A/N: So, this was actually quite shocking for me, 130 views in 24 hours, give or take five, on my second story, and a spur-of-the-moment type fic as well. I have no words for how happy I am about that, and I wanted to first off clarify a few things. I am in school, so updates will not come regularly, and I'm not an amazing writer, so errors should be expected. Otherwise, this might be slightly confusing, but there will be varying POVs for this story, and the formatting may vary by chapter. Log 01 for example, is formatted after the SCPwiki log format, while chapters focusing on individual characters will take place from a more standard 3rd person or possibly 1st person perspective. I'll talk more at the end, just...thanks.
United States of America, Virginia, 2015, Exact Date: Unknown, Exact Position: Unknown
If Juno wasn't a Guardian of the Warlock Praxic Order, she had a feeling she'd probably be having a very intense panic attack at the moment. As it was, she was just barely holding herself back from one anyways. Honestly, what the fuck?! 2015? She'd been thrown literally centuries, possibly millennia, through time! Surf, bless her paracausal heart, was the only thing keeping her anchored at the moment, and the comforting presence of the Ghost in her head was silent but calming.
After fleeing whatever archaic dark ritual had brought her here, and what was likely Police or Law Enforcement of some kind, she'd circled around towards the house she had appeared in. If she had any hope of returning to The City, it lay in whatever texts and artefacts the cultists, for she was reasonably sure that's what they were, possessed. The pressing issue there was the Police, Law Enforcement, or maybe even Military that were currently clearing out the building as men possessed. She'd never get close without being spotted, arrested, killed, or worse. It was a pity she wasn't a Blade Dancer or a Night Stalker, their abilities being very useful right about now.
Surf appeared floating around her head, and Juno smiled wryly beneath her helmet, "Got any ideas, buddy?" Her helmet's output was turned off, to muffle her breathing and voice, though she was confident she was far enough that they wouldn't see her in the dusky light.
The Ghost chirped and flitted around, peering across at the small swarm of armed personnel, "Tag whatever truck they store everything in, and follow it? Have you still got those tracers Cayde gave you for that Op in the Cosmodrome?"
The idea had merit, even as she winced at the mention of the fallen Vanguard. He had been a friend, and the Prince had suffered greatly for his death."Yeah, I've got them, but again, how do we get close? I can't exactly walk on up to them without tipping them off and getting my head ventilated."
"Let me go, then? I'm literally the size of a baseball, and it's fairly dark still. They won't see me." the Ghost offers, tilting slightly and ending the proposition with another chirp. Juno felt that irrational spike of fear in her chest, whenever her Ghost offered to do something risky.
"Surf, no… I don't-I can't lose you. Not like, Cayde and Sundance!" It was stupid, she knew. Ghosts are notoriously hard to kill or damage, and the only reason The Sharpshooter had killed Sundance was because of a weapon charged with corrupted energies.
Surf made something resembling the digital approximation of a sigh, her single eye drooping slightly, "You know it won't be like that! Besides, even if they do spot me, I can run away, and I always have you to look after me, right?"
"I can't believe Surf talked me into this…" Juno grumbles to herself, crouched in a hedgerow across from the occupied building, a long rifle cradled in her arms. Despite her position as a Praxic, The Long Goodbye was a quality piece of hardware from The Drifter and had carried her through many a long fight. Through the scope, she tracked the Little Lights movements as her life companion snuck up on the Vans that were being loaded with boxes of what appeared to be quarantined materials.
Something was off about this whole situation, more so than time travel, which was well established to be possible, if not reliable, with Vex tech. The thing was, there wasn't any Vex tech anywhere nearby, and there hadn't been any on Luna either, where she'd been dealing with a Hive Death Cult. There was also the fact that local police, especially in a time supposedly before the Hive arrived in Sol, were oddly prepared for this, not to mention quite heavily armed.
The Ghost disappeared from her sight, dipping down under the first vehicle to presumably hide a tracking beacon. She could do nothing but pray now, and pray she did. To the Traveler, to any friendly deities that may be listening, and to the spirits of those before her, that they may watch over her. Six minutes and 37 seconds later, Surf returned, floating beside her head as she let out a deep breath. "Trackers planted on the three most likely vehicles, Guardian, and I took the opportunity to poke around an unattended computer for a moment. Their security could do with a rework, understandable given the time."
Juno smirked, of course, the Ghost couldn't resist the opportunity to grab some intel given the opportunity. "So what's the scoop? Where are we, and who are they?"
Surf shuddered in its shell, looking at her with what was in-practice as close to a serious expression as a floating eyeball could get. "You're not gonna like it, but it seems like we really are in 2015, it's November 2nd, to be precise. Welcome the East Coast of the still United States of America, Richmond, Virginia. Those guys? Not Police, not Military either. Call themselves 'The Foundation', and apparently, they deal with the 'Paranormal, Anomalous, and Unusual', all in the name of protecting Humanity at large. I took the liberty of leaving a few bugs and back doors into their systems if we can ever find ourselves among them or against them."
The Guardian chuckled and shook her head, amazed at her Ghost, though she really shouldn't be. Doing the Impossible was a Guardian's bread and butter, after all, and this was just taking it to new lengths. "I don't suppose you have a Sparrow or Jumpship in storage, Surf?"
Surf makes a negative noise, "Sorry, Juno, but Obsidian Wings was still in orbit over Luna, and I don't keep a Sparrow in our storage, it takes a lot of space, after all. You'll have to find local transport, and probably...some new clothes, while you're at it. I doubt City Style will be normal around here."
Juno sighs, breaking and entering it was, then. It was a good thing Cayde had taught her how to pick mechanical locks, as it was very likely most people didn't use digital locks yet. With a silent command, The Long Goodbye glimmered into her inventory, and she slipped away before any of the troopers from 'The Foundation' could investigate the light.
They'd struck the jackpot, it seemed. Surf had scanned the neighbourhood(a long and quite boring process, to be sure), and located an unoccupied home with a vehicle present. Even better, civilian clothing that actually fit her, admittedly with very minor use of glimmer for a few adjustments. It wasn't to her tastes, all told, but it looked much more typical than her armour or any City clothing she may have in her inventory.
The access keys to the vehicle outside were a bit more difficult, tiny little physical things that they were. It would be so much easier for them to be digital, but oh well. The next worry was that she didn't actually know how to drive it. It couldn't be harder than one of Amanda's tanks, right...?
Turns out, this was WAY more difficult than Amanda's tanks. At least the measurement displays were familiar, if not the actual speed measurement. The wheels were more sluggish than a Sparrow or Tank, and turning was much more difficult to control. At least there weren't many others on the roads at this time for her to put in danger. Ghost was a godsend, syncing up through the home to this time's equivalent to the planetary network and explaining the different mechanics of the car.
She'd managed to (hopefully) park the vehicle a fair distance away from the Foundation perimeter, watching through a spotter scope she usually kept on hand. They looked to be finishing up, and they had already waved off several curious civilians, waving around what she was reasonably sure were fake badges.
It took a few minutes, but they finally got moving, the convoy of vans and trucks pulling onto the road and driving off. Juno waited another two minutes before following, making sure to keep several vehicles between herself and the convoy if at all possible, even as she followed. Every minute she drove, she slowly felt more comfortable with the vehicle. Guardians had to adjust quickly to every situation they find themselves in, and this was no different. Well, it is, but that's not the point.
Half an hour became an hour, and one hour became two. Either they were leading her on a merry chase, and she was none the wiser, or wherever they were based out of was a lot more remote than she'd expected. Two hours became four, and Juno started to get concerned, but just as quick as it came, that concern was banished in place of determination and wariness, as she watched the convoy pull off the road and down a path practically carved into the woods present in this part of the area.
Noting the path down, and driving nearly a mile past it, she pulls the car over and into the woods, parking it behind a group of trees and bushes conveniently large enough to hide it. Surf, regardless, had to remind her to lock it, considering the Ghost couldn't transmat it to the ship they didn't have. That done, the civvie clothes went into storage and out came the armour, and once more she felt whole, far more comfortable in her armour than she ever would be in civvie clothes.
It was a relatively short jog to the entrance to the path, and though she didn't want to take too long in following, for fear of losing track of the vehicles she was tracking, she took her time in searching for any security measures in the area and was glad she did when Surf noted that there was a whole network of security cameras throughout the area, monitoring the road in its entirety. Fortunately, this was a much easier issue to fix than live watchers, and she let her Ghost do the work of spoofing the network to remove her from the camera's sights.
From there, it was a quiet, if tense, walk down the path. Keeping an ear out for any vehicles or voices, she stuck to the side of the road just in case, Surf safely tucked away in its extradimensional space. Fifteen minutes at a steady walking pace was how long it took Juno to reach the Foundation Compound, coming upon another obstacle in her path. While relatively simple, it still had to be handled with care, as the wall before her was linked to separate, closed security systems that Surf couldn't access without a centralized terminal. Dawnblade or a Novabomb could probably cut right through it, but that tended to be...quite loud.
In the end, it came down to simply drawing another weapon out of her inventory. It was an older weapon, one she'd found on Mars with the help of Ana Bray. 18 Kelvins, a silenced Sidearm. Getting as close as she dared, she took aim and shot apart the wires connecting one of the cameras to the network, thus creating a blind spot. Leaping up with the assistance of her glide abilities, she pulled herself up and over the wall, dropping down quietly on the other side and glancing around. She was clear. Hopefully, the damage to the wires looked enough like a bird or some animal had gone at it, that there wasn't any immediate suspicion of an infiltrator.
Surf whispered in her head, giving her a general bearing on the tracers, and scanning stealthily for an access point to the internal network. The trucks were in a vehicle bay nearly fifty meters away, across open ground. She cast a furtive glance around for anyone in sight, spotting no one but spying several moving cameras sweeping the courtyard. She'd have to time this perfectly...or she could move across the rooftops. If she hadn't been wearing a helmet, she likely would have facepalmed at the poor planning.
Boosting up onto the roof with glide, she casts a new look around, running and climbing over several roof-mounted pieces of machinery, until she'd gone around, gliding over the narrowest section of the courtyard she could find with moments to spare. Crouching down on the roof, she could hear movement and people speaking down below in the vehicle depot, which made her job much more difficult. "Surf, can you jam any communications in or out of the Vehicle Bay?"
The Ghost appeared next to her, twirling its shell for a moment as it scanned for any communications frequencies in use. "Easily! These comms are so old I could do it while sleeping."
She grins, "Good, start jamming the second I jump down. Stay out of sight, even if I go down. We don't have any clue what they'll do to you if they can get you."
Surf chirps and spins, disappearing from sight as it returns to its 'pocket' reality. She turns around and steps back off the roof, landing with a quiet thump in the doorway, Lumina in one hand, a purposely toned down well of flame in the other. "Hello boys, you've got something I need!"
A/N: Hey all, thanks for reading! Please, leave a review if there's anything that I can improve upon, missed, or got incorrect. I welcome constructive criticism when it comes to my writing readily, and I'll happily PM people if they have advice! Check out my other story if you're interested, and stay tuned! Juno and Surf will be back for more soon enough!