I want to see you
As you are now
Every single day
That I am living
Painted in flames
All peeling thunder
Be the lightning in me
That strikes relentless
The Lightning Strike – Snow Patrol
July 16, 2957
TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED
PARTIES: Three [3]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Ikora Rey [ir]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Zavala [z]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Azra Jax [aj]
ASSOCIATIONS: Almighty; Cabal; Jax, Azra; Last City [Earth]; Red War; Rey, Ikora; Veera; Zavala
/AUDIO UNAVAILABLE/
/TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../
[ir:01]: Zavala, your group is in position at the City's perimeter.
[z:01]: Understood. Preparing to go radio silent. We can't give the Red Legion any warning.
[z:02]: I will do all I can to reclaim our home. If we do not meet again… know how proud I am of what you have done.
[aj:01]: Did you get a clip of that, Spark? Good leverage next time I get in trouble.
[z:03]: I was talking to Veera.
[aj:02]: Oh.
[z:04]: That was a joke. You have both done the City proud.
[z:05]: We cannot win without you. Be Brave.
July in the EDZ meant warm, muggy nights with the occasional storm. July in the mountains around the City meant cold temperatures at best and feet of snow at worst. They were lucky the passes were even open enough for travel- the assault squads all had to approach the City on foot. There would be no grand entrance on a Jumpship this time. Stealth was their best ally.
Sylas's group had paused in their pass, resting and collecting themselves before the final push. The group was an eclectic mix of active City Militia, retirees, Lightless Guardians, and even a few brave civilians. Plus one Suraya Hawthorne, one Hunter Vanguard, and one Light-empowered Titan.
People shared food and water, which Sylas did not need. Some stretched their legs and complained but most sat quietly, too wrapped up in the monumental task ahead of them to make merry. Hawthorne moved among her people: a reassuring hand here, a canteen of water there.
Sylas needed no rest, so he paced and stared at the path ahead instead. The City was close, lit even in the night by the orange of the Traveler's cage. Sylas looked out at the skyline, and he had to admit, it looked… different.
It was something beyond the damage done by the war. There was an odd sense of disconnect now. Once upon a time this had been the center of his universe. He'd spent more duty shifts than he could count repairing and reinforcing the walls, clearing brush, doing patrols in the mountains. The City was his home. A place he could always return to. The start and end of every journey.
Now, yes, it was the City. It was still familiar, despite the smoke and the broken towers. But it wasn't his City anymore.
"Is this how Hunters feel?" he muttered (mostly to himself). "No home? How terrible."
"Home is where your family's at," Cayde-6 replied. He sat a few meters away meticulously sharpening a knife. He seemed to be at ease, but Sylas's trained eye caught signs of a nervous energy.
He unclipped Azra's knife from his belt and held it out to the Hunter. "Could you sharpen this for me?" he asked. "I've yet to obtain a whetstone."
Cayde eased the blade from its sheath and used the rag by his side to wipe it clean. The metal glittered strangely in the dull orange light. Cayde hummed thoughtfully. "Azra give you this?"
"Yes," Sylas said. "When we went down into the Cradle together. She hasn't asked for it back."
Cayde grunted in appreciation. "Good. It's nice to see her trying again." He twirled the knife in his hand and began meticulously checking it for damage like one would a new gun.
"What do you mean?" Sylas asked.
"You all are good for her. When she came out of the Vault…" he stopped inspecting the knife and tapped it thoughtfully against his leg. "Well, finding out half of your friends have died on you, it's kind of a shock. Go through a thing like that, it's easy to give up. I worry. Can't be there for her all the time, you know? 'Specially since I've been stuck in the City."
The only thing Sylas had thought about was how Azra was good for him. She had driven him to explore, backed his decisions, and given him more hopeful perspectives. All he had tried to do was hold her back.
"Good news," Cayde announced. "This don't need sharpening. Just a good honing. Straighten out the kinks, no need to make a whole new edge." Cayde's Ghost deposited a small tool in his hand and he began his work. "Just like your City there. She'll fix up nicely."
That odd phrasing- your City, like it didn't belong to Cayde at all, made Sylas curious. "What do you see when you look at it?"
"A whole lot of Cabal butt that needs kicking," the Hunter said easily. "And a whole lot of loot to grab."
"Be serious," Sylas scolded. "It's not home for you. What is it?"
Cayde paused his honing to scrutinize the skyline. "A future," he finally decided. "An opportunity. Sometimes it's only when things break when you can make them better. We kick the Cabal butt, we take our loot, and maybe when we rebuild, we can fix some of our issues."
Issues? Sylas had never gotten that part of Hawthorne's speeches. The City was beautiful- or it had been. Children could play in the streets unafraid, people could live whatever kind of life they wanted to. It wasn't perfect, but the flaws always seemed minor. Cayde and Hawthorne spoke like the City was teetering on the edge of instability. "Issues? The City was fine-"
"I'm the Hunter Vanguard." Cayde stood, wiping off the knife a final time. "Me. When this all started- I never knew Tallulah Fairwind, but it sounded like she was great for the job. And the system put some great people in that chair. But it also put me there. You ever hear the story of me and Andal's Dare?"
Sylas shook his head mutely. He expected the Hunter to launch into some longwinded tale, but the Exo spoke plainly. "Me and my brother got drunk and made a bet. That's it. That's why I'm one-seventh of the City's government. Two guys got wasted after a rough mission and made a dumb decision." He held out the knife. Sylas took it wordlessly.
"The system that put Andal in that chair also killed him," Cayde said. "It doesn't give us a way out. There's a growing number of us resentful of that."
"The Vanguard is important," Sylas protested.
"Which is why I'm still here," Cayde said in agreement. "But you wanted honesty? This is broken."
They looked together at the City. Behind them people were packing up, stretching. "What's your solution, then?" Sylas challenged.
Cayde shrugged. "If I knew how to fix it, I would." There was a very obvious moment when he settled himself and pulled the walls back up. "Eh, none of this matters unless we get a move on. No stopping now until it's done. Everyone ready?"
TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED
PARTIES: Three [3]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Ikora Rey [ir]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Azra Jax [aj]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Veera [v]
ASSOCIATIONS: Almighty; Cabal; Jax, Azra; Larsen, Tevis; Last City [Earth]; Red War; Rey, Ikora; Veera
/AUDIO UNAVAILABLE/
/TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../
[ir:01]: It is time for me to go, Guardians. You know your path. You don't need our guidance anymore.
[ir:02]: If my journey ends today, then I will face it gladly.
[aj:01]: You remind me of Tevis sometimes.
[ir:03]: The same wisdom can come from different sources.
[aj:02]: The same flaws, too. There's something powerful in accepting your death, but there's also a danger. You stop running from the end, you better find yourself something worth running towards.
[aj:03]: Else you're just done.
[ir:04]: I have plenty to fight for.
[v:01]: So do we. I know we will see you again, Ikora.
Azra flew the ship in, complaining the whole way. Apparently this Cabal commander did not believe in foot controls. The ride seemed smooth enough to Veera, though Azra's grip on the yoke was white-knuckled.
"At least it's fitted for a Psion," Veera pointed out. She was strapped into a passenger chair that was much too large for her. "If it were for standard Cabal you would hardly be able to reach the stick."
"If it were fitted for a Cabal there wouldn't be the dumb neural interface I have to compensate for," the Hunter replied. She grit her teeth as she narrowly avoided another asteroid. "This had better go more smoothly than that time on the Dreadnaught."
That brought back memories. At the very least, this ship did not reek of Hive Rot. Hopefully they would be able to get onto the Almighty without being shot down. Scavenging another vessel would be tricky and there was no cavalry to send after them.
"We're almost inside the reach of the Almighty's point defense," Veera's Ghost reported. "Even if we were noticed, it's almost too late for them to do anything."
"Just find me a landing pad," Azra said through gritted teeth.
TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Azra Jax [aj]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Cayde-6 [c6]
ASSOCIATIONS: Almighty; Cabal; Cayde-6; Jax, Azra; Last City [Earth]; Red War; Vanguard Dare; Veera
/AUDIO UNAVAILABLE/
/TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../
[aj:0.1]: Cayde.
[c6:0.1]: I just want to point out, if you kill me by blowing up the Sun, you're the next Hunter Vanguard.
[aj:0.2]: I'll put it on the list of things to worry about, right behind 'destroying the entire solar system'.
[c6:0.2]: Seriously. You got this?
[aj:0.3]: Worry about your own butt. I'll be fine. Even if I won't, I'll still be fine. Resurrective immortality and all that.
[c6:0.3]: Try to get me some cool video clips.
[aj:0.4]: Wilco. Love you.
[c6:0.4]: You too, and all that.
Azra was very happy to be off of the hellship. She adjusted her rebreather and bounced a few times to get used to the artificial gravity of the Almighty. To their right, the Sun was practically a wall of luminescence. Azra had to tint her visor all the way down just to see. Even then, she could already feel the heat through her armor.
Ahead of them was the Almighty's main weapon. The beam pulsed through space, purple-white and almost as blinding as the star. A dark ring marked the surface of the sun where it touched. The vibrations of it shook the entire station.
"We need to disrupt the Almighty's link with the Sun," Veera said. Her voice was close on the comms, though the was inspecting the view from the other side of the landing pad. "Which way to the controls?"
"Let's follow the fuel stream," Azra reasoned. "It'll get us closer, at least, until I can find a terminal with some schematics on it."
"Let us hope this goes smoothly," Veera said.
All in all, the mission did go smoothly. Spark managed to piece together enough of a map to navigate them through the Almighty's maze-like corridors. Thanks to their stolen ride, most of the Cabal guards and technicians were taken completely by surprise.
They had to run into complications eventually. There were always complications. Sometimes, if you were lucky, the complication was something like running low on ammo or finding an unexpected side-passage. Unfortunately, this mission was far too interesting for such mundane issues.
"So, the bad news is, the only way to get where we're going is out there."
Azra peered out the window incredulously. "Seriously?" 'Out there' was a catwalk on the sunward side of the Almighty. The weapon's beam lanced through space. The surface of the Sun roiled, casting off miniature solar flares as the Almighty began disrupting its magnetic field. The entire side of the station was lit with the brightest spotlight imaginable, broiling under a fusion-powered oven. Even with the advanced Cabal shielding, the outside wall was noticeably hot to the touch.
"Yes," Spark said apologetically. "There's a hangar with some shuttles on it that will take us to the core. But the only way in is…"
"Jesus. It's literally raining fire out there!"
"We can do this," Veera said confidently.
"Says you," Azra grumbled. "You catch on fire like every day now."
"Scared?" Veera taunted.
"…Open the door, Spark."
Veera was distracted.
Not by the literal sunfire raining down around them. The two Guardians sprinted from cover to cover, fighting off the Cabal guards converging on their position, crouching in whatever shade they could find while their Ghosts repaired their scorched armor and healed their burned skin.
But it wasn't that which really held her attention.
"This is the craziest thing I ever done!" Veera yelled over the electromagnetic screech of the solar flare.
Her companion chuckled. "You're not alone, there!" She peeked around cover. Veera pressed her back to the open airfoil providing them shade and unloaded her Hand Cannon at a Psion trying to sneak up behind them.
"Follow my lead!" the Hunter called. Veera responded without needing to think, following three steps behind the Hunter as she dove out into the light.
Bullets rained down on them from a Colossus on the next level. Veera paused, summoning a small singularity, cradling it in a complex net of Void Light. It trembled in her hand, feeding on its own power, ready to collapse into the fury of a dying star at any perturbation. She sent it screaming off towards the armored Cabal.
A hand grabbed her elbow and forcefully pulled her sideways. It wasn't until she was in the shade that Veera realized that she was burning.
Even then, she didn't really notice. She was distracted.
The Hunter next to her beat at the flames on Veera's robes and chastised her for pausing in the sunlight. Veera couldn't see the expression behind her tinted visor, but the exasperation and worry were clear in her voice.
That. That was what distracted her.
She should have asked hours ago, before the mission even started. She should have asked months ago. Years, if she was being honest. But she had always been worried about the consequences. The future had been a big place, full of possibility, plenty of time to get a better grasp on the situation, find the correct words.
They were left with perhaps twenty more minutes before the Almighty was disabled and the assault on the City would start. There was no speaking to the future after that. Veera had let the time slip by, worried about impacting performance, worried about rejection and morale.
But it was distracting her. Be Brave, she wanted to scold herself. She was traversing the outside of a space station a few bare light-minutes from the Sun, scorching herself with every step, fighting off waves of Cabal soldiers. If she failed, the entire solar system would explode. And here she was, afraid of one question.
The Hunter was beautiful, even in the harsh glare of sunfire. So steady, so sure. There was something gratifying about watching a person be good at their job, entirely in their element, and Azra almost always seemed to be in her element. Even here, back pressed to some vent cover on the outside of a massive Cabal space station, she was sure and graceful.
Veera could not stop looking. It wasn't just the big things, it was the small details: the curve of her neck, the swift and efficient motion of her reloading her Mythoclast, the wild, starlight-piercing snap of her Light, how the first thing she did when reaching cover was look over her shoulder to make sure Veera was safe. The Warlock was smitten.
How, in all of the possible versions of existence, all of the twists and turns of fate, after a hundred million small decisions, did she end up with Azra Jax by her side? It felt like she was cheating the universe somehow.
They were almost through the gauntlet. The pair of Guardians paused to catch their breath in the shade of an external air duct and Veera could not hold it in any longer. "Do you want to grab dinner sometime, after this?"
"After this, they better throw us a fuckin' party," Azra said dryly. "Though I'm not going this time. Maybe for like five minutes. Grab some snacks. If they start with the speeches, I'm outta there."
"No, I mean just the two of us," Veera said.
"Alright," Azra replied amicably. She didn't cast a glance backwards.
It was too easy. "As a date," Veera clarified.
"Sure." The Hunter shifted her legs underneath her like a cat preparing to pounce, eyes still focused on their next hiding place.
Veera grabbed her arm to keep her from starting the next leg prematurely. She was done with ambiguity. "Azra. I am asking you out. I wish to begin dating you. Romantically. As a couple."
"You wish to… begin dating me," Azra stated slowly. She settled from her crouch to a kneeling position and turned back to look at Veera.
"Stars above, we did it," her Ghost announced, awed. "I wasn't sure this day would come…"
"Shut up," Azra said.
"Azra, don't you see?" There was something too solemn about his gravitas. "We finally found someone more obtuse than you."
"My God," Azra said, sounding mortified.
"You should know better than to call a Warlock obtuse," Veera warned.
"Azra, Veera just asked you out on a first date!" The Ghost was definitely teasing now.
Veera had to shift her focus- there was a Psion far ahead that had set its sights on their patch of shade. Veera unholstered her sniper rifle and peered down the scope. "If this is not the first date, how many dates have we been on?"
"Like… ten?" The Hunter said in pained embarrassment.
"Ten. We have been on ten dates." Veera pulled the trigger once, twice, taking out the Psion and a Cabal Phalanx that had stepped out of cover.
"I mean… ish? Some of them were kind of riding the line…"
"Give me an example."
The Hunter gestured helplessly. "I thought it'd be obvious. We did Crimson Days together-"
Veera let the barrel of her rifle drop in surprise. "Friends can do Crimson Days! You participated in three matches with Cayde-6. Did you consider those to be dates?"
"Awww, you looked up who else we did Crimson Days with," Spark teased. "Jealous?"
"I will muzzle you," Azra threatened.
"You have to admit it's a little funny," her Ghost protested. "After all this time, you're finally the one that's two steps ahead. How does it feel?"
"Like we're only 20 million kilometers away from the sun," Azra said. "And the sun is mortification."
Another issue came to Veera's attention. "We have been on ten dates and we haven't even kissed."
Azra scratched the back of her neck in a nervous gesture. "There was that once-"
"I was drunk!" Veera protested.
"So was I," Azra said. "Plus, I figured we were taking it slow. I mean, you're new, I wasn't going to start taking advantage of you, and me-"
There was a pause in her rambling. When she spoke, she sounded afraid suddenly. "Oh, Traveler. I'm not- I'm not a makeout person. That's an issue."
"You what?"
Azra spoke low and fast, frantic. "If that's what you want- I… I didn't think, because I thought- if we were dating, you didn't care, but we weren't to you I guess and you do… I mean, I could try-"
"Stop," Veera commanded. "Azra, I have known you for seven years. It is obvious sex does not interest you."
The Hunter seemed to want to disappear. Her shoulders were hunched almost up to her ears. Veera's first urge was to offer a reassuring touch, but considering the subject matter of their conversation, a touch at this moment likely wouldn't reassure.
She lowered her voice instead. "Why would I ask that of you if I knew you did not like it? I just want to spend time with you. Together. Makeouts or no."
"Usually it's a dealbreaker," the Hunter muttered.
"I did not consider it as one of the terms to start with," Veera said. "Whatever compromises need to be made for us to be happy- for both of us to be happy, we will make them. Maybe we cannot find a boundary that both of us are comfortable with, but I want to try. Trying means I get to be in a relationship with you."
There was a silence. It probably only lasted a few seconds, but it was a tortuous eternity to Veera. She was just an arm's length away from the Hunter, yet she was so afraid that she would never reach her.
The Hunter drew in a deep breath pausing to consider her words. "Why do you have to be so fucking charming?" she complained. "Who gave you the right to just make it that easy? Like, chill out, you're making everyone else look bad."
Emboldened, Veera asked again. "With everything having been said, I repeat my question: will you go on a date with me?"
"I already said yes," Azra replied. "But since you're the one that asked me out, you're paying this time."
Who knew when the restaurants would open again? They would have to retake the City first, or Veera would have to rack her brains for a suitable picnic spot-
Veera's Ghost interrupted apologetically. "Maybe… we should get back to saving the solar system now?"
TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED
PARTIES: Four [4]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Ghost [g]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Azra Jax [aj]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Veera [v]; One [1] Ghost-type, designate Spark [s]
ASSOCIATIONS: Almighty; Cabal; Jax, Azra; Last City [Earth]; Red War; Vanguard Dare; Veera, Zavala
/AUDIO UNAVAILABLE/
/TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../
[g:0.1]: Zavala, the weapon is destroyed! Start the attack!
[aj:0.1]: They're gonna need major repairs to get this thing operational.
[v:0.1]: Yes. We will have won or lost by the time they can ignite it again. We should go.
[aj:0.2]: Five minutes. Ghost, if you could bring the ship around-
[s:0.1]: Let's smash all the control terminals we can find.
[aj:0.3]: And put the ship on security lockdown, if we can. Just to slow the Cabal a bit more.
[v:0.2]: Should one of us stay?
[g:0.2]: No. We go together.