Okay Destiny fans, sorry this chapter came out after a long, long time. Many things got in my way, such as Destiny the game. Any ways hope that you guys enjoy this chapter. Drop a review if you enjoy this or if you don't either way it helps me out.
Chapter Four
Laying on the ground, looking down at the Fallen devils, Keera watched as the Fallen prepared to carry out their raid on the Lunar Complex. The warlock was well-hidden amongst the ruins of the complex. The female exo was standing next to her, more annoyed than anything else. Keera glanced at her, unsure of the hunter. Remembering Ikora's words she thought that the exo hunters would help her out, but now she wasn't so sure about that.
There was a titan with them. She thought, maybe she was just seeing things, or maybe the titan was scouting deeper into the complex. Either way she was going to be reluctant to ask for their help. Her landing wasn't as planned. The warlock had expected the Cosmodrone to be sparse of any Fallen activity. Her Ghost would have normally kept her informed of the latest scouting reports from the Vanguard, but she had no Ghost.
The female exo looked down the scope of her scout rifle and sighed. "Great, we have a baron on the field. Judging on his walk, he isn't happy and he is losing his patience."
"Of course. One of the House of Devil's walker was destroyed right in front of them by a Guardian." The male exo replied from below.
Keera looked out toward the remains of the Devil walker, and her ship. Not the best landing, but it beat fighting that tank on the ground. Guardians of varying power could easily take out a Fallen walker, some of the more powerful ones could single-handily take one out easily. Keera was not one of them. Her light level was only thirty. High, yes, enough to take out a walker—with a little help.
"Either way this baron will make things tricky."
The baron—who was pushing dregs out of his way—was draped in a large crimson cloak with the House Devils sigil on. He had a scorch cannon strapped onto his back. Blasted weapon. Far more powerful than a Guardian's rocket launchers, with even bigger blast radius than a Servitor or Vex Minds. Keera had seen a scorch cannon during her ill-advised foray to the European Dead Zone months earlier, but see had no idea how the Fallen manufactured the monstrosities.
Without another word the three made their way deeper into the complex. It was complete ruin, how could something so important be here? She knew where the ship was—well the general area, her Ghost had the exact coordinates—a better question was how did New Monarchy find out about the logs stored here? And why didn't she discover the information during her research days earlier? If she knew that the location of Convergence was closer than she thought, she wouldn't have wasted time exploring Vex infested ruins on Venus.
Moving deeper into the complex they came across a stairway covered in Hive corruption. A titan stood, staring at the Hive filth. "Foulness," he said not noticing their arrival. "It's been months since Guardians drove the Hive away and still their filth remains." He continued with utter contempt.
"Ah, Jacob, you haven't abandoned us yet it seems." The female exo called out.
Jacob? That was the name of the titan that rescued her from the Fallen Ketch? Could this titan be the same person?
"Jacob? Have we met before?" Keera asked, she couldn't ask the man if he was the same that saved her, a lot of Guardians harboured some hatred for her, he could be one of them. She couldn't risk them finding out who she was. The Jacob that rescued her had different armour on. This man's armour was completely different, but, maybe—
"I don't believe we have, warlock." He calmly said, not even looking in her direction. "Who are you anyways? Your entrance was . . . quite flashy. And why didn't your Ghost respond to our calls? Where is your Ghost?"
"Enough of that. We have little time to act! Names first, questions later." The female exo yelled looked at the doorways they had entered from. Loud echoes of the Fallen language were dark warnings of their encroaching Fallen foes.
"Keera."
"Jacob."
"Eva-13."
"Adam-12."
The Guardians pushed deeper into the Complex. A few Fallen scouts had followed them in, but were easily dispatched with their superior firepower and tactics. They entered a large room with a large computer tower in the centre. Keera was impressed that the Fallen hadn't looted the components of this place yet. The computer looked as if they could still work, if only they had power. All the power generators out in the ruins of humanity's cities had long since died or buried underneath a ton of rubble.
Keera began to imagine what secrets were stored in the massive computers. Secrets of the Golden Age that could hold some small clue on how to fight back the growing Darkness, a way to wake the Traveller. Or advanced weapon designs for the weapon foundries, Omolon would pay richly for them. A Ghost could briefly bring life back to the computers and quickly catch sight of its contents, but the others weren't interested in the secrets of the Golden Age they seemed to have only have one purpose.
The scratching inside the walls alerted them to the Fallen presence. "Dregs in the walls!" Eva-13 yelled.
Part of the wall on the left hand side came crashing down and Dregs began to pour out. In one fast movement Jacob used his stores of Light and conjured up a bubble shield, the Ward of Dawn, to protect them all from the Dregs fire.
Taking advantage of the Blessing of Light, Eva-13 rolled out of the bubble and returned fire with her scout rifle giving Adam-12 enough time to turn invisible and search for something, Keera knew he was looking for the secret entrance that New Monarchy had found. Keera took out her hand cannon, one that Ikora's contact gave her. It was a New Monarchy weapon, a Red Hand. Jacob gave the weapon a brief glace before stepping out of his bubble to shoot at the Dregs laying siege to the Ward of Dawn.
One of the Dregs broke formation and lunged toward him. With a blinding motion, Jacob turned to the Dreg and placed his fist square into its face. A loud, and mushy crunch echoed as blood and teeth erupted from the Dregs mouth. More Dregs poured in from the roof, eager to kill the Guardians and rise above their own brothers to become Vandals. Keera watched as the carnage followed. Jacob was killing more than the female Exo and Keera could. She watched as the Fallen were felled by the titan. He was a juggernaut of destruction.
But the sheer number of Dregs threatened to overwhelm them, no matter how much they killed more poured through the walls, heading towards them with fanatical zeal.
Then a blood curling scream echoed that froze them stiff. Jacob lowered his weapon and looked around as the scream grew closer. Jacob seemed to realize what was going on and he leaped down from his perch. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away towards the back wall.
"Run you fools! It's the Hive!" He yelled, he turned his attention to Eva-13 and maybe the invisible Adam-12.
Asam-12 was still nowhere to be seen, so Eva-13 ran toward them. Jacob placed another Ward of Dawn to surround them. Hive Thralls burst from the walls and the ground clawing and biting at their Fallen foes. The Dregs retaliation had no effect, there were simply too many Thralls. The Thralls swarmed the Dregs, slashing with their razor sharp arc talons, blood and body parts flew over their dead, pale looking bodies. It was a massacre.
The Thralls had all but ignored the Guardians. Keera was thankful for that she'd never seen a Hive before. She ignored the Moon entirely during her travels. She fought solely against the Vex and the Cabal forces of Mars. Being this close to the Hive made her Light feel like it was being suppressed, dimmed. One of the faceless Thralls turned its head toward them and hissed at them, drawing the packs attention.
These creatures are pure darkness, they can sense the Light within us! She thought as the Thralls killed the last of the Dregs in the room and then they broke into a sprint towards them. There was no way that they'd survive against the Thralls onslaught. But Keera had stored enough Light in her for one Nova Bomb.
She ran out of the bubble opening herself to the Light as she Blinked into the air and conjured up her stores of Void Light . . . and unleashed it on the charging Thralls. Many of the Thralls had been caught it in the Nova Bomb and disintegrated into purple light, while the survivors in the back screamed in pain as the intense light that she had unleashed, burnt their decaying flesh. When she touched the ground she feel to the floor, she felt drained and exhausted. It had never happened before when she used her Nova Bomb before. She could feel the Light inside her, it was an ember of what it once was! Shocked by this she closed her eyes and hoped she was being tricked by her tired mind, she concentrated harder but her Light was still an ember, burning ever so dimly.
"Get up Keera!" a distant voice yelled. "Hurry!" Another scream jolted her attention, it was more . . . feminine, but darker, it was a scream of the darkness and it chilled her to the bone. Her remaining Void Light was smoothed out of existents by a dome of black tendrils greedily consuming and snuffing out the Light.
"Wizard!" Jacob yelled, he hoisted her from the floor and placed her over his shoulder and ran back into the Ward.
Keera felt the ground again as she was deposited back to the floor, she made the effort to get back up, but her body refused her. She was scared for the first time in a long time. Her Light was all she needed to survive and now it was an ember, burning dimly. Was this the effect of losing her Ghost? Her vision blurred and she closed her eyes as she sensed the growing Darkness around her seep into her very being.
#
"Careful now. The Wizard is smarter than it looks." Jacob said to the female exo as the Wizard hovered above the ground menacingly, its glowing blue clawed hand shacking slightly with dark energies.
Keera had fallen unconscious, her Light was dim, even Jacob could feel that. Whatever happened to her Ghost had left her Light exposed to something . . . something dark. Adam-12 was nowhere to be seen, Eva-13 couldn't spot him with her Exo-enhanced vision. With the Ward still up the Wizard was waiting now. The Light from the Ward would keep the creature of the dark at bay, but it wouldn't last for much longer. Suddenly, the Wizards solar shield disappeared. The Wizard with a confused motion it looked around before its head explode into pieces.
Adam-12 emerged from thin air, holding his shotgun. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"
"That was the lowest of the Hive Wizards. There are more out there, darker and more powerful. But well done." Jacob said, sighing with relief as he did.
Before there could be any discussion another blood chilling scream from a Wizard echoed throughout the room. "Follow me. I found the entrance to the bunker that New Monarchy found." Adam-12 waved over to the far corner of the room. Keera was still unconscious, lying motionless on the floor.
"What's happened to her?" Eva-13 asked her azure eyes focused on the fallen warlock.
Jacob shrugged. He'd no idea what had happened to her. Guardians who lose their Ghost still retain the ability to used Light as a weapon. Keera had lost her, he knew, but he couldn't let Eva-13 know. His mission here was supposed to be a secret, but the Fallen invaded and thanks to them he landed in the lap of two Hunters. He suspected the Speaker had sent the two of them to get a copy of the data that the faction had coveted. Dammed fool.
Jacob hefted Keera over his shoulders again and headed toward the male exo. "Whatever happened to her we can't leave a Guardian behind."
His mission could still be successful. Now that Keera had arrived, it saved him the trouble of tracking her down later on. He and New Monarchy understood the true meaning of what a Golden Age ship could do the politics of the Tower, it presented change. And change was something the Vanguard and the Speaker abhorred. They were both stuck in their ways, spinning their wheels against enemies who outnumbered them, unsure and unable to strike at an enemy. The Battle at Twilight Gap showed him the weakness of the Vanguard. Though The Speaker allowed Guardians to actively strike back at their enemies wherever they might be. It wasn't enough.
Reforms on the battlefield would not reform the problems faced inside the City. Crime, poverty, citizens forced to live on the streets due to over-population. Parts of the City were abandoned during the Battle of Twilight Gap with certain sections used for Crucible arenas. Those problems were not being sorted out by the Vanguard and The Speaker. Only New Monarchy could establish order to the City and launch humanity back into the Golden Age. And the Convergence was the key.
Adam-12 led them to a hidden elevator shaft. The room was just below, where New Monarchy had sent a team to extract Convergence's mission data. Without and hesitation Jacob jumped down the elevator shaft following shortly behind him were the two exos. The corridor lead to a large open room with active computer terminals lighting up the far wall.
Their displays were unintelligible charts and symbols that meant nothing to him. One monitor had a map of the solar system displayed with planets of interest highlighted in red.
"Places the Convergence has been sighted over the years. Possible vectors to where it might be heading next." Eva-13 said out loud, glancing down on one of the monitors linked to the mainframe.
"Interesting and all, but…" he paused and looked around the room. "Where is everybody?"
Jacob thought that there would be signs of a struggle and a dead bodies lying around, but there was nothing at all that indicated that anyone was here at all. Which didn't sit well with Jacob. Something wrong had happened here. Something dark. He vaguely recalled his first encounter with the Hive on the moon, years earlier. It was then that he found out how horrid they could be and how dangerous, and it was there that his hatred for the creatures of the dark was born.
Like a burning wildfire that couldn't be tamed, his hatred for the corrupted beings could not be put aside for a moment. The encounter with the Hive on Earth had clouded his mind for a moment, in that moment he had almost forgotten his mission. The two exos were apart, one on the left side of the room looking through storage lockers for any signs that anyone worked here. The other was skimming through the active terminals, quickly analysing the data stored inside the terminals.
Keera, was still unconscious, so he placed her up against pillar on his left before he turned his attention to largest monitor on the far wall. The screen was black, nothing displayed, looking closer something caught his interest. A small white dot in the centre. Jacob thought nothing of it at first but then it began to flash, then expand.
"What did you do?" Jacob asked Eva-13.
"I didn't . . ."
The screen flashed many images in a matter of seconds Jacob couldn't keep up. It stopped on one image, a large space-faring ship. Then a map replaced the ship. "It's our solar system. Look there that's Venus, and this is . . ."
"A tracer. Convergence's location." Jacob muttered. "It's on its way to Mars."