Chapter I – The Wolf of Mars
"It is the lone wolf, once cornered, who has the worst bite." – Taniks, the Scarred
The Dust Palace, Meridian Bay, Mars [June 5th, 2738]
Despite the Guardians' best efforts, Mars remained a desolate husk of the world that had launched humanity into the stars. The world where humanity had discovered the Traveller, a machine god of magic and technology, a being that had sparked a Golden Age of wonders.
As the dust settled, and as centuries rolled by, all that remained of mankind's presence were the corpses of once-towering skyscrapers that littered the horizon, half buried beneath the red Martian sands, their occupants long since rotted to ash. None remained to tell the tales of this place. The Collapse, an event of system-wide genocide at the hands of some ancient, unintelligible Darkness all those centuries ago had seen to that.
That was not to say that, after all that time, the planet remained lifeless. Oh no, since those dark days, the red planet had become a war zone befitting of the forgotten god to which the dead world owed its name.
Whether it was the Vex, a machine race as cold and as infinite as time itself; the Cabal, an imperial military force that could destroy suns, or the occasional band of Fallen, an alien race of pirates and scavengers, there was always something on Mars that wanted something else dead.
Unfortunately for the red planet's inhabitants, there were some things in the Solar System that did not enjoy such inhospitality. These were the Guardians, or Light-bearers, depending on whom you ask. Those among the long dead, chosen to Rise again to undo the wrongs done upon their kind and strike out once more against the Dark, and do that which the Traveller no longer could, as she gave her life in the Collapse's waning moments.
At least, that is what the Guardians were supposed to be. In reality, their numbers were few, only a few thousand strong - a number too few to carry out their burden, though not for a lack of trying.
Hundreds of feet above the surface of Mars, atop the summit of a half-buried skyscraper, at the cusp of a sweeping landing pad overlooking the wretched wastes, a Guardian stood. To be more precise, a Huntress stood. On any other day, she had stood searchingly, a cannon in her hand poised to erase whatever miserable excuse that happened upon her crosshairs. Today, however, she did none of that.
She was being hunted. By the very vermin she had been tasked to exterminate, no less, an unpleasant irony. This was the last time she did the Vanguard any favours.
Fallen. Even the word left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, like rotted ash, if such a thing existed.
Her stupor faltered as the Huntress spied an escape: an elevator shaft on the other side of the rooftop leading down into shadows of the facility's core. While the prospect of staying more a second longer in this Traveller-forsaken place than she had to, she'd take it over the Fallen any day, at least while her rifle lay in pieces a few floors down. The 'alien bastards' as the Huntress was so fond of calling them had ambushed her not moments ago.
The Huntress darted forward, her refuge in clear view just as a door to her right exploded. From the opening lurched a swarm of stocky, two-armed Dregs and taller, bulky Vandals alike.
She cursed, the sound muffled by her visored helm, as she ducked and slid under the ensuing firefight to the safety of decrepit shipping container, the bare pad's only respite from the hailstorm of baby-blue plasma and red-hot shrapnel. As more doors began to blast open, she protruded her head from her cover an inch, again finding the doorway to her shadowy salvation.
Lowering into a crouch, she planted one foot before the other like a sprinter at the starting block. Willing the Light into her stride, she then leapt. At a speed to rival eyelids, she wove her way beneath the gunfire, slowing only to shimmy through the narrow gap of the ancient elevator's old ajared doors as the shadows below beckoned for her.
Unfortunately, this lapse of momentum had been at her peril, as she had no sooner started her dive when a beam of deep blue, one much more potent than the rest, blazed its way to the small of her back. All elegance of her fall vanished as the impact sent her into a mad tumble. The Guardian cried out an indignant swear, her vision blurring in pain, only until the hard metal below rose to meet her head on.
Iron Temple, Felwinter Peak, Old Russia, Earth [January 13th, 2364]
One would have thought that the rocky bowels of a temple, carved from stone and steel, atop the snow-capped summit of a long forgotten mountain, deep within the broken remains of a dead world, would be a place of tranquillity, and consideration.
One would be wrong. In the amber light of a raging brazier, two women quarrelled in bitter tones.
The taller of two women, a tall woman clad in a flowing robe of lustrous golden cloth, stood with her arms folded across her chest, a look of complete ire staining her otherwise pretty complexion.
Her quarry was dressed almost oppositely. Decked head-to-toe in a suit of iron, leather, and fur, topped with the skinned head of a wolf that served as a hood over her visored helm, one may have mistaken her for a shield-maiden of old, ready to charge into battle at any moment.
The shorter woman shouted. "You're all mad, the lot of you!" Although her voice was higher, younger, than that of her aggressor, it rang true, regardless. "Of all people, I at least expected you to see reason, Skorri."
The robed woman, Skorri, gave an affronted look. "And what is that supposed to mean?" she snapped, patience more than running thin.
The masked woman gave a dry laugh as she spoke again. "For the last month and a half, we have done nothing but pour over every text, rumour, and ghost-story about this place..." Her voice echoed ever louder as emotion began to leak into it, "For a moment, let's say that maybe, just maybe, some of them, a fraction of them are right, how many…" she took a shaky breath through her rebreather as her voice began to break, "How many..." The woman turned away, looking sightlessly into the flames. "How many of us aren't going to walk away from it." She spoke the last part quietly, so quietly that Skorri was unsure whether she had heard it or not.
Skorri's heart shook, as all traces of anger were swept from her face. She took a hesitant step forward, before wrapping her arms around the cloaked woman in a close hug. "Oh, Fortuna..." she managed to mumble as her eyes filled with tears.
The woman in Skorri's arms turned in the embrace to look her partner in the eyes before resting her hooded head against her chest. The two women just stood there, bodies held close, as the fire beside them continued to blaze.
"I leave for the Traveller in the morning." Fortuna managed to croak as the two women pulled away. "Timur's idea," she added.
Skorri sighed. It was only natural that the old man would have something to do with this. "It'll be for the best," she whispered into her lover's ear while making a mental note to give Timur a firm kick in the rear the next time she saw him.
Fortuna said nothing, opting instead to pull herself away from the embrace, raising a hand to the side of her helmet. The front folded outwards, like a lotus coming into bloom, exposing her face. Even the waning firelight, it was more than apparent that the woman was certainly not human. Her head was composed entirely out of a gleaming, snow white metal. Her face, while not entirely dissimilar from a regular human's, it held its own distinctions. From her eyes that shone like torches, the dim blue light that shone from behind her jaw, or the small antennae that stuck out from her head like a set of ears, the Exo was certainly unique.
"I know," Fortuna replied after a while. With each syllable, the light in her jaw flashed, illuminating her partner's face for a brief moment. "At least I'll be with other… what has Radegast started calling us?" the mechanical Hunter inquired.
"Guardians," Skorri answered. "Much less poetic than 'Risen' if I'm being honest," she added with a smile. This earnt her a chuckle from the Exo.
"Well, when you get back," Fortuna walked forward, slinking her arms around the back of the taller woman's neck "We'll work on a new one."
The Dust Palace, Meridian Bay, Mars [June 5th, 2738]
Fortuna awoke slowly. The fall had been greater than she had anticipated; the elevator shaft stretched further down into the facility than she thought it could go. She knew the Martian sands had been enveloping the building over the course of the last few centuries, but she had no idea the extent of the damage.
She stood with intense difficulty; the spot where the Fallen had hit her had left a sore burn. She outstretched her hands, groping around in the darkness for a way out of the hole she had just landed herself. When no respite came, the woman kicked out against the wall, frustration building in her veins, sending an echoing clang up the shaft as the wall, which turned out to be a door, gave way into a dimly lit corridor.
Counting her blessings, the Huntress pressed on, determined to put as much distance between her and her aggressors, in case they came to investigate if their quarry had survived. The hallway was barren, holding nothing more than a handful of empty elevators, like the one she had found herself in prior, decorating the walls left and right, and the odd patch ceiling that had fallen through to litter the floor.
All around, the lights adorning what remained of the ceiling fluttered into life as she approached them, causing the age-old specks of dust in the air that swirled around her to light up like fireflies. The woman watched them with some interest, admiring their wispish paths and glows, and she wondered how a facility this ancient could still possess so much leftover power.
Her breath hitched. A facility like this should not, especially with a building this old. She dropped onto her stomach, eyes scanning the hallway before her, or more specifically, the thick dust that spread across the entirety of the floor space.
She found her quarry in mere moments. Footprints. Dozens of sets all leading in different directions, although more noticeably, toward the end of the corridor. Fresh, too.
Fortuna drew her knife, which had remained at her side, despite her short run in with gravity, and began making gentle strides into the blackness before her.
There were fewer lights here. While some had ceased to function on the accord of entropy, some had been deliberately smashed, causing the shadows around the former Guardian to grow to sinister proportions.
She had heard it said that the Fallen were so attuned to living in shadow to the point where they could survive even in complete darkness. She had also heard it said that the Fallen were born with an insatiable hatred towards Light in all forms, and so they avoided it wherever possible. Whatever the case, this was definitely their doing. The Huntress failed to imagine the Vex or the Cabal reduced to such petty vandalism.
The Hunter sighed deeply, the sound muffled against her helmet. She'd had enough dealings with the Fallen for one day. The wound at her spine flared in agreement. As she continued walking down the passageway, her mind began to wonder as to where about she was. She must have been in the lower levels, her fall had been more than proof, but the hallway she had been trekking must have gone on for miles.
She looked back, watching the lights behind her blink out one by one as she left their vicinity. There were no more elevators adoring the walls now, just a solid stretch of concrete that ran along either side. Even the ceiling was becoming less decorated. The odd patches of missing roof space were becoming scarcer and scarcer as the tunnel progressed. Even the lighting was running out, as more broken lights began to litter the floor.
The Huntress outstretched her arm, hand still clutching tight around her dagger. Reaching once more into one of the many corners of her mind, she called upon her Light. At once, electricity began to spark between her fingertips, the energy spreading down and along the length of the knife in her hand as it began to glow a deep blue, lightning crackling around the blade as it sent blinding light in all directions.
She felt like the whole world had suddenly been revealed to her. Every speck of dust in the air and every crack in the ancient concrete, she could see it all. Her Light reached further into the void before her than her eyes ever could.
What she saw, however, put an abrupt end to her newfound euphoria. Some few meters ahead of her, the tunnel opened out into a hollow, much larger than what she had been walking through, and what it contained sent an icy chill up the Guardian's back.
It was a Vex transfer gate, a portal through which Vex units, or anything else for that matter, could pass through to teleport to another location. A powerful piece of technology, to be sure. It stood alone in the centre of the room, disabled and silent. A particularly bulky section of cable slinked from the circular gate to connect to a large monitor that lay seemingly forgotten on the floor. As Fortuna took careful steps toward it, ancient floodlights sprang into life along the ceiling, brightening the entire room.
Breaking the spell on her blade, she subsequently sheathed it. She didn't want too much light, after all.
The monitor, like the lights, still maintained some level of power, although the screen was heavily distorted from mishandling, and she could still read some of what it said:
[BYFROST=MIDGARD][CONTACT=[REDACTED]=VICTORIA][HEIMDALL=ACTIVE]
She sighed. Why couldn't Golden Age encryption make sense for once? She tapped the screen with her boot, hoping the activity would breathe some function back into it. The monitor continued to flash uselessly at her. Now thoroughly agitated, Fortuna began pacing the cavern, hoping to make some sense of the madness at hand, forgetting for a moment of the threat those few floors up.
The cavern appeared to be some sort observatory. A building-sized steel door stood on one side to the portal, leading to Traveller-knows-where, while a large glass window stood on another to overlook it. The rest of the area was strangely empty, save for a second cable, much tauter than the first, which ran from the gate all the way to the far wall.
Following this, the Hunter spied a rusted power box secured to the wall, the cable plugged roughly into its front. Curious, she gripped a broken handle fastened to one of its sides and pulled. The old machine gave no way. Murmuring harsh words, she tried again. Using both hands this time, and using more than a little Light to assist her, she heaved on the ancient metal until the Guardian found herself flying backwards.
She had managed to remove the side panel, that much was clear. Unfortunately, half the power box had come off with it.
Massaging her shoulder, while simultaneously evaluating her life choices, a bright flash returned her to her senses. The gate had sparked violently to life, energy coursing off the metal frame to strike at the walls with the fury of a storm. Content with the idea of backing off, she found herself drawn towards it as if an invisible hand had seized her around the torso and was dragging her in closer.
The sensation worsened when the gate began to glow as a ring of purplish light formed in its core. Fortuna tried to run, to leap, to flee as far away from the construct as far as she could, but to no avail.
The energies became more vicious, as one particular bolt struck dangerously close to her foot. Large metal chunks were starting to disappear from the machine, fraying into the air like vapours as too much power flowed through them.
As panic began to settle in her core, she imagined herself sharing the same grisly fate. She did not want to die like this. She did not want to die in some forgotten cave or to vanish without a trace with nothing left for others to find. Her eyes darting back to the portal, she made her decision.
She let go, allowing herself to fall into the pull of the gateway as she flew toward it. She only hoped there was something else on the other side to catch her when she landed. If she landed, that is.
King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 3rd, 2076]
The plan was going along perfectly. The lighting, the security, the expose, everything, was just so perfect! The preacher, or monk or whatever it claimed to be, was dead. No, not yet, but the time was coming close, so close, so tantalisingly close.
The monk would be dead. Any second now…any…second…now.
Line up the shot. Pull the trigger. End that miserable machine's life like the good killer you are.
Yes, a killer, that is what she was, the greatest killer that has ever graced this Earth. No, not a killer. A killer was a nothing more than a brute, with no regard for grace or rhythm. She was so much more than that. She was an artist.
An artist who brushed and wove in rivers of the deepest scarlet whose brushes were that of death. Quick, clean, perfect death.
She felt herself smiling. It was a hollow shadow of what a smile should have been, but a smile nonetheless. If she were an artist, then this would be her magnum opus, her masterpiece.
She was close...just a little longer...any second now.
A/N:
This is my first proper attempt at a publishable piece of work. Reviews would be very much appreciated.
I own neither Destiny or Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.