"So let me get this straight:" Barloc started out, as he sat on a ledge not too far away from the Lord's Watch drop off point. The skiff and hub ship had been parked in the courtyard next to where they were at, the skiff still slightly active. "Summer's success in destroying the replication complex had been detected before you guys were about to blast off… and now you guys want vengeance?"
"Aksis had taken our whole house apart in his hunger for power. His main source has been taken away for the time being." Rahndel stated as fact, a growl wanting vengeance at how he reminded himself of what they've done. "It was one thing to bring back the prime, a good thing nonetheless. But to rob us of our bodies entirely, without giving us a choice? There is no honor in this madness."
"We've faced worse." Summer said firmly, as Pyrrha looked noticeably threatened at the fact SIVA could take control of her body. "You guys don't have to help us."
"This is not just a personal matter, Rose." Rahndel gripped the scorch canon he had tighter. "What Aksis has done, and what he is doing now… it is bringing ruin to the Eliksni."
"Rahndel" A dreg came up behind the Fallen leader, decked out in vandal gear despite having two arms. "The other guardian forces have detected our position. Should we continue on with the mission before they arrive?"
"They will do no such harm, I assure you. I'm here as a Vanguard representative, under Cayde-6." Barloc said in an attempt to lessen the dreg's fears.
"You seem out of the norm for the other dregs." Summer couldn't help but note the Vandal armor, despite having two arms. "Who are you?"
"I am Greig The Dreg, sibling of Rahndel." The now named Greig explained. "I was the one who brought Rahndel back for treatment after your skirmish. Now, I am in charge of the ships. Think of me as a- what do you humans call it… a shipwright?"
Greig turned to look at Barloc, who was unsurprised at the fact. Barloc noticed Greig's rising question, and answered it before it got out. "I researched into your kind. Rest assured, I know what you refer to when you say 'great machine'."
"We should get going." Summer said, as she prepared her sparrow. "Pyrrha, you come with me, Fireteam Rap, you go do what you do best."
A brief silence fell between all involved, as everyone looked to Summer. Barloc had his arms crossed, while Rahndel and Greig gave her a confused look.
"Fireteam Rap." She said with a grin. "It's cause all of your names rhyme."
Barloc looked to Rahndel with exasperation evident in his voice. "Let's just get it done." He said, as they then boarded the skiff.
"I will escort Barloc and Rahndel to Archon's Keep as to survey out for movement." Greig said, as he hung from one of the ship's hatches. "I will provide aerial support if needed."
"So…" Pyrrha said as she got on the sparrow with Summer, whilst Greig crawled into the ship and flew away. "You and that… Rahndel know each other, even though you two are enemies?"
"Yep! It's a long story that involves a pre-Golden Age weapons cache, a fight that had us in a stalemate, which then resulted in us fighting together against a nest of alien space zombies that we inadvertently woke." Summer said as she loaded her weapons while on the move. "And between you and me, I won that fight."
Rahndel's voice came over the frequency. "That duel was a draw, Rose."
Summer groaned already hating the fact that they had to share a frequency with her on-again off-again frenemies for this. But they were both against Aksis for many different and same reasons.
They both want the Archon Prime dead to prevent his techno-plague from spreading beyond the Cosmodrome and to the rest of the galaxy. In Rahndel's case, as a small bonus, if he killed the Archon and dissolved the Devil Splicers, all remaining Fallen Devils that haven't gone over would rally behind him, making him their leader.
It would just be exchanging one murderous leader for another, however in this case, the leader might be more amicable to a ceasefire.
Thats a big might!
That is if by some unforeseen events all the Fallen in the system rally together under one banner. But what are the odds of that happening?
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Somewhere else, Prince Uldren sneezed.
Someone was thinking of him and his plan.
He dismissed that thought and sent himself back to work on his plans.
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"I'm guessing we're walking into something more than a territorial dispute." Drei hazard a guess at what was going on.
"Agreed. The Hive chatter is more aggressive than usual… it cannot just be a show of force."
"Aksis is greedy." Greig decided to add in. "I would not be surprised if Archon Prime has stolen the Hive."
My children...
After a short drive to the oil tanker, in which Pyrrha took in the lost ruins of the cosmodrome with an eager, yet sorrowful look upon her face, as she realized not only how far humanity had come here, but also how hard they've fallen. Various ships meant for water lay inert on the ground, and the wall, something of which was once proud and mighty, was left in ruins, with various panels rusted or torn off from being left alone by the elements. There was even some SIVA crawling on the panels of the wall, as if trying to mend the damages.
Off in the distance from the oil tanker in Giant's Rock, the two saw the Splicers and Hive duking it out under a broken bridge in a full-on war. A small fighting group of Hive consisted of a Hive broodmother, some Acolytes and some Thrall. The acolytes and broodmother were shooting at the Splicers up on a cliffside near a cave as the thrall hid, waiting to maul any ground forces that may appear. The other side consisting of a Captain, a couple Vandals with dregs at their sides returning fire by lobbing a few SIVA cluster bombs, and attempting to snipe out the other side with their height advantage.
"I'm detecting a lot of crates up on the bridge." Drei announced via the internal comm signals. "Greig, the situation?"
"Splicer ships coming to your location." Greig spoke. "They're transporting goods. And judging by your live feed, Hive, dregs, or SIVA bombs. Very clever."
"Neither would be beneficial I'd say." Pyrrha spoke, as she watched the ferocious battle before her. "And I'd wager the former."
It is the case. I can hear them. They cry out for freedom within the prisons.
"Greig, can you get in there and bomb their leader out?" Shiro-4 asked Greig over the comms. "That might put a stop to this."
"Landing zone too hot, and enemy ships inbound. The Guardian's job."
"Then I guess it is time to show my Thorns." Summer said, whipping out Thorn as she got off the sparrow with Pyrrha. She grinned as she felt Oryx being left in disgust and gratefulness. Mostly disgust though.
As soon as Summer pulled out Thorn, the Hive felt the darkness emanating from her. They looked to her, recognizing it for what it was, and fled, deciding to let the newcomer take their spot. The splicers up on the hill took note of them once they noticed the Hive's focus was lost, and began attacking them instead, the captain choosing to keep its high ground instead of fighting Summer head on.
Pyrrha forced a SIVA cluster back where it was with her polarity, it killing the dreg that threw it shot the heads off of the Vandals up top. The captain returned fire by shooting a few shrapnel shots at Summer, but she aftly dodged them as if she wasn't even trying to, and leapt up the cliffside to engage the captain in a sword fight it was bound to lose, as it tried to pull out a couple swords. It was unable to, as Summer slammed her sword down at the captain, causing it to fall down from the impact as Summer then stabbed it through the chest, killing it.
Pyrrha took a deep breath as they began to approach the swiftly destroyed splicer group, before muttering to herself. "Just think of them as those Apathy we learned about…" Was all she said, as they jumped up the cliffside.
The two looked to the Hive off in the distance, who looked to be more busy climbing the oil tanker to get on top of the bridge above them. Drei then uncloaked and inspected the captain, spotting a coded splicer relay on its corpse. He scanned it.
"References to the Hive on this. They're definitely doing something with them up there."
"Which is why we ask for a temporary truce."
Summer and Pyrrha whipped around to face the Hive broodmother, who almost instinctively dodged at the sight of them turning so quickly with their weapons drawn.
"Why is it not attacking us?" Pyrrha couldn't help but wonder, shield at the ready in case it made a sudden move.
Moreover why can I understand it…
I am translating it for you, Rose. Be thankful.
The wizard continued. "I can sense our king within you. Tell your fellow children of the Sky:We are only protecting ourselves. Your kind are insignificant at the moment." Was all the wizard said, as it flew past them up a gap in the bridge, going to join the fight with its remnants of its troops.
"Err, why didn't we shoot it?" Drei couldn't help but ask. "This is not normal for the Hive to just leave guardians alone…."
Summer slightly panicked while trying to come up with an explanation as to why. "You know what, it doesn't matter. Let's clean out the Splicers first, then we can deal with the Hive." This was not the time or place to let everyone in on what was happening. Summer hefted Thorn and ran to join the fray.
Drei and Pyrrha looked to each other in confusion, before Pyrrha shrugged, joining the fray as well.
If they thought the Hive and the Splicers were at war down below, they hadn't seen the real scene yet. Up on the bridge was more of a full-on assault between the Hive and Fallen. Several dregs were manhandling the spider tanks that happened to be about the place, trying to rip the legs off of the machine as they returned fire, firing tank blasts into them and pulsing with arc energy as to try and fend them off, as captains were in sword fights with knights while acoyltes were shooting down Vandals and Dregs. Mysteriously, the Hive had no thrall in the battle.
"I was expecting a bit of a problem, but they're at total war here Shiro!"
Before they could even get to fire a shot, a half dozen splicer ships came out from orbit, adding aerial fire from above and destroying several ogres and Hive troops.
"Fight too dangerous to help friend. Destroy the ships, yes?" Greig asked, as another ogre was destroyed by the tanks. "Or mission failure."
The two did not waste time. As soon as the words came through, Pyrrha used her semblance on one of the many ship crates. It glowed with a black glow as she threw it at one of the ships, causing the front of it to explode with a fatal engine failure, as it landed on the ground, exploding. She then looked to Summer, who was already in the gunfight between Hive and Splicers. "I need light!"
"On it!" She said as she pulled out her knife, arc energy surrounding her body as the blade was empowered and extended to that of a shortsword. She blinked to a group of splicers, doing a spin in the air that released a wave of arc, disintegrating them as a couple orbs of light were dropped. A spider tank with few ogres on it had taken notice of her, and was aiming its main cannon at her. Summer saw this, and blinked away to make it aim at one of the ships by jumping on top of one of them. Sure enough, the tank followed the petals up to where she was, and began to charge its main cannon. Just as it was about to fire, Summer blinked away, the tank firing and taking down another one of its ships.
Pyrrha threw her shield into the crossfire, it cutting off the heads of several Hive and Splicers soldiers as she ran forth, slashing at a few shanks that were in her way to get the orbs, managing to grab a few and absorb their power. She went to grab another crate, but saw one of them break open and hesitated, Hive thrall pouring out from it and into the battle, mauling at the Splicers and their tanks in a rage. She then went to throw a crate at a ship, causing it to be destroyed from the mere impact. She then went forth to help Summer with the battle ahead of her.
The remaining couple of ships seemed to realize that it was a lost cause trying to win the battle, and went to try and take some crates.
"You've done well guardian." Greig's voice came over the comms, as he flew in from over the oil tanker. "Reinforcements inbound."
Greig's ship fired at one of the ships that were trying to fly away with some captured Hive containers, causing the crate to fall to the ground wide open for even more Hive to pour out, a few acolytes and cursed thrall within as they rushed out into the open, with several more opening and beginning to completely overwhelm the Splicer forces up on the bridge, quite literally getting ripped apart as thrall and knights surged forth attacking the Splicers. Greig saw the opportunity to carpet bomb the hordes with shock grenades, and flew over to do exactly that.
Explosions rocked the bridge as the two armies were beginning to be completely destroyed, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of grenade landing onto the platform, causing the Hive to dive off the bridge in an attempt to survive, hordes of Hive jumping off as the Ogres, as well as a few unlucky Hive were caught in the crossfire, with Thrall keeping the Splicers pinned.
Summer pulled her arcblade out of a Hive knight, watching the remaining ship pick up the crate and try to leave. "The ship!" She then pulled out Gjallarhorn, attempting to shoot it down.
Pyrrha heard Summer call out within the noise, and pulled out her spear from the head of a knight. Putting her two weapons to the side for a moment, she held her hands out, and with all the might her aura could muster, ripped the ship in half with her polarity with a loud yell, the metal groaning and creaking from being split apart, before exploding with the crate it had.
Grieg tried to go after the Hive next, but was only able to get a couple shots in, as they quickly went into the tunnels below. He growled to himself. "Enemies retreating. Lick their wounds they shall… Rahndel, what of the splicers?"
00000
"We've found what they've been up to. Your suspicions have been all but confirmed." Rahndel spoke, as he looked down upon the bloated Thrall corpses he had personally killed under one of the ruined ships scattered throughout the Plaguelands.
"Problem now, is that we're deep in Hive and Splicer territory." Barloc spoke, as he watched Rahndel's six, the two. "We've entered a secret passage under the Archon's Keep. Turns out the High Splicer Priest had a lab here for his underlings. We'll need you to get us a ride out, cliffside of the keep. You might expect hostiles outside, as we had initially entered silently."
True to the warlock's word, there were dozens of cages that no longer contained Hive, instead their ashes as they had already been shot to death in the cages. A few splicers laid dead on the ground around them, having been cut cleanly in half by Barloc's Sol Edge.
"Are you sure you're not in his lair?"
"It is ill fit for a High Priest." Barloc stated, as they went back through the place, several monitors greeting them. "It's where the Splicers are draining the lava out of the keep. Guardian patrols have been trying to access it, but nobody thought about blowing up the door as they were too busy hunting for Splicers and just left the ghosts to it… back in my day I would've-" Barloc rant went off into mumbles as he spoke.
"The Old coot thinks we should escape." Rahndel said, as he scanned the room. "I'd be inclined to agree. For such a room like this, it has a rather lax security."
"That is because it is little more than a trap."
The two turned to face the monitors, which had Vosik, The Archpriest glaring at them, red eyes meeting blue and green.
Barloc looked at Vosik with an undeterred look on his face. "Right hand of the Archon, yes?
"I was hoping that the White Rose herself would be here, but with you and this Vandal here, it's the perfect opportunity to test out our newest acquisitions." Vosik said as he pressed a button. Barloc and Rahndel watched as several doors opened around them.
"You guardians refer these as 'space zombies' yes?" Vosik said with a chuckle in his voice. "How about we take that to a more… literal term?"
Barloc readied his weapons while Rahndel readied his Arc blades as the doors opened completely and red eyes came to life from within the confines.
"And to think she killed one mind-controlling villain just so we get another." Barloc bitterly muttered.
Rahndel said nothing, only focusing on the enemy in front of them.
SIVA infected Hive then surged forth, bulbous thralls and acid spewing acolytes suddenly surging forth from the doorways. Barloc shot a Truth rocket at one of the many doors, firing at the thrall with Havoc Pigeon on his free hand as whole groups of Hive were decimated in a single rocket. Rahndel slipped past the ranks of the bulbous Hive thralls, and made to attack the acolytes that were firing from behind their ranks. He sliced one in half as they began to split, instead focusing on him as the thrall rushed down Barloc.
Barloc remained undeterred, instead simply swapping to Shadow Price the moment Havoc Pigeon's mag went empty. He pulled out a frag grenade and threw it into the middle of the horde as he fired, doing his best to reload Havoc Pigeon with only an arm to spare, quickly tapping into the comms as he did so. "The Splicers have sensed us! Greig, we need evac, NOW!"
"On my way guardian. Keep Rahndel alive, yes? Or House of Devils will be without leader."
Rahndel cut through the Acolytes, barely even harmed by the acid spikes launched at him as he narrowly avoided them by ducking and rolling out of the way while letting two swords cut the Hive as he rolled past. He glanced to Barloc, who looked to be having trouble with the Hive, barely managing to hold the thralls off with well placed shots. He went forth to allow him to reload, and slice the thrall coming at Barloc. "Reload guardian!"
Barloc did exactly that without a moment of hesitation, putting another rocket into Truth and moving to a different angle while the thrall focused on Rahndel. He rolled out of the way of some infected acolytes that were firing acid spikes at him, and turned around to fire a rocket at them, finishing off the acolytes in the room. He reloaded another rocket, and looked to Rahndel. "Backflip out, now!"
As soon as he saw Rahndel do the motion, Barloc fired Truth, decimating the remainder of the horde with one last rocket shot.
Barloc looked to the vent they came out of earlier, and saw it covered with live SIVA. He grit his teeth as he looked to Rahndel. "We'll need to fight through it." He then put Truth on his back, as he reloaded Shadow Price and Havoc Pigeon. "I'm certain at this point it is either we work together, or we both get killed."
The two heard a Hive wizard release a high pitch shriek in the background, almost distorted and in pain. Rahndel looked to Barloc. "This we agree on, warlock."
The two exited the room through one of the many doors, immediately greeted by infected Hive attacking them and splicers, shrapnel and shredders firing almost in unison at the two as they forced their way through, Barloc firing Truth rockets at huge groups of enemies whenever he saw them, and swapping to Shadow Price whenever the herd was thinned enough for them to keep moving, grabbing ammo as they went.
When they finally came upon the entrance to the whole building, they saw the wizard. A ghastly creature with a giant zit-like SIVA pod on its back with red coming out of its normally lifeless helmet. The wizard released a distorted cry of challenge, as it charged SIVA charged up around its hands to fire a moderately sized energy beam of SIVA, forcing Barloc and Rahndel to duck for cover.
"Ship is here. Come back, yes?"
"We've got one last bogey to deal with here." Barloc said, as he reloaded another rocket. "After that, the Vanguard needs to be notified of the new threat. Splicers are one thing, but Hive are another thing entirely for SIVA to infect."
As Barloc spoke, Rahndel tried to rush the wizard down, of which in response the wizard released a pulse of crimson red electricity as to force him back, sending him rolling backwards into a crate, but inadvertently allowing Barloc a chance to fire a rocket, before swapping to Shadow Price and shooting it in the helmet, it taking the whole mag to kill it.
"I don't think Saladin will like the idea of invading the Plaguelands for Hive." Shiro-4 said over the comms.
"It's not going to be just Earth, Shiro." Barloc said as he helped Rahndel up, his chestplate scorched by the pulse attack. "And tell them to put more pressure on the Remnant front for disease control. That is going to be a breeding ground for SIVA if we don't ensure it doesn't become that way."
"We kind of need to get going guys!" Drei anxiously called out over the comms. "The Splicers are catching on to the fact that this ship isn't one of them!"
"Almost there little light." Rahndel said with a slightly pained tone to his voice. "Don't burn yourself out worrying about us."
Barloc chuckled as Drei acted indignant at the nickname towards him, rushing to the entrance alongside Rahndel. "Never gets old with these ghosts."
The two then exited the undercover lab of the Archon's Keep, and jumped onto the skiff, climbing into one of the hatches. They met Greig inside the cockpit area who turned to look at them, Barloc producing a data chip as he walked up alongside Rahndel.
"It's time to plan some strikes out with the Iron Lords you two." He said whilst twirling the chip around in his palm. "Unless you're playing it safe."
00000
Diluation:Sorry for being late again. I had a midterm, and then a fire threatened to consume my house, which would've forced me to be off from writing this for a whole year as I'd have to get my life together. On top of that, I'm getting the smoke from the fire, which isn't helping my writing, so I apologize if this chapter is a bit sloppy.
Last words all said and done, onto the reviews.
Dragon lord Syed 101:good chapter, but the bitching was annoying.
Fireteam:You asked for our opinions, we gave you 'em.
Diluation:But of course, since some of you don't seem to like it, we'll keep it out of the story. You never had to read that bit though, AN is simply us responding to reviews in our own ways.
BraveSeeker3:Gosh! You guys are using Ptabs' cover image (there's nothing wrong with that!), and I'm tossing around the idea of Guardian!Summer around. Depends on whether I do it or not, but I'd be willing to let you guys use it as a cover image.
Diluation:Our policy on fanfics tied to ours, fanart, etc, is the same policy as the man himself instigated. Aquilos, if you may?
Aquilos:You can expand and create art as long as you don't write anything that contradicts the main story.
Guest:Who is Rahndel, and if the fallen are part moth people-
Diluation:Stop.
Once again, I remind you all to read Ptabs0101's Remnant of a Rose, and Remnant of an Iron Rose before continuing onto this, in that order. His brother had since renamed the account as 'ptabs0101's brother', but both of those stories are very much there, and we would HIGHLY recommend you read up on them. We get that you're curious, but our policy on this is the same as Ptabs0101. Guest reviewers asking questions regarding the story will get deleted from here on out, unless they also give their thoughts. It hasn't been happening before, but we decided to use this as a reminder since one of you didn't seem to catch that.
Also the fallen are not part moth people. Oryx speaks in bold italics, and spoke that line, meaning he's referring to the Hive once being like that.
Diluation:All reviews done with, we hope to see you next chapter.
~ In memory of Ptabs0101 ~