A light snow fell upon the ground, blanketing the landscape in fluffy white powder. The outskirts of the city near the wall were usually barren and empty of any kind of life save for the Ghosts that would harvest spinmetal from the outer rim, but when the winter came, a different kind of beauty came upon it, the kind that can only be achieved through simple observation and silence.
Of course, the spectators on either side of the marked track in the snow were not very adequate at either of these at the moment.
A wide stretch of road had been constructed in a makeshift fashion, shoveling snow from the center of the track and moving it to either side to form small walls of the powder. On either side of the track were people, citizens of the city and Guardians alike. They all stood in the snow, shuffling their feet every so often to keep circulation flowing to their toes in the cold. They all looked down one direction of the track, eagerly awaiting the arrival of something.
Aria did as so many others were doing, and stomped her feet into the ground slightly to bring feeling back into them. "I hope she comes around soon, it's freezing!" Despite having dressed for the occasion with a rather thick coat, and snow boots, she still shivered in the cold climate.
Matt gave an involuntary shake every now and then, but was fine for the most part. He'd lived in London for the most recent years of his past life, and had prepared himself for a long trek across Russia before he'd been mugged. Of course he'd had to accumulate to cold weather, and he was pretty much used to it, hence why he was just dressed in a simple jacket and jeans, though he had selected some warm shoes for the event.
"It's not that cold, you can manage." The slightly sarcastic response came from Dawn, who stood next to Eager a few feet away. She and the Warlock both wore their black undersuits, signature of all Guardians, with jackets as an external layer and simple shoes. Aria pointed emphatically at their attire as a point for her claim.
"For you guys maybe! All you have to do as Exos is turn off your neuro-sensors, and instantly no more cold!" Dawn and Eager chuckled slightly at Aria's accusation, mostly because the Awoken girl was right. The other part was due to the fact that despite being one of the Heroes, Aria was still the youngest of the two teams besides Scorch, and often acted as such.
Ash meanwhile, stood on Matt's left, nesting herself in the crook of his arm. It seemed just a little awkward to the others, but the two of them were inseparable; so they let it slide. "D-don't worry Aria, you're n-not the only cold one." Unlike her fellow Exos, she wore her regular jacket with the hood pulled up and over her head, and some warm pants.
"Why don't you turn off your sensors too, Ash? Looks like you could use it," commented Eager with a smirk on his face. Ash shook her head.
"Well, that may be true. But I've got my own personal heater over here," she said with a slight smile, gesturing to Matt standing next to her. "It's quite comfy." Matt returned her smile with a grin of his own.
"Madam, you're not suggesting that you're only using me for my body heat, are you?" He made a mock swoon. "Oh, I am wounded!"
"Less sarcasm, more huddling," she grumbled. There were definite advantages to having Matt as a best friend; but the jokes certainly weren't one of them.
Suddenly, a faint rumbling could be heard from down the track. Everyone craned their necks towards the sound, and looked down the path of paved snow. At first there was nothing, and then several black specks appeared at the edge of a hill.
"Here they come!" called Matt. All five Guardians focused their attention on the speck in the middle as it grew bigger in their field of vision, eventually forming a true appearance…
Within seconds, the sparrow-racers flew by them in a flurry of snow and wind. The spectators all cheered, their hands pumping into the air to signify their excitement. Aria cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled, "Go Scorch!"
Scorch piloted the sparrow with lethal accuracy. She'd seen her friends on the side of the track as she'd flown by, and smiled that they were here to cheer her on. Pulling the handles of her sparrow to the right, she began to lean so that she could round the upcoming turn without losing ground to the other competitors.
After their success in finding the Heroes nearly eight months ago, the Vanguards had worked to compensate all of the citizens that they'd accidentally neglected in the aftermath of the battle for the Traveler. In addition to that, some high-end city task force officials had seen how fun sparrow-racing was, and had turned it into a legal sport complete with its own league. There were many more regulations now that it wasn't a gambler's way to earn money, but that didn't make it any less fun. Scorch had immediately signed up, just so she had something else to do when she wasn't on official Guardian business.
Spectre's voice spoke in her racing helmet. "I'm sure you already noticed them, but you've got two racers coming up on either side of you."
Scorch smiled. "Thanks for the warning, but like you said; I noticed. They're gonna try to sandwich me." Indeed, each racer had lined themselves on Scorch's right and left. She waited for the strike, when they would jerk towards her and prevent her from gaining speed. After several moments, the signature movement of their sparrows coming in for collision alerted her, and she punched the reverse thrusters. She narrowly avoided them, and the two racers hit each other instead. Looping around and past them as they recovered from the impact, she sped ahead and gained a healthy lead.
She gave a small whoop of excitement and continued ahead, spectators cheering her on the whole way.
-X-
To Cayde-6, it seemed like every damn time that peace and quiet ever came close to reality, something came along to trash that idea.
He'd seen some weird stuff over the years, but this was among the oddest. Two city task force scouts were helping to carry a woman between them, dressed all in black garb. Her skin was pale, like she'd been sitting somewhere dark for far too long. She was definitely in need of a tan.
Moving to the end of the Vanguard's table, the two set her down on the ground. "Vanguards, my partner and I found her this morning while investigating a disturbance in the outskirts of the city." The one near her head had begun to talk first, and looked to them for any kind of information they could provide.
"What kind of disturbance?" asked Zavala, as he moved from his opposite end of the table to get a closer look.
"Some civilians reported seeing something fall from the sky in the night. We found a ship, modified with odd external cosmetics and spouting green flames that had crashed there. She was still inside, but we managed to pull her out. She kept muttering incoherently the whole way here." Indeed, the woman stirred and with it came a string of words. "Must… warn them… the others… all dead…"
Cayde bent down for a closer look. "What the hell is wrong with her head? Is that a third eye?" The second scout shrugged. "Yeah, we don't have a clue what that's about either. I'm sure that the Warlocks will have a field day trying to figure that one out."
The Hunter had a puzzled expression on his face before he raised one hand up and covered the woman's third eye with it. "I knew there was something familiar about her! I was just getting a bit weirded out by… well, frankly the creepy-ass eye in the middle of her forehead."
Ikora looked at him. "You know her?" Cayde nodded. "Her name is Eris Morn. She and I were both Hunter trainees together, mentored by the previous Hunter Vanguard. We, uh…" His hand reached around and held the back of his neck in an awkward expression. "We didn't always see eye to eye. Or in her case now, eye to eye to eye."
One of the scouts raised his hand. "I think you missed an eye. I mean, she has three eyes right? So you would have four total, all of her three plus yours." Cayde tilted his head. "But then wouldn't it be five eyes? Because I have two… come to think of it, why do we say 'eye to eye' instead of 'eyes to eyes'? Nobody has just one eye- well, except for this girl I once met in a bar, she was quite the-"
Zavala waved their banter aside. "That doesn't matter right now. We need to understand her condition, where she's come back from, what happened to her-" With a start, Eris Morn began to cough heavily, and the first scout knelt down to help her sit up properly. She continued to make choking noises until she'd cleared out whatever she'd had in her system, and looked to the audience around her.
"Good to see you're back in the land of the living," declared Cayde, joking as usual. It just seemed to be the way he dealt with situations as they came. Eris narrowed her eyes at him. "I know you. You're… Cayde-6. The tiresome Exo that trained alongside me."
Cayde snorted derisively. "More like, 'the tiresome Exo that kicked ass and became the Hunter Vanguard'. Though I will admit, I wasn't really looking for the job when I got it…" He made a smirk. "So, mourning Morn, what could you have been up to all this time? You look like you've gone to hell and back-"
She was up in an instant, her hand outstretched and falling upon Cayde's collar. She hadn't quite grabbed his throat, but everyone was sure that if she'd wanted to, she wouldn't have had any major problems attaining that. "You know nothing of hell, Cayde. Do not make a mockery of it." With that, she released him.
He stepped away from her, obviously a more wary now that she was alert and awake. She spun on one foot, locking gazes with each person that surrounded her before beginning to intone a somber warning.
"I have returned to tell you all that this city is in danger." Cayde shrugged. "Get in line, I don't think we haven't been in danger for a long time. Battle for the Traveler, the Vault of Glass threat, I mean we're veterans of being damsels in distress by now."
Eris gave him a withering glare. "Not like this. For now, one comes who seeks not to corrupt you, not to simply kill you…" She spoke dramatically, and indeed achieved whatever effect she was aiming for. "He comes to destroy you, utterly and brutally annihilate us. To slaughter all of humanity like the pigs he believes us to be, ripe for being stuck on the spit!" Her voice had been rising in volume until now she was nearly shouting with emphasis.
"Who is this person? Has the Messenger returned?" asked Ikora quickly. Eris laughed mirthlessly. "That pitiful excuse's aura of darkness is nothing but a slight drop of water compared to him, and the massive oceans of darkness which he commands."
Cayde sighed exasperatedly. "Alright, we get it. Now can you tell us who it is that you're warning us about?" Her lip curled a bit like a snarl at him, but she complied and spoke the name.
"Crota!"
Instantly, all present were silent. It felt like the room itself had dropped ten degrees, and each Vanguard tried to process what she'd just said.
"You mean…" started Zavala, "the Hive prince? Crota himself is coming?"
Eris nodded. "And sooner than you think. His forces are already here, searching for something to tether his soul back into our reality. We must act quickly if we are to stop him. For all I know, an attack may already be underway."
Normally, there would be all sorts of background checks as to whether her claims held true, but Crota was not a threat to be taken lightly. Ikora immediately nodded at Zavala who knew what to do. Raising his wrist interface up to his mouth, he began to bark orders over the comms.
"Task force, this is Zavala. We need all Guardians to report back to the tower ASAP. I don't care where they are, just get them here."
-X-
Matt heard the roar of the vehicle's engines before he saw them. Craning his neck up, he was quick enough to see two mobile aircrafts soar overhead, and begin to hover over the finish line. "What's going on Eager? Is this some kind of drill?" he asked, since the Exo was still a part of the city task force.
Eager shook his head. "I… I don't know, I haven't heard anything like that. I think this is real."
A moment later, speakers on the vehicles crackled to life, and someone began to talk through them; "Attention, this is the city task force. This event has been cancelled due to a potential threat. All citizens have been instructed to return to their homes, and all Guardians are to report to the tower immediately. This is not a test." The message continued to repeat itself as some of the audience began to boo, albeit while starting to leave.
"This can't be good." Matt felt his stomach turning, the result of adrenaline beginning to course through his system. Seraph materialized in front of him. "Scorch and the other racers don't know about this. Should we do something about it?"
Matt thought for a few moments before nodding. They didn't know how serious this was yet, but it obviously wasn't a joke. "Relay my transmission to all of the racers on the track."
Scorch had a few hundred yards to go to the finish line when she saw the task force aircrafts appear overhead. In an instant, her wrist interface lit up. She didn't want to risk losing the race, but this could be important.
"Spectre, broadcast that signal through my helmet." The Ghost was silent, but a moment later she heard Matt's voice speaking; "…a joke. I repeat, this is not a joke. Something bad is going on, and you all need to start heading in so that we can get out of here."
Scorch sighed inwardly, but accepted that Matt wouldn't be telling all the racers this if it wasn't real. "Alright, looks like we're gonna have to cut this match short-" She was just about to finish her sentence when a greenish light appeared approximately forty feet in front of her. From that light, greenish-yellow pricks of lightning began to spark in the area, until something completely unexpected happened.
Out of the sparks, Hive soldiers began to take shape. There were Knights, Acolytes and a wave of Thralls to be seen. There was even an Ogre stomping around, its massive footsteps thundering upon the ground. And in the center of it all was a single Wizard. This Wizard was different, however. Instead of a normal appearance, this one had long horns growing from the top of its head, and it had bright blue eyes that shone on whoever its gaze locked onto. And right now, that gaze was locked onto her.
It screamed a ghastly sound, and the Ogre turned to face her, roaring as it did so. Scorch was ill-prepared for it, but the Ogre swung one fist as she sped by and managed to flip her sparrow. She was thrown free, and felt the weightless sensation of being high in the air. Her racing helmet had been knocked off during the impact, and she could see everything with her normal field of view, the entire scene or Hive clamoring to look at her in the air. Then she began to fall, and landed with a loud thud on the powdery snow.
Her eyes stung from the cold, the ice making painful biting sensations on her face. But she looked around anyway, attempting to remain alert in the face of danger. She pushed herself onto one knee, and instinctively reached around for the Last Word but remembered that she'd left it in her weapons locker. Cursing, she watched as the Acolytes made their way over to her while she knelt on the ground.
A throwing knife came out of nowhere and landed directly between the eyes of the nearest Hive. The Acolyte's eyes lost their green glow that signified life, and it began to fall to the ground. Sprinting up to it, Matt reached forward as it fell, and pulled the knife from its head.
"Run!" he yelled, and he began to backtrack away from the band of Hive.
She stood defiantly, saying, "We're Guardians! We don't run!" The rest of the Heroes and Seekers had come as well, but stood back aways, throwing rocks that they could find on the ground.
He gave her a gesture at his body. "Does it look like any of us prepared for a fight? I'm wearing a hoodie and jeans! If you want to get torn apart like a tin-can, that's your call, but we're gonna get slaughtered unless we have our gear!" He began to backtrack again, only pausing to throw another knife, this one at a Knight that had been getting too close to Scorch.
Much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. Standing up, she began to sprint away from the Hive and towards their comrades, Matt at her side. The Wizard gave another scream, but before any of her minions could react, the sound of bullets peppering the snow became prominent, and it looked around to see the task force aircrafts firing machine gun rounds at them. With a hiss, it reluctantly drew its arms over its head, and began to teleport away. The rest of the Hive were cut down, but the Wizard had escaped.
The total time of the attack had been just under a minute. It left them all with more questions that answers.
Eager jabbed at the Hive bodies before them and loudly asked, "Anyone want to tell me what the hell that was?"
Dawn crossed her arms. "I'm not sure, but all Guardians were to report to the tower. I'm sure that we're all about to find out just what's going on, and why it's relevant to us."