AN: Meh, I'm just gonna kill this joke now.
The terrain before them cleared out immediately around the base of the spire, though after a few meters it picked back up to sprawl away from the platform with the Garden's typical patterns of arbitrary geometric formations. Their walk had been brisk – the trio had been prompted to make haste by the occasional echo of mechanical limbs and the wretched cries of Vex Minotaurs trailing behind in their wake. Despite the obvious indications that they were not alone in the Black Garden, they had been undeterred as they made their way to the base of the structure.
Once there, however, it was obvious that the Titan had grown a bit uneasy.
Lana was the first to begin scaling the wall before them. She made quick, lateral movements to offset the impossible distance between handhold and foothold. Serra couldn't help but smile for how easy the little Awoken Huntress made it all seem; if it happened that climbing was something Lana enjoyed, as well – hell, Serra would have to see to it that she showed the other woman a few of her favorite places around the Cosmodrome.
After scaling a few meters, the brunette paused to look down at a Titan who still had not made the first efforts towards joining the pair of women he'd brought to the spire. Her breath caught in her throat as she considered whether someone who possessed such an impressive height as Nolano could really be afraid of things taller than he was.
Serra suppressed her surprise and dropped to the ground in front of him.
"Everything alright, Titan?" she asked, keeping her voice low in case Lana might overhear. But she didn't wait for his response. Instead, she placed a hesitant hand on his forearm, gently pulling him towards the wall as she offered, "Here, do as I do. But whatever you do, don't look down."
The slender Huntress started her ascent again, mindful to keep near the Titan instead of trying to match pace with Lana.
After a few moments of silence, she asked, "Does your Huntress enjoy climbing, Titan?"
"Um, Lana?" he replied quickly, placing his left hand directly next to his right and reaching a short distance above himself for the next handhold he'd need to follow after Serra. After a few more meters of silence, he confessed, "I'm not s-sure."
"She's rather good," Serra complimented, crouching as low as she could along a ledge and leaping up to reach the next handhold. She grunted, catching herself before too much of her armor scraped against the unforgiving edges of the spire, and placed her left hand and right hand together over the handhold she'd struggled to reach. Then, without too much more bravado, she found her footing again and reassured Nolano, "You won't have to leap, Titan. You're taller than I am."
He chuckled nervously and the pair continued on in silence for a rather long stretch.
Serra ventured a glance up at Lana and noticed that she'd paused in her ascent. Surely she hadn't expended all of her energy in the first quarter of the climb… She was only a few meters above the Titan now.
"Hey, Tiny!" Lana called over their comms. "I've got movement up top."
And before he could respond, before Serra could react to her words, line rifle bolts rained down from seemingly nowhere as the spire began to shift beneath them. Serra grit her teeth, trying to scramble for whatever new foothold she could manage as the particular pieces of the structure she'd been clinging to rearranged themselves away from her.
Serra watched helplessly as Lana slid down towards her from the position she'd managed up top. There was a small ledge left barely wide enough for two to stand and Lana landed gracefully next to Nolano. The other Huntress, hanging onto the wall by only her left hand, growled in the back of her throat as she captured another handhold with her right hand and pulled her slender frame as close to the wall as she could manage.
"And below!" the Titan warned, summoning a Ward of Dawn to shield his Fireteam before they were subject to open fire from both sides.
The focused blasts of Vex fire bounced off of the Void light just as Serra felt herself losing grip, felt her fingertips gripping at nothing more than crumbling stone of the spire wall. And then she was falling, drawing the hunting knife from her thigh and plunging it into the wall to slow her descent. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and tried to ignore the sensation of free fall – until she felt arms around her waist, hands on her bicep.
She opened her eyes to find that Nolano and Lana had caught her before she'd been left to plummet to her death. Serra was suspended in midair with both of the Titan's arms around her waist and her right arm gripped tightly in Lana's strong hands. Lana let go quickly, shuffling as far to the side of their narrow platform as she could manage.
"Wait," Serra commanded, freezing Lana in place for the stern tone of her voice. "Put me back on the wall. I can climb."
"Climb where?" Lana snapped exasperation and panic in her voice.
"Do you have a better idea?"
As it was, there was not enough room for all three of them to stand on the ledge and, as Lana remained silent, Serra wrapped her left arm around the Titan's neck and turned her body into his. Then, even as she struggled to reach above the Titan's head for the nearest handhold, the rock surface beneath their feet began to shift with the eerie, cracking sound of granite breaking.
Serra waited helplessly, tightening her hold around the Titan's neck as she closed her eyes and held her breath. But she never did feel that sensation of freefall again. Instead, the Titan had managed to find the same handhold she'd been struggling to reach, herself. And as he turned to catch himself before he fell, his free hand had fallen away from Serra's waist and into another pocket of rock so that he was now facing the spire.
She was pressed between granite and the Titan, her back against the wall.
Then, panicked, she cried, "Lana!"
"Oh, shit!" the little Awoken girl whimpered from behind the Titan, clinging desperately to the back of his chest plate. "Hold on to me! I'm too cute to die!"
And Serra reached over the Titan's shoulder, feeling blindly for the place where the other woman's chest plate met her shoulder pads. With as much strength as she could muster, Serra hoisted her counterpart up so that she, too, had a solid grip on the Titan. Taking Lana's left hand in her own, she placed it over the place where the Titan's chest plate separated from his right arm guard and commanded, "Grip here, Lana."
She exhaled, relieved when the other woman scrambled up onto the Titan's back.
"You guys alright?" Lana's voice called over the comms, relief evident.
"Lana," Serra whispered, placing her left palm over the back of the other woman's helmet as she leaned forward over the Titan's shoulder to bring all three of their helmets together in her relief.
"Heh, w-well, I guess we found the Vex," Nolano commented, trying to lighten the mood.
"Titan, how much longer will your Ward hold?" Serra turned to him, removing her hand from Lana's helmet to reach for the sniper rifle strapped to her back.
"Maybe a few more seconds," he guessed, trembling as she reached down to grip his left knee and move it into place.
She felt her entire body tense as she moved to support herself with her left heel on a narrow rock that protruded from the wall and her right leg over his left hip. Gingerly, she let go of Nolano's neck, staring at where his eyes would be on the other side of his visor as she quietly tried to mask her fear, "Please don't let go?"
Feeling the Titan press his chest against hers, anchoring her in place, Serra lined up, as best she could, a target at the top of the spire. She was prepared to take a shot as soon as the Ward of Dawn failed. Lana, on the other side of the Titan, could be heard readying her auto rifle.
It was only a few moments of silence before the bombardment of Vex artillery brought down the protective wall of Void light. The brunette Huntress could hear her counterpart's auto rifle spray defensive fire down at the closest automations scaling the wall from behind them.
Taking a deep breath, Serra pulled the trigger on her sniper rifle, aimed at a Hobgoblin above them.
"Fuck," she cursed as the bullet missed its mark and the Hobgoblin enveloped itself in a stasis shield. Serra muttered, "Deep breath, Titan."
Waiting for Nolano's movement to steady before she took her next shot, she drew a deep breath and fired one of her high caliber rounds upwards, sent it spiraling into the center of the same Hobgoblin as it imploded in a mess of white fluid and metallic shrapnel. She fired two more shots for two more kills before she felt herself and the Titan exhale.
Reloading the magazine, she took aim and whispered, "Again."
Slowly, her precise shots cut down seven of the ten Vex looming overhead, sprinkling the air with spent shells and cybernetic limbs. What Lana's progress on their pursuers from below looked like, Serra was unsure. But with the Titan as anchor, the pair of Huntresses eventually pushed back the alien machines and cleared a way for the Titan to progress upwards.
His voice was confident as he commanded, "Hold on. We've got a narrow window."
Serra made a small noise of acknowledgement in the back of her throat before settling the sniper rifle over her left shoulder. She was out of ammunition and Nolano used a shotgun – not that she'd considered to pan through the pouches at his waist for reserve ammunition even if he did carry a sniper. But desperate times…
Biting her lower lip, she readied her hand cannon before she pulled her leg back over the top of Nolano's. Without the benefit of his leg for balance, she wrapped her left arm around Nolano's neck and gripped the front of Lana's armor, just below her neck. As the Titan slowly began to climb, Serra held her breath and took aim at the Vex reinforcements that had replaced those she'd already cut down. A hesitant glance down informed her that they had exceeded the range of Lana's auto rifle, so Serra commanded, "Lana, focus fire up top! There are too many."
"Right-O, Lady Lightning!" Lana chirped, pulling her gleaming Golden Gun from the Traveler knew where and firing three well placed shots into the larger gatherings of their enemy. The shots hit their marks precisely, causing a myriad of explosions that eliminated the largest portion of Vex Hobgoblins and Minotaurs.
Serra backed up Lana's great aim by firing two shots of her own for two more kills.
Then, as though on cue, Nolano paused in his climb and the small Huntress could feel the muscles tensing in his shoulders. All around the trio, streams of hot lead cut rather interesting looking gashes into the spire as the few remaining Vex took aim at the defenseless Guardians below.
"Titan, can you throw one of us up there?" Serra asked as she pulled additional rounds from her waist pouch using her right hand and put the tube into her mouth so that she could replace them in the chamber of her hand cannon.
Without hesitation and before the Titan could affirm, Lana replied excitedly, "Oh, oh! Do me first! I've always wanted to try this!"
"A-are you quite certain?" Nolano asked. "The last ones remaining will most likely be more heavily armored."
"Doooo it!" Lana cried, brimming with enthusiasm as she clambered up his back and on top of his shoulders.
The sudden movement from the smaller Huntress spent Serra's weak hold on the other woman's chest plate and she whimpered helplessly as she felt herself falling down in the space between the Titan and the granite wall behind her. But Nolano caught her before she could fall, pulling himself as close to the wall as he could manage. With her left arm, Serra quickly tightened her hold around the Titan's neck and sighed, "T-thank you."
"Careful, Lana!" the Titan scolded. Then, he added, "I-I don't think this is such a good idea."
Feeling frustrated and a little put off that Lana had nearly sent her plunging to her doom, Serra growled, "She's fine. Little Miss here just has to be a good distraction."
"Oopsie!" Lana worried aloud, finally realizing what she had almost done. She patted Serra's helmet, chuckling, "Sorry about that, Lady Lightning."
"Don't call me that."
"A-are you certain you want to do this, Lana?" Nolano asked timidly, trying to break the tension between the women.
Lana nodded.
As the Titan removed his grip from the wall, Serra replaced her hand cannon at her waist and turned around in his arms, finding her own handholds on the wall. Freeing herself as a distraction from the Titan so that he could more easily complete his next task, Serra climbed a bit up the wall and looked down to watch as the smaller Huntress crawled off of the Titan's shoulders. Climbing, more carefully this time, onto his arm, Lana balanced with her feet in Nolano's palm and crouched as low as she could without touching the wall beside her. She had her auto rifle ready in her right hand and pointed towards the sky with her left, shouting, "Lift off!"
"A-alright, then," Nolano seemed apprehensive as he flung her slight figure skyward. The force of his efforts to hurl her in the air seemed to suppress any further words because she remained silent.
Serra held her breath as she watched the Awoken Huntress' momentum fade near the end of her jump. But she managed to find some foothold near the top and jump twice to clear the edge of the spire.
"Oh, fuck you, buddy!" Lana cried out as a roar of mortar-like hell fire, the likes of which could only be produced by a Hydra, echoed down to the two Guardians clinging to the edge of the cliff below. "I don't like this plan anymore!"
"Titan! Hurry!" Serra panicked, rushing to climb the remaining few meters to reach the top and offer her counterpart some additional firepower. Serra blindly tossed a fusion grenade over the edge, just before she crested the top, and listened for the subsequent explosion.
When it came, she rolled over onto the top of the spire to the echo of Lana's praise in her comms, "That Minotaur didn't stand a chance, Lady Lightni– I mean, Serra!"
"Lana! Shoot the Hydra!" Serra commanded, taking cover behind a small outcropping of rock and firing all six rounds from her hand cannon at the offending Vex Champion. Behind her, she could hear the sound of the Titan's pulse rifle and, as she ducked behind her meager cover to reload her hand cannon, she glanced over to where he'd taken up position beside Lana.
"Behind you, Serra!" Nolano warned as a Minotaur tried to flank her.
She quickly rolled away, towards her Fireteam, as Lana and Nolano gunned down the charging beast. Coming to a halt at Lana's feet, Serra watched as the Titan and Huntress' bullets blazed a path through the second Minotaur. The creature had likely detonated before it could even update the Vex network with its impending demise.
In response to their actions, the stunned brunette replied, "I owe you for that."
Before either Nolano or Lana could reply, the Hydra's guttural scream echoed for miles around as it nearly doubled its efforts to kill the three Guardians taking cover behind an already dilapidated outcropping of rock. Covering herself in active camouflage, Serra rolled out into the center of the Spire and prepared to take aim at the Vex Champion.
Then, from seemingly nowhere, two white missiles streamed through the thin air, knocking the Hydra over the far edge of the Spire before its broken body could explode. Nolano rushed over to the edge, Serra presumed to watch the way debris would be raining across the grey skies of the Black Garden as what remained of their Vex assailant fell to the ground below.
Her green eyes quickly shot towards the direction those missiles seemed to have been fired from – but there was nothing in the empty space. As Serra's active camouflage dissipated, she collapsed against the twisted form of what appeared to be a tree and struggled to regain her breath as the adrenaline of the previous events began to wear off. Still, despite the fatigue, she kept her eyes trained to the perimeter.
"Yeah, go team," Lana chuckled despite her evident exhaustion as she limped over to where Serra sat and gingerly kept the weight off of her injured leg as she managed to lower herself to the ground beside the other woman.
Feeling her expression soften as the Awoken captured her attention, Serra removed her helmet and moved to help Lana with hers. Her voice was soft when she carefully touched the other Huntress' knee, observing, "Lana, you're injured."
The other girl winced, "Hey! That hurts!"
Hurrying over to the pair of Huntresses, Nolano knelt down in front of Lana and visually inspected her wound. When he pulled off his own helmet, he was frowning, "A-are you alright?"
"If I say 'no' are you gonna use some of your Void magic?" she pouted, sounding almost impatient in her subtle persistence.
"I dunno, Lana," the Titan teased, already summoning the small pocket of Void magic to his palm and tugging the mark from his waist to wrap around it. "That's an awful lot of Light."
Embarrassed, Serra turned away, letting her gaze fall back to the far side of the spire. A flicker of movement flashed against her sensors and she silently, slowly worked six bullets into the chamber of her hand cannon. Never once did her eyes leave the far horizon – if the Titan or the Huntress noticed, neither one made mention.
"Owie!" the brunette listened to Lana complain.
And the Titan's voice followed, "C'mon, Lana, it's not that bad."
Curious, Serra stood, using the tree to help her regain her footing. She left her sniper rifle on the ground beside Lana and Nolano as she walked across the surface of the spire. Her steps were slow – she could feel the same sense of foreboding like a pressure in the back of her skull that she had known earlier that morning. It was a perverse mixture of terror and curiosity that drew her forward to investigate the flickering anomaly standing at the far side of the platform.
After a few meters, Lana called after her, "Where ya goin', Lady Lightning?
"Don't call me that," Serra muttered, raising her hand cannon slightly, though not letting herself aim it entirely at the distortion she was just beginning to pick out against the dark sky of the Black Garden.
"What do you s-see, Serra?" Nolano asked.
She could hear him readying his pulse rifle but she found herself unable to answer him. All words seemed to die at her tongue. And when she made to motion for him to lower his weapon with her left hand and behind her back, she found that she was unable to move her limbs. Serra was frozen, suspended in a state of deamination where her senses were fine tuned to watching that glimmering flicker of movement across the horizon but she was completely helpless to warn her Fireteam of the presence of this strange intruder.
Nolano's voice was nearer, this time, "S-serra?"
'Eddison?' she wondered of her Ghost. Perhaps if he could warn them…
But the instant he tried to materialize from within her armor, that's when she began to register the pain.
It started at her toes, a slow smolder, and rushed through her aching legs to her core. It centered in her stomach but spread rapidly to each of her limbs, in turn. Her vision blurred for the intensity of the pain, for the focus of it – and it was as a result of that muddling of her sight that she started to make the figure of their intruder out more clearly.
A humanesque form engulfed in liquid fire… of the Vex persuasion. It, the thing, whatever it was turned towards the Huntress and Serra could practically feel her skin crawl for the way it seemed to smile as it spoke, "I've been waiting for you a long time, Guardian."
"Serra, are you alright?" Nolano's voice asked urgently from her right.
When she felt his hand on her shoulder, she forgot everything else…