A/N: (Extremely Important) Hey Guys, my first story on here, but don't bother with being nice, review and give me your honest thoughts and feelings, just don't leave pointless hate. Every Chapter, I will be placing a Codex entry at the bottom. Please, please, please review and tell me what you look for in a fantasy novel or fanfiction, what's your preference, this is for my Extended Project Qualification (EPQ.)
But before we get to the chapter, let me first get all the legal mumbo-jumbo out of the way. *Inhales deeply* I, in no way, shape or form own, in any capacity, the game destiny, which belongs to it's creators, Bungie. All names are either coincidental or just used for quick laughs for the duration of the story, I am making no profit in this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended. This is applied to the entire story. *Pants, gasps, wheezes.*
And Now, without further Ado, the first chapter!
In the dark of the night, everything was silent. There was no wind to softly rustle the long grass, no birds in the naked trees singing their beautiful song. The Dreg lookout didn't care about any of this. Beauty had no place in the mind of the Fallen. The nameless Dreg stood hunched, beady eyes watching the horizon for any sign of the coming morning. His brothers in arms were asleep, their bodies regaining the energy they would need to assault the Scum, he doubted the Captain would still be awake at this time.
A small glare caught his eye. He turned towards it. Out in the field of yellow and brown, was a light, from seemingly nowhere.
-P.O.V change. Un-named Hunter-
I knelt quietly, biding my time until my squad was in position. A soft beeping in my ear told me they were. Looking down the sight of my favoured rifle I appreciately named 'Jessy', I sighted on the unfortunate Dreg that would soon see the rising sun. He looked my way, obviously seeing the moon's reflection in my scope. With a quick intake of breath, I stabilized the rifle, let out the captured air, and pulled the trigger. The bullet shot from the muzzle at speeds defying the three thousand feet per second generated from chemical weaponry. The silencer I had placed on my gun worked perfectly, as what would have been an enormous roar was muffled to nothing more than a polite cough.
The Dreg fell, just as a mountain of armour sped across the short distance separating them, and caught the falling corpse before it impacted the ground. The hulking mass of black truly deserved the class of Titan.
Now that the lookouts had been dealt with, a second figure rose from the dense grass. This was our Warlock, our magic practitioner. The three of us regrouped around the cooling body, careful not to wake the others with our movements.
"All hostile sentries eliminated, move up to the main camp." I whispered, my voice barely sounding electronic through the comms. As one, we moved up to the camp. "Titan, go towards the centre, place explosives at twelve feet intervals, Warlock, same for you on the right. I've got the left flank. If you encounter any hostiles that remain awake, execute quietly, same goes for anything Captain rank or above. Also, if you see anything explosive, strap a bomb onto it."
I received two green notification dots on my H.U.D, telling me that my orders were understood. We split up, our Titan, Prometheus, stalked towards the centre, his silent footsteps at odds with his frame. Our Warlock went right, the natural grace of Sha'ria was the only sign that she was an Awoken. I, the Hunter of our simple group, stalked left, my electronic joints making no noise as they moved.
-Ten Minutes Later-
We regrouped at the pre-arranged point, all our explosive charges were used in the trapping of the camp, so too were our grenades. The Titan had found the Captain, and quietly slit his throat. Other than that, the plan went perfectly.
"I hope everyone is recording, cause this is going to be a big boom." I said, as I thumbed the detonator lid up.
"Seems a bit overkill doesn't it?" Sha'ria questioned, much to the enjoyment of Prometheus.
"Of course not! There's no such thing as 'Overkill.' He remarked, emphasising the word. "This would come under the category of 'Just-enough-kill.' He joked.
"Detonation in Three. Two. One." I counted down, at the final number, I slammed my thumb down onto the big red button. No sooner had I done so, the Fallen camp was disintegrated, replaced entirely with a beautiful yellow explosion, only just before we heard the deafening Boom of it. We were blasted back by the shockwave a good foot.
"Uhg. Okay, I will freely admit, that no matter how awesome it was, that it was just a little bit overkill." Prometheus said, earning a chuckle from the squad.
"Why would you say that? We only got blasted back a foot, you've been thrown further than that before." I said, remembering the time he had charged a Hive Knight. He had to buy a new chestplate afterwards.
"True, but never by an explosion." He replied, finally standing up.
"Little Light, bring in out ships, just look for the big crater." Sha'ria ordered her Ghost, who was tracking our position from our ship currently in orbit.
"Of course Guardian." The reply sounded over the radio.
I looked towards the camp, the earth was scorched and indeed cratered, the smoke plume rising towards space, and the newly rising sun struggled to force it's way through. It seems that even when the Fallen are dead, the light still cannot pierce the veil they had put up.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" I said, gesturing over to the spectacle.
The Titan walked up to me. "Someone should take a picture." He said in his deep, gravelly voice.
"HEY! If you two want to stay here, go ahead, but I'm going back to the tower and decrypt some of those engrams they had lying around." The female shouted from her ship's cockpit. Me and Prometheus didn't even hear the three ships land, speaks volumes for the stealth drive we put in it.
-Tower, Hunter P.O.V-
"I want to thank you for dealing with the attacking force, you've bought Terrium some more time. I'll be sure to send more patrols over the region. We don't want the outpost to fall to the Darkness." The speaker said, his voice completely emotionless.
I nodded my head in appreciation. "My pleasure Speaker, however, if there is no issues that require immediate attention, me and my squad will be taking some leave." In truth, the squad was already on leave, I was only here as a formality.
This was not the first mission the squad had been assigned, we had more than seven mission before this one. Since all three of us had been placed on the first mission, just a simple recon, we were fast friends. All of of us were in the armed forces before we died, and were subsequently resurrected byout Ghosts. Over the next missions, we began making a name for ourselves. The civilians knew that Guardians fought and gave their lives so that they could remain safe, as such, the Guardians were borderline worshiped by the people of the City. No Guardian would ever accept it though.
"Of course." The Speaker said, interrupting my thoughts. "I'm sure that the Devils will need some rest, but if you could see to it that you return to me in a few days time, I might have a new mission for all of you." He said, reminding me of what the others called my squad.
The Devils.
This was not out of spite, just simple banter between allies. They had seen us fight entire bases of Fallen and Hive, and we would always survive. No one else did. Prometheus and Sha'ria kept telling people that it was just because of planning, numbers, and luck. We always attacked during the dead of night, when everybody ought to be asleep, giving us chance to collect any data, perform scans or take out half of the encampment quickly and quietly. Prometheus would be our tank, taking and dealing large amounts of damage, while Sha'ria would run support, throwing out a shield for a fallback position while I gave sniper cover or troop movements.
"As you wish Speaker. We will return in three days time. If anything more pressing shows up, please contact one of us via our Ghosts." I said, as I turned to leave, my cloak flourishing as I turned.
While I was walking out from the Speakers room, I felt a presence, not malevolent, not benevolent either. It confused me, but I simply dismissed it as fatigue, and continued on my way to the weapon vanguard.
-P.O.V change, Sha'ria-
I downed my drink, and slammed the empty glass back down on the counter. "Look, all I'm saying is that he's been gone for a while. A debrief never takes this long."
Prometheus just shook his head. "He's probably just changing clothes or buying a new cloak. You know what Hunters are like." He said with a dismissive wave of his free hand, his other softly cradling his beer.
"He wouldn't buy another cloak. He loves the one he's got now too much, don't know what he likes about it, it's just black and yellow."
"Bright colours are natures way way of saying: 'I'm dangerous.' Hunter's like a lot of Mother natures ideas." Prometheus said, taking a long gulp of his favoured drink. "Hunters like all that stealth and Mother nature stuff."
"He's right, you know?" A voice said behind me suddenly, but it was a voice I knew well.
"One day, all I'm asking for is one day when you don't sneak up on me. Is that too much to ask?" I said as I turned round to face Septus. His black and yellow cloak went to his knees, while his hood hung around his shoulders, trusty sniper rifle in easy reach, and six shot hand cannon strapped to his left leg.
He simply smiled. "And miss you reactions? I don't think anything short of death would stop me, and even then I'm unsure it would be permanent."
I just sighed. "Shut up, and grab a drink. Tell us what our glorious Speaker has for us next." I pointed towards the empty chair to my right.
"Bar's packed today isn't it?" Septus asked. I looked around. It was true, Awoken, Humans and Exos crowded the bar, most sitting down on the metal chairs, while others were standing in corners. The music, a soft techno beat sounded in the background.
"I guess, but the beers good. Why bring it up?" Prometheus asked as he signalled for another round to the waiter-bot.
"We've got a few days leave, I was planning on coming here again if it wasn't as busy as this."
Both me and Prometheus stared at the Exo as our drinks were brought to our table.
"Oh, thank you." Septus said to the waiter.
"We've never had leave before, why now?" I asked, genuinely curious as to why we were only getting some down time now.
"Nothing urgent needs seeing to, so the Speaker gave us leave until Thursday. So we got two days of leave, and nothing to do. Might go on Patrol in the cosmodrome."
"Eh, why not? I'll be included I hope?" Prometheus said, surprising no-one. He never backed down from a fight.
"Well, I'm coming, even if you don't want me to. Devils travel together." I said, punching the robot in the arm jokingly.
"The, I'll see you two tomorrow. See if we can't steal some kills from new Guardians. They always get so mad." Septus laughed as he chugged his drink down, placed a small pile of glimmer on the table, and walked from the table, no doubt going to get his armour sorted out.
CODEX:
Exo: Exo's can drink certain fluids to help with lubrication of their joints, to make them feel more human, or can drink water to power miniature generators, which boils the water in a heatproof basin, which separates the Hydrogen molecules for the small Fusion reactor that provide them with 97% of their total energy output. The oxygen is displaced through the nostrils.
Glimmer: Glimmer in the currency in the Tower, used for most transactions, it can be found from the bodies of Fallen, Hive, Vex, or Cables. The Ghost mines the material from the armour of the dead, while upgrades can be installed into the Ghost for better yield, but only work for a limited time before they are drained. Ether Seeds can be installed to gain a better Yield from the Fallen, Blue Polyphage for the Vex, Resupply codes for Cables and a Black Wax Idol to draw the glimmer out of the Hive.
Terrium: Terrium is an outpost on Earth, located in Russia, fifty miles west of the Cosmodrome. This outpost houses two thousand soldiers, similar to those present in the Golden Era, but with current generation weapons. This outpost is also home to the families of the soldiers, bringing the total population up to two thousand soldiers, one thousand four hundred and seventy women, and seven hundred children. The outpost was created in hopes of improving morale in the City, to show the inhabitants that Humanity (Exo's included since the Traveler gave them sentience) can build away from the safety of the traveler and protect itself. All inhabitants of Terrium are voluntary.