her cloak looked like it had been through the worst treatment before being handed to her, it was more a scarf then a cloak.
"Well, that's a hell of a run," Vlad said, breaking the silence before it got awkward, "six weeks in and you find something the Speaker himself was worried about. Not bad. Even if it was an accident the fact that you stayed alive is amazing."
Sovereign looked over at the smaller Ghost. "The Vault of Glass. It's some sort of Vex temple, very dangerous."
"Is anything the Vex have not dangerous?" Rose asked. "I mean come on, they jump around the time line like a bunch of nut jobs from a TV show, messing with who knows what. And they broke my rifle." She sighed, looking at the dents in her weapon. "Master Rahool is going to go through the roof when he sees this."
Bing gave a sad sounding whistle. "Maybe you can get a new one from Petra?"
"After this I may not have a chance to ask." Rose sighed. "Cayde's gonna throw a fit with me for getting lost. Again." She added.
Vlad chuckled. "I highly doubt that, he's not one to shy away from oddities and complications like the commander." He stated, hoping to lighten the mood.
Rose went stiff and then shook her head. "On second thought I think we'll just stay where with the murderous robots. Zavala's already in a bad mood with us for leaving as it is."
"He is the Commander, As soon as J-Cey and Ace turn up without us he'll want answers." Bing said though he too was shaking a little, "He might not see us if we hide behind Ikora when we come back though.."
The fire team shared an odd look, "Are we talking about the same Zavala?" Orion asked.
"Commander Zavala, stands at the head of the table, gives orders, glares at everyone and has a nasty temper?" Rose asked then sighed. "I guess we have to go back anyway… by now the others have moved on without me. Can you find the ship?" she added looking at Bing.
"Um... no." Bing said and then hid behind a rock.
"You lost the ship?! After all that damn work I did to get it you've lost it?" She asked in shock. Can today get any worse? lost my ship, got eaten by the planet, shot at by Vex and now I have to go back to the Tower and get yelled at by everyone for it."
"It's still there I just can't get it to follow orders..." Bing said. "I don't think we are in range of anyone we know anymore." he added scanning his frequencies. "I can't find anyone on our comm frequency..."
"So... Wait that Vex portal that swallow us just spat us out into a different place?" Rose asked.
"I'm not sure. But it seems that way." Bing said.
Sovereign chuckled and nodded. "Yep, you've never been to the Vex ruins have you, Bing was it?"
The smaller Ghost nodded. "So far, we've been to Earth and the Moon, this is our first trip to Venus not taking orders from someone and without that strange Exo lady who called me a Little Light."
Rose chuckled. "You just didn't like the way she pushed you to one side, Little Light." She said.
"Stop calling me that and she was rude." Bing said.
"You like her." Rose smiled. "And really she didn't hurt you." She added.
"She was still rude." Bing said with a slight humph, making Rose chuckle and gently push him in a circle with her finger tip. "Hey!"
"Hush up and keep trying to get the ship to listen to you and don't dent it. Holiday is scary when she's pissed." Rose smiled and Bing bounced in a nod and vanished into her helm.
Vlad smirked and pointed to the gate they had been looking at "This one leads out."
"How do you figure?" Asked Orion.
"Why else would you have so many troops so near a door? This was some sort of staging area... all of those Vex were top of the line."
"So… are we leaving?" Rose asked.
"Sure and once we get out, you can ride with me back to the Tower, my ship is bigger. Once we get there, maybe we can figure out what to do." Arielle smiled, "Besides it will give Vakarian a chance to try and help your Ghost find your ship."
"Thanks." Rose smiled.
"Come on then." Vlad said and after Sovereign had taken a quick scan of the Vex they had killed for later use if needed, the four left the dark pit like room.
"Odd." The blue and tan Ghost said after a long silent pause.
"What's odd, Vakarian?" Arielle asked quietly, Rose having fallen asleep in the co-pilot seat of her ship, Bing quietly bobbing up and down over her chest lightly in a mimic of sleeping.
"According to my readings the ship Bing gave me the codes for is already at the Tower… Though I don't think he'd like me to tell him it's gotten some damage." Vakarian stated, a hint of excited mirth in his tone, "And by my calibrations, Wrex is well overdue for a good virus scan and a new shell the one he has now is outdated."
"I know, but we both know Orion won't do it, he hates that Wrex messed up once."
"Well, it wasn't really his fault." Vakarian said. "Orion has stuffed the poor fellow with all his data reports and then forgotten to remove them to make space for better storage programs and new fire walls." He added.
"And that is why we," she pointed at the Ghost and herself, "take care of Wrex and Orion sulks in his ship." Arielle smiled.
"You still mad at him?" Vakarian asked.
"He cost me a bounty." Arielle reminded. "Not to mention he thinks I can't take care of myself sometimes. Men."
"True, but you haven't spoken to him, let alone seen him in over a month until today. Forgive me if I'm wrong but by my count, that means you have less chance of getting that ring you want." He said then ducked as Arielle half-heartedly slapped his outer shell and made him spin slightly.
"Shut. Up." She stated. Her yellow eyes softened, "Besides, I've about given up on that. It's not all that important right now."
Vakarian's shell rotated a few times, "Sorry, bad joke."
Arielle nodded silently at him and the Ghost understood that he was forgiven.
"Wake up time." Bing stated as a small pinging sound came from his shell. "I feel lighter." He said giving his shell a slight spin in a sort of stretch. "Rose?" he asked then ducked as Rose attempted to shoo him off in her sleep. "Hey," he complained lightly as he was sent into a small spin.
"Five more minutes." Rose muttered only half aware that she'd made her Ghost slightly dizzy.
"She's really tired." Arielle noted, concern clear in her eyes and soft tone, "When was the last time she slept?" she asked.
"Rose doesn't usually sleep very long. At least she hasn't since I found her." Bing admitted. "She's… Well, she's not use to the whole being alive again just yet."
"What do you mean?" Arielle asked.
"When I found her she was a little unsteady, that is to say it took me an hour to get her back on her feet and moving. We got to the tower and after talking to Cayde-6, going back to fight the Fallen and then going to Holiday to fix up her ship and then talk to the Speaker, we just never seemed to have the time to rest and we haven't had the nicest time on the Tower either, other Guardians aren't so kind to us since we are a minority there."
"As Hunters?" Vakarian asked.
"Yes. Cayde says it's because most of the Hunters are already out in the wilds doing what Hunters do, there are only a handful on the Tower still trying to get their light up to more stable level before they leave for good…" Bing explained. "The Commander is always trying to get Hunters to do patrols his Titans won't do while Cayde's not looking, and his Ghost isn't very nice to me."
"What about Ikora?" Arielle asked, clearly interested in what the new Ghost thought of her boss and mentor.
"Oh she's always nice to us." Bing seemed to beam with joy at the mention of the Warlock Vanguard. "She always says please, never demands we do anything and she never tells us we have to go somewhere to do this or that, she always asks if we can spare the time to go and try find something for her or the Warlocks." He added, happily bobbing up and down. "And her Ghost is always nice, she taught me how to scan whole buildings without being inside them, but it takes time so we don't do that much."
"You keeping going up and down like that and someone will think you are a target." Rose smiled as she woke, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned, even though she still had her helmet on.
"Will not." Bing stated. "Will I?" he asked Vakarian.
"You two get along like siblings." Arielle chuckled, "So, how'd you sleep?"
"Ok I guess. Still not use to the whole revived from the dead thing. Sometimes I scare myself when I wake up because I'm not where I remember I should be." Rose admitted. "Did it take you long to get over it?" She asked.
The Awoken Warlock paused for a moment before replying, "In a way it did. Vakarian woke me on the Moon-trust me you don't know fear until you've woken surrounded by Thrall prepared to devour you. I'm pretty sure before he found me, they were chewing on my toes." She shuddered, "After that it was shoot everything and run as fast as you can. I didn't get a moment to rest until Vakarian got me to the ship and I was flying through space."
"Lucky he found you." Bing said shaking his shell.
Arielle shrugged, "Turns out that by the point of my arrival on the Tower, there were so few of us, no Guardian really got a chance to relax and adjust. The adrenaline helped, having something to focus on helped. I didn't get my first real chance to rest until after we'd beaten the Vex in the Black Garden. After that I went to the Reef and-" Arielle stopped and then shook her head, "Well, after some time, a lot of time of the Reef, I left to return to the Tower and found out that the Hive were trying to poison the Traveler."
"How were they doing that?" Rose asked.
"We don't know how they got it, but their Wizards had a way to poison that sliver of the Traveler. They were weakening him through their ceremony." Vakarian explained.
Arielle nodded, glad Rose hadn't asked about the Reef. "They were killing the Traveler slowly, but Vlad, Orion and I went in there and stopped it. Another fireteam made sure to get the sliver out safely and the Traveler has been healing ever since." She offered Rose a half-smile, "that was our first mission together as a fire team, we've been working together ever since. Vex, Hive, Fallen, and Cabal, you name it and we've killed it." She grinned, "I make us sound like some kind of pest removal service." Her smile faltered, "Eris says something else is coming, everyone's been on edge. Even carefree Cayde seems on edge."
"How can you tell?" Bing asked curiously.
"He's been pranking Eris less." Vakarian remarked. "And Zavala snaps at everyone more. He needs to go shoot something. That always makes Ari feel better." The blue and tan Ghost whispered that last part to Bing but Rose still caught it.
The Warlock sighed, "When the Speaker sent us to investigate the Vault of Glass again, I thought the fear had gotten to him, but then we found you and now I'm not so sure."
"I doubt the Vex meant to drag me around their portals… And they were rather determined to kill me when they saw me 'drop in'." Rose said.
"I hate to tell you this, Rose, but the Vex try to kill everyone." Vakarian remarked dryly.
"Rose look! Look!" Bing suddenly cried in a mix of shock and awe. "The Traveler and the Tower they're fixed! and the City too! Look Rose!"
"What do you mean fixed? they were never broken..." Arielle said as she and Vakarian shared curious look.
"Never? you mean the Devil's didn't break through the walls ten years ago?" Rose asked. "The City's still safe? the Queen is still safe? The Reef is still there?"
"I think," Arielle said, "We better save this talk for when we are with the Vanguard."
"Why?" Bing asked.
"Because if what you say is true, then your fall through a Vex portal didn't bring you to a different place." Vakarian said, "It brought you to a new time entirely."