~I don't own Mass Effect or Destiny, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners~
"A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well." – Frederick Douglass
Arc I - Chapter 6
The Saint
Snapping awake, Jane sat up ramrod straight. She scanned her surroundings, taking in the undisturbed basement she had gone to sleep in, yet she kept herself still. Something had awoken her.
Fubar popped up from where he had been laying on a box across from her, concern easily audible in his voice. "Jane? What is it? Are you alright?"
She shushed him. It was only because of the returning quiet that she heard it, the muted sound of gunfire echoing out. Almost on autopilot, her mind ran numbers that she didn't entirely understand, and almost without realising she spoke out.
"Gunfire, eight hundred meters. High calibre assault rifle."
Blinking in surprise, Jane didn't let herself dwell on it, instead rushing to collect her gear. Attaching her armour and cloak in record speed, she clipped on her gun belt, before grabbing her bag, rifle and spear.
Hurrying to the cellar exit, Jane paused in order to let her Ghost get settled on her shoulder before pushing the trap door open, letting in the early morning light. The cracks of gunfire immediately getting louder once they hit open air, the sounds of artillery fire soon followed suit.
Climbing up the side of the ruin they had been sleeping under, Jane immediately tried to determine the direction the fighting was coming from, the sight of smoke rising from the direction of an old spire tower alerting her to the correct direction.
Almost as soon as they began moving, the gunfire increased, and Jane picked up her pace. Ducking under ruins and vaulting abandoned cars, her fast pace allowed her to make good time. The only reason she was willing to move so openly was the obvious distraction drawing the Fallen sentries from their previous posts.
She only stopped when an artillery shell landed on the other side of a building in front of her, which told her she was definitely in the right place. Scanning the surrounding buildings for a suitable perch, Jane spotted what looked to be an old hotel situated to her right. Making her way to it, Fubar poked his head out, "I'm getting sporadic chatter from the Fallen, it sounds like the Guardians."
Kicking in an old wooden door at the base of the hotel, Jane grunted as she drew her hand cannon and hip fired, catching a Vandal as it turned to look at her from where it had been about to move up a set of stairs.
Another two rounds put the four armed alien down for good, and Jane didn't bother to stop, keeping up her momentum and moving forward. Sprinting to the stairs the now dead alien had been about to climb, she kept her gun up as she moved from corner to corner.
"At least we know who these guys were expecting yesterday."
Taking the stairs two at a time, Jane began moving from floor to floor. Clearing each room one at a time as she moved upwards. The last thing she needed was to end up trapped in the top of a building full of hostile aliens.
As she reached what looked to be the tenth floor, the stairs abruptly ended, with open sky greeting them from where the rest of the building seemed to have been almost sheared clean off.
Not stopping to think about what sort of weapon could possibly have the power to do such specific and clean damage, Jane moved from room to room. Killing a total of three Fallen that had been occupying a snipers nest.
Shoving the bodies to the side, Jane dumped her spear and bag on the ground and shouldered her own rifle, before she poked her head out the window to survey the situation.
The first thing she noted was the several broken spider tanks she had first observed the other day, flames consuming them as Fallen bodies were strewn across the open area. More Fallen were taking shelter at the base of the spire, with people she couldn't identify but assumed were Guardians pressing the attack.
Noting the broken doors that lead into the spire, combined with a group of several Guardians being pinned off to one side, Jane realised that a fire team may have already breached the tower. With the Fallen having sealed up the breach, whoever had gotten in would now be trapped on all sides, so Jane immediately set about rectifying that.
First focusing on the pinned group, Jane began to methodically picking off first the Captains, using her high position to rain down precision fire over the top of their cover. As she killed the second Captain, Jane pulled the trigger to kill a nearby exposed Dreg, only to get an empty click.
Muttering under her breath to watch her ammo counter, she reached down and tapped the bigger box on her belt, cursing as she fumbled in catching the materialised magazine, before she picked it up off the ground and slammed it home.
With the Captains dead she switched her focus to the Vandals that were attempting to coordinate the Dregs, Shanks and some other type of glowing purple drones. After a few moments a shot struck against the wall next to her window, and Jane ducked away as another shot followed, before immediately searching for the source of the shot.
The third sniper shot exposed her enemy, situated in a building on the opposite side of the battlefield to her. The Vandal didn't get the chance to fire a fourth time, as Jane fired twice in rapid succession, taking the sniper out before she returned her attention to the Fallen on the ground.
It didn't take them long to realise that they were getting picked off, but without their Captains to coordinate their efforts, the moment the Fallen switched from pinning the Guardians to supressing her, the now free Guardians pushed forward and engaged them in close quarters.
Smirking, Jane turned her attention to the group still attempting to regain entry to the spire, but after a few assisted kills, Fubar's shout of alarm had her rolling to her left, over the corpse of the Vandal she had killed when she had entered and narrowly dodging a shock grenade that went sailing out the window.
Once again drawing her hand cannon, Jane took aim and fired a few covering shots as she moved to find cover, leaving her rifle and bag where they lay. A quick glance from where she had rolled around a broken wall was the only chance she had to count her opponents, four Fallen, before gunfire started breaking up the edges of her cover and forced her back.
Raising her arm to protect her face, she fired blind around the corner, the alien shouts of pain indicating that she had managed to hit at least one of her attackers. The gunfire lessening as they no doubt tried to figure out how best to kill her.
More alien shouts echoing from the stairway made Jane go from concerned to outright worried. Reaching for her belt, she waited for the suppressive fire to lessen slightly before tossing a shock grenade of her own, counting to three before standing up and following.
The shouts of alarm let her know that the Fallen had seen her grenade, which meant they weren't looking at her when she came around the corner and blew the brains out of a Dreg standing stupidly out in the open.
By the time the two Vandals and one remaining Dreg had recovered from her grenade, Jane had reached them.
Immediately shoving her gun in the Dreg's face, Jane didn't even bother looking as she pulled the trigger, instead keeping her eyes on the two other aliens. Twisting around, she barely managed to avoid a hasty spray of gunfire, and pointing her hand cannon at the nearest Vandal. She pulled the trigger… only to realise it was empty.
Eyes widening, she reached for her belt to throw another grenade, hoping to buy enough time to get to cover or reload. Unfortunately, the Vandal she would have shot if she had remembered to reload didn't give her the chance, correcting its aim and punching two holes in her shoulder, even as her chest armour deflected the rest of its gunfire.
Going down in a cry of pain, she dropped her hand cannon in the process. Rolling onto her back, Jane grunted as she tried to use her other hand to reach for her gun, only for a massive alien foot to come down and crush her arm, making her cry out once again.
Looking up, Jane felt tears forming at the edges of her vision from the pain, and she stared helplessly as the barrel of a rifle very similar to her own was levelled at her head.
The last thing she saw before everything went black was a figure appearing in the doorway.
"I don't know if the Reapers understand fear, but you killed one of them. They have to respect that."
A man sitting in a chair, a star shining behind him, she had a bad feeling about this…
"Shepard. You're making a habit of costing me more than time and money."
Rage, a familiar feeling…
"Harbinger is coming and he won't be alone. Humanity needs a leader who's looking out for them. From now on I'm doing things my way, whether you agree or not!"
Angry eyes stare back, glowing and unnatural…
"Don't turn your back on me, Shepard! I made you, I brought you back from the dead!"
"Sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you. I'm getting a lot of bullshit on this line."
The feeling of being revived was something she still wasn't used to, but she now understood the feeling well enough to know that it probably wasn't a good idea to stay still.
As soon as feeling returned to her limbs, Jane rolled to her right. Grabbing her hand cannon as she went, she reloaded as she came up in a crouch. For once not fumbling the motions, she aimed and fired barely a moment later, causing the figure in purple and white to duck away.
Following the blurry image as best she could, she was aware that her Ghost was calling her name, but she had more important things to worry about. She fired again, putting three shots down range as she attempted to scramble for cover.
"Jane stop! He's friendly!"
The word 'friendly' finally pierced her disorientated mind, and on reflex Jane pulled her gun up to point at the ceiling, unable to stop her trigger finger from pulling one final time and raining brick and mortar down on her own head.
Shaking herself and attempting to rub the grit out of her eyes, Jane coughed as she searched for Fubar, who she found floating in the middle of the room a few moments later.
"Who'ere?" Came her rather intelligent reply.
Floating up in front of her, her Ghost seemed to calm down once it became clear she wasn't about to resume firing.
"He's friendly, a Guardian. He came in just after the Vandal shot you."
With the disorientation finally fading and her Ghost assisting in removing the grit from her eyes, Jane looked back to where she had last seen her supposed savoir. Whoever he was, he at least had the sense of self-preservation to wait until she waved him over before emerging from cover.
Whoa…
Suddenly she didn't feel so bad about mistaking him for a Fallen, because he was massive. Decked out in silver and purple plated armour, he stood a good head taller than her. Several guns were strapped to his back and hips, with a helmet that looked to be split in two, purple light shining through the gap.
"Err," Suddenly feeling rather sheepish, Jane rubbed the back of her neck, "Sorry about that, thought you were someone else."
The big Guardian made what might have been a small chuckle, before walking forward and offering her his hand, which she gladly took.
"Apology accepted, Guardian. Although I must admit, I don't believe we've met before. "
Grunting in what Jane hoped sounded like polite agreement, she checked over her hand as she replied, "I was just passing through. When I heard the gunfire I came running."
"Honourable," the Guardian commented, before moving to stand by the open window she had been using previously to shoot from. "I assume it's you I have to thank, for our sudden sniper support."
Coming to stand next to the titanic man, Jane looked out over the battlefield, seeing that the majority of the battle was done with. The Guardians rather obviously victorious.
"Like I said," Jane replied, "I came running once I heard."
Nodding silently, the Guardian spoke a few moments later, "Well, I would enjoy staying in your company, but the Kell of Devils awaits my presence."
With that said, the man jumped out the window. Startled, Jane rushed over and looked down, just in time to watch the man hit the roof of the building several floors directly below them with a blast of purple energy. Only to appear moments later out the building's bombed out front door, walking towards the base of the spire where the other Guardians seemed to be congregating.
Turning to look at her Ghost, Jane shared her astonishment.
"Can I do that?"
"No."
"I could give it try?"
"No."
One epic fist fight later
Looking down at the shattered skull of the Kell of Devils, Jane could only shake her head in amazement. The man responsible for such damage was on her right, regaining his strength, and Jane couldn't help but chuckle.
"For some strange reason, I get the feeling that an old friend of mine would have loved you."
Apparently regaining his strength with the assistance of his Ghost, Saint-14 pushed himself to his feet, the battered and dented armour speaking for itself, the monumental battle that had just taken place leaving the entire room a mess of broken metal and debris.
"I shall endeavour to take that as a compliment."
Smirking, Jane walked up to the dead Fallen leader, before she reached down and ripped the House of Devils flag from the dead alien's armour. Holding it up to the light, she admired the fabric for a moment, before rolling it up and stashing it in her bag.
"I hope you don't mind, I think I'll keep this as a souvenir."
Coming to stand by her side, the other Guardians around them seemed surprised by her casual commentary. The giant man simply shaking his head and sighed, "You're a strange one, aren't you?"
Authors Note:
Happy New Year from England everyone! I hope we get a better go of things next year. (I'm a pessimist, can't you tell?)
Lots of action, and I introduce an apparent legend from the Destiny Lore: Saint-14. Hopefully I don't butcher his character, feel free to let me know otherwise in the comments…
I was originally going to have the entire fight between Saint and the Kell of Devils written out, but it didn't feel right, so I skipped it and showed the brief aftermath. I may include the fight in a recollection by Jane at some point, that souvenir is bound to cause questions.
Next up will be Jane getting to the Last City, at last. So more character introductions ahead.
Thank you for your continual support everyone, and thank you to those who Review, Please do read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not as much. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off it motivates me to write more.
~ JunkMail
