~I don't own Mass Effect or Destiny, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners~
"I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples." – Mother Teresa
Arc II – Chapter 12
Ready For War
Side stepping a blue tinted jab, Jane deflected and blocked several more rapid punches with her arms, before ducking to her right and going on the offensive. Aiming low as she went for her opponent's kidneys, Jane grunted as a knee shot up and nailed her in the face.
Backing up, Jane used the back of her hand to rub the underside of her nose, revealing a small smear of blood, before grinning and speaking up.
"Nice try," She said, rolling her shoulders. "But that doesn't do nearly as much damage as it used to."
Hawk grunted as Jane moved forward, retaliating with a few purple tinted jabs of her own, the female Titan forced to go on the defensive to avoid getting punched in the face back.
"Ugh, don't remind me." Hawk pouted as she dodged Jane's snap kick and replied in kind. "One of the few things we had going for us was our Light."
They were both out of armour, mainly because Jane was getting hers repaired and repainted, with Hawk agreeing to keep it a fair fight. Which was a truer statement than it had been the week before, with purple tinted barriers now reflecting off of Jane's arms as she blocked a punch blue tinted punch.
"And your reflexes have only gotten better!" Her opponent and friend complained.
Jane just chuckled as they continued to slowly circle each other, testing each other with non-committal attacks. They were both trying to find weaknesses in each other's defences, their matches seeming to be more about talking than fighting these days.
"Yeah well, it's not all sunshine and rainbows." She replied, "I still have to restrain myself every time I want to use the Void in any real offensive capacity. The first part still makes me want to fly into a blind rage."
Hawk winced as she backed up a step, avoiding the spinning kick Jane threw her way. No doubt recalling her own experience with Jane and the use of her Void Light. "Shit, still? Those homicidal rages you get into are damn scary, even for someone who's been around the block like me."
By an unspoken agreement, they both dropped their arms, calling an end to their little sparing match. Turning to look away, Jane instead tried to focus on the beautiful scenery before her, the Last City stretching out under the protective shadow of the Traveller.
They were at the very top of the Alpha Tower, one of six that lined the all-encompassing Wall that lined the surrounding City. The small platform they were standing on was one of Hawk's favourite spots to practice in private, and was quickly becoming Jane's as well.
"I still don't really understand it all that well," Jane revealed to Hawk. "The things that are standing over me all wear full suits of armour, but the helmets they wear have really strange cross shaped visors."
Coming to stand beside her, Hawk gave her a hearty clap on the back. "I wouldn't worry too much about it, there's still a lot we don't know about the Collapse. They were probably just people with weird armour we haven't come across the remains of yet."
But Jane shook her head, "That's not all though," She insisted, feeling her frustration bubbling up to the forefront. "I keep having these… visions, I guess, practically every time I end up dying. I hear voices that feel familiar to me, and images I find myself forgetting but remember feeling terrified of or… or hatred towards!"
By the end she realised she was raising her voice, her hands clenching into fists on reflex. More out of a feeling of frustration than any real anger. Turning to look over her shoulder, Hawk had kept a hold on her shoulder, but Jane saw that her friend had gone wide eyed at her sudden burst of emotions.
"Every time you die?" Hawk asked.
"Pretty much," Jane admitted. "Though I usually don't remember much more than vague feelings and a few broken words."
"That's a lot more than most of us get." Hawk revealed. "Exo's generally remember a good bit more than the rest of us, most of us organics only get a memory or two. Hell, Question doesn't even remember his original name."
"Seriously?" Jane asked incredulously, "I always thought it was just a nickname."
Rolling her shoulders, Jane felt the need to continue talking. "I'm pretty sure at this point I was some sort of military commander, or maybe spec-ops." She continued, "From what I've been able to piece together, I was fighting against something, something pretty big."
"The Darkness, I imagine." Hawk supplied.
"Maybe…"
Before they could speculate more, Fubar floated up over the edge of the Tower to come to rest at her shoulder. Her Ghost having returned from the errand she had sent him on.
"Your armour is ready," He informed her. "Are you sure you don't want me to just collect it as well?" He added sarcastically. "Maybe dry clean it while I'm at it?"
Gently swatting the little shit, Jane smirked as she shook her head. "Quiet you," She mockingly commanded, "We've got a new mission lined up for us, haven't we?"
"From the Vanguard themselves," Fubar informed her, "They've picked up a distress call, they think some colonists may have stumbled upon a Fallen House."
"Sounds exciting," Jane grinned.
"Utterly dangerous and full of unknowns." Fubar countered.
Walking over to the side of the building, Jane leaned down and collected her bag from where it sat next to Hawk's, slinging it over one shoulder as she turned back to said friend.
"I'll see you around Hawk," Jane called with a casual wave, turning away from her friend just in time to miss the worried look that crossed the Titan's face. "I'll give you a call once I get back!"
8 Hours Later…
From the vantage point high up on an outcropping of rock, the Hunter stationed there had a remarkably clear view of the activity occurring beneath him. One of the few remaining holdouts of the Fallen House of Winter scurried around below.
From what he could just see, there looked to be thousands of Dregs, hundreds of Vandals, Servitors and Captains and an untold number of different Shanks, all moving to evacuate from their little hidey hole as fast as they could.
The House of Winter had been clever, building their base inside a large and rocky ravine. Allowing them to hide their ships below ground whilst also digging into the walls of the cavern to form tunnels, effectively hiding them below the ground and making it incredibly difficult to be spotted from either land or air.
The only reason the City had learned of the base in the first place was because of a stray group of settlers, who had unfortunately stumbled upon the place by complete accident. The short yet terrified cry for help over an open frequency had been the last thing they had managed to do before getting slaughtered, yet the signal had been picked up by the City, and three Hunters had been dispatched to deal with the threat.
Looking down her Wire Rifle's scope, Jane kept track of the movements of a high ranking Captain, the large alien looked to be directing the majority of the smaller aliens below. Ordering most of them into smaller drop ships Fubar had tagged as Tuggs, while the rest were moving what looked to be supplies into a Skiff.
From her vantage point, she could get an excellent picture of what was going on below, and the faint ripple of her stealth-tech surrounding her body was the only thing that revealed her position, and at such distance from her targets it was virtually impossible to be spotted.
"Well this is just great."
Looking up from her scope, Jane raised an eyebrow from inside her helmet, despite knowing he couldn't see any of it. Tevis Larsen, her official mentor, sat further back and away from the cliff edge. The Nightstalker was using her scope's feed to see what was happening below. The man was wearing his signature dark red cloak, with the cloth wrapping around to cover the top part of his chest, and hid the whitewashed armour with red lines that existed underneath.
"What'd you mean?" Jane asked, "It looks like we've found one of the last House of Winter bases here on Earth, let's get down there and finish what Saint started before they can get away."
Over the comms, Jane heard a sigh. Eris appearing beside them moments later, the darkly clad Huntress was wielding one of her two pistols, while she held a telescopic binocular in her other hand.
"There's far too many of them for us to take on by ourselves, even for the three of us." Gesturing down to the hive of alien activity below them, she continued. "From what I've been able to see, they've built a labyrinth of tunnel networks underground, not to mention the drop ships."
Looking back down her scope, Jane ignored her two companions as they began arguing over the number of Guardians they would need to deal with the forces below. Instead running her scope along the equipment attached to the different dropships that hovered inside the large ravine.
Several thick hoses were attached to the underside of a Skiff, which ran from the dropship to a large set of tanks, which in turn had a number of what looked to be computers attached.
With a subtle flick of her chin, Jane muted her outbound comms and spoke quietly. "Fubar, am I looking at what I think I'm looking at?"
"If by looking at you mean those Helium-3 Fuelling Tanks, then yes. They are what you think they are."
Jane grinned, "Good, see if you can't break into whatever this place calls a network, I want those doors leading underground locked and kept that way until I say otherwise."
With a sigh, her Ghost muttered an affirmative. His muttering about having to do all the hard work making Jane's smirk grow even wider, even as she sighted in on the hose connection to the biggest Fuel Tank she could see.
Behind her, her two companions were still arguing with each other.
"-ow a combined Hunter and Titan Fireteam will be the best option!" Tevis exclaimed.
"Oh please, just get Ikora and her Hidden down here. They could have this entire place cleaned out inside of an hour." Eris countered.
"If you two are done bickering," Jane interrupted. "Then perhaps you could get into position?"
"Wait, what?"
Taking a deep breath, Jane zeroed in on her target and pulled the trigger. The brief wine-crack of her Wire Rifle firing being almost immediately drowned out by the colossal boom that made the very ground they were standing on shake.
A shockwave of pressure rippled outwards from the ravine in all directions, a massive fireball blooming out from the massive crack in the ground as thick black smoke began to belch out of the ground.
The H3 Fuel Tanks went up in a chain reaction that encompassed the entirety of the ravine complex, smaller balls of flame rising up from the ground as the pressure wave reached their location, serving to blast Tevis clean off his feet and force Eris to crouch down to avoid the same fate.
The moment the blast wave was past them, Jane flicked the safety on her rifle and allowed Fubar to dematerialise it. Drawing her pulse rifle from her back to replace it, she smirked as she turned to look back at her stunned friends.
"There we are," She declared over the comms. "That should level the playing field a bit."
A slight tremor in the ground had her turning back towards the now burning ravine, just in time to watch as the Fallen Skiff pulled itself free from the thick black cloud of smoke that was quickly encompassing the entire ravine.
In utter silence, Jane and her two companions watched as the spacecraft pulled itself free from the spoke, revealing itself to have an engine engulfed in fire. As they watched, the alien craft began listing to the right as fires broke out across its hull, looking to be desperately trying to gain altitude and distance.
It didn't get far, as a second engine blew out, sending the Skiff into a slow spiral as it fell from the sky. With the sound of tearing metal, the dropship crashed into the ground barely five hundred meters away from the ravine it had been attempting to escape from. The massive ship carving a trench into the ground as it ploughed into the dirt, before bursting into flames and exploding, sending shrapnel and burning debris in every direction.
"I've locked all of the doors I can," Fubar stated over the comms, "Though there may be more that weren't linked to the main complex's network." When nobody replied, he continued. "I also took the liberty of shutting off the fire suppression systems."
"Excellent, good work." Jane said. "Hopefully enough of those bastards survived to give us a challenge, once those fires go out we'll head down and finish them off."
The Tower
Flicking off the digital report, Ikora looked up from where she stood next to her fellow Vanguard. Zavala standing at his customary position at the head of the table, with Cayde-6 lounging back in a seat he had procured from somewhere, while she stood opposite to him.
In front of them was Tevis Larsen, the Nightstalker Cayde had assigned to Jane as a mentor. She had never personally met the Hunter, but her spies had made several notes of both his skills in combat and his apparent mock-hate friendship with Cayde-6.
Clearing her throat, she gained the attention of all three Guardians present in the room. "Your assessment?" She asked the Nightstalker.
"Exactly like I said in the report." Larsen replied. "Fast, tough, focused, highly intelligent and utterly unconventional. She scares the absolute piss out of me."
Looking around the table, Ikora noted that it wasn't just her own eyebrow that was raised. Cayde was chuckling, looking both amused and highly smug at the same time, no doubt he was happy he would be getting such a useful agent.
"She scares you?" Zavala spoke up, "In what way?"
"In what way?" the Nightstalker parroted, sounding incredulous. "I mean she's quite possibly one of the deadliest Guardians I've ever met. By the traveller, she could probably kill everyone in this room without breaking a sweat."
Ikora felt her spine stiffen at such a self-assured proclamation. A quick glance around the table revealed that Cayde had almost tipped back over in his chair, and Zavala had gone absolutely still.
The silence in the room made the Warlock Vanguard look around a second time, this time noticing that apart from the robotic frames, the support staff that were working around the room had gone completely silent.
They were professional enough to keep working, but Ikora had little doubt that they were all now intently listening in on their briefing.
With a quiet sigh, Ikora reached under the table and pressed a small button fixed to the underside of the nearest leg, a thin bubble appearing around the table and encompassing all four of them, including the loudmouth Nightstalker.
"Elaborate." She ordered.
The Nightstalker took a breath and calmed himself. "She might not remember it, but from what I've been able to observe, Jane has been trained in guerrilla combat strategies, advanced hand to hand combat, and expert marksmanship. She uses her surroundings to create force multipliers and quite frankly? That Wire Rifle she uses barely resembles the sniper rifle's the Fallen use any more, not to mention she's been successfully working on a Fallen stealth-tech system."
Cayde waved a hand in dismissal. "Fallen stealth-tech is nowhere near as good as ours. You can still pick them up on motion sensors."
"But they still make you invisible, and are far easier to repair and replicate." Larsen countered. "Never mind the fact that Jane mainly uses it to better hide her sniping positions."
"This still doesn't explain why you consider her to be such a grave threat." Ikora interjected, wanting to get back on track.
"She's not a threat… exactly. Not to us anyway." The Nightstalker seemed to backtrack. "From what I can tell, she's invested in her new responsibilities as a Guardian, but that last mission is an excellent example of what I'm talking about."
Bring up a 3D image on the table in front of them, Ikora looked upon what seemed to be a hive of Fallen activity. She quickly identified them as House of Winter, likely taken by Larsen before they had destroyed the base.
"By my Ghost's count, there were roughly two thousand Dregs and Shanks, over a thousand Vandals and hundreds of Captains and Servitors." The Nightstalker explained, "We also found the remains of several Archons, though only after the fires finished burning out. Not to mention the firepower we found on board that Skiff."
Throughout his explanation, the Nightstalker pointed out bits and pieces of information that revealed just how dug in the Fallen had been, and just how difficult it would have been to assault it conventionally.
"Me and Eris took one look at the number of Fallen and began discussing which Fireteams were best suited to go in and take them out." With a small motion, the holographic depiction changed to that of a giant cloud of black smoke. Off in the distance, Ikora spotted the remains of the Skiff, now little more than a burning wreck. "Jane fired one shot. And I mean one shot, and killed more Fallen in one second than I have in the past week combined!"
"So you're saying she's smart?" Ikora asked.
"No. I'm saying she's highly intelligent, very unpredictable, and utterly ruthless. She's the most dangerous Nightstalker I've ever trained, hands down. Not to mention the Void practically clings to her."
"Clings to her?" Cayde asked, sounding vaguely mystified.
"She practically breathes it," The Nightstalker confirmed. "For most of us Void-users, we offer a part of our Light to the Void, and in return we're gifted some of its power in return. A contract. But for some reason, Jane doesn't do that, she calls the Void forth without needing to make a contract."
Leaning back in her chair, Ikora let the information settle in her mind. According to Cayde, Larsen was one of the best Nightstalkers he had. The fact that said Hunter was telling them Jane was more dangerous than even him, and at such a young age, it was not something to take lightly.
"If you have nothing else to add?" Zavala asked, speaking up. When the Nightstalker shook his head, the Titan Vanguard gestured for him to leave. "Then we thank you for your time."
"Wait outside for me!" Cayde called as his friend turned to leave. "I've got a great gig that I think you'll be interested in!"
Once the Nightstalker was outside the Sound Suppression System, Ikora let out a breath that she didn't realise she had been holding. She could already feel the migraine coming, and she brought up a hand to rub her temple.
"Well," She said. "That was informative."
Zavala nodded in agreement, while Cayde continued to look smug as he lounged back in his chair.
"She's gonna be pissed when we announce the Scout Teams findings on Mercury." The Hunter Vanguard stated, "I say we put her on the list. Best we let her burn off that aggression somewhere that's not here. Unless Ikora would like to see another Bar Incident."
Ikora felt her eye twitch slightly at the reference, but ultimately ignored him as she spoke. "I agree with Cayde. For once."
They both looked to Zavala, who sighed. "She's too young, but fine. I agree."
Reaching out, the Titan Vanguard picked up a data pad and typed something in. Moments later, the holographic image on the table changed, revealing a list of names, with their latest Guardian placed at the top.
Authors Note:
This chapter took a bit longer to write, mainly because I'm struggling with the pacing for this last arc. Here we see Jane revealing to us some of the stresses she's having to deal with, and also displaying her ability to unconventionally blow shit up. Plus the Vanguard realising just how useful Jane could be.
This ended up being a mostly transition chapter, the plot will be moving forward at a faster pace in the next chapter.
And to Guest-Questioner: Shut it, I was only a few hours late :)
Thank you for your continual support everyone, and thank you to those who Review. Please do read and review, criticism is welcome, though 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
