Step seven: Don't Let Your Dreams, Be Dreams!
"Battle a T-Rex?! Are you INSANE!? I would LOVEto battle a T-Rex!" - Cayde-6
"*deep, nasal breath* My entire life, has prepared me for this moment."- Tevis
"Nope."- Petra Venj
"What is a... T-Rex? Is it edible?"- Variks
"Today, my dreams become reality!" Silverhawk exclaimed, eyes watering. This... is the awesomest opportunity life has ever presented me!
It towered over them, examined it's new surroundings with a growl, tail lashing, sniffing the air. It had tiny little arms, large, clawed feet, a scarred, scaly body, and looked for all the world like a disgruntled cat that had just been pulled into your lap while in the middle of an intense spider hunt! HOW DARE YOU DENY ME MY SPIDERS!?
"I think we better run!" Martin yelled behind her, grabbing the Queen by one arm and pulling her to her feet. Silverhawk, having turned at his cry, gave him a confused look.
"I thought their vision was based on movement?" she asked as, supporting the Queen, Martin and their impromptu companion ran off in the way the two Guardians had just come from.
"That only works in movies!" her best friend called over his shoulder. "RUN FOR IT! RUN FOR THE ROSES!"
"I ain't afraid of no dinos!" she yelled back. Behind her, she heard a growl.
Slowly, she turned around. And found herself face-to-snout with the T-Rex(whom she now referred to as Moby). She smirked, unable to resist.
"Clever girl." Then she registered its breath. "UGH! EW!"
She backed up, waving her hand in front of her face. "Two words: toothbrush!"
The creature parted its jaws and roared in her face deafeningly, spraying her with spit and putrid dino-breath odor. I always wanted a dino-tooth necklace! Oh, Cayde was going to bust a circuit when he heard about this!
"FOR THE WILD!" She screeched jumping forwards as it lunged to eat her whole. She heard its muzzle hit the ground where she had been standing, and felt the vibration in the vex stone. She felt a few chunks of rock hit her legs as well, but she kept running forwards, to its feet.
As it stepped around, trying to get at her, she jumped up, unsheathing her blades, and stabbed its calf. Roaring, it twisted around trying to snap its jaws shut on her as she sung on the hilt of her blade. It stumbled, falling over with a crash.
Yeeeehaaaaa! I love my job!
"Westley, you know what to play!" she yelled out loud. "Requiem of a Dream" started playing from within her hood, and she mentally facepalmed; she'd meant "Born to be Wild", but oh, well; this song was too dramatic to stop it the moment it started. She ran up its haunch, and stabbed her blade in again as it began to scramble to its feet.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw more clouds forming, though not as large as the one that had brought forth this prehistoric behemoth. Then, she re-focused on the task at hand, swinging on her blade as the T-rex staggered to its feet, thrashing, kicking, trying to dislodge her.
"Ugh; hold still, Moby! I'm trying to kill you!" it gave a massive stomp that made her lose her grip, and she was sent tumbling to the ground. Blinking pain out her eyes with a grunt, she rolled out of the way as it tried to stomp on her.
Rolling to her feet, adrenaline coursing through her, she ran. She didn't want to use her gun; she was still hoping to pull of something a little more epic than that. She could feel it coming after her, its every step shaking the ground. THIS. IS. BLAZING!
However, it was her misfortune to be backed into a corner. She pulled out Hawkmoon. The custom weapon weighed just right, fit just perfectly in her hand. Tevis and Cayde had modified her old Eyasluna, carved the barrel elegantly, and had presented it to her for her last birthday. I really don't want to shoot you, Moby. I wanted to do a Legolas. But it looks like I'll-
She burst out laughing as she turned around. She had been backed into a corner, and Moby had lunged, jaws parted to kill...
Only for its head to be too broad to get at her because of the corner. She pointed and laughed uncontrollably as it smashed it's head into the corner walls several times more, trying to get at her.
"I got a big head," she mocked, "and little arms, and I don't know if this plan was thought out very well."
Moby roared, tail lashing, tiny arms stretching out to try to grab her. She smiled, looking at Hawkmoon. Maybe there was a way to do this epically. She turned to the wall, backed up a little, and ran at it. She jumped, and kicked off it, turning in mid-air, landing on Moby's snout as he lunged to try and bite her again.
Moby thrashed his head, sending her flying backwards. She pulled out Ol'Reliable as she went through the air, twisting to get an angle on him. She fired both guns, and both bullets went through the T-rex's eyes as he turned around to watch were his prey landed.
Silverhawk rolled as she hit the ground painfully, but at the end of her roll, she sat there kneeling, watching as Moby staggered with an animalistic death moan, and fell to the ground, eyes now no more than bloody holes. She strode up the body, twirling her guns as she holstered them, and pat Moby's snout, taking her hat off.
"You were a mighty foe, my dream opponent. But not mighty enough." she declared solemnly with one hand over her heart, before taking her knife out and using it to pry out of the beast's monstrous fangs. She held it up. "Trust me, buddy; this hurt me a lot more than it hurt you."
A girly scream in the distance alerted her to the fact that whatever had come from the second cloud was still outlook, and animalistic screeching told her that whatever it was not friendly in the slightest.
They were bipedal. The lizards had two arms, with feathers on them, and there were three of them. Their bloodthirsty cries echoed just as the Vex's screeching did, and the pain in her leg echoed with each half-step she took.
"Velociraptors! WHY!?" Martin wailed as they ran at a lurching gait, one arm looped under her shoulder, supporting her. She'd never felt like less of a Queen. She could still hear the T-rex roaring behind them as it tried to get at Silverhawk.
Martin led her to a hill of stairs and ruins, and began to climb it. Looking back, she saw the raptors closing it, having spotted their prey after taking a confused look around at their surroundings. Martin reached down, and helped her over the edge of the collapsed, ruined stairs.
"Warlock Anton, remove this collar from me, quickly!" she demanded, tilting her head to the side. The young human's eyes widened, focusing on a point beyond her, and she turned her head to see the raptors gaining ground quickly.
"I'm sorry, but that's going to have to wait, your grace!" he said, grabbing her by the shoulder and leading her towards more rubble. He climbed up a fallen pillar, and helped her up it as well. He helped up farther onto the pile, which reached all the way up to the ceiling, and suddenly, the raptors were upon them.
The first one jumped, and landed halfway up, and its fellows landed not too far behind. They hissed and snarled up at their prey, revealing rows of sharp, white fangs in their narrow muzzles. Martin brought his shotgun off of his back fearfully.
"Nice velociraptor mongoliensis, nice dinosaur..." he said fearfully, pointing the barrel at them with shaking hands. Is he certain he is fit for duties as a Guardian? He didn't seem like a very good solder.
"Guardian; my collar. Now." The lead raptor leapt, and he fired. With an animalistic scream, it fell. The others hissed at it as it fell, and they jumped back down to its body, ripping into their comrade cannibalistically.
Martin lay his shotgun on his lap, hands shaking wildly, and reached for Mara. She tipped her head to the side obligingly, adrenaline and panic coursing through her as Martin took out his knife, and pried a small panel off the side off the collar out of her sight. She hoped his shaking hands didn't slip and cut her.
"W-what's this c-collar for, anyway?" he asked, just as she felt the collar disengage, it's lock opening. At that moment, a raptor leapt up from below, and its jaw closed on her bad leg, right on her wound. She screamed as it tried to pull her off the mossy pillar near the ceiling, agony flashing through her like a bolt of lightning.
She felt Martin grab her, looping his arms under her own in an effort to keep it from dragging her off. In the end, it took both of them with it. Pain sung through her as they fell down, the raptor letting go as they hit the ground. Martin made a horrible gasping noise nearby, and she turned her head to see him flat on his back, face contorted with pain as his glasses skid across the floor. His back lifted slightly, revealing him to have landed on what appeared to be a sharp rock.His spine. Did he just break his spine?
The raptor that had taken her jumped at him, and the Warlock raised his hand, and covered his eyes, as a lurch of fear flashed through her. There was an odd hissing sound as the raptor landed on him... and then it let out a high-pitched keening sound of agony, staggering off of him, clawing at its eyes.
Mara took the collar off as the second raptor leapt on her, and focused with all her might on their beings. With a burst of angry mental power, she sent them both flying into the walls so hard, their necks snapped. Sitting up, a wave of intense dizziness and coldness washed over her in combination of the fresh agony to her leg, and she swayed, stars dancing in her vision.
"Your grace? Are you okay? Did you do that? That was awesome! Blazing!" She heard Martin saying. If he said anything else, she didn't hear it, as blackness overtook her.
She didn't know how long she was out, maybe a few seconds, perhaps a couple minutes. That... should not have been as draining as it was. Destroying a whole load of vex was one thing, but throwing a couple of raptors should have been easy; enough to make her a little dizzy and chilly, but not knock her out and drain all warmth from her body like it had. It felt like she'd just summoned Harbringers.
The first thing she was aware of was something wrapped around her; something warm, and made of fabric, that she embraced because of the arctic-like coldness she felt. The second thing she was aware of was that she was laying on the ground. The third...
The horrible, throbbing agony she felt in her leg. Someone was tending it, wrapping what might be bandages around it. Her head pounded with a horrible migraine. The fourth thing she noticed was that someone was talking; two someone's, in fact.
"...may be in shock or something. Her body temperature dropped like a stone, and her wound is considerably worse. I think that use of telekinesis might have drained her more than anything else, though." Said the first voice, that of a young man's. Guardian Anton. she remembered.
"Well, she did throw them across the room,with her mind, which is totally blazing, by the way!" came the second voice, young and female and proud. Silverhawk.
She opened her eyes. The fabric wrapped around her was Martin's scarlet robes, still warm with the heat of the previous wearer, and she was laid on a moss patch while he re-dressed her leg. Silverhawk was back, seeming to have successfully put down the T-rex... on her own, no less. She looked a little battered, but perfectly fine all the same; exhilarated, even.
Martin was wearing a padded, armor-like blue vest over a tunic that had sleeves going down to his elbows. He noticed she was awake, and his eyes turned to her, wide and worried. She ran her gaze over him swiftly, feeling a small trickle of relief run through her when she realized he was kneeling at her side in a way someone with a broken spine would not have been able to do. There was a long cut on the left side of his face, though, and it had bled profusely in the time she'd been out.
It started just above his eyebrow, curved around his eye, and went in a jagged line all the way down to his jawline. Thinking back to those last, terrifying moments, she seemed to remember him losing his glasses in the fall.That raptor must have caught him in the face before he did... whatever it was he did to injure it.
"Your grace?" he questioned worriedly, his glasses back where they should be, though the left lens had a crack running through it. "How are you feeling?"
She felt like she'd been thrown off a ruin pile after a dinosaur bit her leg and- oh, wait. That was exactly what had happened.
"Like..." she began, still feeling dizzy, voice like a whisper, throat dry, "I have fallen from a great height."
"You did." Martin confirmed gently as Silverhawk backed off to keep watch while her friend worked his medical expertise. She instinctively flinched as he put his hands on her face, forcing her eyelids open so he could further examine her. "Any nausea? Dizziness? Remember taking any blows to the head on the way down?"
She'd hit everything on the way down. She felt like she'd been tumble-dried, or dropped off a mountain. It felt like, as if the bite, burn, and cut weren't enough, her bad leg was now broken. She attempted to lift herself into a more dignified position, and she felt a little more wretched as the young warlock helped her into a sitting position against the rock behind her, his robes still wrapped around her.
"I... do not believe I am concussed, Warlock Anton, if that is what you mean." she told him breathlessly. He offered her a clear, half-filled canteen, and she accepted, drinking greedily, chasing away the thirst that had so plagued her. It also made her feel a little more civil again. Where the rest of the bottle's contents were didn't take long to guess, as her leg felt... fresher somehow, and the area beneath it was dark with water. Not only had Martin dressed her wounds, he'd cleaned them as well.
She took a mental note to think of some sort of reward in payment for his kindnesses. The young human - so young, he looked like a child! - while scared witless during the fight, was proving himself a very good doctor despite their current and very dangerous situation. His care was more than she'd expected to find in this... place. Now that her wounds were seen to, with other people at her side, even if they were human, she felt like she might have a chance at surviving.
Uldren! The collar was off, she could reach out, contact him, let him know where she was, that she was safe, for now, and that he needn't risk his own life to come for her. With the latter, she had a feeling he wouldn't listen and would come after her anyway, no matter how severe a punishment she threatened.
As she started to reach out, Martin must have noticed her eyes start to burn, and he gave her a rough shake.
"You shouldn't do that, your grace; you're in a state of bio-neuro shock. For most, it's a theoretical condition, but for your bloodline, it isn't. If you use your powers too much, you'll go into a state of severe mental and neurological shock and become completely catatonic for who knows how long." he warned her. Hadn't her mother warned her of something similar once?
Reluctantly, she let the connection in her mind sever before it could complete, though for brief moment she brushed the surface of his mind. He was alive, uninjured. Somewhere hot. He was angry. Really angry, and... grieving. She shuddered as more ice trickled down her spine, and she pulled the robes tighter around herself. He must think me dead. She realized. I mustleave this place! Before my brother destroys himself...
"We must leave this place. Now." She told him, casting a glance at Silverhawk nearby. Martin flinched, looking sheepish, and she fixed him with a tired, benevolent stare. "What is the problem with this?"
"The... theoretically, the only way to leave the Black Garden is by severing it's anchor to this reality, thus causing it to faze back in with normal space/time. That anchor... is the Heart." Martin explained reluctantly. Mara felt something inside her wither further. She had interrupted their quest to kill the Heart; she was wounded, and unable to use her powers. She was deadweight, as much as she hated to admit, and she felt more wretched than ever before. Some Queen she was, if she couldn't even help save herself.
"You know, that place we came in at seemed pretty safe to me." Silverhawk piped up. Martin turned to look at her, confused. "You take the Queen and hide there, I'll scout ahead and see what there is to see, come back, and then we can all sleep on it and think of a really good backup plan! Sound okay?"
Ha! Me, turned to running and hiding, and accepting help from Guardians! Humans, no less! She guffawed in her head. Before Martin could agree or disagree, raising one finger, Silverhawk spoke again, bounding away.
"Great plan, right? I'll go get my sparrow!" she called over her shoulder, skipping away. Martin's hand lowered, and the young warlock watched his friend leave unhappily.
"How did you do it?" Mara rasped in an attempt to distract herself from the pain. Martin's head turned back towards her, tipped curiously to one side. "Attack the raptor?"
"Oh! This!" he took something out of his belt; a small, white spray canister. "It's called mace, a sort of very strong pepper spray."
Queen Mara nodded slowly, closing her eyes. "And how did you survive the rock that you landed on?"
"Oh, Warlock robes have nanites interwoven into the fabric that focus the wearers light and uses it to form a thin shield. I have mine set to protect mostly against blunt force impacts, because I fall off my Sparrow a lot. I even broke a few ribs once!" he told her, holding up one of the sleeves to his robes, fingering the fabric as if to show her the nanotechnology woven into the threads.
On me, these robes offer no protection. While she was now warmer than she had been, the Warlock was now unprotected and the robes' nanites did not work with her wearing them. They were just fabric.
Silverhawk came running up with her Sparrow. She pressed a button on one of the handles, and an odd extension popped out the back. She patted the seat.
"Git on yur spers, your majesty; thy carriage awaits!" she said brightly. She could stand Guardian Anton. She decided to spare only a withering glance at his companion. Her... brightness in their situation, Mara found, was inappropriate.I can see now why Uldren found her insufferable.
Martin helped her to her feet, and she sat down on the odd extension. Martin reluctantly took the front seat, taking the handles as if the Sparrow were a wild beast that he was afraid of riding. With a flash, she remembered what he'd said about his tendency to fall off Sparrows, and suddenly wondered if it was a good idea at all for him to be driving. As if I know how to drive these Guardian vehicles. She gave a small snort.
"Alrighty, then; you take her back to the portal place, I'll find the Heart, come back, then bingo we get a plan and blow some junk up, okay?" Silverhawk told her friend cheerily, patting him on the back. "See ya!"
"Heather." Martin demanded dangerously as she spun around to leave swiftly. Heather? Her real name, perhaps? It occurred to her that this was the most serious way she'd heard him speak. Silverhawk turned around slowly and obligingly in an innocent manor.
"Yeeees Pippin?" she inquired. Mara could easily picture her batting her eyes flatteringly behind her sunglasses.
"One; don't do that. Two;" he held out one hand askingly, "the eye."
"Why, whatever do you mean, heart-brother?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean, Heather; give me the Gate Lord's eye."
"You mean you don't trust me with it? Oh, now I'm hurt. You hurt me. How could you? Daddy?"
"I don't trust you not to do something stupid. Like charge the Heart of the Black Garden alone without any backup."
"OH! I am offended that you would ever suggest I'd do such a thing!"
"We both know perfectly well that was what you were planning to do; now hand it over before I use my oh-so-superior height to take it from you by force. Now."
Dragging her feet childishly, Silverhawk went up to him and lazily plopped the eye into his waiting open hand. Martin nodded with satisfaction, clipping the small bag to his belt.
"That's more like it." almost like an afterthought, he leant in to wrap his arms around her, nearly lifting the considerably smaller woman off the ground a little. "Try not to get squished out there, okay? I'm all for pancakes, you should know, but I'd hate to see you flattened into one by Minotaurs."
Silverhawk, muffled by Martin's shoulder, said something that sounded along the lines of "I miss being the taller one", before breaking away from him. She punched him on the shoulder.
"Try not to crash my precious, will you? One scratch, and you're repainting the whole thing." She informed him haughtily.
"Silverhawk, the paint is already scratched by your road rage from earlier."
"Touché. Goodbye."
With that, Silverhawk whirled, purposefully flaring her cloak, and sped off in the direction Mara had run from with predator-like grace. For a few moments, Martin watched her go, leaning out of his seat, twisting around to watch her disappear, brow creased with urgent worry.
Ah... so that is why he is in the field. He stayed with his heart-sister. Thoughts of her rash brother flashed through her mind. Ever since the knife to the throat incident three years ago, she'd kept him close, restricting his movements into the field. He hated her for that. But she found it necessary, for herself. Perhaps it was selfish. Perhaps it was reasonable.
Perhaps she was no different than Guardian Anton. They just seemed to have different ways of going about it. She bound her sibling in tethers and red tape, and Martin followed his into the most dangerous place in space-time.
Mara Sov had no such luxury for an option. Royalty must do as royalty always does; rule her people. She could not afford such risks. Nor could she afford to lose Uldren; as much as he was her deadliest general, as elite a spymaster as he was, he was still her little brother, and her only family.
She'd lost too much family already.
She gripped the handles on the extension tightly, leaning forwards towards the heat of the Warlock in front of her as ice continued to press at her being and pain throbbed in her leg. Martin turned back to face the path ahead, and put the Sparrow on the trail for the way out.
With that, they began to move.
I feel like I may have disappointed with the T-Rex fight. Let me know what you thought of it.
alienraptor: Raspoot'n? We're... uhh, he really just kind of sits in the corner being his brooding, Russian self in this series. Glad you're enjoying!
MaybeALittleBroken: I know, little one. I know. To the people who were disappointed by RoI, they probably forget, it's a DLC like HoW and DB, not a full on mega-installment like TTK or Destiny 2. Compared to the other DLC's before TTK, RoI is the juiciest, best one yet. #can'twaitforEfrideet.
Order and Chaos: It's meant for humor factor. if everything I wrote was within the realm of reality, this would get very boring very fast. it's funny how I got your review... right as I was writing the velociraptor scene! Also, I've been trying to take care to punish speelcheck and view my work with a critical eye in lue of your capitalization point-outs. The grimiore was magical; I think I liked Gheleon's the best. I could totally see the other Iron Lord's making the "ditto" face after he says those last few lines, LoL. And in Timur's... I could see him doing the "everywhere" Buzz Lightyear meme with Felwinter. I found it interesting that Felwinter's described as skinny(and look at his statue, he was NOT a very big guy!) and an exo. Why would Bray built a shrimpy Exo?
Guest: Well, someone owes you.
sovietshadow: Hehe, I never bother with email; I just log on to fanfic and check my favorites list! I don't think Silverhawk would ever be able to kill a thing with her deathtouch; if you've read 15 Seconds(SPOILERS), you'll know she was kind of traumatized when she accidently killed her first caretaker.
Alrighty, people; this is it. I can feel it. This is where we hit 50 reviews; it's gotta be. So please, let's try to hit 50 before next chapter comes out! That would be blazing! I wouldn't have updated today, but I'm still feeling extremely cheerful from a weekend spent playing RoI. Oh, and speaking of reviews; I updated 15 Seconds and A Tale of Grandeur the day after RoI came out, and I've only got one review between the two of them. Obviously, either all my followers are too busy playing RoI to read, or something is wrong with the review receptor(it's happened to me before). So please; if you remember reviewing 15 Seconds, go check and see if it actually uploaded.
Cuz lets face it; you can't do what I did to Tevis and not get a reaction out of it. Fanfiction, I swear, if you're glitching again... grrrr...
RISE OF IRON IT'S SO FREAKING BLAZING EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Alright, so, I still feel like the T-Rex fight scene was a little lack-luster, perhaps because this is in writing and not a CGI blockbuster, but let's try to hit 50 reviews for Heartbusters! A momentous occasion that will be celebrated, perhaps, with a one-shot or (finally) completion of Flight to Freedom and/or Petra's Face is Hilarious. 50!
Next Time: Uldren isn't feeling too hot, Martin goes into self-sacrifice mode, and Silverhawk does a bad, bad thing.
Cheers!^^