Waking Ruins, Ishtar Sink, Venus- May 14th, 2634:
Looking at it from the depths of space, Venus reminded one of its glory days during the Golden Age. Visited by the Traveller, the toxic air of Venus was swept away and humanity colonised it, making it a paradise for all. It was there that humanity uncovered ancient ruins from before their colonisation, ruins dating back thousands of millennia.
And now, centuries later, these ruins were playing a new part in history as a battleground in the war between the Guardians and the Vex. The Guardians fought for the Light and for the Traveller, fighting for humanity to breathe another day. The Vex fought for their Nexus, a network of hive minds dead set on converting everything to their Pattern and into the techno-organic hybrid forms that they now sported. Regardless of their intent, they were committed to eliminating or converting humanity, and the Guardians would be there every time to hold the line and send them packing. In that context, this battle was like the many that had been fought before and would be fought in the future.
Sanguine grunted as the Goblin jumped up onto her back, claws scrambling across her visor. Across the gorge, the Hobgoblin she had been set on taking out reposition, keeping its optics on the Warlock as it waited for a clear shot. Sanguine saw the bipedal creature skid to a stop, rifle raised and ready to fire. As the shot arced through the Hobgoblin's rifle, she dropped down to a crouch, the Goblin looking up in time to take the rifle shot to its upper chassis. Flung back by the blast, it looked up in time to see Sanguine slamming down onto it, her fist bathed in the dark colours of the Void. She buried her fist into its central core, the glowing component melting into slag under the heat of her fury.
The second shot glanced past her cheek, and she was moving again, rolling over to her rifle. She raised it as the Hobgoblin lined up a shot. But she was faster on the trigger. Her rifle pulsed, four rounds slamming into the already scorched chest of the Hobgoblin. It was flung back against the wall, the optic unit flickering twice before it faded out.
She caught her breath, sliding a fresh magazine into her rifle. Her motion tracker confirmed that there was no more Vex alive around her, giving a second before she had to keep pressing into the Ruins. She had a deadline to meet. Beside her head, a flash of light formed into a small floating drone with a blue circular eye in its centre and teal highlights across the rest of its body. Her Ghost floated down to the Goblin body- one of many she had made since entering this chasm.
"The Vex aren't making this easy for us." It hesitated. "Not that they ever make it easy, but you know what I'm saying."
The Vanguard- the effective ruling body of Guardians, or at least the closest that they had- had learned from scouts on Venus that the Vex were uniting large amounts of their forces in the Ishtar Sink underneath one of the towering skyscrapers that littered the surface of Venus. Since any amount of Vex unifying was a powder keg waiting for a spark, it was decided with uncharacteristic haste for the Vanguard to send a Fireteam in. With the large amounts of Vex present around the base of the building, the Fireteam decided to enter using the underground networks, each approaching from a different angle to maximise the chance of finding a way inside.
"Let's just hope it's easier for Noir and Umbra," Sanguine replied. "We might have caught the bulk of their forces down here and given them a clear path." Ghost stopped and looked at the Warlock as she caught herself and sighed.
"And through saying that, I have doomed them to have even more Vex hounding them until we meet up, haven't I?"
"Well, I didn't wish to be the one to say anything in case we said something worse in the process…"
Ghost flickered away as Sanguine chuckled to herself. Hefting her rifle, she moved deeper into the tunnels.
Umbra-42's armour was scorched and marked in numerous places where the Exo had taken enemy fire to it. Even though the armour was self-replicating and could slowly re-forge components that were heavily damaged, the marks would still be there until she found some time to wipe it clean. The Titan crouched behind a pillar, sliding shells into his shotgun one at a time. On the other side of the pillar, a contingent of Vex forces were pouring fire onto her haphazard cover. Hobgoblin sniper fire tried to take off any body parts that poked over the cover for even a fraction of a second. For the Exo, herself a machine, it was all she needed to poke out her rifle and pour out her own return fire. All the while however, Goblins tried to swarm the position, only to meet her shotgun as they rounded the pillar. But the Minotaur units were proving to be the real issue. It wasn't enough for the mechanical titans to fire explosive rounds that rocked the pillar back, while armed with shielding that let them tank shots that would otherwise be fatal to other members of the Vex. No, the giants also had to know how to teleport too, which made them even more irritating.
One such Minotaur, having noticed the improvised kill zone that had ensued from the Goblins mindlessly charging the Exo's position, used such a manoeuvre to plant itself a few meters behind the pillar. The one bright side was that the short-range teleportation absorbed a large chunk of the processing power of the Minotaur, resulting in it not being able to fire for a few seconds as power was re-routed to weapons systems.
Umbra wasn't fond of retreating, especially when she was as close to the plaza as she was, but holding her current position was steadily amounting to a near impossible task with the sheer numbers. If the Vex were just a little more well grouped up, she would have a trump card to break their lines. As it was, they were smart enough to distance themselves. Grunting in reluctance, she quickly switched to her rifle and ran, slipping past the Minotaur, dodging past its heavy fire as she put distance between herself and the Vex lines. As she reached a small alcove, she slipped a grenade out of a pouch, pirouetting and tossing it at the feet of the Minotaur as several Goblins and Hobgoblins moved up to press the supposed advantage.
She didn't stop to see the aftermath, ducking into the alcove and letting her armour regenerate. Her head darted out, optics taking in the fallen Goblins. The Hobgoblins had broken out their barriers, keeping them in place but nullifying much of the damage. The Minotaur had lost its shields, and she pressed the advantage, lifting her rifle to her shoulders and unloading a barrage into it. Minotaurs had no real point to shoot, but the shots aimed at the centre-mass of the target sliced through the armour, toppling the beast.
Umbra darted back inside the alcove, focusing for a second on her rifle. It began to fragment apart into splinters of Light in her hands, becoming compartmentalised into its digital blueprint before being stored inside her Ghost. In exchange, the rifle was replaced by an old-fashioned style of shotgun, modified with a scope and extended barrel. Cocking the Universal Remote, she allowed a small smirk to run across her face as she aimed and fired.
Noir was, for lack of a better word, lost. The Hunter had delegated to enter a crapped sewer tunnel in contrast to his colleagues, who favoured entering areas already charted by other Guardians. On the bright side, it meant that he had an easy time slipping past the Vex defences, and was making slow but steady progress towards the open area under the building that they were meeting at.
On the downside… he was in a sewer. His cape was ruined. It was a beautiful cape, white as snow and inlaid with glittering gems, one he'd been proud to earn and wear, especially when it came to rubbing it in to Sanguine and her scarlet longcoat. Not that she could ever know he was competing- not only would that nullify the advantage he had over her in that he was competing, but it would simply be uncouth. Besides, he had too much fun making up words to make the Awoken ponder over, like frabjulous.
As it stood, he was up to his boots in murky liquid that could have been there since the Golden Age… and smelled like it, to boot… and the bottom of the cape was getting soggy. But he ultimately pushed such dire thoughts out of his mind. He had a mission to complete, which necessitated getting out of this sewer soon.
"Schematics show an old service ladder up ahead at the end of this tunnel. Should be able to get you close to the underground plaza." Ghost flickered into existence beside him. Sure enough, less than a hundred meters later, an old ladder was there before the tunnel abruptly cut off, with the grate above long forgotten. Positioning himself under it, the Hunter jumped up, the micro-thrusters in his boots elevating him to where he could grasp the lid of the entrance with his fingers. Soon enough, he was out of the grate. It was here that he saw the tunnel ended because it came to a bridge. Evidently, the denizens of Golden Age Venus felt the need to have sewage tunnels large enough for a grown person to crawl through.
Noir's thoughts were interrupted by a rapid stream of gunfire. Sliding into cover at the side of the bridge, he poked his head out, smirking when he saw his old friend pinned down by a Minotaur and Hobgoblins. As he watched, Noir saw Umbra pull back, leading the Hobgoblins closer to the Minotaur, before a grenade and rifle fire made short work of the Minotaur and surrounding Hobgoblins. Noir pulled a rifle off his back- longer than the one Umbra was using and decorated with a green net and assorted paint, and with a much higher kick to it. Pulling back the slide, he raised his rifle to his eye before aiming at a Hobgoblin pressing in.
Because sometimes, the best way to deal with the Vex was with a little Time and Patience.
As Sanguine made her way further through the tunnels, now mercifully clear of Vex, she kept her motion tracker in her peripheral vision. Barring the occasional rumble which could be either attributed to a fault line or just large machinery overhead, the area was now clear of hostiles.
It was almost too good to be true… which of course led to hear hearing the resounding boom of a sniper rifle a few minutes later. Immediately, her pace quickened as Ghost began to scan for the source of the shot. Thankfully, the rifle soon fired continuously after that, giving the drone a solid area to plant a waypoint on. The Warlock quickened her pace, determined to join the fight.
"We're some ways out, but the maps show we have a good chance of coming out at the plaza." Ghost noted. Sanguine flexed her hand, watching as it lit up with Void energy.
Noir slid the bolt back on his rifle as another Hobgoblin fell and he exchanged magazines. His rifle was of a high enough calibre that even with the shielding that Hobgoblins possessed, it was capable of punching through their cores and snuffing them out like a candle before they could react. Below him, Umbra blasted a Goblin almost clean in half with her Universal Remote, pushing past the Vex corpses that had previously hindered her. The Exo reached the top of a staircase that opened out into a large atrium-like room that had a large matte black circle carved into the ground that was a foot high, surrounded by three starch grey pillars in the room that rose nearly to the top of the atrium, which was easily over a hundred and fifty feet tall. On the other side appeared to be the remains of a circular elevator shaft. She turned to the human on the bridge overhead, nodding once as she exchanged her shotgun for her auto rifle.
Noir returned the nod dispassionately. He slid a new round into the rifle before vaulting over the ledge. His armoured legs easily absorbed the shock of the fall, and he strode up to the Titan. As he did, his rifle compartmentalized into its Engram state, and in its place, he held a revolver with a golden barrel. Umbra took the lead as they moved down the steps, both with their weapons out. Umbra's Ghost faded in.
"Those pillars… something's off about them. Can you get me in closer?"
Umbra stepped up, moving into the circle. Up close, it seemed that the circle was marked by deep grooves that spread across the entire length of the circle- exactly twelve feet wide and twelve feet across. Each of the pillars also had what appeared to be a folded-up pitch black device on top of each of the pillars. The devices were covered in what appeared to be loose wiring, with a circular piece folded up on the side. Umbra walked cautiously over to the nearest pillar, raising her left hand. Her Ghost appeared, an almost comically bright teal in colour, and began to scan the pillar.
"Fascinating… the metals these are made of… they haven't been seen since before the Collapse! There's power lines underneath each of them. They all seem to connect to a series of generators throughout the building. I can't tell what this thing was built for… but if it needs this much power it could be anything and everything. This is connected in one way or another to nearly every grid in the Ishtar Sink."
From the other side of the atrium, the sounds of running footsteps began to echo through the narrow tunnel and into the wide atrium. Noir's cannon was up in a heartbeat- the sounds were carrying further than his motion tracker, so he'd need to see who was coming before he'd know if they were a friendly or not. His fears were ultimately assuaged when it was Sanguine, the Warlock lowering her weapon as she stepped out onto a bridge that connected to another entrance to the elevator shaft. Noir gave her a short wave and she nodded, jumping off the side of the nearby bridge. A faint blue aura surrounded her as she fell, slowing her fall down and cushioning the blow. Within a few seconds, the three Guardians stood in the circle, looking around the wide area they found themselves in. Their Ghosts scanned the trio of structures surrounding them, blue lights flashing out as they analysed separate areas. Umbra began to move to the edge of the platform.
"This is fascinating, but we need to focus on our mission. We can tell the Vanguard about this place and they'll be able to examine it after we clear out the Vex above." The Ghosts almost seemed to wilt at this before they disappeared in a flash. Noir stepped off after Umbra, with Sanguine close behind.
As she stepped off the edge of the circle, a deep thrumming sound began to resonate through the room. Red emergency lights in the elevator shaft came on, while the circle started to rumble.
"I just wanna say…" Ghost started. "I didn't touch anything."
With this, multiple Vex began to fall down the elevator shaft, crawling forward and firing as they moved. As one, the Guardians began to unload hellfire on them, tossing grenades into the thick of the hoard in front of them. The onslaught only relented when their weapons clicked empty, but after having worked together for as long as they had, their movements were synchronized faultlessly. But they were only three, and while they brought down many Vex over the next several minutes, the three Guardians were slowly pushed back onto the circle. Their armour took several shots, preventing the Guardians from being several damaged, but as more and more Vex appeared, more of their armour became covered in scorch marks.
As they pulled back for cover, the three pillars began to shudder. The devices on top of each of them began to spread out like the legs of a spider, forming with only a small distance between the three of them over the exact centre point of the circle. They began to rotate- slowly at first, but gradually speeding up to where multiple shots from both the Vex and the Guardians were intercepted. But the hail of fire still impacted around the Guardians.
The circular altar-like structure began to ascend, set to a great groaning sound as age-old mechanics came back to life. After several continuous minutes of rising, with the Vex having long since ceased fire, the altar abruptly came to a halt. The Guardians were thrown back by the sudden impact, with Noir teetering over the edge for a moment before Umbra grabbed him by both of his arms, pulling the human back.
Sanguine looked straight up, at the three interconnected devices. The circular ports each folded out, resting on top of one another over the centre of the circle. Electrical currents were running through each of them, jumping between the three outstretched pillars and forming an almost solid mass of electricity between them. The circles began to pulsate with power, a beam of raw white energy flashing into existence. Slowly, the circles began to descend with the beam, which formed into the shape of a flat oval. Sanguine rolled to the right as the bottom of the oval landed where she was previously lying. The three Guardians stood loosely around the oval, their Ghosts reappearing and examining the oval of energy.
Noir ran his hand over the impromptu barrier that ran between each of the pillars. "Solid as rock, but smooth as glass. This isn't going to dissipate until it runs out of juice." His gaze shifted to the circles. "Ghost? Any ideas?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. That oval appears to be some sort of teleportation portal. Destination… unknown."
"That's not ominous at all." Umbra muttered under her breath. The Exo stayed beside Noir, also feeling along the barrier for a weak point. Sanguine, meanwhile, got back up on her feet, staring into the oval. The light reflected off her helmet as she took a few unconscious steps towards the light, her hand moving up of its own accord.
"Fascinating…" she said, more to herself than her fellow Guardians. The two turned around as they heard the spoken word, seeing Sanguine move closer to the beacon of light.
"Sanguine, wait-" Umbra began, before the Warlocks hand brushed against the oval. A sudden flash ensued throughout the room, burning Noir's eyes even through the polarity of his visor. When his vision returned to normal, there was no evidence of Sanguine having ever stood beside the portal.
"Ghost! What the hell just happened?" Noir attempted to rush to where Sanguine had been before she vanished, but Umbra once again grabbed him by the arms, holding him in place.
"I don't know, but the effect it just had on this place… we need to get out of here fast, before bad things start to happen!"
"… Define 'bad things' for me."
"This place becoming ground zero for a thermonuclear explosion that has a chance of wiping out the entire Ishtar Sink?"
Noir looked over his shoulder at Umbra. "Yeah, that's pretty bad. Got a way out of this?"
"One. You won't like it."
"My friend just entered a teleporter than goes somewhere we have no idea of." Umbra butted in. "Tell us."
"You have to jump into the portal."
Umbra stared at Noir's Ghost for a few seconds. Even though she was wearing a full-face helmet, Ghost had the distinct impression that she was not amused.
"You're right. I don't like it." The Exo sighed. "But we won't be able to get out fast enough. Even if we break this barrier, we aren't fast enough to reach the surface and get to our ships, let alone fly fast enough to get out of the blast radius." She slowly released her grip on Noir's shoulders. "Besides, like hell am I leaving a friend behind."
Noir slipped his pistol into its holster, rolling his shoulders and neck. "Well then," he said with a hint of cheer. "What're we waiting for?"
With that, he threw himself into the portal, vanishing much like Sanguine. Umbra sighed.
"These two are gonna be the death of me." She growled, before setting her shoulders and charging in.
For Noir, it felt like falling. A constant, never-ending fall through a tunnel of pure whiteness. The only colour was the dark blue of the armour that covered his hands, which were held out in front of him. Noir had known of the time travel capabilities of the Vex- he knew Guardians who had braved the Vault of Glass and seen worlds and timelines where there was no resistance to the Vex. But it was one thing to hear about the horrors of coming undone in one world and being re-forged, piece by piece, in another.
As he watched his hands, desperate for something to cling onto before his own mind started to fracture under the strains of time, they began to shift. The armour melting away, leaving the hands that degraded down to muscle, then bone, then ash. The ash then reformed itself into the hands of a small child, before rapid acceleration made them the hands of a grown man, before time withered them into those of a decaying senior. In a flash, his hands were his own hands, safely wrapped in his gauntlets.
He had no idea how much time had slipped, or how much would be left until he made it out of this tunnel. All he could do was fall, through what seemed like eternity. He had a mouth, and an eon later, it let out a scream.
And then- no more white constantly surrounding him. Instead, he saw to the left and right the blackness of space itself. The stars seemed a little different, but it was something different- something new. He didn't have much time to process it however, due to what was in front of him. The moon. Closing in fast.
His arms flailed- he could move again! - but it failed to slow him down. He called out, but no Ghost answered his call. His armour failed to respond to his commands, the thrusters not firing up to slow him down. He hit the moon, impacting hard on its crater- he could feel the bones crack in his ribs. For a few seconds, he simply breathed hard, haggard breaths. Slowly, he began to pick himself up- when he was flying again. He saw the moon as he was almost pulled away from it rapidly, like a child watching a toy being pulled out of its grasp. And then, he saw lines carving their way through the moon, fracturing the surface and splitting up the surface of the moon into tens, hundreds, thousands…
And then the moon split open, like a gun had been lowered to its head and the trigger pulled. Noir felt his vision fade as he rocketed back, the G-Forces slamming him into unconsciousness as his vision went white again.
Another flash of white behind his eyes and he jerked to. He saw only the blue of a calming sky. His hands were buffeted underneath him, and he felt his cape covering his torso like a blanket. He also heard a familiar voice in his head that he had gone eons without.
"- wake up! You need to wake up!"
And that was when it dawned on him, the memories rushing back to him- Sanguine, the tunnel of raw time, the moon- and then another realisation hit him. He was falling. And then his senses where overwhelmed by the sensation of falling.
"Ghost? You still there?" He could barely hear his own voice over the howling of the wind.
"Barely! That jump did a number on my systems, I've had to manually reboot everything. The good news at least is that we're not fragmented across thousands of timestreams. The bad news though is… we're in freefall and about to hit the surface in under a minute."
His vision picked up puffs of grey to the sides- clouds. Noir deftly turned around, seeing a vast forest and assorted chasms and mountains rapidly closing in.
"More bad news is that a lot of your Engrams are screwed up. I got your armour back on you, but subsystems like the jumpjets aren't cooperating. I can try to get them back online, but so many other systems need manual rebooting, which means pouring Light into them… I have a very bad idea."
If Noir could, he would have gestured around. His attempts at doing so wound up spinning him so he was back to facing the sky. "We're all out of good ones Ghost, hit me!"
"Well, poor choice of words. I won't… but the ground will."
It took a few seconds for Noir to realize where Ghost was going with this. The tips of gargantuan trees began to pass his vision. "Hang on, I'm not the hugest proponent of self-preservation, but that's insane!"
"Even if we get the jumpjets online, the backlash from stopping so fast will blow your kneecaps out! As well, I don't have enough Light in me to fix everything and then heal you. If you land the hard way, I'll have time to recharge enough Light to get vital systems back online and have things at least functional by the time I get you back up."
Noir sighed. "It's gonna hurt either way, is what you're saying. Fine then. But I-"
Whatever Noir was about to say was intercepted by him slamming into the ground at terminal velocity, his vision slamming to black.
Far away from this improvised landing site, two teenaged girls found themselves in an argument concerning matters of life and death.
"What was that?! That should have been easy!" Ruby Ruse pointed behind her at a burning tree, behind which were several Grimm she could have taken out blindfolded. Her sparring partner, Weiss Schnee, folded her arms. Ruby had nearly gotten herself killed by charging headfirst into one of her attacks- it was a miracle Weiss had changed the angle of her attack enough that the redheaded fool hadn't been killed on her first day. And she had the gall to blame her?
"Well perhaps if you had exercised even the slightest amount of caution-"
Ruby looked up as a sharp boom resonated through the forest, cutting off Weiss. "Weiss?"
"I heard it too." The heiress had her hand on her blade, scanning the nearby area.
"Obviously. But the good news is that it should attract Grimm that way. We'll have a safer trip if we keep our distance from that sound"
With that, Weiss turned around on her heel and moved further into the forest, her stance brokering no argument. Ruby let out a quiet sigh, holding Crescent Rose close to her chest as she followed.
"Maybe it was just someone else using explosives? I hope so." The alternative, of something making that sound by hitting the ground at a fast pace… that wasn't a train of thought she wanted to continue. Regardless, there were more pressing concerns at hand- like finding whatever Ozpin sent them to find so they could become students in Beacon.
It's probably pretty crap, but I haven't written anything like this in over two years and that was when I was in my "Make OCs that are super-OP and solve every problem!" phase of writing fanfic. My self-awareness of how deep I'd gone into the rabbit hole had me leave the whole idea of writing behind for a while. Unfortunately, I've now entered the college phase of needing stuff to do, watching stuff to fulfil that purpose, and thinking "What if these characters crossed over?"
But RWBY and Destiny make for interesting crossover potential. There's a fair few similarities between the two products, so I figured why not put them together. Hopefully the growing pains end soon and this becomes something I can tolerate.
Otherwise, I won't beg for reviews. If you like it, say why, if you hate it, the feeling's mutual, but I'd at least like to know why so I can try and improve.