~I don't own Mass Effect or Destiny, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners~

"The time will come when you will doubt everything you stand for, but you must push forward and never stop. Do not let others speak for you, or you will lose your voice forever." – S.M. Boyce


Arc II - Chapter 8

Recovery

It was the sound of someone banging on metal that awoke her. The head splitting pain in her skull following soon after, turning the rather aggravating knocking into a jackhammer against her forehead.

With a groan of abject misery, Jane blearily opened her eyes. The sight greeting her an odd and unfamiliar scene. Grey walls, a white celling and what looked to be black carpet greeted her vison as she struggled to survey her surroundings.

She spotted Fubar, settled on top of some kind of small metal dresser. Despite the noise, her Ghost didn't so much as twitch, the blue light that usually glowed from his singular eye noticeably absent.

Dragging herself off the small but comfortable bed she had been laying on, she only belatedly realised that she was missing her cloak and armour, but was still at least dressed in her under clothes.

Managing to stagger into what looked to be a cramped corridor, Jane squinted up and down, looking for the source of the banging that had awoken her, eventually spotting a metallic looking door at one end of the corridor.

Staggering towards it, using the wall as support, Jane slapped her palm against what looked to be the door controls and swiped the appearing padlock symbol to the side, the sound of a locking mechanism disengaging blessedly stopping the insistent banging.

Gripping the handle fixed to the door, Jane grunted as she pulled it to her left, allowing the door to slide almost silently into the wall and open a small crack into the outside world.

Peeking through the gap, Jane eyed the man on the other side.

Standing in what looked to be an empty hallway was Saint-14, the massive man still clad in his full armour. Though from what she could see he had forgone any obvious weapons, instead holding a rather big bag over one of his giant shoulders. His other hand was coming down from where he had been obviously using it to make the head splitting noise that had awoken her.

Rubbing her eyes, Jane stared at him for a few moments, before pulling the door the rest of the way open and standing to one side, "Well, you've woken me up. Might as well come in." She gestured with an arm back into the apartment.

The giant man managed to squeeze past her, ducking his head as he made his way into what she assumed was a living room. Taking a moment to try and compose herself, she closed and relocked the door before following him.

Walking through the doorway, she discovered that she had been right, and that it was a small and rather Spartan living room, where the large Titan had made himself at home in a strange looking chair that seemed to conform itself to his large size.

Rubbing her face from the entrance way, Jane was only too aware of how unprofessional she looked, before deciding she just didn't give a damn and following suit, settling down in a surprisingly comfy chair opposite her guest.

"Alright," She sighed, "I'll bite. Whose apartment is this?"

Saint just chuckled, and after setting his bag down beside him, he reached up and removed his helmet while he responded. "It is your own. It's one of the few perks of being a Guardian of the City."

Blinking in surprise, Jane stared at the man's face, before sighing in self-deprecation. "Saint-14." She found herself face palming for a second time in an Exo's presence. "Ugh, I'm far too hungover for this crap."

The now exposed Exo's face moved into what she thought was a grin, the motions not quite the same as on a human face. "Yes, so I've heard from Cayde-6." Before reaching down into his bag and pulling out a white plastic bottle. Throwing it her way, he continued. "As I understand it, you had a rather drunken bar fight with Ikora's Hidden. It's already the gossip of the Towers."

Her hand snapped out and caught the bottle on pure reflex, and looking down at it, she saw that it proclaimed to be a Hangover Cure. The bright and cheerful label on the front of the bottle somehow managing to make her headache feel even worse.

Looking back up at the Titan in front of her, the synthetic gestured to the doorway. "Second door on the right, I believe it should lead to the kitchen."

Grunting in thanks, she got up and headed back out into the apartments cramped corridor. Saint's directions proving accurate as she rummaged through several cupboards to find a glass, before filling it with water and washing down two of the tablets from the plastic bottle.

As she swallowed the pills, Saint's voice rang out from the other room.

"Do you mind if I ask why you got into a bar fight within the first ten hours of entering the City?"

Refilling the glass, she downed the water quickly before heading back into the living room, feeling far more human than when she had first woke up. The giant Exo was still in his chair, apparently content to wait for her to return and Jane felt it best to explain herself before any rumours started spreading.

"Those Hidden guys showed up out of nowhere, proclaimed a bunch of stuff I can barely remember, and then tried to drag me off to who knew where." Grunting as she sat back down, she continued to explain. "I disagreed, and when they didn't take no for an answer I retaliated with extreme prejudice. If I had been sober I would have won too."

Her headache finally backing down, Jane groaned in relief and sagged back into her chair. She thanked the man across from her for the medication, only for him to wave off her thanks with a chuckle. "It was no trouble, I was getting a few items for an upcoming mission." Smirking, the man continued. "Plus, the rather amusing conversation between Cayde and Ikora that happened after your fight was its own reward."

It was at this moment Fubar decided to make an appearance, managing to float rather awkwardly into the room before perching himself on the arm of Jane's chair.

"How're you doing little guy?" Jane asked quietly, eyeing the rather obvious damage to his faded white shell as she idly scratched his plates. From across the small room, she noticed Saint sitting up in interest as her Ghost replied. "I'm fine," The unspoken eye roll made Jane smirk, "You just need to stop getting into drunken fights and get me a new shell."

She snorted, "Sure buddy, I'll get right on that with my non-existent and empty bank account."

Saint chose that moment to interject with a polite little cough, drawing both herself and her Ghost's attention back to their large guest. "That's the other thing I was hoping to talk to you about," Saint explained, "It is rather common for newly resurrected Guardians to have little to no money with them when they first arrive."

Gesturing to her Ghost, he continued. "Although I must admit a new Ghost Shell is usually not something high on the list, I know of a Guardian who specialises in Ghost modifications." With a small shrug he continued, "I was hoping to take you to her, get you familiarised with the Tower here and some of the other things you will need to know before I leave on my quest."

Grimacing, Jane leaned back in her chair, "Like I said earlier, I don't really have any sort of money."

But Saint just waved off her protests, "It is no issue." He assured her, "I am more than happy to pay for any necessities, and basic gear for new Guardians is free of cost anyway." He leaned back in his chair, "Besides, between most Guardians here, it's more common to barter for that which you want."

Pulling herself to her feet, Jane grimaced as she stretched. Several loud pops and cracks sounding out from her body, "I'm going to have a quick shower," She decided. She felt her nose scrunch up as she caught a whiff of herself, "I smell like a bar. After that, you can introduce me to your friend and show me around this place."

Stating his agreement, Saint once again proved his chivalrous nature by promising to await for her where he was, while she went off in search of a bathroom and a change of clothes.


In the end she found a small walk-in cubical shower that was connected to her bedroom, and after a brief but pleasant shower, Jane finally started to feel normal again after she stepped out and dried herself.

After a few moments of searching wardrobes that looked to store objects the same way Fubar did, she found a simple matte grey long-sleeved top and a pair of black trousers. At first she had thought that whoever had placed them there had gotten her size wrong, only to realise once she put them on that the clothing somehow morphed to fit her size.

Looking up in a small mirror fixed to the wall, Jane tied her hair back into a rough pony tail, before looking around for her missing stuff, finding it dumped in a previously ignored corner of the room. With a brief moment of deliberation, she left her rifle, spear and armour where they lay, but hauled on her cloak over her shoulders and fixed her gun belt around her waist. Checking that everything was in its proper place, she grabbed her bag and exited the bedroom.

Coming back into the living room, she found Fubar and Saint chatting, apparently discussing some of their more precarious adventures from the Russia/Georgia boarder on their way to the Kazakhstan Cosmodrome.

"-nd then she calls me a back seat driver! As if we hadn't just barely missed crashing into something for the past ten hours!"

"Hey!" she called out, her Ghost jerking up at her shout. "My driving skills are fine, thank you very much. It's not my fault that thing had finicky controls."

Making his way over to her shoulder, her Ghost at least had the decency to look mildly ashamed of himself as he nestled into the hood of her cloak. "You have the driving skills of a ten year old, it's as if you have no fear of death or crashing in a ball of flames." He muttered once he had gotten comfortable.

"Don't make me swat you," She warned him. Before turning back to Saint with an exasperated sigh. "I assume he's spent the past fifteen minutes doing nothing but talk about my bad driving and my apparent disregard for my own personal safety?"

Saint had already put his helmet back onto his head, which limited her ability to read him somewhat, but there was definitely tinges of amusement lased in his voice as he replied. "Of course not, he was regaling me with the times you've proven yourself in combat against the Fallen Scouts."

Rolling her eyes, Jane gestured for him to lead the way. The large Titan leading her out of her apartment, down the hallway beyond and into one of three awaiting elevators lining the end of the wall.

Taking a moment to note which floor they were already on, Jane watched as Saint hit the icon for the hundred and second floor. Raising an eye brow in question, Jane watched as the doors shut and the number above the door started to rapidly increase.

Seeing her look, Saint spoke up. "We'll go meet my friend first. She's a Warlock of some renown, who specialises in modifying and upgrading Ghost Shells." He explained.

"And after that?" Jane asked.

"We shall head up to this Tower's Main Plaza. There will be multiple stores for us to visit, and we can get you everything you will need for the coming days."

She assumed he was talking about this Crucible she had heard about, but she honestly couldn't see it being all that difficult. From Cayde's brief mention of it while they'd travelled into the city, she got the impression it was meant to introduce new Guardians to the whole dying concept in a safer environment.

With a quiet ding, the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened, revealing a number of Guardians in full armour and carrying weapons. Jane tensed on reflex, but Saint seemed unconcerned as the ten armoured individuals piled in, chattering amongst each other as one of them selected the top floor marked 'Plaza'.

With a quiet rattle she barely heard over the muttering conversations, the elevator started up again.

It didn't take their new passengers long to strike up a conversation with Saint, one of the bigger ones asking about his fight with Solkis, the Kell from the house of devils. "Did you seriously kill the bastard with a headbutt?" He asked, sounding vaguely incredulous.

Saint just laughed, confirming that he had, in fact, killed the leader of the Fallen House with his forehead, before doing the single last thing she could want, and gestured towards her.

"You can ask Jane here, she was there for the final moments of the fight." The Exo bastard even had the balls to clap her on the back as he said so, drawing the eyes of everyone in the elevator onto her. Making a sigh of annoyance, Jane pushed down the raising panic in her chest and attempted to give a curt answer.

"I got stuck on one of the lower levels, but yeah. By the time I got there Saint was getting strangled to death by the enormous bastard." Giving a glare to the aforementioned Guardian, she continued. "He reached forward, grabbed the thing's head by the ridiculous helmet it had on and caved in the alien's skull with a headbutt."

Reaching into the air, she pretended to grab something before jerking her head forward in the mime of a headbutt, to the delight of her audience. Several questions were called out, but a Warlock towards the back managed to get his heard above the others.

"You're an Exo, Saint-14. How in the Light did you almost get strangled to death?"

It was at this moment that the elevator slowed once again, before the doors opened with a quiet ding, singling that they had arrived at their floor. Shuffling out the door, Saint chuckled as several cries of dismay rang out from the occupants of the elevator.

"I'm sorry gentlemen," The Exo called out, "But I'm afraid this is where we must part ways."

Shaking her head in amusement, Jane watched as her guide waved to the Guardians in the elevator, feigning complete ignorance to their calls for an answer.

Once the doors shut, Jane punched him in the arm. Despite the fact that it most certainly hurt her hand a lot more than it did his shoulder, the satisfaction at his slight shift in balance to remain upright remained.

"Now what did I do to earn your ire?" He joked, beginning to lead her down the hallway before them. His question only made Jane roll her eyes, "You may have managed to avoid answering to them," She stated, "But you can't get rid of me as easily as them."

With a mild chuckle of amusement, the Exo accepted defeat with the raising of his arms. "While I may not need oxygen to breath like you or them, there are still important bits and pieces stored in my metal skull." Rapping his knuckles against his helmet for emphasis. "Having my head ripped from my shoulders would surely kill me as swiftly as it would you."

Snorting in mild amusement, Jane stopped alongside Saint at a door marked with the number 201. Apart from a few dents and scratches, it was identical to all the other doors they had passed on the way here.

With a swift set of knocks on the door from Saint, the door shifted aside to reveal a rather normal looking woman with shoulder length blonde hair and pale complexion. She visibly seemed to perk up at the sight of them.

"Saint-14! It's been a while!" After giving the large Titan a rather comical hug, she finally seemed to notice that Jane was standing behind him. "And you brought company, how intriguing!"

Stepping to the side, Saint introduced them to each other, revealing the woman's name to be Lyssa, who was quickly proving to Jane to be a rather quirky and upbeat Warlock.

With introductions out of the way, Lyssa invited them both inside.

Stepping into the Warlock's apartment, Jane was quick to note the structure seemed identical to her own, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of the grey walls and black carpet she had back in her own corridor, Lyssa obviously preferred brighter colours.

The cramped corridor walls had been painted a bright shade of orange, with the carpet replaced with what looked to be real wood panelling. Pictures hung on the walls, depicting what looked to be photos featuring several Guardians and locations across Earth.

Entering the living room, Jane was once again bombarded with colour, with two of the walls painted a strong red, which contrasted with the rest of the walls, which were a remarkably plain white. The carpet was black, but something had been sprinkled into it to make it glitter slightly like a night sky.

The furniture was rather mixed as well, with more attention rather obviously payed to comfort and size than any particular style or colour.

Taking a seat, Jane watched as Lyssa chattered on about some piece of Fallen tech she was looking into, and practically squealed when Saint reached into his bag and pulled out a large piece of glowing purple tech that Jane vaguely recognised.

"A Prime Servitor processing core! How did you manage to get one intact?" The bubbly woman practically bounced on her heels as she examined it, nearly dropping the piece of tech in the process. "Who knows what sort of upgrades I'll be able to make after I study this!"

It was here that Saint interjected, "Actually Lyssa, I was looking to trade you that for something."

The woman perked up from her study, curiosity looking to temporarily override her wish to poke the new piece of technology in her hands. "Really? That's not like you Saint, what do you need?"

It was here that the Titan gestured to where Jane had settled herself, content to be a silent observer until now. "My new friend's Ghost here had a rather close encounter with a Fallen scouting party, and is in need of a new shell, I figured you would be the right person to go to."

Seemingly forgetting about the computer core, the Warlock placed the large piece of tech on a steel coffee table, before addressing Jane directly. "Let me see? I might be able to repair the damage."

Jane shook her head, "I doubt it, but you're the expert I guess."

Flicking Fubar from where he was nestled into her hood, Jane watched as her Ghost pulled himself out of her clothing to float unsteadily in front of the Warlock, the woman looking almost startled by the obvious damage to his shell.

"Holy Light, what happened to you, sweetie?" Lyssa asked as she gently grasped Fubar, shifting his shell around to get a better look at the damage. As she did so, the warlock's own Ghost materialised, apparently drawn out by its own curiosity.

"Hand Cannon shot, from a Vandal," Jane explained, "Punched through the shell and scraped whatever you call the black ball in the center."

While Lyssa fussed about with Fubar, Jane found herself intrigued by the Warlock's own Ghost. The little machine had a rather distinctive shell, with short pieces of its shell pointing out above and below it like plated antenna.

"Hang on a sec, I've got just the one." Looking up, Jane watched as Lyssa and her Ghost moved off into another room, apparently in search of a spare Shell. Turning to look at Saint, Jane shook her head as she spoke up.

"Do I want to know how rare that thing is?" she asked, pointing at the piece of tech still sitting on the coffee table. "I do have some stuff I could have traded."

Saint, irritatingly enough, just waved her off again. "I was going to give that to Lyssa anyway, she asked that I try and get one before I headed off to deal with the House of Devils."

A few moments later, and Lyssa returned. Holding a Ghost shell painted a faded blue with yellow markings. Little spike-like protrusions came out the back of the shell, and Jane thought it looked a little more streamlined than Fubar's broken shell.

"Here!" Lyssa stated, holding the shell out. "Try this one out, it's an old Intrusion Shell that we used before I got hold of some Vex tech and modified a newer model."

Sitting up in her chair, Jane watched with interest as Fubar moved up to scan the new shell. The beam of light coming from his eye scanning it over from different angles, before he finally seemed to hum in agreement.

"It's a little banged up, but it's nothing the right materials won't fix."

Expanding his broken shell, Jane watched as the shell literally broke apart, leaving behind the black ball that contained his eye. Which then floated over to Lyssa, before he sent a small stream of light to the new shell, causing it to expand like the old one.

Once it had expanded, Fubar gently floated into the center of the rotating pieces, before closing it around himself. The different triangular pieces of the shell were shifting and adjusting, Fubar looking to be almost stretching in his new shell.

"Well?" Jane asked after Fubar finished rotating himself.

"Not bad," Fubar commented, moving around the room in a slow circle, "And the additional cyberwarfare applications are a definite plus."

Grinning, Jane looked to Saint and nodded in agreement. "Looks like we're good to go."

Turning to Lyssa, Jane smiled as she thanked the Warlock. Who simply responded by telling her to come round any time she needed help, siting that any friend of Saint-14 was a friend of hers.

It was only once they had left and Lyssa had closed her door behind them that Fubar spoke up.

"How can anyone be that… peppy, and still be a Warlock?" Seeming to be genuinely confused by the woman's almost airheaded nature. "I mean, she obviously has a serious understanding of Ghosts and our shells, but she almost dropped that computing core you gave her."

Saint and Jane just chuckled to each other as they walked back towards the elevators, Fubar now happily floating openly over Jane's right shoulder.

"She's a strange one," Saint replied. "But so is Jane. I figured you two would like her."


Authors Note:

Ugh. You know what? Never mind, I'll just get around to introducing the rest of the Vanguard at some other point, I can't see a real reason for Jane needing to meet them all right now anyway.

This chapter blew up from a small segment about getting gear upgrades and introducing the vanguard to something far larger and more time consuming than I ever expected. And I decided to cut it off before it could consume any more of my time.

As for the Ghost shells, from what I can tell, Ghosts can modify them themselves. But I figured since you find so many different variants in game that a few Guardians could specialise in making custom or modified shells based on tech recovered out in the field.

Not entirely happy with this chapter, but I figured I'd just get it done and move on to the crucible in the next chapter. I'm looking forward to writing some interesting combat scenes and expanding a bit on how it would all work in real life.


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