First Strike
She stretched her arms up into the air and let out a heavy sigh of relief. Their last Strike had lasted at least an hour and a half, and she was fairly close to just rage quitting after the third team death. It didn't help that she needed to constantly be revived.
Materializing her personal Ghost, they flew into orbit after waving goodbye to their temporary teammate. He was a fairly good Warlock who, thankfully, knew what they were doing. She was glad they didn't have to deal with a camping rock who constantly spawned Hive Wizards.
"Tower?" She said simply.
"Tower." She kicked her feet up and linked her fingers behind her head.
"Alright Ghost, let's head back. I need a good rest after that."
"Preparing for Jump back to the Tower," Ghost stated. She let out a yawn and rolled her neck as the ship jolted across the galaxy back to The Last City. They cruised through space at an alarming speed, dots of stars just becoming various streaks of light.
"Ghost, Inventory," she ordered as she sat up in her seat slowly. A small, curved opaque screen formed in front of her face, her avatar standing with confidence in the middle and her weapons and armor indicated at the sides. She tapped the buttons for her Primary Weapons and Leg Armor and dismantled them. She'd already had Rare armor on and had no use for pointless Common armor. She leaned far back into her chair.
"Sven are you still alive?" She stared up at the ceiling as she awaited his response. A crackled boyish voice spoke through the speakers of her Ghost.
"Yeah I'm still here. I'm surprised we haven't disconnected from each other yet," he replied. She jumped in her seat hastily.
"Hey! Don't say that! Knock on wood right now! Knock on wood!" She could feel the wide smile spreading across her face.
"My whole ship is made of metal!"
"Fucking hell Sven if we disconnect, I swear it's your fault," she joked. Her best friend let out a scoff from his side.
"Wow. WOW. Rude!" Her loud laughter filled the cockpit and was probably choppy on his end. She took in a few breaths before continuing.
"Ah, you want to do one more Strike? Or should we hang it up for the night?" she asked. He asked her if she knew what time is was out of game, to which she replied it was nearing three thirty in the morning. She only had two classes the next day, so she was up for at least on more Strike before letting her brain rest for the night. Unlike Sven, who was down to play the whole night. Of course, out of game your body would technically be sleeping, which is why most players would be on in the dead of night, but playing for a long time would sometimes leave her with an annoying headache in the morning.
"I'm good for another Strike. Tower first though. I've got a few engrams I want to decode," Sven mentioned.
"Ooh, sounds like you've got some purple ones on you."
"Nah, just blue ones. Most of them are weapons I probably already have," he shrugged. She pouted in her seat.
"You and your stupid vault of weapons…" she mumbled. Her Ghost spoke up from her jealous musings.
"Nearing The Last City, Tower," it spoke. Their ships flew into the Tower's docking bay before they materialized onto the balcony. Their ships were dismissed by Ghost as they stepped up into the Tower Plaza. As Sven pulled off to visit Cryptarch, she strolled through the plaza with her Ghost trailing behind.
"Seems like you have a few bounty leads," Ghost mentioned. It marked the Mail Kiosk with a green icon and she let out a groan. "It won't go away unless you dismiss them yourself." She waved a hand in front of its face.
"Yeah yeah, I know," she grumbled. "Come on, let's go deal with it before we leave." She approached the kiosk with an apparent scowl even though the NPC working the kiosk greeted her with the general "welcome, Hunter." She opened her inbox and took all of the mail out. She gave a noncommittal wave goodbye to the NPC as she sifted through her pointless mail. One envelope was colored a deep maroon color, and it caught her attention before she deleted them all. She questioned it, studied it, looked for some kind of logo or mark to indicate who it was from.
"Hey, Ghost?" It flew around to the ride side of her face and looked down at the worn maroon envelope in her hands. "Is this some new Crucible mission? It's…kind of red I guess?" Ghost let out a beam of light from its eye and circled around the envelope in her hand.
"No…this type of parcel isn't anywhere in the database," Ghost spoke with rather realistic confusion. "That's strange…"
"It's probably some stupid Guardian who's already found a way to hack into the game or something," she sighed. "Let's open it up." She tore open the envelope and let a screen materialize in front of her face. With an unimpressed huff, she watched the letters form on the curved screen in front of her.
"Hey, I'm ready. Let's Orbit," Sven popped up beside her with his Ghost. He noticed the screen with his glowing red Exo eyes and crept closer. "What's that? You took up a bounty?"
"No, I think some idiot sent me mail in the game. It's probably some stupid spam," she responded irritatingly. Confusion wasn't shown on his robot face, but it was expressed through his voice.
"What? I didn't know players can send mail in-game."
"Me either. Stupid people are already hacking into the servers or something." The font loaded onto the screen, pixilated and sometimes with different sizes. The letters twitched on screen, moving to different places and merging with other words. Her white brows furrowed on her pale blue skin as the letter took its time loading.
"'Hello Guardian,'" she began reading aloud.
Hello Guardian, and welcome to Destiny.
My name will be withheld at the moment, unfortunately. However, you may know me by the name of Virus.
Have you been enjoying yourself so far? I sincerely hope so. Because it has come to my attention that some people aren't enjoying the game as much as they expected to be. Repetition and frustrating dungeons seem to take a toll on player's reviews, and most are thoroughly displeased. This disheartens me, because I genuinely believe that Destiny has the potential redefine the purpose and meaning of video games.
Not only can video games provide a riveting experience of drama and heart pounding action, they can deliver and strike true forms of horror and dread over people. And with the technology to experience all of this first hand, it's as if video games have surpassed the virtual plane and have crossed over to ours. But not just yet. Not exactly just yet. You see, video games lack the one sense of reality that boldly draws the line between true reality and virtual. Death. We do not fear death here, we wait for it to pass over us before we are able to seize another chance. And that, I believe, is something that will provide a true experience to the Guardians of Destiny.
Today, a new patch was introduced to the game, known as Virulent. Fitting, isn't it? This patch fixes a few flaws in the base game and adds in an innovative new feature. From now on, all Guardians currently in-game and those who log on will be locked in. From now on, the feeling of pain will exist in-game, just as reality. Now, all Non-Playable Characters have achieved a form of sentience, appropriate to their kind and programming. Now, all deaths have become permanent. With this, video games have officially crossed the plane of virtual and into the plane of reality. With this, Destiny has surpassed all of those who came before it.
Make every shot count.
Virus
They stared at the letter opened on the screen before them. Her Ghost circled around the screen with its scanner.
"It doesn't seem like there's any point of origin from where this message came from," it stated.
"Has anyone else gotten this thing?" Sven asked dubiously. Her Ghost spoke up again.
"Nothing is said about it in the records. There's also no mention of the Virulent Patch within the system," it added. Sven waved a dismissive hand.
"Psh. Then it's probably just some stupid joke meant to scare us. You were probably the only one who got it," he pointed at her. She bit her lip, and eyed her friend with her bright yellow-green eyes. "It's nothing," he reassured her. "Ghost, you can go ahead and get rid of it." Her Ghost turned to her as if asking for permission. After a moment's silence, she finally spoke.
"Yeah, go ahead," she allowed. And just like that, the letter was gone from existence. She felt a deep pit open up in her stomach as the screen phased out.
"Now come on, let's get going," Sven jerked a thumb over at an Exo Warlock dancing a tad too close to a group of Guardians shopping. "I don't want level 3 BonerLord887 over there to give us a turn." She gave him a small smile and had Ghost take them to Orbit.
"So where to now? You pick. I'll make you Fireteam Leader to make it easier," Sven said once they were in their respective ships. She hummed to herself as she struggled to decide.
"Ghost, take us to The Nexus on Venus," she decided. "And we're doing this on Hard Mode." Sven's groan came from her Ghost's speakers.
"Oh come on! At least make it Very Hard!"
"No way! I'm going to fucking die!"
"This is why you have me here! I'm a fucking tank! Don't worry!" He voiced his reasons to her. She rolled her eyes as he mentioned his Bubble again (his stupid Bubble which she was so goddamn grateful for) and that he always puts it down for a reason, and that she should use it. "Seriously, it's more fun when it's a challenge." She gave him a sigh of defeat and had her Ghost change the difficulty to a harder setting.
"Yes!" She could imagine his triumphant fist in the air as she crossed her arms over her chest. She mumbled to herself as they hit the Jump to Venus.
"I swear if I die like fifty times again…" she grumbled, to which Sven brought back the mention of his Bubble Sanctuary.
Landing on the soft soils of Venus, they promptly summoned their Sparrows and made their way to their Strike destination. There were still a few times where she'd run into a tree stump and do unintentional barrel rolls with her Sparrow, causing her to be chided by Sven for taking so long.
"Just wait your ass, okay? I'm coming over right now," she said as she trudged over to her flipped over sparrow that lay helpless a few meters away. Sven's voice spoke through her Ghost.
"Ugh hurry up you take forever."
"Wait for like three minutes, you big baby," she laughed. As she neared her Sparrow, her Ghost suddenly materialized before her and wafted through the air. "Ghost? What the heck? I didn't call for you." She eyed the little flying light as it circled her Sparrow, occasionally looking out into the distance. She repeated its name again.
"Something isn't right here," it said, eyeing their surroundings. "The Vex are usually posted here. Here, and at those rocks we passed a few seconds ago. That building there should be one of their spawn points." She eyed her Ghost with concern as she carefully flipped her Sparrow over.
"I think you're just over thinking things, Ghost. Someone probably cleared them out before we got here and they probably haven't respawned yet," she said simply. "Ghost, pull of the roster of this map." The roster revealed that there were three other Guardians on Venus with them, one of which was level twenty five. "There. That guy right there. MisterSweezyDeezy probably cleared them out. Now you can stop worrying," she mounted her Sparrow and tested the throttle. "I didn't even know Ghosts can worry," she mumbled. Her Ghost disappeared from her view.
"We can when…" it trailed off. She hit the boost of her Sparrow and quickly joined her friend at the Strike entrance. She noticed promptly that her Ghost was right. Usually, the Vex were at every corner, waiting to be reaped for experience points. But the whole path straight to the Strike was completely barren. It was impossible to assume someone had cleared the whole map of them before they were there, wasn't it?
She reared a final corner at a dilapidated building to find Sven using the dance action at the steps of the building.
"Took you long enough," he joked as he ran up to meet her.
"I was having mechanical difficulties, okay? I don't think my vehicles like me," she rolled her eyes under her helmet. She checked to make sure her pulse rifle and sniper rifle were all loaded and ready before pressing on. "Alright let's get going."
"I've been saying that this whole time," he said as he reloaded his weapon. They quickly darted inside the vegetation infested building before them. The interior was dark and cool, littered with puddles and dusty rubble. Vines crept along walls, windows, and around support columns filtering what little sunlight made its way into the building. Her Ghost suddenly appeared before her face once more, causing her to fall back in surprise.
"Ghost, what the hell?!" She said, irritated as she picked herself up from the floor. Sven, who was just about to barge straight thought to the next area, quickly turned around and jogged back.
"You okay?" He said as he swiped dirt off the side of her shoulder.
"Yeah I'm fine, but this was the second time it did that," she nodded over to her Ghost, who was cautiously floating through the air. "Ghost, what's going on with you today?" They stared at it as it made its way into the next area alone, soon followed by Sven's own ghost.
"Hey, Ghost where are you going?" Sven called out to them. "Let's catch up, come on." They jogged towards the opened double doors that lead into the next area, but was taken aback suddenly by both Ghosts materializing before them once again.
"Stop! Don't come in here," one of them warned.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," the other mumbled as it surveyed the wide room. She shook her head and stepped through the door anyway. "No I said stop!" A cold chill shook her spine as she walked through, the room seemingly got darker and she felt the strange feeling of caution knocking at the back of her head.
"Ghost, you always have a bad feeling," she managed to spit out. "It's just a regular dungeon area." She motioned for Sven to come through as well. "We've been through these darkness things a bunch of times remember?"
"This isn't a regular dungeon area," one of the Ghost's spoke out. "The Darkness isn't supposed to settle in this early into the Strike." Sven shrugged as he walked past them.
"Maybe they updated it last night," he said as he walked into the open room. It had a staircase twisting far up behind them to the second floor, and had various over grown plants spilling their branches over their pots in the middle of the walkway. Papers and debris across the floor were omnipresent. He walked further into the room and peered into an adjacent hallway. He turned around and brought his hands into the air.
"See? Nothing but dust bunnies and us." She gave him a smile from under her helmet and made her way to join him. In that split second, she heard the creaking and jarring gears fill the room. Her smile dropped from her face and eyes widened as a deep grey cloud formed from behind Sven. Three deep red orbs glowed several feet above his head.
"Sven, move!" She brought her pulse rifle up and set her sights directly behind him. He was too slow to react, however, and was sent flying across the room by one quick strike. His body disappeared behind a large desk that spanned across the wall. She opened fire directly at the middle largest orb, that was soon joined by several other red orbs. The cloud receded, and she was left face to face with faces of the Vex and their Minotaur leader.
"Shit!" She quickly took cover behind the nearest support column. "Sven! How're you feeling buddy?" She shouted out to him. She expected a snide remark of how much he hated the Vex, but nothing came. She leaned out from her emptied a clip on two Vex Goblins who were at least three levels higher than her. "Sven I could use some help here!" She took cover behind her column once more. If her armor and recovery stats weren't so low, she would've activated her Bladedancer subclass and clear the room of them all despite a few blows. "Ghost, are we still connected with Sven?!" She called out from under fire.
"He is still in your Fireteam," Ghost responded.
"Then why isn't he responding?" She demanded as she emptied another clip on a Goblin. "The big bad tank get hurt?" She soon noticed that she was the only one taking shots at them. "Don't tell me I actually have to revive him for once!" She heard the creaking metal come dangerously close to her, and made a mad dash for Sven. Narrowly dodging the melee of the Minotaur, she quickly hopped over the top of the desk. A sudden sting hit her right shoulder and soon evolved into stinging pain. She rolled over the desk and fell to the concrete floor, on the same shoulder. Sparks of pain erupted and for the first time she let out a scream. She clutched her crawled under the desk and let the tabletop loom over her.
"What the hell is going on?!" She shouted through ragged breaths. "Ghost! Where are you?" Her Ghost appeared before her along with Sven's.
"He's just over there!" She looked down to the far end of the room where Sven's body lay limp across the floor. Her eyes widened in fear.
"Why isn't he moving?! Why isn't he talking?!" She let out a scream when a sudden rocket exploded before her, making debris and dust fly through the air. "Agh, fuck! Ghost! Take us back to Orbit!"
"I can't take us all to Orbit without him! Otherwise it'll just be us and he'll be left here! You either need to make it over to his body, or provide cover fire for his Ghost to get over to him!"
"What the hell are you talking about?!" The exploding rockets and ricocheting bullets swarmed all over her, and it wasn't long until the Goblins rounded the end of the desk and spotted her. She made a grab for her gun but couldn't hold it up properly because of her shoulder. She missed a few shots off the Goblin's glowing core and shot off its head instead, causing it to run at her in a blind rage. She gathered he strength to push off of the ground and zig zagged her way towards Sven. She managed to hook her hands under his armpits despite her lame shoulder and drag him behind another support column nearby. Low groans came from his helmet, but nothing else.
"Sven! You need to get up now!" She shouted slapping his helmet. "Sven!" Bullets whizzed past them, knocking off concrete chunks from the column. She heard a sudden small blast behind her, and craning her neck, she saw the broken shell of the Ghost lying on the floor with its glowing blue eye flickering.
"Ghost just get us out of here!"
"I'm on it!" It carefully rolled the broken Ghost closer to her and Sven before teleporting them back to her ship. They dropped to the cold metal floor of the cockpit with Sven still in her arms. She couldn't hear his voice anymore. "We're going to make a straight Jump back to the Tower!" She pressed at the switch behind her ear and let her helmet deconstruct from her face before doing the same to Sven. His helmet disappeared, revealing his red Exo eyes that glowed significantly dimmer than before.
Babbles: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAKING ANOTHER FIC WHEN YOU HAVEN'T EVEN FINISHED THE OTHER ONE. WHICH, BY THE WAY, YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO UPDATE TWO WEEKS AGO."
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! I've been caught up in a personal things, family and games alike, so I unfortunately had to break my regularly updating after only the first time. Besides, the idea for this story kind of just dawned to me and I couldn't not write it out! I am going to continue Innovation I promise!
Until then! Cheers!