A/N: A small part of this chapter is taken directly off of one of the first Destiny live action trailers, as my nod. Of course it's not identical, because that's not possible with my set of characters and circumstances, but that's all right: my stories are all left of canon anyway. Curious about which trailer, or haven't seen it before? Do a search for 'Destiny Official Live Action Trailer'. The one that starts on the Moon is the one I'm talking about.
Enjoy!
Edited to add: I was going to post this yesterday and then what happened in DC happened and I got distracted. I decided to hold off until today. Everyone please stay safe out there.
The sky was so clear and dark, it almost looked like one could cut themselves on the stars. Soft gray hills and ridges of rock, like a slow and stormy sea caught in a still frame, flowed unbroken in every direction, save one.
There, a great slab of the moon's crust formed an enormous knifelike peak. Pale green light, far too reminiscent of the light that Min had seen spilling from Nara's nasty rifle, glowed in a miasmic misty glare in the cracks and canyons beneath this peak.
The eyes of the three crouched atop one of the ridges were not fixed on this peak, however, but down into a gouged little crater below them. A slope of sand and silt stretched down from where they crouched and into the bottom of this gouge. A huge pair of doors, each fifty feet high, was set into the cliff at the far end of the crater.
Those doors were reflected almost mirror-clear in the front of Kalina's helmet. She was a little ahead of Minerva and Gen. Her bearing looked fairly relaxed but a fist clenched at her side gave her tension away.
When they had landed, Kalina had addressed this new mission with her usual humor and carefree optimism. Min had been grateful for it. Her mind kept dwelling on Eris Morn, on the oddly frenetic energy in the back of Nara's eyes, and Kalina kept pulling her out of those images and back into the here and now.
No Hive army had been waiting for them when they had landed. They had seen no trace of anyone in the old and dusty remains of the old colony prefabs and outbuildings. The Traveler had terraformed the moon somewhat, leaving a near Earthlike gravity and an atmosphere that would have allowed them to breathe comfortably even without their helmets- although Gen had pointed out if they tried to run any marathons they'd soon be feeling the thinness of the air.
There was no sign anyone at all had been there in decades. Any footprints Tychon may have left had been sifted away with the low but constant breeze.
Or erased deliberately, Min thought. The man was a Hunter after all, and she'd seen Kalina leave no footprints in her wake either.
His Ghost as well had not been responsive, but Lev and Poet had been able to pick up a weak signal coming from this direction. They had hunkered down the moment they saw the doors.
"Is this what Morn described?" Min asked Gen softly as Binky was doing her best to scan the doors without getting closer than was necessary. Kalina was watching her Ghost carefully. She had a sniper in her hand and Min knew from experience just how fast she was with it.
"What she called the 'Hellmouth?'" Gen asked, just as softly. "I don't think so. It doesn't seem quite right."
It may not have been the Hellmouth, but the architecture of those doors was definitely alien. From the lay of the land, she didn't doubt this was one entrance into a labyrinthian lair of Hive that probably extended almost everywhere under the moon's crust.
A hive for the Hive, she thought silently to herself. Gen had described the Hive as insectile- even more so than the Fallen were. Termite mounds in Africa could reach huge sizes and were amazingly complex, Min knew.
She couldn't say how she knew that, but she'd learned to stop wondering about such things.
Binky was zipping back to them, drawing their attention. She stopped near Kalina, part of her shell spinning in a way that spoke of the same tension and nerves the rest of them felt.
"The signal is inside," she said. "From what I can see, there are dozens of lifeforms at least, just within those doors. They don't seem to be aware of us just yet."
"They're going to be soon enough," Minerva said. "If Tychon's in there, we've got to go in as well."
"We'll lose any element of surprise," Gen said.
"There's no other way in?" Kalina asked Binky.
"Not that I could see. Not anywhere close."
"Dozens just inside the doors," Minerva said thoughtfully, shifting up a bit closer to the Hunter.
"You got a plan?" Kalina asked.
"Never say Guardians aren't polite," Minerva told her, then got to her feet. "I say we knock."
It would be far easier to fight out here in the open crater than inside on the Hive's home turf, where movement and even sight may be more limited. Gen also got to his feet, gesturing at Poet, who vanished into his tag.
"Think they have a butler?" he asked dryly as Min held her hand out. Her rifle shimmered and disappeared, replaced by a very large rocket launcher. She hadn't had a chance to use it yet, it was one of the weapons that Zavala had procured for her, but she'd used similar ones in the Crucible to efficient and rather fun effect.
"Yeah, and his name is Death," Lev said.
"You're always so chipper Lev, that's why I love you," Kalina said as she, too, rose to her feet.
"I thought it was for my rugged good looks," he said back.
"Get your rugged good looks into your tag before someone comes out of there and messes them up," Minerva told him as she quickly checked over the launcher.
"Uh, yeah. Good idea." He shimmered and vanished, leaving only Binky out now.
Hefting the launcher up to her shoulder, Min carefully set its crosshairs on the set of doors. The display flashed a moment, then locked on.
"Set?" she asked. Gen had traded his rifle for a pair of his favored machine pistols and gave her a nod.
"Ready here."
"Kalina?"
"Ready."
Min took a deep breath, steeling the nerves deep in her gut, and pulled the trigger. In a whomping blast and a hissing streak of smoke, the rocket streamed away from the launcher toward the doors. Barely was it away than the launcher vanished off her shoulder. Her hands automatically adjusted and caught the heavy rifle as Lev materialized that in its place. Min felt a tight smile on her face- she and Lev had started to anticipate each other seamlessly, something she'd seen in other Guardians.
The rocket hit the doors, and in the thin clarity of the air the domed ripple of the blast wave could be seen swelling out from the explosion almost before the fireball itself was registered. All three Guardians braced themselves as the blast wave hit them, rocking on their feet a moment. Min's mark and Kalina's cloak both lifted and snapped briefly in its wake.
A great cloud of dust coiled and whipped up in the crater, the silt flattening down in a fan. The doors had both cracked, and the recoil of the explosion had forced part of the rightmost one at a cant. As the dust cloud started to clear, Min could see a significant gap had opened up between the doors.
All three Guardians had their weapons aimed down at the gap, but for several heartbeats, nothing seemed to happen.
Min was just about to lower her weapon, concluding that Binky's scan must have been wrong, when the Hive came.
They poured out of the gap and into the crater like a swarm of fire ants. They, like the Fallen, were surprisingly more humanoid than Min had expected. They moved fast so details were hard to spot, but they appeared to be covered in some kind of knotted brown chitin, and looked weathered as old driftwood. There were odd gaps, holes in their bodies. Some wore rags, tattered and torn as if they were Egyptian mummies who had ripped their way out of various graves.
"Now it's a party," Kalina said, the grin clear in her voice.
"Music?" Binky asked.
"Something classical," Kalina said. "You know the one. Then get shady."
Music shattered the air like a hammer through glass, as Binky shimmered and vanished. Min recognized it; one of Kalina's favorites, and the second song she'd ever played for Min in the Den.
Down below in the crater, as the music crashed into life, the swarming creatures seemed to hesitate, to fix as one on the three Guardians standing there. Then Kalina's sniper went off and one of them toppled to the ground. Min took off down the slope, careful to compensate for the shifting and sliding dirt beneath her feet. Spits of fire flared from her rifle barrel with every shot, and as the Hive started to surge toward them again several of the closest exploded with wounds and collapsed to the ground.
Min hit the bottom of the crater a breath before her two comrades, only somewhat aware that her arms were on fire again. What she couldn't see was that it wasn't only her arms. Flame streamed out behind her like enormous wings as she rushed into the mass of Hive. The count of ammo on her HUD streamed downward, but for every one of the creatures that fell two more seemed to leap over it and come onward without a step of hesitation.
When they had first swarmed out, it looked like they were unarmed save claws and teeth, but the first heavy slap into Minerva's shoulder plate told her that one or two of them had to have projectile weapons. The hit did not penetrate her shield or pads, but the kinetic force was enough to turn her shoulders a bit. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kalina whip a ball of Void around and send it sailing into the bulk of the beasts. As bodies went flying, Minerva recovered her stride and ducked a shoulder low. She felt a crunch as she drove hard into the chest of a large Hive, its chitinous armor cracking and bowing inward along with whatever ribs it may have had. Min didn't slow or slack her effort, and it lifted off its feet, driven forward and half carried by the Titan as it burst into flames.
She could feel claws tearing across her backplate as the thing shrieked and screamed and flailed at her, and she drove harder, plowing it back through its fellows and driving a furrow right through the horde. Bodies fell to either side, several of them on fire, and several more scattered in a mad dash to escape the flames. Min finally changed momentum, tearing the mostly dead but still thrashing Hive off of her and whipping it around to throw it away from her. It tumbled in a smoking heap.
"To your right!" Lev said and she turned, already firing. The head of a leaping Hive ripped apart in a blast of dust and ichor, and she kicked it away from her.
Her drive had brought her nearly to the gap in the broken doors. Seeing no others rushing out of it she turned back toward the battlefield. Gen, who she had never seen flustered in battle, was striding here and there with purpose, every snap of his machine pistols taking out a head, or a leg, or a slashing arm.
Kalina, unable to use her sniper in such close quarters, had traded it out for a nasty looking blade that was almost as long as she was tall. Half a dozen bodies lay around her, some of their severed limbs still twitching as they slowly got the news that they were dead.
Min fired toward a few that were recovering themselves, but it seemed that most of the horde was down.
That wasn't so bad, she thought. They're not nearly as tough as I thought they-
"Behind you!" Lev suddenly shouted again. At the same moment, Min thought she felt the ground shake a little immediately behind her. She started to turn and then something hit her, sent her flying up into the air.
Time seemed to slow as she twisted through the air. She could see blood fanning out in a perfect arc. She could see the twisted and somehow bone-like blade that had hit her coming to the end of its swing, a ragged edge that looked like teeth in the middle of that fan of blood. She could see the thing that swung it, a Hive creature at least eight feet tall with the same eldritch triumvirate of eyes that Eris kept behind that linen blindfold of hers. She could also see something strange slowly falling to the ground right in front of it. She was still puzzling out what that thing could be when she hit the ground, and watched it topple over.
It's my legs, she realized with a cold, drifting wonder. That fucking thing just cut me right in half…
The world still seemed to be moving in slow motion. The fan of blood pattered down like rain and the monster started to step forward. Like a slowly blooming plant, white arcs of lightning lazily drifted in as Gen came down into view, his coat blowing in slow waves. The lightning branched off his fingers and caged the beast and it began to recoil. Part of its broad chest cracked and bowed inward; Kalina, it seemed had changed her sword for a shotgun.
Min didn't hear it bark, just as she didn't hear the hissing crack of the Arc power. Sound had vanished, and in a sliding tornado of darkness, vision was also beginning to vanish.
I shouldn't have brought them. When Zavala said to, I should have told him I'd go alone or not at all. I should have…
But no more thought would come. The now familiar dark of death stole the rest of the light away.
"Hey, open your eyes. C'mon, Mini."
Something tapped at her cheek. A thousand lights, all tiny and cold, danced in a blurry wave. Warm tears spilled down the sides of her cheeks. Pain tingled and burned and chewed and bit from every quadrant.
In that blurry wave of lights, she could see a darker form, a face that was starting to take shape.
"Nastya?" she said, and the name seemed to twirl away and join the lights in their wavery dance. "Nastya…?"
"Well that's interesting," a male voice joined the first, and a second looming shape seemed to take form. She blinked rapidly, and the blurry waves drew together and clarified.
The stars. It was the stars. And the face above her was-…
"Kalina?" Her voice was a wet pant through teeth grit with pain.
"Yeah, it's me. Lay still a moment."
"I'm almost done, just hang on tight."
Lev. That was Lev. Her Ghost. As sensations started to sort themselves she recognized it for what it was- nerves and blood vessels being reknit. She was being healed, and as the fire of pain seemed to drift down her legs she remembered.
"Fucker," she said with a trembling chatter to her teeth. Her entire body was shaking. Healing from some really terrible injuries always resulted in that, she found. Shock, she supposed. Dead flesh getting used to being alive again. "Fucker cut me in half."
"Yes, he did," Gen said. He was standing near, looking down at her. Kalina seemed to be crouching over her, or on her knees beside her. In the storm of sensation it took Minerva a long moment to realize the Hunter still had her hand on her cheek. Her bare hand. She'd taken off her glove, and either she or Lev had removed Min's helmet. The air flooding into her lungs was crisp with cold, each shaky exhale spitting with it a thin, fine stream of mist. Oddly, the cold seemed to be clearing her head faster than it would have otherwise.
"Stupid," Min said, still trying to get on top of the flood of pain that finally seemed to be dying away. "Stupid of me, putting my back to the door-"
"Shh," Kalina soothed, wiping away the tears of pain and giving her a half smile. "You're not stupid. That thing came out fast. Even if you'd been looking I'm not sure you would have seen it in time to get out of the way."
"Everything's a learning experience," Gen said. "It's down now, and nothing else has come out of the doors. I think we're clear."
"That should do it," Lev said, and he sounded almost as shaky as Minerva felt. "How are you feeling?"
"Pain's gone," she said, and then shivered again. "Cold."
"When you're ready to sit I'll get your helmet back on, that should help."
Kalina's hand vanished from her cheek as she turned and lifted Minerva's helmet off the ground beside her.
So Lev didn't take it off, Min wondered as Kalina held the helmet out toward the Ghost, and it shimmered back into digital non-existence.
She shifted to go into sit, and as the Hunter moved to help her she gave her a weak smile. "I got it, thank you."
Sitting up, she could see the scattered dead Hive all over the place, the larger hump of that final beast not far away. Between her and its corpse, she could see a small lake of blood making dark mud of the dust.
"We dragged your legs back over," Kalina said, and Min could see the joke coming in the Awoken's eyes. "I hope we didn't set them down backward."
"If you did, I'd be able to see my own ass," Minerva said with a weak gesture at her midriff, and Kalina grinned.
"So, who is Nastya?" Gen asked, watching her as she carefully got to her feet.
"Who is what?" Min asked. Her helmet reappeared around her head and she tapped the side of it a moment, giving her legs a quick shake and a bounce.
"Nastya," he replied. "You said it twice as you were waking up."
She blinked at him. "I did? I don't remember…I don't know who that is."
She had a vague memory of saying something, but she thought it may have been Kalina's name as the Hunter's face had started to clear.
"Interesting," Gen said thoughtfully.
"Not important right now," Kalina said. "Now that Min's got her feet back under her…uh, literally…we have other things to worry about."
"Worse things," Binky said as she came into sight. She had come from the direction of the doors. "Much worse things."
"What is it?" Kalina asked. "What'd you see?"
"It's Tychon," the Ghost replied, and her voice sounded flat and small. "He's dead."
