Chapter 2
Life Moves On
Voidwalker Maximus
10 hours earlier
The biggest changes usually start out as nuances. Policies can change overnight, but the people that actually live out these laws usually don't. This I've come to know after all this time. Once I was a soldier in a defense force tasked with holding out against the Fallen and now I'm a Guardian. Seems like a big shift, but it really wasn't. I went from being a soldier to being a different type of soldier protecting an enigmatic and broken body as well as the last safe city on Earth and perhaps the solar system.
The repairs to the Wall had been completed much to the delight of the citizens and Zavala, but the number of Guardians, especially Titans, stationed there remained about constant if not increasing slightly. Some people still tossed Guardians wary glances, but those became increasingly infequent to the point that nobody noticed. The City was finally beginning to trust the Tower and the Guardians it housed.
All because Arla and I walked through the Garden, through Hell, and came back out in one piece.
Following the Heart of the Black Garden's destruction, light held captive by said fortress of the Darkness flooded back to the Traveler, and it ushered forth a new wave of Ghosts. Parades in Arla and my honors were thrown with the two of us basically becoming household names overnight after a series of speeches given by the Speaker, Arla, and myself. We were recognized and greeted wherever we went, even signing a few autographs if asked. The fame was great, but the sun eventually set, and what really mattered came into focus: The City lived on for another day.
Seeing influx of new and confused Guardians walking around the Tower was not only a blast from the not-so-distant past but also a welcome sight. New Guardians meant that many of them needed to be trained, skyrocketing the number of sales and activity around the Plaza as well as the need for able-bodied Guardians to escort Ghosts as they tried to find their Guardians. This is where I found myself today, a few weeks after the Fall of the Black Garden, but I had to do something first.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
I powered up in my room. I sat up and let my vision come into focus, watching the world around me change from blurred to fine, gray to color. Starco, my black Ghost with small white spots like the stars, hovered near the wooden desk by the door, various items spread across its surface: the freshly cleaned but taken apart Multi-Tool, a pistol in a similar condition, and a fully constructed red, white, and blue machine gun. It was a heavy load for one desk, but it remained level and unbroken.
"Morning Maximus," Starco said.
"Morning," I returned, getting out of bed and stretching, my servos clicking as they popped back into place and use. Artificial lights turned on, lighting up the blue painted walls and yellow warlock symbol made of three interlocking triagnles.
"You ready for your meeting with the Speaker?" the Ghost asked.
I grabbed a silver ring of metal about the size of my arm and slid it up. A white and electric blue intricate design popped up out of an emitter lining the surface, and after a second, my armor started pushing through and forming on top of my body seemingly out of nowhere. I walked over to the mirror to make sure everything formed correctly. The armor was largely blood red with sweeping black stripes from the left shoulder to about belt level. The folded collar was black with a strap beneath it and red buckle with a similarly black trim. The same trim also ran down each sleeve but stayed off the gloves, pants, and boots. I adjusted the gauntlets a little bit and straightened the small shoulder pauldrons so they both felt more natural on my hands and shoulders respectively.
"I think a better question is are you ready to get out there and shoot some stuff?!" Super Good Advice, the machine gun on the desk, yelled in his voice fashioned like Patrick Warburton's, an actor from before the Golden Age. The gun had changed quite a bit since I'd taken it to Banshee the gunsmith to get it repaired. Since then, it took on a shoot first, ask questions later attitude, and said that was how all machine guns felt but couldn't express it like he could.
Starco turned to the gun. "We don't need to be shooting anything in the Tower."
"Of course not, do I look like I was born yesterday?"
"All right," I interrupted. "Settle down. There'll be time for both."
"There better be! I can feel the rust setting in again."
Starco floated over to me and whispered, "Do we really have to take this guy?"
"Yes Starco." The gun's personality reminded me a lot of Lee with his guns-first attitude, and that was fine, I just feared that it would speak at the wrong time.
"This guy has a name!" the gun retorted. "It's Crush, Ghost, remember that or you're the next one who'll get 'crush'ed." Starco sighed and blinked Crush onto the ship. "Let's get moving." I grabbed the yellow pulse rifle Dea gave to me mere seconds before she left as well as a white, solar fusion rifle Omolon gave me in a package. I nodded and walked through the door and took the elevator to the Plaza. Only to be prepared, I reassembled the Vestian Dynasty pistol I'd recently cleaned placed that in a holster on my leg. I had no plans of using it, but it was a good thing to have if by some chance I ran out of batteries for the fusion rifle Omolon christened The Torch.
Most days in the City were beautiful. In the morning, the Sun would cast brilliant shades of orange and red on the few clouds above the City and by the afternoon, most of those clouds would be gone. Sunlight would flood the streets and surrounding area all except for one spot placed almost directly beneath the Traveler where the Guardian memorial was, where glowing flowers illuminated the area, one for each Guardian that would never be returning. Evening would then set in and cast everything in deep purples and blood reds as people returned from work, and more Guardians were sent to the Tower for the graveyard shift. Lights all around the City would cast their artificial halos on the area around them and provide the light whilst the Traveler and Sun remained dormant.
Stepping out of the elevator door, it became apparent that today would not be like most other days. It was raining, pretty hard at that. Drops of water rained down from the sky like fat and wet bullets atop any uncovered heads. The flurry of activity that usually went about the Plaza at this time in the morning was held to a drizzle. Almost all of the Guardians out there were wearing their helmets to keep themselves for the most part dry. There were a couple of them who didn't really care though, a matte black female Exo and a male Awoken. Lightning flashed across the sky as powerful wind due to the Tower's altitude whipped around anything that was not heavy or secure. Titan marks, Hunter cloaks, my robe, all of these flayed out to join the wind's rush.
Starco spawned in my black and red helmet, and I pulled it over my head. The HUD quickly came online, the motion tracker momentarily replaced with a weather radar decorated with blobs of yellow and red passing over my position in a continuous loop. The storm was going to be nasty but should dissipate eventually. The rain picked up in intensity, drowning much of the the cityscape below the Tower into a dull mist of white; wind continued whipping my robe around as the Guardians in the Plaza hastily finished whatever they were doing and moved to some sort of shelter, some rushing to the elevator while others moved towards the hangar. I was the only one moving to Tower North. I pushed through the rain, stepping in growing puddles all along the way until I reached the tunnel.
Tower North was practically empty whenever I arrived. Executor Hideo was sitting on a couch talking to a couple of his New Monarchy compatriots. He sent me a wave as I exited the tunnel and rushed into the Speaker's study.
The strange contraption in the center of the room still swirled, dipped, and rotated like normal, however the usually amazing view was cut short by large metal curtains to keep the rain out. I'd never seen them drawn, but I also didn't think they would just let everything inside be vulnerable to the elements. The Speaker was pouring over some ancient text when I reached the top of the stairs, his white armor reflecting the artificial light of the room rather than whatever the Sun dealt.
He closed the text and turned towards me, putting his hands behind his back. "A storm gathers," he said. "I can sense it. Something much more sinister is stirring."
I was slightly taken aback by the Speaker's statement. I felt like he was calling me to action. Realizing my helmet was still on, I took it off and let Starco despawn it. "Um, is there something you'd like me to do?"
The Speaker turned and scribbled something in a leather-bound notebook on his desk. "No. No, no, no," he said, waving his hands. "It's none of your concern for the moment." He rolled his shoulders a few times before continuing. "Quite a storm today."
Indeed it was. "Can't say I've seen one quite like that since I became a Guardian," I responded.
"Ah yes," he said, sitting down in a chair and gesturing me to do the same with a chair behind me, folding my arms and leaning back in it. "I remember that day quite well." I saw a plush rolling chair behind me and sat down in it. "5 or 6 months ago if I memory serves me correctly."
"Feels much longer than that," I said with a laugh, remembering that day just like it was yesterday, the nightmares and the selection. I unfolded a hand and summoned an orb of energy. "This one's not going to explode though." I dissipated the orb and put my hand back in the fold.
"You're still the only one. I will say though, we had this Titan come in here for the test. Arcs shot all over the room." The rain intensified yet again, marking the end of the lull, if one could call it that, in the heavy rain. "Enough dallying. You said you had some questions for me?"
"I've just had some things on my mind the last couple of weeks that I really want to get your opinion on."
"I'm all ears." The Speaker sat back in his chair.
"Back in the Garden, some things happened that maybe you could clarify. One of the first was that Starco and I saw some Vex literally disappear into thin air. One moment they were chasing us, and the next they were gone."
"May I ask why you're asking me these things now after almost a month?" The Speaker asked, perplexed my sudden coming forth.
"I wanted to try and find some answers on my own, do my own research, but I've uncovered practically nothing in the Grimoire and other texts we have. The Cryptarchs were a little more helpful, but not by much." I had dug through many books, battle reports involving the Vex, and other records, but none of them talked about vanishing Vex.
"A very Warlock thing to do. I can't say that I'll be of much help either because I've never heard of this phenomenon. I can think of two possible reasons. The first is that those Vex were not really there but in a completely different time stream altogether and your being there let you see partially into that alternate reality. I can't support this in any way, but it was a thought. The second thing that comes immediately to mind is the concentration of Darkness there. It's been years since I've been out in the field, but I do recall that when the Darkness is thick enough, it felt like a heavy river or something along those lines. Given that the Black Garden is called that for a reason, I suspect that the Darkness may have gotten to you slightly and made you hallucinate."
"That's kind of like what I wanted to talk about next. In the Garden, the Vex seemed to have a sort of control over myself and Arla."
"What kind of control?"
"They would make this searing pain come out of nowhere that would drive both of us to the ground, and it wouldn't stop until the Vex were eliminated or something else."
"Something else?"
"That's part of the third question. If it's all the same to you, can you answer the second one?"
"Right, right. I've seen things like this before. A Guardian can be touched by the Darkness. It's barely noticeable if at all when it happens, but it can happen after a Guardian's armor is destroyed in battle. If I'm not mistaken, that happened to you and Arla correct?"
"I remember mine all too clearly, but I don't quite remember what happened to Arla for that to happen. It was when we were invading the Devils' Lair in the Cosmodrome. The Fallen sent in a Spider Walker and I took a direct hit. Took out all of the cloth on my armor and left me with the plating that seemed to slowly dull."
"That's it then. You and your partner were touched by the Darkness. Question is: are you still? Because if the minions of the Darkness used it against you once, they'll certainly use it again."
I shifted in my chair. "I can honestly say that I don't think I am any longer. When we faced the Heart, the Vex used that grip they had on myself and Arla to essentially take us out of the fight, but just as everything seemed to be fading to black, something...ignited. Like a flame erupting out of tinder. I was bathed in light, and it spread to Arla when I touched her."
"How long did this last?"
"Not long. Only long enough for me to channel all of my remaining energy into an orb I sent directly into the Heart. After that, it dissipated and left me feeling drained."
"That was something I've seen called the 'Blessing of the Traveler.' As far as the records show, this hasn't happened in the last couple centuries, but I find it quite remarkable and strange that the Traveler marked you, and I knew nothing of it. Why didn't you come to me as soon as it happened?"
I thought back to that day. Getting out of the infirmary after some beam of light struck me in the head, saying I needed to meet with him immediately, but then going to lunch and things that ensued shortly thereafter. In hindsight, I should've come to the Speaker immediately, but I didn't. "I believe you and the Vanguard tried to visit me after that beam of Light struck me, but I wasn't conscious. Then things got busy as they always do, and meeting with you seemed to have slipped my mind."
"While I prefer on time, late is always better than never, so thank you for coming to me. I should have requested a meeting with you when you were back on your feet, but hindsight is 20/20. The past is in the past, and we need to focus on the future. Speaking of, I hear you have an assignment to help a Ghost find its Guardian."
"That I do. We'll be leaving soon, but I figured this meeting had been delayed enough."
"I thank you for coming in. You must have no end of questions Maximus, and my door is always open to give whatever answers I can. Just to end this conversation on a better note, how's Arla doing? I heard she took some time off after what went down in the Garden."
It was true, Arla had been on vacation, but it wasn't long before the call to action drove her back to some sort of duty. At first, we both were playing some baseball games with the City's various teams, not for PR this time, but because we could. After that, Cayde and Zavala sent me to scout out a few things on Venus, including finding the remnants of the Ishtar Collective and the massive amounts of data that Starco collected from those archives before setting up a firewall to protect the data from the Fallen that had been trying to enter and ultimately followed us in. As far as I knew, Arla had gotten herself on some sort of mission shortly thereafter while I was gone. Since then, she'd been spending a lot of time with this Guardian named Heksis and at the baseball stadium. Today she was playing in another game, and this Heksis character was becoming quite the hitter and outfielder from what I've heard.
"Arla's doing fine. She's played a lot of baseball since going on vacation while I've been doing things for the Vanguard."
"Ah, yes. I've seen a few highlights of those games. Quite the player she is, and an even better Huntress. Send her my regards when you see her next," he said, standing up.
I stood up as well. "I will."
"May the Light guide your path," the Speaker said.
"As with you." I nodded and started down the stair, pausing to push the chair in before I left. I walked slowly down the stairs, taking each step one at a time as I descended. Starco flashed in next to me but didn't say anything. He just sent a thought. 'That went well.' I agreed. While I may not pieced everything entirely, I certainly felt a little more at ease with the events from the Black Garden. I put my helmet back on at the bottom of the stairs and walked back into the downpour, quickly running to the tunnel. Once there, I stopped for a moment. There was something different. I looked around and tried using the targeting matrix in the helmet to spot the difference. The walls were still blue and dull silver. Crates, check. Robot mopping a tile and glaring at any passersby? Still creepy. The robot hissed and went back to mopping the tile. There were still stairs like always, but the entire area was darker than normal due to the rain, making the shadows longer and blacker and stretching them across the concrete.
It felt like something was watching me, eyeing my every move, predicting what I was going to do next. Suddenly I heard the rustle of cloth. I spun around immediately, sweeping my left arm as I spun and catching the figure leaping out of the shadows. Using my momentum, I pushed the figure to the ground and kept it pinned with my forearm pushing its neck. Glowing green eyes looked up at me as a smile stretched across the lips below them, suddenly parting and beginning to laugh. The blue face with a hint of green to it laughed hysterically as I recognized who it was and pulled her to her feet. "Dang. You got me again." Arla, my teammate and friend, chuckled. This wasn't the first time she'd tried to sneak attack me. She was by far one of the best Hunters/Huntresses around.
"I do my best to stay on my toes," I responded with a shrug. Arla wasn't wearing a helmet currently, but her shoulder-length brown hair was distinctly dry. We both started up the stairs and talked as we approached the Plaza. "What are you doing here? Thought you had a game."
"I do," she responded with a smile still on her face. "But if you couldn't tell, it's kind of raining, and the maintenance staff over at the stadium didn't put the roof up before the storm started, so we're waiting for it to dry out hopefully in time before first pitch."
"It should. You sure you don't want to come along with me?" I asked, stopping at the end of the tunnel and watching the water rain down in almost in white sheets. The Plaza was now void of all shopkeepers as the wind howled.
"As much as I would love to keep you out of trouble, Hek and I are already signed up for today's game, and you know me. I'm not going to back out last second…"
"Or any second for that matter," I added.
Arla laughed. "Darn right. Ready to head back out into the rain?"
I looked back out at the daunting weather. "At least you don't have to fly in it."
"That's why you fly fast, Max." Arla looked at the weather. Her helmet flashed into existence and she pulled it over her head, completing her set of purple and red armor by pulling the similarly red and purple cloak over the helmet. On the count of three, we'll run to the hangar." We both got into running stances. 3...2...1...Go!" We stepped off simultaneously and sprinted into the rain, splashing through puddles and pushing through the strong winds. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked, originating from some place I couldn't see. I got out to an early lead but lost it like I did my footing for only a second. Suddenly, I was watching the cloak fly around behind her. "Whoa!" Arla exlaimed as her footing slipped, but she recovered and kept most of her momentum as she slid across the large puddle.
Wind raced and pushed both of us as we ran. The entrance to the Hangar was only getting closer when my footing slipped yet again and caused me to slide. The slide worked to my advantage though as I quickly gained a couple of inches on Arla, skidding uncontrollably into the Hangar entrance and crashing into the wall behind it. Arla tried to stop as well, but found herself flying into a crate and then the wall.
"And they're SAFE!" a voice yelled from nearby. I looked up and saw a Warlock in a blue robe and opaque red visor bent over with his arms spread out. All three of us started laughing at the joke as the Guardian extended a hand to help those of us on the ground. His strong hands pulled Arla and me to our feet, and we both removed our helmets, but he kept his on.
"Morning Heksis," she said with a smile, wrapping her arm around the Warlock and he around her. Heksis was a little shorter than Arla but still rather intimidating. Two modified swords hung by his sides along with two orange hand cannons as well. He was a self-proclaimed close-quarters-combat specialist, but despite a rough exterior, he had a warm and almost fuzzy personality about him. While this was true, he had his days where he seemed a bit rough on the inside and the outside. "Ready for baseball?" she asked cheerily.
Hek's voice was smooth, but he had an odd tendency to expand "ah" sounds or hiss with an s. It was probably just his accent or maybe a minor speech impediment. I couldn't be too sure because he kept much of his personal life and past to himself in my few encounters with him. In all honesty, he seemed a bit secluded, preferring to stick to places with fewer people or none at all. At times, Heksis looked a little socially awkward, in over his head with large crowds, but he undoubtedly tried his best to make conversation with those he deemed worth his time. If they weren't, he would grunt and just walk the other way, looking for someone he thought was worth the air. Whether it was because of my relation to Arla or he thought I was in his select few I knew not, but he seemed to have taken a certain liking to me.
"You know it," he responded. "At least, as soon as all this rain goes away, or those buffoons at the field get it dry. Did they even bother to check the weather forecast?" I guess today was one of those days. He sounded annoyed, angry even despite his friendly joke.
I took off my helmet and tossed it to the side, Starco despawning it before it hit the ground. "That was kind of dumb on their part."
"Dumb? If I were their boss, I'd...oof" Arla squeezed the arm she had wrapped around him. She may not have looked it, but she was strong, strong enough to even rival my own physical abilities. It quickly became obvious that he did not wake up on the right side of the bed this morning.
"Well, I'll leave you two to your baseball," I said. "Sadly, I have to get on the road." I turned around and started walking down the hallway to the hangar. Behind me I heard the quick shuffle of feet. It turned back just in time for Arla to run into me and wrap her arms around me. She looked me in the eyes. "Be careful out there. Don't die on me again." She was serious, and I could tell. Shortly before the Garden, I'd accidentally put her through the emotional wringer, and it seemed to have humbled her a little more. She seemed to have realized the mortality of Guardians after her long-time friend Advira Mezzer died at the Devils' Lair, but then realized her own when I'd died by being crushed in that warehouse.
"I will," I promised. "Who knows. I might even be back with a new member for our fireteam."
"I look forward to it. Now get out there," she said with a smile, retreating back to Heksis and walking back toward the Plaza. I walked to the end of the hallway and descended down the steps.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Present
This was my first time back on Mars since the Black Garden. Memories from that nightmare crept back into my mind. Memories of Dea, the Darkness, despair, even death eased their way back into my consciousness, trying to make me relive those moments before it was destroyed. I shook them away. Dea disappeared, the Darkness was on the ropes, and I wouldn't let it get to me again. Death...well death was just par for the course. I remembered my promise to Arla, let it be my anchor to life. My death back then had destroyed her, and I wasn't about to let that happen again.
I kept walking, sand crunching beneath my feet as we got to the top of yet another dune. The Sun was about to come up and relieve us of any advantage we may or may not have had while moving in the dark. Now it was just a matter of who found the other first, Charli and me or the Cabal.
We'd been walking at a brisk pace for the best part of two hours by this point, and I could tell Charli was getting tired, her posture slumped and steps labored. Her Ghost was floating next to her shoulder, likely giving her the a similar spiel that Starco gave me all that time ago back at the cosmodrome, and judging by her nods, she seemed to be listening and steadily coming to grips with her new situation.
I stopped at the top of the next dune and waited for her to catch up. At the top, Charli leaned forward and put her hands on her knees. "And I thought I walked fast," she joked, attempting to lighten the air around us, but I was on alert for the Cabal. She straightened up, but her voice still sounded tired. "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot." She extended a hand. "I'm Charli Hendricks, apparently a former lieutenant in the Martian Federation Navy."
I turned to face her. I couldn't see her face because of the opaque helmet the starter armor came with, but she was undoubtedly human or Awoken. The armor she wore was entirely white, with a few gray patches and a black undersuit. It looked like it fit her well, but the armor was thin, structurally unable to take more than a couple hits before the shields collapsed and armor snapped.
I grabbed the hand. "I'm Maximus, Warlock for the Vanguard."
"Nice to meet you, so would you mind explaining what's going on here?"
"I'm afraid that's not exactly my department," I responded, looking out over the sands again. In the distance I could see the super volcano Olympus Mons towering far above any dune. It was still quite some distance away, but it was so tall and wide that it took up a good portion of the skyline in front of us and would dominate our terrain if we continued moving forward, the ground beginning to noticeably slope upwards approximately three miles from where we stood.
"I meant what are we still doing here? Shouldn't we be off to the Tower or something, see this Traveler?"
I looked off into the distance. I could see something, a tiny dot in a nearby rock formation overlooking a small canyon. That was it. "Secondary objective," I stated simply. "Vanguard told me to take your Ghost here because they had reasons to believe a possible new Guardian was in the area. They also mentioned that there may be a Cabal base nearby, so I should be careful." I pointed to that dot in the distance. "You see that?" Charli moved a few steps forward and nodded. "Yeah," she responded.
"That's probably the Cabal base they were talking about, and we're about to go get some recon on it. In and out may even get to fire a couple bullets."
Charli spun the white pistol on her finger. "Then let's do it," she said confidently. I could imagine a smile coming across her face.
I summoned a Sparrow. It was a brand new frame and engine that I'd built myself with a little hlep from Amanda Holliday, the Tower's shipwright. I had it connected to my armor, so that its paint scheme would change to whatever my armor was when I sat down on it. Its base color was white, but when I sat down on it, it changed to a base red with black lines that only accentuated the red, especially across the two prongs on the front. The engines burned purple due to the Potassium chloride solution I put in the engines as a completion liquid, creating the purple trail. I moved up on the seat to allow Charli to get on and motioned her forward.
She cautiously approached, eyeing the engines carefully before climbing on. "What's this?" she asked, looking around the vehicle and seeing that it was hovering a foot off the ground.
"We call them Sparrows. You may want to hold on." She wrapped her arms around my torso, tenatively at first, before crossing her arms there and grabbing a hold of my robe. I grabbed the handle bar and squeezed the accelerator. We instantly shot forward, screaming across the frozen Martian desert and crossing over the dunes that took us 10 minutes to get up and over in only a matter of seconds. I swerved around large rocks and dunes I knew would slow us down but kept my eyes solidly on the steadily growing dot in the distance.
Charli certainly seemed to take an instant enjoyment to the speed and turns, shouting excitedly and hollering with each dune I ramped and swerved around. "This is awesome!" she screamed. "Almost like flying a starfighter."
"You a former pilot?" I shouted behind me.
"I did a little bit of everything: land, air, space, but I was in a starfighter more times than not."
"That's good. You'll be doing a lot of flying as a Guardian." The dot in the distance was getting larger, starting to look like a cave or something along those lines. "We'll get you a ship once we get back to the Tower." I kept an eye on that cave in the distance, our entry point to the Cabal base. After that, we rode in relative silence, the only sound coming from Charli's steady breathing and the whir of the engine as the sand seemed to level out the closer we got.
My thoughts turned back to my first day as a Guardian not too long ago, but so much had happened since then. The Fallen had destroyed a piece of the Wall, resulting in a somewhat tense relationship between the Tower and the City until its repairs were finished not too long ago. Arla and I found a Fallen base practically right underneath the City and destroyed it, or at least caused it to self-destruct. Then there the…"Maximus!"
I pulled myself out of my thoughts and looked up just in time to see a large boulder in front of us. I made a grab for the brakes, but there was no way we were going to stop before metal met stone. "Jump!" I shouted. Without an delay, the arms clasped around my torso released and the Sparrow got lighter. I looked to make sure Charli was clear before I leapt off on the right side scarcely before the gases in the engine exploded, the blast echoing through the air.
The sand felt like concrete as I slammed into it and rolled out the rest of my momentum. The initial impact jostled me a little bit, knocking my head around inside the helmet but nothing too badly. Eventually, I stopped and found myself face down in the sand. If the Cabal didn't know we weren't here, their sensors definitely picked up the explosion, or something of their heard the explosion. I pulled myself to my knees and got back on my feet. Charli was lying on her back nearby, a hand on her helmet. "Well, that didn't go as planned," I said, establishing a comms link with her.
Charli faintly chuckled. "Not the smoothest landing but definitely not the roughest by far."
I stretched out my back. "What landing takes the cake there?"
Charli sat up. "I would have to say the one that apparently killed me a few centuries ago. Never thought I'd say that."
"Yeah. Welcome to the undead then," I replied. Charli laughed for a few moments, but then it subsided. "Maximus," she started. "What does red on this circle thing mean? I'd like to say it's on my HUD."
I knew exactly what that meant. "Crap. Fine some cover! It's the Cabal!" Charli looked left and right for something to get behind, but there was nothing but sand. There was the rock that we crashed into, but that was where they were coming from. "There is none!" she radioed back.
"Just get back. Find a dune and stay there."I drew the pulse rifle Dea gave me, turning the safety off and the full-auto mode on. It was a long, yellow rifle with a rear-loaded magazine. The sights were holographic and activated whenever I raised them close to my eye. According to Starco, parts of this weapon shouldn't even exist yet, but they do for whatever reason. I sometimes questioned why she gave this to me, but now was not the time for questioning.
I heard footsteps behind me. "No," Charli refused. "I'm staying here. Cowards run from the fight." 'You sound like Arla,' I thought.
Suddenly, streaking across the Martain sky were several large creatures dressed in thick, silver and blue armor, carrying heavy weapons and/or shields. There were five of them: two Legionaries, two shield-bearing Phalanxes, and a single Centurion bearing a grenade-launching Projection Rifle. They were going to tear us to shreds while we were out in the open.
"Get back!" I shouted. "Get back!" Shots from the Cabal screamed through the air, missing us as we backed up, but keeping us from turning our backs and running. For whatever reason, Charli was sticking uncomfortably close to my side, only making us bigger targets than we actually were. I raised my weapon and managed to get off a couple shots before having to duck beneath one that would have struck me in the head. Charli drew her pistol and fired only a couple of shots before she too had to dodge. I fired off a couple more shots, taking out one of the Legionaries. I then aimed at one of the Phalanxes and shot it in the leg. Their almost black blood started to ooze out of it and stain the sand, the pain surprising the soldier a little but adrenaline keeping it on its feet. Charli started strafing to the right and shooting as she ran. I booked it to the left to try and split their efforts.
Charli drew the attention of both phalanxes, giving me a clear shot at their backs. The arc-plasma that shot out of the barrel passed right through the weaker armor on their backs and killed them within a matter of seconds. I reloaded, and the remaining Legionary launched into the air, aiming to cush Charli. "Look out!" I shouted at her just as the Cabal soldier smashed down on her.
I noticed a growing shadow where I stood and looked up. Out of nowhere, the Centurion materialized in the sky, shooting at me as it fell. I rolled out of the way and quickly grabbed Super Good Advice from my back. "Ooo! My turn!" it shouted. I slammed a box of bullets into the side and pulled the bandolier to the firing chamber, shutting it and priming it while dodging fire the entire time. "Yeah! Let's kick some..." I pulled the trigger and sprayed the bullets all over the Centurion trying to dig itself out of the dirt. The solar shields that covered it quickly disappeared, but the rocket thrusters on its back fired and carried it out of the sand and away from my bullets. While in the air, it fired a couple of shots at me, the explosions hitting the ground but knocking me to the side again.
The Centurion landed, and I quickly blinked behind it, spraying bullets all down its back and igniting the fuel for its jump jets, not helped by the solar ammo Crush used, and engulfing it in flames. "Burn baby burn!" Crush shouted.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The Legionary was heavy, obviously trying to crush her with its weight. What it didn't count on was her dropping to the ground at the last second and kicking. Charli hadn't expected it to work, but it seemed that her suit gave her a little more power to the kick, landing it right on the bottom of the weapon and sending it several feet out of reach.
The Legionary doubled its efforts and pinned her to the sand, the sand shifting below her and swallowing her legs. She struggled beneath it for a second before looking up and seeing a hulking fist rise up. Charli tried to move her arms to try and swat away the arm, but her hands too were sinking into the sand, getting pinned by the weight of resistance of the sand.
At the last possible second, she moved her head just enough to the side to barely avoid the fist. Sand sprayed into the air as the fist impacted the ground and retracted. The Legionary followed it with the other fist, but Charli once again got barely out of the way. However, she did not see the third strike coming in from the side, smashing into the side of her helmet and turning everything dark for a second before it powered back up, though somewhat hazy. The white bar at the top of her HUD was a little past two-thirds of the way gone and cloaked in a bright red. Her head hurt, and she couldn't tell if the haziness was coming from her helmet or her own eyes, probably a little of both. She tried to make sense of the dark shapes moving above her and narrowly avoided another fist. It cleared up just in time for her to free her hands and catch the next attempt at smashing her face in.
The fist was heavy as she pushed back against the massive amount of force the Cabal's muscles were exerting. She could tell the suit's systems were working overtime to help keep her grip and strength on the hand trying so hard to end her life. Charli grunted with the effort to keep the fist at bay, she could tell that it was descending slowly, putting her arms in increasingly uncomfortable angles as she sought a way out. She quickly tossed her head around, catching a glimpse of Maximus trying to deal with the Centurion on her left and the white pistol just out of arms' reach on her right.
Charli could feel the enormous pressure the fist was exerting and pushed harder than she thought she was able to, the fist beginning to pull back. The Legionary unleashed a powerful roar, and the fist once again began its way down towards her. Charli's arms were exhausted by this point, sweat beading on her hair and dripping to the back of her helmet. Using her last bit of strength, she pushed the fist off to the left and stretched out to the right. Her fingers brushed the pistol but didn't quite grab a hold of it, instead knocking the barrel closer to her with the grip now opposite of her oustretched hand. She looked out of the corner of her eye and saw the Legionary trying to dig his arm out of the sand, the force he put behind it sinking into the sand and trapping it much like her own legs.
Just as she turned back to the pistol, the Cabal freed its fist and cocked it back, roaring in fury as it prepared to punch. Suddenly, there was a sharp metal clang that cut off the roar as Charli had finally grabbed the pistol and whacked the Legionary with the grip. She quickly turned the pistol around and fired a single shot into its head a point blank. A combination of gases and blood rushed out, coating Charli's white armor in the almost black liquid just before the water in it evaporated due to the drop in pressure. She tried to use her hands to try and keep the gore off her but failing miserably. Now just to get the oaf off of her.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The Legionary slumped over, issuing forth its disgusting liquids after Charli shot it. She'd handled getting pinned pretty well, doing her best not to get crushed and then killing it. With a little training, she'd probably make a great Guardian in whatever class the Traveler thought suited her best. I blinked over to her as she struggled to get the 800 pound Cabal off of her legs. "You alright?" I asked.
"Yeah. My head hurts a little bit, but I'm ok otherwise." she said, her breathing a little quick but getting enough oxygen nonetheless. "Kinda would like to get this oaf off of me." The front of her white armor was darkened by the blackish blood of the Legionary. Her helmet was also dented on the side, but that didn't matter much because she'd be in much better armor not too long from now.
"I figured," I responded, placing my hands beneath the Cabal and lifting. I then lifted her out of the sand and set her on her feet. "Thanks," she said.
"No problem," I returned. "Hey Starco," I said to my Ghost. "Bring the ship in. I think just the location of this base will do."
"You got it. Ship ETA 30 seconds," he responded. Something rumbled in the distance. A sound echoed almost like a… Suddenly, a Goliath Tank charged through the dune with the rock, sending the boulder into the sky and crashing a few hundred feet from its original spot. "We need to go. Come on!" I shouted, summoning a Sparrow and pulling her on. I squeezed the accelerator, and the engines roared to life, rocketing us forward with the Tank in hot pursuit, its four rocketed legs hauling the hulking armored frame and heavy cannon at incredible speeds. "Starco!" I shouted over the whir of the engines. "Kinda need the ship now!"
"I'm working on it, but it's still going to take some time. 20 seconds maybe."
Crush piped up. "Just turn around and let me take care of 'im! That tank'll never know what hit him."
"Not now Crush," I warned.
"Who's Crush?" Charli asked as I maneuvered through another volley of plasma fire from the tank.
"I'll explain later."
The gun started screaming again. "I'm the best Machine Gun you'll ever lay eyes on sweetheart. Now Max let the lady drive and let's blow this sucker out of the water, uh, sand. You know what I mean. Let's shoot stuff!"
"Not going to happen. Now be quiet or you won't see the field again for a while."
"Now hold up a sec…" the gun started. Suddenly, a large, orange blast from the main cannon crashed into the ground next to us and exploded, kicking the back end of the sparrow out, but I maintained control. "Okay then...shutting up."
I dodged yet another volley of fire from the tank as it smashed through yet another dune. "Starco, where's the ship?" I asked again. "Reinforcements are only getting closer."
"It's coming in for a run, cool your circuits!" I looked into the distance and saw a small spec of bright green. The dot steadily grew into three distinct shapes, two large engines on the sides with the rectangular cockpit and small number of other rooms behind it in the central area. The closer it got, the more I could make out, like the main gun jutting out from beneath the cockpit and the black parts only making the bright green paint pop out even more. The Vintage Russian Soul I called it after I found a blueprint on a scouting mission in another Old Russsian cosmodrome. Amanda Holliday and her army of robots assembled it amazingly quick, and it was quite a step up from the ARCADIA that I flew around before.
I turned around to Charli for a moment. "Ship's coming in low and fast, so it's gonna get loud for a second," I shouted to her. She nodded her acknowledgement just as a shot from the tank's main cannon seared the air over us with a loud BANG. My ship rolled out of the way and let loose a barrage of its own plasma fire from the main cannon and the secondary cannons located on each of the engines/wings. I didn't need to look behind me to know that they hit their mark because we both could feel the heat and shockwave from the explosion, however the sound was drowned out by the Soul's engines as it screamed overhead, the sound actually following the ship due to its speed. The autopilot pulled up to cancel the excess speed and came back down, speeding in front of us by a few hundred yards and stopping with the entrance ramp lowered.
I looked behind us again to see that Charli was as well. "I think we're clear," she said.
"I think so too," I concurred, not seeing anything else tailing us. "Welcome to the average day of a Guardian. Wake up, get shot at, return home."
"Sounds about normal for me," she said with a laugh. I stopped the sparrow close to the ship and blinked myself aboard, the ship doing the same for Charli. It was time to introduce her to her new home.
*Just a small author's note. Heksis is actually a character my good friend PegLegDregNeedsTheirMeds created that I'm using with his permission and assistance. He's currently working on a (new) story for his character that's going to be awesome. Give him a shout if you'd like.