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

"Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." – William Jennings Bryan

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Arc III – Chapter 15

Accidental Discoveries

"Hey Jane, its Axe. You read me alright?"

Exhaling, Jane shifted slightly as she brought her head away from the scope of her Sniper Rifle to unmute her helmet's microphone.

"Loud and clear. Who's complaining about the cold this time?"

There was a brief burst of static, before the fellow sniper replied. "We're coming up to the next checkpoint," He informed her, "And Avian has joined in with Hawk and Thessa, I think even Jagi is getting sick of them."

Jane grinned, "Wusses, all three of them."

Axe replied with a chuckle, "I'll let them know you said that. Though even I've got to admit we've been getting shit luck with this mission, you seeing anything I'm not?"

"Nope." She replied breezily, "Nothing but beautiful scenery up here."

Not that she was complaining about it, unlike a lot of the other hunting teams, Jane considered it good luck that they had yet to locate any Ahamkara, the whole 'kill on sight' business was leaving a sour taste in her mouth.

Although, she had to admit, from where she had perched herself on the very peak of a snow dusted mountain, the view alone was utterly breath taking to see. Even after a week of constant hiking and tracking through the mountainous terrain of Old Pakistan, the constantly stunning views never failed to impress.

The snow topped mountainous terrain stretched on for as far as the eye could see, which when combined with the pure blue sky and the golden rays of the sun, left almost everything in sight beautifully picturesque.

Silently muting her microphone again, Jane sighed as she gazed around at the beautiful scenery. "Kinda takes me back to those mountains you found me on, back in Russia."

Although when Fubar replied it was, unsurprisingly, with a sarcastic edge to his voice.

"Really? All I remember was heavy blizzards, sub-zero temperatures and those treacherous cliff faces that you liked to jump off."

"Oh come on-"

"Not to mention the roaming Fallen and hostile wildlife, all of which tried to hunt us down and kill us."

"Okay!" Jane interjected, rolling her eyes. "I get it."

They were stopped from arguing further by the sight of movement on an opposing mountain peak, but Jane relaxed her trigger finger when the emerging figure was marked with a green tag by her HUD, identifying the figure as Axe, the exo stopping to give her a quick wave before getting joined by six more figures with similarly coloured armour.

The white and grey paintjobs they were all sporting was doing well to camouflage them with the snow and rocky terrain, even as they ruined it by leaving a blatantly clear trail of footsteps in their wake.

For Jane herself, her outfit was similarly transformed. Her previously black and purple cloak had been replaced with a thicker white coloured one. The heavy fabric splotched with black and grey, whist her armour was a mismatch of white, grey and black that was specifically designed to break up her profile.

It was a basic form of stealth, especially when you took her tactical cloak into consideration, but the thing still had problems with heat regulation, and Jane was taking every advantage she could get.

Pulling away from her rifle, Jane rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck, before Fubar let her know that Hawk was pinging her on their private comm.

"Getting bored already?" She commented with a smile as the call connected, "We've only been walking for five hours."

"Oh come on." Hawk wined in reply, "We've been out here for days tracking these things and we've not seen so much as a single scale."

Jane just grinned as her friend continued to rant, "And for your information, we are not wusses! You and the exo's just don't feel the cold like the rest of us normal people."

Jane chuckled, "What do you mean 'normal people'? Question hasn't complained once, and the view up here is great!"

Hawk just huffed, the sound coming over the comms as a burst of windy static.

"So, where to next do you think? The warlocks were clearly off their game when they traced the disruption magic to all the way out here. The other hunting parties have been getting all the luck recently."

Jane grimaced slightly, and while it wouldn't make a difference to anybody listening in on their comms, she still lowered her voice slightly.

"If anything I'm glad." She confided, "I really can't stand this war, and the fact that the so many Guardians are willing to commit genocide on the Vanguard's orders worries me."

On the other mountain peak, Jane watched as one of the figures, Hawk she guessed, shrugged their shoulders. "Well if it makes you feel any better, the Speaker signed off on it, so I suppose it more about people trusting his judgement than the Vanguard's."

Sighing, Jane sat up from where she had dug herself into the snow.

"No, it really doesn't." Brushing some snow off her arms, Jane pulled herself to her feet. "Look, I understand that Saint looked up to him as something of a father figure, but something about the Speaker just… I don't know, something about him sets me on edge."

Picking up her rifle and preforming one final sweep of the surrounding area, Jane got moving. Her job as an unofficial scout requiring her to move ahead of the Host and provide them with advanced recon, alongside Axe-6 and his oversized rifle.

The Ahamkara had somehow started jamming guidance systems and long range comms almost the moment they had realised the Vanguard's murderous intent. Jane had overheard some of the Warlocks complaining about it, claiming it was some sort of strange 'disruption magic that shouldn't be feasible'.

In any case, it left them with comms that didn't work beyond line of sight and no choice but to use ground recon for scouting, whilst ships were used for fast fly-by bombing runs only. The only consolation to this, in the Vanguard's eyes, was that the Ahamkara were clearly still in the area, since they were still creating the disruption.

"Really? You still don't like the Speaker?"

Jane almost jolted in surprise, she'd forgotten that Hawk was still there.

"I… yeah." She replied, "I mean, seriously? He's the literal definition of an immortal dictator."

"Oh come on," Hawk countered, "He's the Speaker! He speaks for the Traveller, he's pretty much lead the City since it was a collection of wooden huts. He might not have held a proper election when he became our leader, but he's hardly a dictator. Nobody disagreed with him when he took power, and nobody has ever challenged him for the title."

Jane shook her head in disagreement, "He claims to speak for the Traveller, but what proof does he really have of that?" Stopping to take stock of her surroundings, Jane felt herself get irritated that her friend couldn't see what she could.

"And since he's got a Ghost he's effectively immortal, he can quite literally outlive any opposition he might face. That he's not an elected leader, that he doesn't hold any re-elections, it just means he's never going to have a serious challenger."

The comm fell silent after that, Hawk seeming to be searching for a way to respond.

Reaching an edge, Jane looked down. The drop lead down onto a relatively flat plain of undisturbed snow and rocky outcroppings. A quick bit of math in her head was all she needed before she pushed off with her back foot, sending her plummeting at a rapid speed. Her sudden drop causing Fubar to yelp in surprise, her Ghost dematerialising back into her armour in order to prevent being left behind.

With the wind rippling through her cloak, Jane felt a rush of adrenalin as she let out a whoop of exhilaration, the ground beginning to rapidly rise up to meet her.

At the last moment, Jane let loose with a burst of concentrated Light to slow her fall, and instead of smashing into the ground with a splat, Jane landed in a fast roll. Defusing most of her remaining momentum as she came bouncing up on her feet.

"Nailed it." She grinned, feeling some of her earlier frustrations receding with the sudden adrenaline high.

Fubar's groan only made her grin wider, and as they moved away from the rocky cliffs, Jane surveyed the nearby landscape, eventually spotting Hawk and the rest of Jagi's Host scaling a cliff that lead directly parallel to the one she was currently on.

"Okay." Hawk finally spoke back up, "So maybe the Speaker a dictator, but he's a benevolent dictator. He obviously wants only the betterment of the City, and it's not just him that's immortal, every Guardian is!"

And what happened to them, Jane silently questioned, what happened to them when they spoke out against the Speaker and his rule?

Out loud, Jane grunted noncommittally and continued to look around for anything interesting.

Just as she was about to turn away, there was a thunderous boom that shook the rocky ground beneath her feet, forcing Jane to crouch down and place a hand in the snow in order to maintain her balance.

In the distance, smoke began to drift upwards. Accompanied by the familiar sound of automatic and semiautomatic gunfire.

A marker appeared on her HUD a few moments later as Jagi's voice came in over the command channel.

"That wasn't far. Axe, Jane. Double time it. I want a sit-rep before the rest of us get there."

With a small burst of her Light, Jane began hopping forwards with long strides of her legs, mimicking the sprint of a deer as she bounced from one leg to the other, leaping over from one patch of snow and rock to the next.

"Roger that, en route."

"On my way."

Vaulting over a large boulder, Jane slid down an iced over slope, dropping down to a flat plain of undisturbed snow.

A sudden crack had her looking down, and Jane watched with a startled curse as the snow beneath her feet abruptly shifted. Causing her to stumble and fall.

Scrambling up onto her knees, Jane looked around in time to see numerous lines breaking out and crisscrossing the undisturbed snow around her, forming a spider web of cracks around her.

"Oh shit."

Jane had enough time for the memory of how she had first acquired her Wire Rifle to flash before her mind's eye, and then the snow was giving way to gravity, and she was falling along with it.

Falling.

Falling.

And then darkness rushed to claim her.

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"Attacking the collectors would require passing through the Omega-4 relay. No ship has ever returned from doing so."

"So I've been told. They told me it was impossible to get to Ilos, too. The impossible is just something someone hasn't done yet, and doing the impossible is what I'm good at."

"I mentioned when we met on Illium that I was dying. It's called Kepral's syndrome. It's not communicable, but I have less than a year to live."

"Yeah, Chakwas briefed me after you came aboard. I… well. Saying 'sorry' feels contrite."

"No. Not when it is meant sincerely."

"Never mind. How about instead I ask something more practical? What do you need Thane, how can I help?"

"Drell philosophies are both similar and different from Human ones. We see our bodies as vessels, puppets to our souls, and we accept that the strings are not always under our control."

"Really? That's… an interesting way of perceiving things. But that doesn't explain to me how you don't feel guilt or remorse over the deaths you've caused."

"My body carries out the will of my employers. I am their hand, their weapon. For example, if you kill a man with your gun, do you hold the gun responsible?"

"That makes sense, I suppose. To be wielded, instead of the wielder. I can appreciate that."

"Siha. One of the warrior-angels of the goddess Arashu. Fierce in wrath. A tenacious protector. I confess, I've come to… care for you. Perhaps I'm being foolish. We may share an art, but we are two very different beings."

"No. I… I care for you too. You… well, you get me. I'm not sure we know each other well enough to call it love. But I feel something for you too. You're more to me than an assassin, more to me than a friend."

"I love you. If all else whispers back into the tide. Know this for fact."

"I'll… see you at the beach, on the other side, Thane."

"Should have killed me when you had the chance! This is for Thane, you bast-"

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Sitting bolt upright, Jane gasped for breath as she returned to the land of the living. The darkness that surrounded her only fuelling her panicked state further as her body registered how cold it was.

"Easy, easy! Don't worry, I've got you."

Panting, Jane only calmed down once she recognised Fubar's voice, her Ghost appearing in her vision moments later, the last few wisps of Light fading around him as he finished reviving her.

The beam of light streaming out from his eye served to light up their surroundings somewhat, and Jane found it easier to calm down her beating heart.

"Where are we?" She finally asked, looking around. "What happened?"

From what she could see, they were in some sort of iced over cavern. The walls and floor were made of rock imbedded in ice, with stalactites made of ice dripping water down from the ceiling. Recently disturbed snow formed a wall behind her.

"You got caught up in an avalanche. The snow fell into a crack in the ice and you ended up here." Fubar replied dutifully, "I've tried raising Hawk or Jagi, but our comms are getting too much interference down here."

There was a pause as Jane took that all in, before she sighed and reached up to rub her forehead, only to belatedly realise that she still had her helmet on.

"Well… Shit." Jane groaned instead.

"Indeed." Was her Ghost's dry reply.

Grunting as she picked herself up off the floor, Jane quickly dusted herself off, before reaching up to fix her ruffled cloak back to its proper place around her shoulders.

Once that was sorted, she began searching the snow by her feet. It took her a few moments to spot the camouflaged shape of her rifle buried in the snow, and promptly reached down to pull it free.

"Right then," She sighed, brushing snow off the weapon's scope before pulling the charging handle. "Let's see where this cavern leads then, shall we?"

"Lead the way." Fubar stated as he came to rest at her shoulder, the stream of light widening slightly to give her a better visual of what was in front of her, revealing the cavern to head off at a downward angle.

Setting off, Jane kept her pace slow. The ice and smooth rocks making it difficult to maintain steady traction, even with the spikes in her modified boots, as she headed deeper into the cave, which, after several minutes of silent trekking, started diverging, forcing Jane to pick one to follow.

Finally, after nearly an hour of walking and two dead ends, they came to up to a small hole in the ground that led down, further into the dark.

Not seeing much choice, Jane dropped down, using her Light to cushion her fall, and found herself in a large pit, which in turn split off into three different directions.

"Well," Jane said as she looked from one dark tunnel to the other. "Which way this time?"

"I don't know," Fubar replied, sounding frustrated. "The Ahamkara's disruption magic is messing with my instruments."

Standing there for a moment, Jane searched for anything that might tell here which tunnel would lead her back to the surface. She really didn't want to spend the next day and a half going down each possible route.

The one on the far left seemed to lead down, but Jane wasn't sure if it continued like that, while another seemed to move up, and she racked her head for a solution.

A sudden thought made Jane blink, and she reached down into a pocket in her under-armour, retrieving a small multi-tool. Flipping it open, Jane hit a small catch built into the side, the entire tool shifting to reveal a miniature lighter.

Pressing down the igniter, Jane held up the small flame that burst into existence and watched it carefully as it flickered in front of her.

"Looks like there's a steady flow of air coming in from that one." She noted, flicking the multi-tool closed and putting it away. "Hopefully that draft is coming in from an entrance big enough for us to get out of."

"Or for me to get a signal out." Fubar stated, sounding mildly impressed. "Nice work."

Jane shrugged her shoulders. "Its low tech, hard to disrupt an open flame."

Taking the first tunnel on the left, Jane continued their slow trek. The ground beneath her feet slowly becoming more flat and stable as they moved further and further down.

Eventually, after half an hour of slow walking, light began to appear. Getting brighter as they went, it wasn't long before Jane was forced to turn up the tint on her helmet's visor to keep being able to see.

Finally, they turned one more corner and emerged out into daylight.

However, Jane was forced to stutter to a stop. Instead of leading outside like Jane had been hoping for, the cave opened out into what looked to be a ginormous cavern, surrounded by a domed border of rock and ice.

Before her, in a sunken dais which couldn't have been more than five or six kilometres across, was a forest of trees and undisturbed vegetation. The mass of green and browns from the tops of trees serving to contrast heavily with the white and blacks of the snow and rock that enclosed them.

Pulling down her hood and ripping off her helmet to get a better look, Jane blinked against the rays of sunlight that streamed in from a small hole in the very top of the dome. The light serving to cast the small forest of woodland in golden tones.

Walking up to the edge of the small cliff ledge she was standing on, smiled when she realised that the air was pleasantly cool against her face. It was nowhere near as brutally cold as the open air was outside, and Jane sighed as the last of the bone-chilling cold left her body.

"This is amazing," Fubar finally said, breaking Jane out of her state of awe.

"Yeah." Jane replied. "It's like a small bit of nature was encapsulated in ice and hidden away from the outside world."

After a few more moments of silent marvelling, Fubar spoke again, this time something close to worry entering his voice.

"Err… I'm not seeing any other cave entrances."

Jane shook her head, "I'm sure there's some below the treeline, we'll just have to-"

She was interrupted by an ear-splitting shriek, and Jane reacted on instinct. Diving behind the nearest rock that could conceal her, Jane shoved her helmet back onto her head and shouldered her Wire Rifle.

Fubar disappeared in a flurry of sparks, retreating into her armour for relative safety.

Breathing coming in short burst, Jane felt adrenalin flood her body as she found herself waiting, her eyes glued to her motion tracker.

Waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting

Finally, after a full minute went by without so much as a squawk, Jane relaxed her shoulders slightly and released some of the tension in her muscles.

Peeking her helmeted head over the top of her cover, Jane scanned her surroundings for the source of the noise.

"By the Traveller's Light, that scared the Shell out of me." Fubar stated, his voice coming in through her comms. "What do you think that was?"

Before Jane could think up a reply, the sound of rushing air had her bringing her rifle up. The sound serving as the only other warning Jane had before a dark blur rose up from just beyond the ledge she had been previously standing on, and Jane felt her eyes widen behind her helmet as she ducked back down.

Loose snow was sent swirling in all directions, and Fubar let out an exclamation of surprise as the motion tracker suddenly lit up with the sudden movement occurring in front of her.

Staring up, Jane watched on in frozen fear as an enormous lizard-shaped creature with bone white skin and brown scales rose up into the air, large leathery wings stretching out and buffeting the air.

From where she was crouching, Jane was close enough that she could see where the creature's scales had fused with age, forming bone-like plating over its chest, legs and tail.

With another ear-piercing screech, leathery skin rippled as the creature flapped its wings in slow thrusts, and took off at a remarkably fast speed, leaving Jane behind to try and calm her beating heart.

"Jesus H. Christ." She breathed, standing up once it had gone an appreciable distance away. "Was that what I think it was?"

"Yeah," Fubar confirmed with a stunned tone of voice, "And from the size of it alone, that was an Elder Ahamkara as well."

"Holy shit."

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Authors Note:

Well… I'm not dead.

Sorry for such a long wait everyone, I was planning on posting this... like, months ago, but it turns out I needed to resit two modules from my first semester, so I've been unexpectedly busy.

That's all done with though, so hopefully the next one won't take quite as long.

I don't know when the next chapter will be out, but I'm aiming for within the next week. Hope to see you all then!

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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