2 weeks prior

Ruby could sense the history that she was walking through as she made her way further down into the Ishtar Collective's old Archive. Despite having her helmet on, she could feel years worth of history hang in the air, leaving a stillness that would frighten most men. Ruby however, wasn't like most men or women, she was nothing like them at all.

Ruby was known as a Guardian, one of the warriors that work to defend humanities last city on earth. A single Guardian was normally a force to be reckoned with, and there were many Guardians working to bring humanity back to the glory that it was once at, before the collapse. While she wasn't as battle hardened and strong as the Titans, or as smart and philosophical as the Warlocks, she took on the mantle of a Hunter, a suave warrior that was capable of bringing armies to their knees, without even being seen. Between those who were Titans, those who became Warlocks, and those that learned the ways of the Hunters, the Guardians were a dangerous force that could not be taken likely.

Ruby looked down at her gun, known to many as Patience and Time. She inherited this weapon from the man who taught her all she needed to know about being a Hunter, her Uncle Qrow. If it wasn't for his training, she didn't know how long it would've been that she had lasted out there in the dangerous worlds.

Pulling the empty magazine out, Ruby let the now spent shell casings fall to the ground. Getting into the archive wasn't easy, as the alien race known to all as the Fallen had been working to crack open the archive for quite some time now. The Fallen were a race of nomadic aliens that often took to pirating and scavenging the planets they went to. With four arms and four eyes, they were frightening to anyone who wasn't a Guardian, though the lowest form of Fallen, known as a Dreg, were not given the right to grow their lower arms until they were proved to be worthy.

Ruby judged by the color of the armor that they wore, which was a dark blue, that the group of Fallen she tangled with belonged to the House of Winter, one of the many clans within the race. Fortunately, the Dregs, the upper ranks known as Vandals, their robotic drones which they called Shanks, and even a Servitor, which was a floating, spherical Fallen were not enough to stop Ruby from making her way into the archive.

"Unbelievable," Ruby's ghost said. The Ghosts were an Artificial Intelligence that worked with the Guardians, each Guardian's ghost being unique to them. Ruby listened to what her ghost had to say, hearing the gruff deep voice whisper into her ear. "The Archive's power is still partially activated."

"How long do you think it was sitting like this?" Ruby asked, hoping her ghost could look up the information for her.

"I'm not sure, probably since the collective was here," Ruby's ghost replied. She liked to call him Qrow, in memory of her old teacher, something the ghost decided to just get used to. "Imagine if they weren't-"

"Welcome Dr. Shim," A voice boomed through the entire room, the main computer by what Ruby could tell. "Please enter your security clearance code."

"Dr. Shim?" Qrow asked, not sure what the computer meant by that. "Never mind that, let's hit that terminal up ahead."

"I got a bad feeling about this," Ruby said to herself as she walked towards the main terminal. Her ghost materialized in front of her and started to interact with the terminal.

"Thank you, Dr. Shim," The computer said after a moment. "Shall I begin correlation of Vex Mind Core samples?"

"So polite," Qrow replied before addressing Ruby. "Let's see what they've got."

Before they could go any further with the research, trouble reared its ugly head. "Dr. Shim, security breach detected-intruders! Initiate Protocol 19." The computer urgently said.

"Fallen, they've followed us in!" Qrow said to Ruby, who was already springing into action.

Ruby pulled out Patience and Time and took aim down at the doorway she herself came through. 'How could I be so stupid to forget that they would follow me in?' Ruby thought to herself as she fired off a round at one of the Fallen Vandals that were coming in. After she took the shot, her weapon activated a special ability that was unique to it, and she became invisible. Taking this time to line up another shot, she took the head off of another Vandal before moving from her position, closer to where the action was.

Though her weapon of choice was her sniper rifle, she always made sure to carry with her a hand cannon for moments when her rifle wouldn't do her any good. While she ran forth, Ruby slung her rifle across her back, letting it rest over the red cloak she wore, and pulled the hand cannon off of the side, a gift from the Vanguard, which were the ones who led the Guardians. She took a couple of shots at those in front of her and watched them fall, a white mist appearing to rise up from where their heads used to be. Before reloading her pistol, she took one of the many knives she held with her and threw it at a remaining Vandal, striking it in between the eyes.

As the knife struck, the lights that were on when Ruby came in were shut down, and the computers voice came back on. "Remote hub failure. Routing disrupted."

"Qrow, any explanation?" Ruby asked.

"I don't know," Qrow went on to explain. "They must have a Servitor feeding off the power, or something like that."

Looking all around the room, Ruby saw what she was looking for, a Servitor surrounded by a pack of Dregs. With her culprit found, Ruby pulled out her rifle and took a few shots at the Dregs that surrounded the Servitor, leaving it all alone and at her mercy. Switching back to her hand cannon, she reloaded it, before firing everything she had at the Servitor, destroying it in the process. As she ran over to let Qrow repair the conduit that was damaged, she barely had enough time to see the telltale signs of a cloaked Vandal running right at her, a sword in each of it's four arms. The Vandal tackled Ruby to the ground and was ready to kill her, but Ruby had brought a knife up and into its chest just in time to save her own skin.

"That was a little too close," Ruby said as she threw the body off of her. Looking down, she noticed that her armor, which glistened with a wolf's head made of gold across her chestplate, was still clean, meaning that none of the blood from the Vandal had gotten onto her. "What I'd kill to have Yang with me right now."

Despite that, she finished running over to the conduit and let Qrow get to work on the repairs. "They made a mess here, but I got this," Qrow said as he began to work on repairing the conduit. "Dammit no! Ruby, they're tapping somewhere else!"

Ruby wasn't sure where exactly the Servitor could be, but it had to be around there somewhere. Thinking carefully, Ruby realized that there was an upper balcony of catwalks that she hadn't checked yet. Before she walked up the nearby flight of stairs, she threw a grenade up onto the catwalk where she thought she saw a Vandal. Upon impacting the catwalk, the grenade broke into a multitude of smaller pieces. Because of where she threw it, the smaller pieces tracked all of the Fallen that were surrounding the grenade when it landed, killing some and injuring a few others.

Running up the stairs, Ruby pulled Patience and Time back out and slid into a crouched position at the end of the walkway, noticing that the Fallen were at the other end with the Servitor. As with the last group, she opened fire on them, killing everything including the Servitor. With nothing blocking her pathway, Ruby ran over to the other conduit and let Qrow begin to work on the repairs.

"I'll have it back together quick," Qrow said to Ruby. "There's still Fallen in here though, so you should take them out."

Ruby noticed that the main terminal was surrounded by the last of the Fallen scavengers that entered the Archive, along with what Ruby believed to be one of their Barons, a Fallen that was even more powerful and a higher rank than the Vandals. She saw some of the Dregs come up to meet her, and they met a swift end thanks to a combination of her hand cannon and throwing knives.

As she moved closer to the terminal, she jumped off of a ledge and dropped to the floor that the terminal rested on. Channeling the light within her, she unleashed its power, and a golden gun appeared in her hands. She took her first shot at a group of dregs, the one she hit exploding in a burst of solar energy, and with only the Baron and a few Vandals left, Ruby turned the golden gun on the Baron, firing the remaining two shots that she generated at the Baron, destroying the beast and any unfortunate Vandal that was next to him.

With their Baron dead, the Vandals knew the fight was lost, and so they turned and retreated, leaving Ruby once again alone in the archive.

"Well, now that we're done with that," Qrow said as he floated over to Ruby. "Let's get back to the archive. I'm sure there's plenty of stuff to gather, and the Cryptarchs will want to see all of this."

"They better thank me for this," Ruby grumbled.

"I'm sure that it'll be worth it," Qrow replied. Once they reached the terminal, he began to pull as much of the information as he could from the archive, restoring the lights as well. "This Archive is amazing-pathways to other galaxies, mappings of a Vex underworld-a place they called...the Vault of Glass. Hopefully the Cryptarch can make sense of it. I'll let him know we found it."

"Wait, what was that last one?" Ruby asked after a few moments of deliberation.

"The Vault of Glass?"

"Yeah that, do you know anything about that?" Ruby asked, concern rising in her tone.

"Only myths before now, and the Cryptarchs or the Warlocks will be able to make more sense of this than I would right now, too much info to analyze in a short time. Why, do you think something bad is going to happen because of this place?"

"I just got this really bad feeling, that this Vault is going to cause so much trouble," Ruby said as she looked back out onto the rest of the archive. "Qrow, do you know what it is that Weiss is doing right now, or where she is?"

"Give me a second or two and I'll see where her ghost is," Qrow answered.

Ruby always considered Weiss to be her best friend, and acted as such around her. While the two of them had some major differences to each other, they managed to work together well, and befriended each other after taking the time to learn about each other. Ruby would even go so far as to say that she was attracted to Weiss, though she would never say that out loud to anyone.

"Got it," Qrow speaking to Ruby broke the black and red haired girl out of her train of thought. "Looks like she's with a fireteam on the Moon right now."

"The Moon? But that's where the Hive are," Ruby said, looking at Qrow, confused as to why Weiss would be where she was. "Do you know what she's doing?"

"Apparently her Ghost quickly sent a message to me saying that the Cryptarchs asked them to do some work for them as well," Qrow replied. "I'll let you know when she has a chance to talk to us, apparently they're fighting through the Hive right now, though from what I was told, you don't need to worry about her just yet."

"Inform Weiss' ghost that when Weiss is finished with what she is doing that she needs to contact me right at that moment," Ruby said as she watched the data flow through the terminal. "Something's going on and I got a bad feeling that we'll need to stop it somehow."


Weiss couldn't even fathom what was resting in front of her. The sword of Crota, its blade embedded into the ground, was right in front of her. Before her sat one of the Hive's greatest weapons in existence, the sword of the Hive's Prince Crota, the son of Oryx, the being that the Hive to be their god, and now Weiss was looking at the blade and saw the marvel of the weapon itself, as well as just how many Guardians fell to this singular blade.

When the Guardians gave up the Moon to the Hive, it wasn't without any attempts to reclaim it. Guardians of the past fought tooth and nail to bring the Hive to its knees, but it was not enough to stop them. The darkness within the Hive spawn was great, and it had claimed the light from so many who stood against it, the sword that was in front of her taking those lives.

The Hive were terribly dark creatures, grotesque in nature and vast in number. There were many types of Hive as well, the armorless, disfigured swarm of Thralls, the foot soldiers in the Acolytes, the fierce warriors known as Knights, the manipulators of darkness called Wizards, and the giant war beasts of the Ogres. Each of the Hive serves a being called Crota, someone who is considered a god. Crota is a Hive Prince taking the form of a Knight, and the son of Oryx, the true master behind everything. With Crota leading the Hive against the Guardians when they tried to reclaim the moon, there were few Guardians that returned.

That is why the sword was important, because not only was it a powerful weapon used against the Guardians, but also a symbol of the Hive's success in claiming the moon for their master. Weiss knew that she needed to destroy this sword, for many reasons. It was why Weiss was here today, to destroy the sword of Crota.

"Winter," Weiss called out to her ghost, which appeared before her when she called.

"Yes Weiss?" Winter asked with her cool soothing voice.

"How do you suppose I kill the Swarm Princes?" Weiss then asked of Winter.

"Grab the sword, that should lure them out," Winter replied. "From there, I'd say just use their own sword against them, imagine the irony in that, the Swarm Princes, killed by the very sword they themselves created."

"Imagine that," Weiss said as she rolled her eyes. Before grabbing the sword, she turned to the two young Guardians that went with her, under the request of the Cryptarch. "You two, stay alert. Remember to work together or else the Hive will drain your light. Don't let them swarm you and you should be fine. As long as we work together, we'll make it out of here with a great story to tell."

The two nodded at Weiss, raising their auto rifles and preparing themselves for the swarm that was coming. Weiss then walked up and grabbed the sword and pulled it out of the ground, immediately feeling the darkness that the sword was bathed in trying to seep into her.

"Careful, its power is dark," Winter said as the first of the Hive appeared through the doors and up from the ground.

"You think?" Weiss snarked back, she already knew to be careful, and Winter telling her that wasn't news to her. She readied the sword and took swing at the Hive, slicing through any Hive that her two companions didn't eliminate already. The first wave being mere Thralls meant they went down fairly easy, but Weiss knew that this was just the beginning of their fight. She noticed that other doors around the room they were in were starting to open, and a combination of Thralls and Acolytes appeared from the dark halls.

She let instinct take over and swung the sword, cleaving through anything that stood against her. With how easily the Hive were falling to the sword, Weiss figured that Winter's comment on the irony of using the Hive's sword to kill them was actually well thought out. Moving up the stairs along the side of the room, she rushed along the upper balcony, before jumping the gap between the two sides of the balcony, and returning down the other side of the stairs after eliminating the Hive that were above them. That was when she felt the room start to shake.

"Lots of movement all around us," Winter cut in, her tone sounding desperate and a little bit worried, which didn't do much to help Weiss. "The Princes are coming for the sword!"

Just like that, the first Prince appeared from the ground in front of Weiss. One of Weiss' companions moved to the upper balcony, while the other stayed down in the middle of the room on the ground floor. Weiss however, was moving back and forth across the room, attacking the Prince with the sword from multiple sides. After a lot of hits with the sword, the first Prince finally fell, boosting Weiss and the rest of her fireteam's confidence.

At that point, more Hive started to show up, surrounding Weiss and her fireteam. With the second Swarm Prince showing up, Weiss and her team were forced to take the defensive. Weiss threw out a grenade, which exploded and split into three separate bolts of void energy that seeked out their targets. Still, Weiss was forced to run and avoid the Hive that wanted her death.

It was then that she noticed that the rest of her team was in a bad situation, one was holding back a Thrall that was thrashing at her, the other, was being chased by Thralls and Acolytes. Noticing that one was across the balcony, she formulated a plan in her head on the fly, the swift intelligence she possessed as a Warlock coming into play. With a hopefully useful solution available, she leapt into action.

First, Weiss leaped up towards the other platform and threw the sword at the Thrall that was trying to claw at her teammate, slicing the beast in half. While still in the air, she called upon all the energy she could and focused it into one powerful attack. Using her right hand, she accumulated all that energy and released it into a single Nova Bomb that traveled at incredible speed, launching it right behind her other teammate and catching many of the Hive that were chasing him. Once she landed, she whipped out her hand cannon, a gun often referred to as The Last Word, and quickly shot the three Thralls that tried to run towards her and her teammate. Soon after that, she set her pistol away and turned to her teammate.

"Any injuries?" She asked.

"None that I can see right now, though," Weiss' teammate said as she returned her attention back to shooting at the Hive. "I think it'd be better if we were to wait until afterwards to ask about that, huh Weiss?"

"Fine, just be careful Lyra, I don't need you getting killed on me," Weiss replied as she grasped the sword once again. Looking down at her other teammate, Weiss was glad to see that he was doing just fine, having reached cover in the back of the room and taking down everything that was in his way. Jumping down into the middle of the Hive, she used the sword to unleash an electrical burst that zapped all the Hive surrounding her. From there she took a quick swing around her to take out any stragglers, leaving only the second Prince to defend itself. Between the combination of Weiss using the sword and her teammates shooting at the prince, the dark creature went down quickly.

Based on the number that appeared after the second prince fell, Weiss could tell that the fight was almost over, and the next prince came out to greet her. With the sword in her hands, and her fireteam behind her, she was more than ready to take the prince on. Any Hive that stood with the prince went down quickly, and soon after it, the combined power of Weiss' team took the prince down.

That was when the sword imploded on itself, disappearing with a loud bang. The disappearance of the sword startled Weiss, but the swords disappearance triggered another affect. Not a moment after Weiss watched the sword destroy itself, she suddenly started to have a vision in her head.

She watched as a lone figure stood on a platform in a lake, surrounded by darkness. The figured turned what looked to be a sword and suddenly the platform started to glow with a dark green fire, the three eyes of the figure staring right at Weiss and thousands of more dark eyes appeared in the darkness behind him. "You will all suffer my wrath!"

The vision alone sent Weiss down to her knees, her hands clenching her head as the vision burned it's way into her memory. She just knew who it was that stood on that platform, and if this were to come to pass, then they were in a world of trouble.

It wasn't until her ghost spoke, that she finally realized where she was exactly. They were within the Hive's sanctuary, within the Temple of Crota, and they just destroyed the sword of the dark prince himself.

"The sword is gone, just like that, it destroyed itself," Winter said, grabbing Weiss' attention. "They say that was one of the most powerful weapons the Hive ever wielded against us."

"I'm well aware of that Winter," Weiss replied being much shorter than usual.

"You ok?"

Weiss thought about talking with Winter about what it was that she saw, maybe Winter would be able to help her figure out what it meant. Either way though, now wasn't the time to say anything, even if she did want to say so. "I'm fine, lets just get going. The Cryptarchs won't believe this."

As Weiss led her team out of the temple, she saw Winter rematerialize in front of her. "I wanted to tell you about this earlier, but it was better left till now since we just went through all of that. Ruby wants you to get in contact with her, something important that she needs you to hear about."

"Well then what are we waiting for?" Weiss asked as she moved to a more private area nearby. The rest of her team knew that they didn't need to be involved in the conversation, so they decided to just take watch until she was ready to continue on her way.

By the time Weiss was ready to speak with Ruby, she nodded to Winter, who sent out the signal to Ruby. Weiss didn't have to wait that long for Ruby to answer though, the dolt as she liked to call her, always seemed to answer her quickly. Weiss didn't want to admit it, but she felt so much better any time she heard Ruby's voice.

"Hey, Weiss, how goes your job?" Ruby asked.

"Did alright, though I know that we'll have time to talk about that later," Weiss said. As much as she loved speaking with Ruby, she wasn't feeling the best right now and so she needed to just hurry up so she can get back to her home in the city. "You needed me for something?"

"Well, I think we have a problem, something bigger than all of us," Ruby replied. Weiss was now intrigued by what it was that Ruby wanted to tell her, something must be going on if she is saying what she is saying.

"Let me ask you something, Weiss, have you ever heard of the Vault of Glass?"


AN: Oh shit, things are starting to build. I'm super excited to write this, and I plan on doing this in a way that makes it out to be an actual story. But, before I do that, a couple of things I wish to address.

First, Ruby is a Gunslinger, and Weiss is a Voidwalker (as was said in the chapter). Second, each of the characters is going to have their own personal ghost, and some of them are going to give them a unique name (all of the main characters will at least). Third, the name Lyra comes form Shadow Nightblade's Snow Fox's Struggle, a great read so go check that out as well. Lastly, there is artwork for this so far, and you can find it on my tumblr page, or on my fiancee's deviant art account (sylverlyning67) so go check that out.

Thanks for reading this and I hope I'm making this story a good read for you guys.