XI: Heroes, Villains, and Prophecies
Earth, though it had begun to thaw and reclaim the vibrancy of life, was still a dangerous place, thanks to the House of Devils' arrival. Rather than spread their Guardian forces too thin, the Consensus opted for Humanity to practice a defensive strategy, commissioning the construction of six massive walls to line the Last City's borders. The building of these Walls took four years to complete, a process only completed with the assistance of the Guardians. During this period, the Iron Lords attained greater legend in their seemingly invincible patrols, holding the line against the House of Devils' attempted incursions. As bases of operation for the growing city's defenses, eight great Tower were constructed along the Walls themselves; one for each of the cardinal and intercardinal directions. From these tall bastions, the three Guardian divisions and mortal City Guard would watch the horizons and mountain peaks for invaders.
No sooner had the Walls been finished that the House of Devils laid siege on the Last City, having slipped past the Iron Lords' patrols through diversion. Guardians and City Guardsmen alike fought against nearly two thousand Fallen for two gruelling days. When the Southern Wall threatened to buckle under the weight of the Devils' furious assault, the former Warlord Shaxx rallied the Guardians to hold the line, albeit defying the orders of Iron Lord Saladin Forge to retreat. This desperate stand allowed the Guardians to regroup and repel the House of Devils.
However, the Battle of Six Fronts had not been won without sacrifice, as several hundred mortal City Guardsmen had been slain. Furthermore, the Order of Refractions' Vanguard had been lost in the battle, demanding a new leader be chosen to replace them. Saint-14, City Guard Vanguard and beloved by the people, nominated the adept warrior and thinker Osiris to succeed the empty position. The Speaker, having taken to Saint-14 as an adoptive father, accepted the proposal, elevating Osiris to the Vanguard and Consensus.
Meanwhile, the Reef had become increasingly chaotic with the arrival of the Fallen at large. The Reefborn Awoken struggled to repel the Fallen House of Wolves, who had begun encroaching into their purple-misted territories in search of salvage. Despite Mara Sov's efforts, the Fallen became rooted across the Reef, forming splintered enclaves in the husks of destroyed ships and strewn together asteroids. During these struggles, Mara Sov encountered the Nine through their emissary Xûr; an ultimately failed experiment in their efforts to create life within their dark matter. Seeing her interests aligned with their own, the Nine gifted the Harbingers, living weapons of similar origin to Xûr, to the Queen, so that she may defend her people and the Traveler.
Among the Fallen, the news of the Devils' discovery had begun to spread, driving the scavengers to press further into the Solar System. The Houses of Kings and Wolves organized a plan to seize the Great Machine back for their people, an alliance that would take back their god by overwhelming strength in numbers.
Rezyl Azzir, a proud hero of the Faction War and Six Fronts, became plagued with nightmares of teeth and perfect dark shapes. They filled him with dread and terror, wearing at his once-indomitable will and drawing him to the Moon. Using his jumpship, a rare prototype gifted to him for his service by the Vanguard, he traveled to the familiar lunar satellite. Landing on its grey surface, the voice of an alien tongue drew Rezyl to the incomplete Temple of Crota, where he met the Shaper Witch, Xyor the Unwed. She spoke to Rezyl of his inevitable fall, of how he would become a vehicle of their death-worship to poison Humanity from within. Azzir denied her claims, proclaiming he would not fall to their schemes, and chose to press deeper into the Hellmouth against his Ghost's wishes. In search of answers to his nightmares, the man fought his way into the Moon's resident Worlds' Grave, and read from its records of death and Darkness. With its knowledge, he slew a Shaper Knight and grafted its chitin to his revolver, Rose.
Upon his return to Earth, Rezyl Azzir was changed. The viral language of the Shapers had infected his mind, morphing his will and Light to their design. His once proud and uplifting persona had become muted and distant. When asked of his experiences on the mysterious Moon, he answered only that he had seen bleak truths. Weeks later, in the sole company of his Ghost in the Saharan Deserted Zone, he cast off his old identity and adopted the name Dredgen Yor, one taken from the Shaper language itself. He abandoned his Ghost and became a wraith of death, driven by ancient words of sorrow.
While Dredgen Yor quietly carved away at settlements on the other side of the world, the Last City became embroiled in a new crisis. Osiris had grown increasingly disinterested in fulfilling his duties as a Vanguard, instead delving into the study of salvaged Golden Age technology and archives. Through these studies, he and his fiery apprentice Ikora Rey discovered remnants of the Ishtar Collective's research, and, more importantly, their records of the ancient Vex. In secret, he journeyed to the withered jungles of Mars in his personal jumpship, and recovered the remains of the Specimen 12 mind core lost in the Collapse. Using its still-functioning link to the greater Vex network, Osiris gazed into their collective mind, seeing fragments of their goal and the future. The experience drove him to abandon his responsibilities as a Vanguard, writing several tomes cryptically detailing his visions of events yet to come. Known as "the Prophecies" by their readers, these theses also called into question the sanctity of the Traveler and its Light, stirring unrest and uncertainty in the Last City. The Speaker, perceiving Osiris' actions as a direct threat to the Last City's unity under the Traveler, sentenced the Vanguard member to exile. When Osiris turned to Ikora Rey for support, she refused him, claiming that the Last City came first above all else.
Osiris, enraged by the blindness of his comrades, accepted his exile, traveling with haste to Mercury to study and combat the Vex on his own. Surprisingly, nearly three hundred mortals and Guardians combined chose to follow the outcast off-world, believing in his Prophecies. Furthermore, a new group of theorists arose within the Last City's underground, directly inspired by Osiris' words prior to his expulsion. Calling themselves the Future War Cult, this organization sought to continue examining the future as Osiris had, using the Specimen 12 mind core, which they had stolen in secret from the man, to fuel their research.
The timing for such unrest, and lose of one hundred Guardians, could not have proven worse. No more than a week later, with an entire division of the Guardians still in disarray from their leader's exile, the Fallen launched their unified assault on the Last City. The Houses of Devils, Kings, and Winter fell upon the City in their Ketches and Skiffs, deploying Spider Tanks across its surrounding mountain peaks to pelt the Walls and their Towers. In the Reef, Mara Sov chose to intervene on Humanity's behalf. Taking a fleet of salvaged ships, she led her people to halt the House of Wolves' fleet over Mars, preventing them from bolstering their kin in their assault on Earth.
Without their co-conspirators, the Kings were unable to direct the other Houses in the battle, allowing the Guardians to press deep into their territory. The two sides met in a bloody finale at the ruined mountain base known as Twilight Gap, at which the Fallen had placed their most powerful artillery, as well as the House of Winter's last remaining Ketch. When a breach appeared in the Northeastern Wall, most of the Guardian forces were forced to retreat in order to bolster its defenses. The Iron Lords and their Wolves held the line at Twilight Gap until their allies returned. In a final push, the Guardians shattered the artillery cannons and broke the siege.
The Last City rejoiced in triumph.
Author's Note
Alright, only one more chapter will be about weird altered lore, so anyone who's bored can rest assured I'll be doing more stuff like what I had at the beginning in the first two chapters very soon. I know I said this one would feature more stuff in it, but I decided that it was a better idea to split it into two parts, since I'm trying to avoid what I'd call bloated chapters, like VI: Pawns To Be, and needless hiatuses.
If all goes well, the next part will be finished sometime today or tomorrow, as of June 23rd anyhow, and we can all move on into the real AU stuff that I was talking about way back at the start of this thing. Here's to hoping I can keep a schedule.