Ash jolted awake, having been interrupted from her sleep by the downward arc of a thrown pillow.
"C'mon, it's already eleven. You've slept in long enough, let's get a move on!" Aria stood in the Exo's room, already dressed in her gear. She wore a white tunic, short and tactical looking, that came down to just above her knees. It had slight lavender accents, and looked quite professional, as though Aria were preparing more for a meeting, or a business endeavor rather than battle. Ash glared at her with as mean a look that she could fake. Obviously, she wasn't really mad at the girl, but she didn't want to be woken like that in the future, either. "Better not do that again, or that pillow's gonna come flying right back at you."
Aria wasn't buying it. "Oh come off it, you and I both know you're bluffing. Hurry up and let's go!" Aria made an impatient gesture towards the door. From across the hallway, Ash spied Matt stumbling out of his adjacent room, half dressed in his armor. She assumed he'd been greeted with the same brutish morning as her, and she watched him yawn tiredly as he placed his helmet over the seal that lined his neck. Fully armored, he walked to the right and out of her line of sight. She sighed in resignation, and looked back to Aria.
"Where'd you get those robes? I could use some armor as well, seeing as I don't really have anything other than this." Using her two forefingers, she pinched the black suit she was wearing, signaling to Aria her lack in wardrobe. "There's a few vendors around the tower, they sell armor and weapons to the Guardians. I'd go the gunsmith for weapons, he's got quite the selection. Matt's heading there now. Though, if you're looking for armor, you should probably see the the Vanguard armory. It's near where you had your cleaning, in the hangar." Ash nodded to show she comprehended Aria's instructions, and the young awoken girl left the room. Ash pushed herself up into a sitting position on the bed, and placed her feet on the ground. She looked over at Whip who had activated as soon as he'd heard the pillow's impact on Ash's face.
"You need to be more alert, Whip. I can't keep being woken up through unwelcome means." The Ghost rotated his eye 360 degrees, in a rolling motion. "Oh, poor you. First tragedy befell you when an innocent guy stumbled across you naked, and now I failed to protect you from a pillow assassin. What shame I feel." Though the Ghost's attitude was heavily sarcastic to say the least, Ash almost appreciated it. It gave the floating AI a personality, and a sense of individualism. She felt like she was talking to another person when she conversed with him, unlike the few times she'd talked to a frame in her time at the Tower, as they were simply programmed to respond to your behavior.
"She is right, you know. You should get a move on, or all the good bounties will be taken." With a nod, Ash stood up and walked to the exit.
-X-
An hour and 200 Glimmer later, Ash wore a full set of Titan armor. She'd bought it from the Vanguard Quartermaster during the shopping spree she and Matt had shared. Her new armor had a red and white color scheme, and was called Agema. Well, some model of Agema, but she hadn't kept track of the serial number. She'd just thought it looked sturdy, and had picked it up. It was comfortable to say the least, not her first priority of course, but it was definitely a damn good bonus.
Matt examined his new armor as well. He'd replaced his Ghost generated plates with a set called 'Stratus White'. It was blue and white, and surprisingly fit in well together as a color palette. "I like the feel of this," he said. "It's nice and comfortable. It even regulates my temperature, keeping me cool." With a glance to the left side of her HUD, Ash indeed noticed that there was a digital thermometer that was set at constant temp of around seventy five degrees.
In addition to their defensive purchases, they'd bought a few weapons to help keep them on the offense as well. Matt now carried a silver hand cannon in a holster, part of a belt that he clipped around his waist. There were multiple pockets to the thing, leaving Ash with the assumption that some were likely where Matt would end up keeping grenades and ammo. She herself handled a scout rifle, JIGOKU class. She'd tested it out with the gunsmith before buying it. She appreciated the ranged weapon's stability, and she felt a cool sense of lethality every time she handled it. She also had bought a shotgun, preferring close quarters combat to the stealthy approach that Matt had tried to take. He was now waiting on an order for a sniper rifle. Aria had already bought herself a few weapons before she'd even woken the other two up. She carried a pulse rifle on her back, attached to her with an adjustable buckle strap.
"So, are we ready?" Ash looked at her two friends, and wondered if they were finally prepared to venture into the wilderness, officially carrying out their first mission together as a fireteam. Aria just looked excited to be where she was, with her gear ready to go, and her helmet in hand at her side. Aria couldn't read Matt's expression through his helmet visor, but she had a feeling that he was looking at the three of them with pride.
"Yeah, we're ready. Let's go."
They walked towards the Frame that the Vanguards had talked about, standing in front of a large electronic monitor. His metal head turned towards the sound of them approaching. "Greetings, I am Xander 99-40, bounty tracker of the tower. Is there anything I can help you with Guardians?" Matt looked at the curious droid's face- if you could call metal beams and a sensory plate a face. "Yes, we're just checking in on the daily bounties. Is there anything we can do?"
'Why, certainly!" The Frame reached its hand into a satchel at its side, and pulled out a small notebook with several leaflets in it. "There's a need for someone to harvest the spinmetal around the forgotten shore… there's an area that needs to be scouted near the edge of the city walls… and there's a roaming pack of Fallen that were spotted around two hours ago. Which ones would you like?" Matt thought for a moment, and then said, "Give us the two about the city wall and the Fallen enemies. We'll take care of both." 'Splendid! Here you are." Once again, Matt saw a prompt appear on his wrist interface. Upon clicking 'confirm', he now saw a small progress meter, tracking his accomplishments. He heard Aria's and Ash's interfaces beep as well, and he presumed they were checking their own as he had done.
"Traveler's light go with you!" Xander now turned to another Guardian and began to assist them in their bounty search.
"Well, we've got our mission. Seraph, can you bring the ship around?" The Ghost materialized, nodded, and then vanished again. It took a few moments, but the three Guardians began to hear the increasing sound of a ship's engines, and they looked up and over the edge of the Tower to see their black and silver ship fly over the courtyard and hover there for a moment. Blue lights appeared and surrounded their bodies, as Seraph transmatted them into the cockpit of the ship. There were two chairs in front of the flight console, seats for the pilot and co-pilot. Another seat was positioned directly behind the first two, about four feet back. This one seemed more of a passenger seat than anything.
Shuffling about, Ash found herself in the pilot's chair, with Matt in the co-pilot's, and Aria in the passenger seat. Then Ash brought up an unforeseen problem.
"Uh, guys? Do any of us know how to fly?" Upon seeing their blank stares, Whip materialized, and explained, "Don't worry about that, we Ghosts can handle this one." Aria's own AI companion appeared as well, and nodded in the air. "Oh yes, we Ghosts are more than capable of flying aerial craft."
Giving the other Ghost an odd look, Whip turned back to the Guardians. "When we get back to the tower later, we can help teach you. It's really not that hard once you get the hang of it." Again, Aria's Ghost interrupted, saying, "As easy as riding a bike! Or, so the human saying goes."
Whip turned back to the Ghost. "My, you're just a parroting little echo, aren't you?" "I beg your pardon?" cried the other Ghost indignantly. The three Guardians snickered, to his embarrassment. "I am not some mimicking idiot!" "Well, you're sure giving it a good try. Echo, the redundant Ghost." At this, Aria couldn't help but laughing through her masked seriousness. Her Ghost gave her a withering stare, or as much of one as they could do without facial features. "Go ahead, laugh my young Guardian! See if I try to help you three later…" "Oh come on, Echo…" Aria wiped away her tears of laughter as she now used the nickname given to him. "We're only teasing. Don't be so stuck up."
Grumbling, the Ghost dematerialized. Whip shook himself, and glanced back at the trio in the seats before him. "Anyway, like I said we can pilot this thing. Just make sure you get your safety harnesses fastened, we're gonna be going a little fast." The three of them scrambled to correctly hook up their buckles and belts. No sooner had they finished when the ship began to accelerate.
Down in the courtyard of the Tower, other Guardians watched the jet-like ship pick up speed and fly off into the sky, until it was no more than a black speck in the distance.
-X-
Aria looked at the monitors that adorned the interior of the bridge. Some were connected to external cameras, and she could see the rocky and barren, though beautiful in its own way, landscape rush by as the Javelin flew past it all in a blur. Gazing out at the front viewport, she saw a section of the large walls of the City grow larger to her surprise.
"Hey, why are we heading towards the wall?" Ash and Matt, both of whom had been engaged with a conversation with each other, turned back towards the window and saw that she was right. "Hey yeah, what gives? I thought we were taking care of those Fallen roamers first." Seraph materialized in front of his face. "Well, we are. In an odd chance of coincidence and probably convenience, from what I've been able to gather from the Fallen comm chatter, the pack that was seen scavenging around has been headed here, towards the area we need to scout."
Matt looked at her, his helmet hiding his eyebrows that he'd just pulled together. "I wonder why that is. What is it about the area that warrants a need to investigate it?" Seraph's blue light pulsed again as she checked her information. "Apparently odd noises, weird occurrences nearby. My personal guess; another group of Fallen is living inside that section of the wall, and this group is journeying over to visit. Whether it's to exchange materials or what, I can't say for certain." Matt nodded. "Well then, in that case we may be able to kill two birds with one stone."
Suddenly, Whip's voice emitted from the internal speakers of the Javelin; "Alright you three, I'm going to transmat you down to the ground when we're low enough. Seraph and I can keep the Javelin nearby, while Aria's Echo there, accompanies you down. You should have at least one Ghost with you." "Wait, why aren't you or Seraph coming with? It's not like you need two Ghosts to fly the ship, you're living algorithms," asked Ash suspiciously. Whip hesitated a moment and then began, "Well, there's a few variables that we haven't accounted for, and I'm of the opinion that perhaps it'd be a safer bet to-"
"Oh my God, you think we might fail!" Ash's accusing tone, followed by Whip's silence confirmed her guess, and in an effort to divert attention, he began the countdown. "Transmatting in 3…2…1…"
The blue grids reappeared, and the next thing Matt saw was the Russian landscape, slightly blanketed with snow. The next thing he heard was Ash muttering, "Coward…" "C'mon," he urged, pointing at some tracks in the snow. "I can't say I know exactly what Fallen footprints look like, but those ones sure as hell aren't human or any kind of animal that I know." He began to trek across the ground, following the trail that the roaming Fallen had left behind. Trusting their human companion, both Ash and Aria followed, each behind and to either side of Matt, forming a triangle.
It took them nearly half an hour to reach the borders of the wall. From a small hilltop closely, they spied a group of Fallen next to a small section of the wall, simply standing there. It was Ash's first time seeing the aliens in person, and they pretty much matched the description that Aria and Matt had given her; four arms each, with armor covering most of their body, save for the ones she and Matt and learned were called 'Dregs', the ones with only two arms and docking caps covering their lower two stumps. The fully limbed class members were referred to as Vandals. Ash could see another one that looked similar to a Vandal, though noticeably larger, and armed with some kind of cannon in its arms. She wasn't entirely impressed with them, going by the simple philosophy that an enemy was an enemy, and had to be killed either way, so why worry about its appearance? She was more concerned about their strength and skill, and wondered how she would handle against them in combat. She'd practiced with her scout rifle, but these were moving, defiant targets. Much tougher to shoot.
"So? What's our plan of attack?" Aria was looking at Matt, her Warlock's helmet tilted up to allow her a better angle. Ash was slightly curious as to why Aria immediately assumed Matt was leading for a moment, before reasoning that since Matt had been the only one to actually fight these things so far, it was logical for him to guide them with their attack. She held her pride, and awaited his order.
"Well, from what I've seen, their heads are pretty weak. I know that sounds like a stereotypical thing to say, but it's true. They look like they've got a lot less armor around their head and eyes than they do with the layers upon layers on their torso and limbs. In addition to that, I've seen this white, vapor-like gas leak out when their heads are gone. I'd say that their skulls aren't very thick, and probably don't need to many bullets before they pop." With a nod from each of his two associates, he continued. "I'd say that we get in close, around 30 yards from them, and just open up. They'll be hitting the ground before they even know we're there." Though Ash would have preferred to go straight up to them and smack them in their ugly faces, she saw the safety in his stealth approach.
The Guardians took a bit more time to position themselves behind a small incline that was roughly about the distance away from the pirates that Matt had suggested. They unslung their weapons, and laid down on the ground. Matt was laying in the center, with Ash up next to him on his left, and Aria on his right. He positioned his hand cannon on the ground in front of him, gripped in his right hand, and held up his left with three fingers up. Slowly, he removed his fingers one by one, until there was nothing but a closed fist, and all three Guardians opened hell upon the unsuspecting Fallen.
He immediately noticed several trails of the white substance burst from the heads of those who had fallen victim to the scout rifle and hand cannon. The pulse rifle rounds had a greater spread, and impacted against their chests and limbs, bruising and stunning the enemies for a few moments, before the other two precision weapons fired and finished them off.
Within ten seconds, the group of nearly fifteen vandals and dregs had been reduced to four, not including the Captain who had not gone down under the hail of bullets, and roared at them from their hidden position on the raised incline.
"Reloading," said Aria, making sure to alert her teammates that she was replacing the magazine in her rifle. Matt and Ash began to do the same, but blue bolts of arc energy peppered the ground in front of them, kicking up dust and reducing their visibility as the remaining vandals fired at them with their wire rifles. "No time, they've spotted us," called out Ash. She stood up and began to charge the five remaining enemies, much to the dismay of Matt who had just begun to protest her stepping out of cover. Shaking his head, he turned to Aria beside him. "Give us some covering fire, alright? I'm gonna help her out here, make sure she doesn't get killed." Without waiting for her response, the Hunter ran after the trigger happy Titan that looked like she was about to take them all on singlehandedly.
The young Warlock lined up her shot, ready to defend her friends if necessary.
Ash reached the vandals and dregs, and cocked her fist back, bracing herself for the punch she was about to throw. One of the dregs rushed to meet her with an shock dagger, but it stumbled under the impact of rounds that Aria had fired from her support position. It looked off towards the source of the bullets just long enough for Ash to take advantage of the distraction and ram her fist directly into the side of its head, instantly caving in its skull and killing it. Its corpse flew backward a few feet from the sheer force, and she took the time that she had with no enemies to reload her scout rifle.
A vandal ran towards her, but was forced to halt as Ash's ammunition tore through his armor and exited through his back. He fell like a sack of bricks. Two down.
The last two, a pair of vandals, readied themselves with their shock blades in hand, but their growls of challenge had barely began before a few shots from Matt's hand cannon came from the left and caused their heads to explode in a burst of white gas. Their two unarmed limbs shot up at their neck, a nerve reaction, to clutch at the empty space where their brains had used to reside. Ash grinned inside her helmet, until she felt a small shake in the ground, and realized she'd forgotten about the Captain.
Turning around, she was just fast enough to see the Fallen's burly arm backhand her, and the impact sent her flying backwards a few feet. Readjusting her aim, she began to fire at the large enemy in front of her, keeping it at bay until Matt jumped on its back, having used its focused attention on Ash to slip around it undetected. Pulling a knife from a sheath in his belt, Matt used his hand gripping the chin of the beast to arch its head back, exposing its throat. With as much force as he could gather, he thrusted the knife into its neck with his other arm. The Captain began to make choking noised, as it bled internally and began to drown in its own blood. It fell to its knees as soon as Matt dismounted, and yanked the knife out its throat. This only gave the blood more room to flow, and in doing so, caused the Fallen Captain to bleed out even more quickly. Matt retrieved his knife from the hand of the still heaving form of the doomed Captain, now laying on the ground, and placed it back in its sheath. Then he glanced over at Ash.
"Look, the last thing I want to do is berate you for what you did, because regardless of what it was, it was badass and brave. But you've got to remember that you're not a one man army, and when you're up in close like that without us to back you up, you might be on your own." Ash wanted to argue that she'd won, but then remembered that she'd only wounded the Captain enough for Matt to drive his blade into it, meaning she'd had help. In fact, she'd needed help with almost all of her would-be victims, from Aria's supporting fire, to Matt's life-saving precision shots. She kept her mouth shut, and only nodded at the Hunter, scared to admit how right he may have been.
Matt nodded back in acknowledgement of her acceptance, and turned to look at Aria, now walking over from their original position.
"That was some nice covering fire from what I could see. Good job." The Awoken girl nodded in acceptance of his praise, and then gazed over at the wall. "So this is what these Fallen were looking at?" In the side of the wall was a large crack, opening into a room of darkness. She could smell something odd in there, almost rotting. The newly dubbed 'Echo' materialized in front of her.
"That would be correct, Guardian. This is also the entrance to the section of the wall we need to investigate as well." Echo looked at the wall, then at Matt. "Make sure to mark the bounty as complete on your interface, now that we've taken out the Fallen." Bringing his wrist up to his face, Matt tapped a few commands into the device, then lowered it again.
"We're supposed to go in there? We don't know what could be in there at all, it's pitch black." The Ghost activated a small light that shone from his eye, providing a potential light source. "It smells. Bad." Aria's input was small, though accurate. Matt noticed that too, some kind of stench that reminded him of roadkill. But the City needed these coordinates scouted, so he was going to do it. With a glance at Ash and an accompanying shrug, he began to walk into the opening. After a frustrated action of throwing her hands into the air to express her disapproval, Ash too entered the crack. Aria followed closely behind with Echo, who now became a beacon of light in the dark.
The room they were in was completely devoid of any light source. The only visibility came from the light shining out of Echo's eye, illuminating the dark corners and walls. The interior of the wall was filled with pillars and railed off platforms connected with catwalks and metal staircases. Their boots produced soft clangs against the metal floor out of the silence. The place was definitely eerie, that was for sure.
"I've never seen any kind of Fallen camp be styled this way," said Echo, now talking to both himself and the Guardians, trying to work through the unusual circumstances with logical reasoning. "They almost always have at least a little light, so that others can see their banners and the trophies of their victims. This place is just blackness, like a solid shadow." Suddenly, Matt stopped.
"Guys, look at this." Matt rubbed his gloved finger on one of the pillars in the darkness. When he pulled it away, the rest of them could see a black substance, seemingly both liquid goo and evaporating gas come away with it, stuck adhesively to his finger. Shaking his hand, he threw it off vigorously. "Whoa, that feels…wrong. Just…wrong." When he touched it, he'd felt sick, like he was coming down with some kind of illness. The nauseating feeling subsided as soon as all traces of the material had left his hand. "I don't like this," said Aria, her voice becoming traitor and giving away how unsettled she felt.
Out of nowhere, all three Guardians detected the same thing; movement. Spinning around to line up their line of sight with the radar on their HUD's, they saw a quick flash of something grayish white in the darkness, illuminated for a brief second under the Ghost's light. "Guys…" began Matt, but before he could say anything else, his radar exploded with activity.
It's motion detector showed that enemies were all around, surrounding them, even next to them. But he couldn't see anyone. Echo turned frantically from side to side, obviously receiving the same information as the Guardians' trackers. In a flash, an idea crept into Matt's brain and took residence, refusing to leave. Slowly, he glanced over the side of the catwalk they were on.
Gripping onto the side of the catwalk were bony, skeletal hands that looked as though they were malnourished, and completely devoid of life. He just yelled, attracting attention towards the shocking sight. At his signal of becoming aware, the hands that belonged to a larger body began to pull the rest of the creature that they were connected to up and over the railing's side. It landed on the natal floor with a thump, and Matt nearly lost it.
The creature in front of him was humanoid, but looked sick, and twisted. It had no eyes, just a body and skin that looked as though it could be torn apart with the fragility of paper. It screamed at him with a single mouth lined with broken and decaying teeth. It sounded like a person being tortured in the worst possible ways.
"Thrall!" cried Echo, and he grew his radius of light larger, illuminating even more of the terrifying creatures that had been hidden in the darkness. Frankly Matt didn't care what they were called, as long as the one standing in front of him soon became a dead one.
He brought his foot up and quickly extended it with a large amount of force directly into its chest, propelling the beast over the side of the catwalk and into the dark depths below. The amount of force he'd given had nearly punched through its abdomen, and he again thought of the comparison to paper for skin.
Ash and Aria wasted no time with melee, and instead opted to unload magazines of bullets upon the small army that surrounded them. Matt brought his hand cannon up, and began to follow their examples, filling the thralls that had begun to throw themselves at the Guardians like suicide squads with lead, and ending their attempts before they'd even begun. Ash had switched to her shotgun, and was proceeding to blow ten-inch holes in the torsos of the creatures, rocketing them backwards from the explosive force of the metal pellets.
"Look around for a floating one of these things, that's a wizard! All of the thralls' wills are connected to its mind! You kill the Wizard, you kill the thralls!" Matt began to look around as he continued to fire into the waves of skeletal enemies, until he spied it about fifteen feet in front of Ash, waving its arms in the air in what looked very much like a puppeteer controlling a series of marionettes. "Ash, twelve 'o' clock! Take it out!" he yelled. Ash glanced slightly upward, saw the ghostly threat, and raised her rifle, firing shot after shot into its forehead. It wasn't too long until the rounds took their toll and punched a hole through the Wizard's face. It disintegrated in midair with a high pitched scream, orange contrails escaping the glowing cracks that formed in its body before it turned to nothing but dust and ash.
Almost as if on cue, the bodies of the thralls began to crumple, falling over one another until they ceased to move, and they too evaporated into the air. Without another word, the three Guardians and Ghost sprinted towards the exit, back the way they'd come.
Though it only took a few seconds, it felt like hours to Matt, and he wanted nothing more but to escape this hell hole back into the light of the sun. With another few stride, he did just that, and he tripped in his haste, sprawling across the ground, before scrambling back up to look and make sure Ash and Aria had come through safely. Their chests heaved as well, all three of them stunned and nonplussed from what had just happened.
"What the hell were those things?!" Matt jabbed a finger at the crack, indicating he was referring to the hellish creatures they'd just killed.
"That, was the Hive." Echo flew forward from his normal position hovering around Aria's shoulder, and looked at Matt. "They are another of the Darkness's several armies. We lost the moon to them, as they burrowed beneath it and now inhabit it. We'd hoped that would be enough for them, but apparently not. They haven't been on Earth in centuries, this has to be the first recorded encounter since the Collapse."
"So, what'd you call the individual creatures? Thrall?" Matt tried to remember the terminology that the Ghost had used. "Yes, the creatures that were being used as cannon fodder are called 'Thralls'. That one that flew above them, controlling them? That's a 'Wizard'."
"So we killed the Wizard, but why'd the thrall die?"
"Because their life force is tied into the Wizard's consciousness. She conjured them up, therefore they obey the will of her mind." "Conjured them up?" The Ghost looked uncomfortable at Matt's question, before continuing on to explain, "Well, from what we've gathered data wise, all indications point to the thrall being humans or other creatures that have been revived by the Darkness instead of the light."
At this, all there Guardians were silent. Matt thought about the possibility of them having become a thrall instead of a Guardian if he'd been revived by a Wizard instead of Seraph. He shuddered. To take his mind off of the frightening images that kept popping up in his mind, he brought up his interface and marked the bounty as 'complete'.
"We finished what we came here for, now it's time to head back. We need to tell the Vanguards about this if what you said about the Hive is true, Echo." He spoke into his interface, alerting Seraph and Whip to their position. "Hey, we finished the job. We need pickup pronto. Something's come up."
-X-
"The Hive? Are you sure, Guardians?" Ikora Rey's face failed to mask the worry and concern she was feeling. "Positive. We had no idea what they were, but Aria's Ghost correctly identified them as 'Thralls' and a 'Wizard'. We wouldn't have known to kill the Wizard otherwise." All three of the Vanguard's listened to Matt's report, and turned to face each other. Cayde-6 turned to Matt and explained how they felt about the situation.
"The Hive are probably one of, if not the most prominent of the Darkness's armies. They don't have any other loyalty or obligation other than to fulfill the wishes of the Darkness by consuming all light in the universe. To think that they might be beginning to move on from the moon and attack here…" Cayde's motors gave an involuntary shudder. "It's not the most pleasant of possibilities we have to consider."
Aria looked around the table of veteran Vanguards and began to speak. "Well, from what we've seen it's only been this one section of the wall that's been compromised. But we don't know for sure. Is there any way we can find out what the Hive are up to?" Ikora's face concentrated in thought, and then turned pale at the realization of a possible course of action. "Yes, there's something we could do, but it's incredibly dangerous, not to mention far away from support." Ash stepped forward before the Warlock could protest. "We're Guardians now, ma'am. We need to take as many risks as are necessary to defend the City. What needs to be done?"
Ikora took a deep breath, and said, "Inside the Hive's fortress is a library. We learned this from another Guardian who was stationed on the moon for a few months, instructed to study them and observe their military force. Within this library, the Hive keep all of their records. Much of it is likely gibberish and religious babble worshipping the Darkness, but some of it may be useful to see why they could be moving into an offensive position on Earth."
"And where is this library?" asked Matt, dreading the answer that he already knew she was going to say.
"Inside the Hellmouth, the Hive's pit of their lair. You're going to have to go into the moon."
Author's Note: This chapter was somewhat shorter because I'm making the next one longer, as it has a lot of content to cover. Remember that if you're enjoying the story, to follow/favorite it, and leave reviews or questions in the Reviews section!