Ikaldys is pronounced, "Ick-al-dees". Just in case anybody was unsure about that.
The author's note at the end explains some meta stats for those who didn't read Take 1 of this story and would be interested in hearing my take on the Templar Class and some weapons.
Oh! And lastly; if you spot any continuity errors in terms of exotics (E.G: the One Thousand Voices can only exist after Riven has been defeated), then please point them out so I can correct them.
If you see a mistake or a sentence that doesn't seem to make sense, let me know so I can also fix it!
And Thanks to gajeel-of-iron for not only beta-reading this story, but for being my very first Beta Reader!
"Today, we make greatness!"
Atop a construction of metal, indeterminate of use, a living legend addressed those before them with conviction and bravery. They spoke in such a way that a cheer couldn't be contained and cried their unconditional support to this legend. This legend went by the name: Summer Rose.
She went by many names, The Great Silencer, Princeslayer, Bane of the Kells, Kingkiller, The Young Wolf.
Daughter. Sister. Friend.
Summer leapt down from her perch and stood before those she spoke to.
"Now, I don't expect you to follow me into this adventure, but I would be ever grateful just to know I have your support."
"You don't."
Summer looked over at one of the only three people who made up her crowd.
"Nobody asked you!" Summer accused the ghost who had spoken.
"You did, literally just then."
"I believe in you, Summer! I'm with you all the way!" the single Eliksni crowed member cheered.
Summer nodded with a satisfied huff. "Thank you Ikaldys. See? That's the right kind of attitude to have."
The ghost rolled their eye. "Whatever. And just for the record, I am extremely against this."
"Well, good thing we're not listening to you. As I said, we're about to make greatness and could use as few wet blankets as possible."
"Oh well screw you too then…" The ghost mumbled as they chose to float off.
"Should I get Goose hooked up?" Ikaldys proposed. She sensed that Summer was just about wanting to get started.
"Definitely! Let's go Kaldy!"
2 TAKE 2~
Kurux sat calmly inside the library that sat annexed to the guardian's tower. It was quite a calm location, everyone here obeying the rules set out by the elderly ex-warlock who had lost their ghost many years ago. Around Kurux, there was a collection of other guardians. Almost all of them were warlocks, scrutinizing over the many thick tomes stored within the library walls. The only oddity was a pair of hunters who had pulled out a large map and were referencing a small handbook in their possession.
And that only left Kurux as the solitary titan in the library. What was weirder about his appearance is that he remained in his full titan regalia sans the helmet which left his luminant purple locks and blue awoken features on display. His armour wasn't all that impressive, and the only stand-out piece of it was his Dunemarchers boots. The state of Kurux's armament wasn't the point of his attention, since all of the other guardians filling out the library population matched his type of dress sense. However, it heavily drew to attention the fact that he was a titan.
Out of the three paths that a guardian may find themselves attuned to upon their first revival, titans were widely considered as the muscleheads of the four. It didn't really help the stereotype that many Titans took great pleasure in hitting things. Extremely hard. Repeatedly. Kurux being no exception.
But Kurux had come to enjoy the finer aspects of immortal life – such as reading. Currently, he sat in one of his preferred chairs (his favourite had already been claimed by a warlock) and was reading a book philosophizing pre-golden age humanity. It was quite engaging, in Kurux's opinion.
As the awoken titan leafed through the book, he eventually noticed the approach of one of his three female teammates. Fortunately for his peace and quiet, it was the least erratic of them; Serpent-11.
The exo warlock's appearance differed greatly from most of her kind, as she had taken to using her immortality to essentially give herself a facelift. Literally, by tearing off her preexisting faceplates, replacing them with smoother variants and green scale details alongside fins on the back of her head that were reminiscent of a cobra. She really did like to live up to her name with a serpentine look.
"Oh, hello Serpent. Was there something you needed?" Kurux greeted, placing his book down.
"Heya. Sorry to intrude on reading time, Ku, but I've checked everywhere and haven't been able to find Ikaldys and Summer. Have you seen them about anywhere?"
Kurux shook his head. "Sorry, but no. Was Angela asking for them again?"
"Nope, Holiday." Serpent shook her head. "Apparently the two of them got one of her tanks that she had stored around."
Kurux grimaced at Serpent's explanation. "That could never end well, under any circumstance. I guess we better go look for them."
"Yeah… wait, what's that noOOOIIISE!" Serpent transitioned into screaming as… well… they found Summer and Ikaldys.
In the tank.
Crashing through the wall.
Out of unadulterated shock, fear and surprise, Kurux began to throw Dawnhammers at the tank that clearly had both the tiny Hunter, and bubblegum-pink and baby blue armoured eliksni. Likewise, Serpent started to toss handfuls of void energy.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Everyone in the library screamed in shock and fear as the tank destroyed building and book alike.
2 TAKE 2~
"And that's when we realized that we had… misplaced several integral components." The tiny hunter guardian Summer Rose explained to Angela Six. The Templar Vanguard, Kell of Crosses, the Twilight Walked, and…
Her mother.
"Yep." Ikaldys concurred, nodding her head. "And that lead to things like the controls randomly inverting, complete break failure, and improper ghost connectivity."
Angela simply raised an eyebrow. Or at least the eliksni equivalent of one.
"And you believed this to be a good idea… because?" The veteran guardian prompted.
Summer and Ikaldys looked at one another, and then back to Angela. "Ghost Tank."
Angela responded with a long-suffering sigh.
Fireteam Rumbler had constantly found themselves in this very situation. Standing before the only member of the Vanguard that wouldn't either congratulate them or strangle them after each one of their, 'escapades'. Angela was the only one who condemned their actions but had enough tolerance for their repeated misdeeds.
Angela closed her four glimmering blue eyes as she looked over the team. "Okay," she began at last, "I'll be straight with you. There is a collection of warlocks outside currently forming a mob to quote, 'burn them alive at the stake with the remnants of their transgressions'. I don't believe I need to explain exactly who that is aimed at."
"Sorry, Mom…" Summer averted her eyes away from her adoptive parent.
"Now, now. Whilst I can say that yes, it was mainly you two girls…" Angela gazed sternly at Summer and Ikaldys, both of whom shrunk away. "I can't leave all the blame away from you two, Kurux, Serpent. You both did increase the damage dealt to the library with your reactions."
"I am incredibly sorry for my actions, Ma'am. I take full responsibility." Kurux replied, feeling a pang of shame course through him.
"You heard him, he takes full responsibility." Serpent added, jerking a thumb at her friend. Kurux's head snapped to his exo teammate, glaring at their green metallic face that was somehow and clearly expressing a smug grin.
"Okay, enough of that. Whilst the two of you are more to blame for this debacle than the others, none of you are clear of guilt. At the very least, that's what the mob outside thinks, who seemed to have begun arming themselves with swords from their personal vaults."
Turning around to gaze out of Angela's office window, Fireteam Rumbler did indeed see the exact sight that the Templar vanguard described. Audible gulps were heard when the four of them realized just how angry the frequent library-goers were.
"And so, that's why I'm sending you all off-world for a while. Just whilst we try and… calm everybody down."
Summer sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Eheheh, that sounds… less painful. Thanks, Mom."
"Oh, don't thank me yet," Angela said. The words pricked at Summer's neck and sent a chill down the tiny hunter's spine. Because the tone in which Angela had just spoken was one Summer was all too familiar with. It was the mother 'gotcha!' voice, and to someone like Summer, it always seemed to spell doom.
Slowly reasserting her eyes back on her alien mother, Summer waited as sweat beaded at her forehead. The rest of her team shuffled away on basic survival instinct.
"Because, my dearest daughter." Angel folded all four of her arms. Another death knell for any safety Summer thought she had left. "You, and your team, are going on an extended investigative patrol."
NO! That was her least-favourite kind of mission!
"…On Mercury."
No!
"And our dear Master Rahool has volunteered his service as correspondent since you'll be investigating some golden-aged artifact he has found a location of."
NO! NO!
"I do hope you have fun. There'll be a lot of time for… reflection." Angela concluded, unfolding her lower set of arms to place them sternly on her hips.
With seemingly no more punishments to be dealt out, Fireteam Rumbler trudged out of the room with their heads hung as low as their spirits. The friends trudged down the hallway toward the hangar in relative silence.
"So… ghost tank, huh?" Serpent's faceplates shifted so it looked like she was raising an eyebrow.
"Oh! Yeah!" Summer seemed to brighten. "We thought: Hey, why can't we let ghosts join in on the fun and shoot bad guys?"
"And so you two thought the best idea was to hook them up to a TANK?!" Interjected Kurux, massaging his temples.
"I mean, well yeah?" Ikaldys shrugged. "It's not like they can hold a gun. We already tried that, remember? When duct taped a gun to Goose."
"You have got to stop trying all your experiments on your phantom, Kaldy. He still hasn't been able to stop talking in bad French since the last failed test..." Kurux said, flicking his fingers to gesture at the eliksni whilst not removing his hand from his head.
"En fait, je pense que j'ai compris!" Ikaldy's phantom, Gooseberry, said as they popped into existence.
"None of us have any idea what you're saying, Goose." Serpent offhandedly told the phantom, her real attention taken up by a datapad she had taken out of her 'backpack'.
"Eh bien, peut-être devriez-vous apprendre le français alors." Gooseberry shot back, retreating back to Ikaldys' side. The eliksni guardian stroked the top of her companion, reassuringly.
"For the record, I was completely against it." Zac, Summer's ghost, materialized to voice his innocence. "Unfortunately, you know exactly how easy it is to talk these two dunces out of an idea."
"Hey!" The two people in question objected.
"No argument there." Kurux agreed with Zac.
"HEY!" They repeated, louder this time.
"Oh, calm down you two. They're just teasing." Serpent softly karate-chopped Summer's head. She had stuffed her other hand into a pocket on her warlock robes and was hunching over as they marched down the hallway.
"To add my two glimmer in, I do say it'd be a spiffing experience to send a horde of those scandalous Vex to kingdom come myself." Another ghost said as they popped out of a backpack. This one, sporting a posh British accent, belonged to Kurux and had named themself 'Rammmithallokenne'.
Nobody actually called them that, however.
"See! Ram gets it!" Summer chirped.
"Ram likes anything about killing things," Kurux said tiredly.
"That's 'eliminating thine enemy', Master Jani" Rammmithallokenne promptly corrected his guardian's 'mistaken' phrasing. "The fewer of those ugly hooligans out there, the better I say. You discluded, Lady Ikaldys." He finished.
Ikaldys turned and beamed at her friend's ghost. "Thanks Ram!"
She then continued to skip in pace with the fireteam, four arms swinging at her sides.
"Well, even if you two jumped the gun a bit, it isn't exactly the worst idea to arm ghosts…" Serpent contemplated.
"Serpent!"
"What, I'm just saying." Serpent shrugged over her shoulder at Kurux. "If ghosts can defend themselves beyond hiding in their guardian's backpack, who's to say we'd be having less people on their final lives?"
"Okay, that's a good point. But still-"
Whatever Kurux was going to say was interrupted when a vent grate fell to the ground right in front of the fireteam. Followed by a person. They could tell it was a hunter, the cloak was always a dead giveaway, and the metal hands said that they were an exo too. The rising suspicions on the figure's identity were confirmed when the person stood up, dusted themselves off, and then turned to face Rumbler.
"Hey there kids! Sorry to 'drop in' unannounced."
"Cayde!" Summer and Ikaldys cried in delight at the Hunter Vanguard's appearance. Summer in particular, rushed forward and caught her mentor and pseudo-father figure in a tackle of hugish intent. Being an experienced veteran of Rose-Brand hug tackles, Cayde caught the relatively light guardian with ease. Before spinning her vertically and placing her back down in front of him, all with practised simplicity.
"So! You lot are off to Mercury huh?" Cayde bowed his head slightly and held his hands together. "My sincerest apologies."
Serpent rolled her eyes at Cayde's overexaggerated mannerism.
"Hello Archon Cayde!" Ikaldys waved. Despite being more a part of guardianship as opposed to her eliksni house, Ikaldys had still taken to referring to Cayde as Archon like the rest of the house of Crosses, due to his marriage with their Kell.
Cayde, as displayed by his current pinching of his robot brow, had quickly grown tired from being called this by the numerous eliksni that could be found about the Tower. Even if most of the house treated Cayde with as much reverence as guardians did, the constant use of the term annoyed him just as much as the restrictions that Vanguard leadership put on him.
Attempting to divert the subject before Cayde could begin grumbling, Kurux coughed loudly to gain attention. "So, Cayde. Why… exactly, were you in the air vents?"
"Ohhhhh! That! Well, I realized a little bit too late that today's Angie's anniversary of her first Strike with me. Seeing as I didn't arrange anything, or even get a gift, I am avoiding her until I can get something happening."
All of fireteam Rumbler grimaced.
"Yeah, that might just be a smart idea, Cayde. Angela would possibly beat you to death with your own arm… at least a dozen times." Serpent said.
"Right? So, I've been in the vents all day and just popped out to say goodbye to you all." Cayde cleared his throat. "Goodbye. Don't let Rahool kill you with boredom, you'll still have to keep listening either way."
"Unlikely, Archon Cayde. You know how Master Rahool is..."
"Ouch. Yeah. Bummer for you guys. But I've gotta go before Angie catches me." Cayde clapped his hands and pointed at them. Without any more preamble, the experienced hunter then began using his double jump to get back into the vent, scampering back into it to hide from his wife. "Can one of you hand me that grate?"
2 TAKE 2~
Master Rahool, tower Cyptarch, had finished his typical work for the day of decoding any particular engrams guardians had found for him out on their travels. The process of decrypting them and logging their data was enough payment for the awoken Cryptarch, anything actually stored on them the guardians were free to have.
But again, he had finished that work for the day. Any engrams would be left in his corner of the tower for the next day of decoding. It was monotonous but satisfying. However, his mind now turned to other projects. A mission request he had put in a little over three months in the previous had finally been granted clearance for a fireteam to investigate. There wasn't all that much information to go on, so Rahool never doubted it was never going to be on the top of anybody's priority list.
What information there was, garnered from archives referencing one another, indicated that there was some sort of jump coordinates registry for non-sol colonies. Whilst this information was as of yet, unconfirmed, the possibility of still existing colonies from the golden age was a potentially valuable resource.
Completing his walk and arriving at the transmission hub, Rahool sat down at an empty terminal. It was a quiet day in the hub, most other terminals sitting empty as there was currently a lower influx of missions that required correspondence.
Another reason his request had been cleared.
"Okay, let's see. Been a while since I've used one of these…" Rahool murmured to himself as he flicked on the terminal and began connecting it to Fireteam Rumbler's currently assigned comms channel. With only one or two slip-ups, pressing the wrong buttons in the wrong order, Rahool successfully connected to the channel. "Ah, there we go."
Rahool cleared his throat before accessing the connected channel and giving his personal briefing.
"Hello, guardians. Looking at your position you're already close to the site where-"
"Rahool! What the hell did you get us into?!"
2 TAKE 2~
Meanwhile, on Mercury…
"I'm sorry… excuse me guardian Serpent-11?"
"I said: what the hell did you get us into Rahool?! This was supposed to be an investigative patrol! This is a bloody fucking warzone!" Serpent barked into her comms. Leaning an arm over the cover she was using; Serpent began firing her Outbreak Prime indiscriminately.
Likewise, her teammates were also firing their weapons over the same cover that they were sharing with Serpent. Kurux, having paused his shooting, finished loading a rocket launcher. Easily hefting it onto his shoulder with the typical strength of a titan, he pulled the trigger to fire the explosive munition to eviscerate a pack of charging Hive thralls, tossing their decaying bodies parts everywhere like a sawmill would sawdust.
"Another AA gun getting set up! I'm moving The Glittering Bandit away until it's destroyed!" Ikaldys said, tapping at a wrist-mounted tablet on her lower left arm with her upper right arm, both left arms still shooting matching hand cannons without looking. Tapping out a series of commands to her ship, a modified version of an eliksni skiff she had named 'The Glittering Bandit', the ship itself pulled away from its position as air support so as not to be shot down.
"I've got it!" Summer shouted. Manifesting a grenade out of her Light-ness powers, Summer primed it and wound up to pitch it. Scanning the battlefield as quickly as she could, she spotted the Anti Air gun that a group of Cabal were doing their best to set up in as little time as possible. This effort was cut short when a grape-coloured orb touched down squarely at their feet. The Cabal legionaries that were working on the ordinance had but a fraction of a second to look at the orb before it rapidly blossomed out, consuming them in a field the exact same shade of purple that the orb was already. In no time at all, the soldiers were having their very atoms ripped apart by the destructive void energy of Summer's Vortex Grenade. This damage extended to the anti-air cannon, having a large chunk of it disintegrated and the rest rendered inoperable.
"Thanks, Summy!" Ikaldys said, tapping their wrist computer and bringing back their air support.
"If you wouldn't mind Guardians, could someone please tell me what exactly is happening?" Rahool asked over comms.
Kurux finished throwing a mini Sentinel shield at an oncoming Goblin Fanatic, and decided it was best he answered. He would use the least sarcasm and/or snark. "Rahool, we're caught in the middle of a four-way firefight. The Cabal have already entrenched anti-orbital cannons, there's a fleet of Hive ships, and one of the Fallen Ketches hanging over us right now. There is absolutely no way we are getting out of here as it stands." Kurux briefly paused to focus on getting a jammed shell out of his Chaperone. "So, we're currently trapped in the lower regions of the Vex constructions. But get this; there's a Braytech site here that hasn't been converted by the Vex yet that we think is the reason for- excuse me for a second."
With Serpent having shouted a warning of a barrage from a Fallen Walker Tank, Kurux threw up a ward of dawn to shelter the fireteam.
"Sorry about that. We think that everyone's here for the Braytech site. Including us. So right now, Rahool, I think it'd be best if you got one of the Vanguard. No offence, but this situation seems to be a little out of your wheelhouse."
"I… have to agree with you, Guardian Jani. I'll go contact Commander Zavala." Rahool responded before the line went silent.
"…Rahool?" Zak asked from inside the safety of Summer's backpack.
No response.
"He… couldn't have just left to physically go and get the commander, could he? He knows that he shouldn't leave the line unattended, right?"
"À quand remonte la dernière fois qu'il a de nouveau exécuté la correspondance de la mission ?." Goose said in response.
Fireteam Rumbler realized that today was going to be a long day.
However, as it turned out, that would be a lowball as to just how long it was going to be, however.
2 TAKE 2
So, as promised I'm going to go over some exotic weapons, and the Templar class in more of a gamey, meta-ish way. Oh, and BTW, even if this is set before the Red War, I'm still going to be using the modern subclass system for ease of writing and streamlining of abilities.
All of these are open to criticism. If you make a compelling argument or suggest something I like more, I'll edit this part to include it and provide credit to whoever made the input. I haven't come up with any Forsaken alt supers for the Templar yet, so ideas are very much welcome.
First, let's go over the Templar.
2 TAKE 2
Air Movement – Directional Air Dash. Can be swapped between whether the movement follows your camera or button input (Holding jump to go up).
Class Ability – Phase Shift. Temporarily shift into an empty sub-dimension. Can be swapped between a quick dash to aid in positioning, or a full shift to stay there indefinitely. WARNING: the sub-dimension is not good at keeping space at a stable level. Prolonged exposure will result in death. (But this also means some smaller/thinner cover doesn't exist there.)
[*Yes I did just rip this straight from Titanfall. It's a good ability, so screw you.]
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ARC: Raiju
SUPER:
Stormsong – Send out a pulse of Arc energy that wraps around corners. The first number of enemies hit by the pulse will be struck by high-damaging bolts soon after. Can be swapped between a higher number of targets (wave prioritizing weaker enemies) or higher damage of bolts (wave prioritizing stronger enemies).
Melee:
Bolt Throw – Toss a high-damage precision bolt that pierces enemies.
Lightning Claw – create a slash of arc energy, enemies who are hit by the slash become Jolted. Can be chained twice (on different targets).
Aspects:
Thunderfang – Your Arc melee now lingers and gains a second charge
Lightning Hide – Air dashing now leaves a cloud of Arc energy that harms enemies. Allies inside the cloud will become Amplified until leaving.
Storm Drum – When a target becomes Jolted, they will be struck by weaker lightning.
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VOID: Fenrir
SUPER:
Night Hunt – Channeled super that causes the user to run like a wolf and deal high melee damage with a spectral void bite. Can be swapped between one that creates duplicates that mimic the user (the user can use the extra movement button (same as the Warlock Icarus dash) to swap places with a copy), damaging the duplicates will affect the offender with Suppression. The other Blinds nearby targets, scrambles the radars of enemy guardians, and will spawn void breaches when killing non-guardian enemies.
Melee:
Void Bite – Conjure a spectral void bite. Defeating enemies will enhance devour. Damaging enemies with Void Bite whilst Devour is active will extend the duration.
Aspects:
Shadow Fur: Coming out of a Phase Shift will grant invisibility.
Hungering Deep: Devour now also refills melee energy.
Spectral Chains: All grenades now Suppress targets. Suppression grenade now Suppresses targets for much longer.
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SOLAR: Ifriti
SUPER:
Burning Blade – grow slightly in size and conjure a flaming sword to cut down enemies. The first variation will conjure two swords and allow for a cyclone slash, scorching enemies. The second variation will mount defeated enemies on the sword growing it in size and increasing range, guardians defeated this way will not respawn until super ends or their team is wiped, and non-guardians will provide a stacking damage buff.
Melee:
Fanning Blade – Swipe a Solar sword in front of you, hitting multiple enemies and scorching them.
Sun Trick – Toss a disk of Solar energy. Hitting an enemy will deal damage and scorch them. Shooting the disk whilst it is still in the air will ricochet your first bullet into the nearest enemy's weakspot and multiply the weapon's damage [*Yes, I pulled this one straight from ULTRAKILL. It is also cool.]
Aspects:
Djinn Bottle – Firesprites now act as solar turrets until collected.
Monkey Paw – Consume a solar grenade to grant Cure and Radiant to yourself. Whilst you are Radiant, release a retaliatory solar blast at nearby enemies that attack you (on cooldown)
Pheonix Ashes – Igniting targets Cures and grants Restoration.
2 TAKE 2
And that's what I've got for the Templar Class. Again, if you think you have a better idea, or concept for a Forsaken Super variant or Exotic armour design, make sure to tell me. I'm sure your ideas are better than my own.
But now, a few exotic weapons
2 TAKE 2
The Royal Straight (Angela's signature Exotic Hand Cannons. Ikaldys uses a replica of them.) – Quad Hand Cannons, Energy, Solar.
Exotic Perk: The Fifth Card – After hitting four consecutive shots, load a heavy, fifth round that pierces and is all element types. (Fires all guns at once visually)
Intrinsic Perk: Four of a Kind – Each of the four hand cannons fires a different element. (I swear I had this idea before Conditional Finality, just look at Take 1 of this fic.)
Good Karma – Sniper Rifle, Heavy, Arc.
Exotic Perk: Aircraft Cannon – Rounds can be overcharged to pierce, bypass shields and deal increasing damage (caps).
Intrinsic Perk: Battery Pack – This weapon doesn't need to reload.
Last Directive: - Trace Rifle, Kinetic
Exotic Perk: Feed the Machine – Kills with this weapon generate up to 5 stacks of SIVA nanites. Firing whilst ADS-ed fires a nanite cluster that consumes 3 stacks.
Intrinsic Perk: Recycling. SIVA clusters transform defeated enemies into special ammo.
And that's all I have so you may now pass to the third chapter. Have fun!