"Where are we going?" Weiss asked as the elevator descended to the bottom floor.
"There's a Chinese place we like to pick up food from, Victoria, can you put in the order? Make it for three, please."
"Sure," Victoria said.
"Chinese?"
"It was a country on Earth, before the Collapse," Pyrrha explained, "It was a bit like Mistral. We like to pick up food from there because we can bring it back to the apartment."
Pyrrha reached onto her necklace and plucked off a golden engram flicking it into the air where Victoria shot it with a laser from her eye. The crystal unfolded into a red and bronze sparrow with a sharp chassis, a wolf head ornament on the top and two wings on either side.
"Wow," Weiss said.
"Like her?" Pyrrha said, patting a hand on the bike, "I paid Crux/Lomar, that's a weapons foundry, a lot of Glimmer for her. She's called the Gjallarswift."
"Weapons foundries make Sparrows?" Weiss asked.
"A lot of them do. Roseworks doesn't, outside of Ruby's personal Sparrow Bumblebee. Gjallarswift is the third fastest Sparrow out there, after whatever monstrocity Marcus Ren's riding at any particular moment and Bumblebee."
"I feel like there's a story behind Marcus," Weiss said, decrypting her own Sparrow. Or, well, having Mikeal decrypt it. Next to the Gjallarswift, it was very plain looking and unimpressive. Pyrrha decrypted her helmet, and Weiss did the same, sliding it on.
"Marcus is one of the best Hunters in the system," Pyrrha said, her voice coming out of a small speaker next to Weiss's ear as she began to drive. Weiss followed her into the city, "He's also the best Sparrow racer in the system and tends to come up with various insane Sparrow ideas. Last I heard, he was working on getting a NLS drive working in his Sparrow for some reason. Nobody could pilot that safely, not even Ruby, and her reflexes are [I]insane[/I] between the Light enhancing them and her Semblance."
"I'm surprised there aren't restaurants in the Tower," Weiss said as they began moving, carefully adjusting the speed of her sparrow to stay even with Pyrrha.
"Oh, there are. Almost any kind you can think of short of gourmet restaurants, we just prefer this one over the Tower's Chinese place. That, and I figured you would like to see the Last City up close."
"A lot of skyscrapers," Weiss offered, as they rode through a suburban neighborhood towards the "lot of skyscrapers".
"Expanding the Last City out is a difficult prospect," Pyrrha explained, "We'd have to build an extension to the Wall, assign a new barracks of militia and Guardians. They've done it before, but it requires a supermajority vote from the Consensus, that's the Last City's governing body. So instead, we tend to expand up. Nothing as big as the Towers, obviously, but up is where we go."
"Ruby mentioned them," Weiss said, "She said I could work for them to make Glimmer?"
"You could, but I wouldn't," Pyrrha said, "except for the Vanguard, the Consensus members are… questionable, in my opinion."
"The Vanguard is on the Consensus?"
"They're three of the seven votes," Pyrrha said, "one for each Vanguard leader."
So Ruby had become a political figure? That was… hard for Weiss to imagine, she was used to her hyper team leader.
—
Petra Venj, Queen's Wrath and acting regent of the Awoken strode out onto 2 Pallas, loading her Vestian Dynasty as she did. A seven woman unit of Reef Corsairs followed her out of her ship, a Ceres Galliot, each holding a Chrysura Melo to go along with their Vestian Dynasty sidearms and Black Talon swords, "Check your targets, I don't want us accidentally shooting our own."
In the sky above 2 Pallas, what few Galliots remained after the Battle of Saturn flew, shooting down the second wave of Hive seeder ships. Petra led her squad towards one of the ships that had already landed, drawing one of her talon-like knives. The settlement on Pallas had shut their doors, sealing the people within. And the Hive were trying to get in, well over a dozen thralls scratched at the door, only to be shoved aside by a hulking knight clutching a Hive cleaver, raising it above his head.
Petra's sidearm snapped up, braced on the hand holding her knife, and went off. The knight's head snapped forwards, blood splattering as it dropped its cleaver. The thralls stopped, turning towards them and staring, just for a second, before they charged, shrieking wildly as they came, "Open fire!"
At Petra's order, the corsairs fired long sweeping brusts of their Melos, scything down the thralls. Before they were done, more poured out of the seeder, accompanied by acolytes holding shredders, knights with boomers and cleavers and a wizard flying above. The squad immediately split, rushing for cover as the thralls chased them and the many guns went off. Most of them got to cover, three weren't so lucky.
One was hit dead on by a boomer shot, Arc energy exploding through them and frying them dead. The second had a shredder round go through their knee, dropping them and letting the thralls catch up. They drew their Black Talon, cutting down what they could before they were torn limb from limb. The third though, had it the worst. The wizard focused on them and then gestured with a hand, and the young woman exploded in green soulfire, burning to ash in less than a second.
Pulling out a pair of grenades, Petra pulled the pins on both and tossed them out, blowing the thralls to pieces and taking a couple of knights with them. More grenades came from the survivors of her squad seconds later, saturating the area with Arc energy, wiping out the entire hoard.
—-
Shiro-4 shot the Vex minotaur with Trespasser, walking over to the object it had been standing over… and promptly swore under his breath "Son of a bitch- Suzume, please tell me that isn't-?"
"I wish I could," Suzume popped out, scanning the broken Ghost, "It's Sasha, Shiro."
"Where's Tev, then?" Shiro's eyes trailed to the open Vex gate, "You don't think he went in there, do ya?"
"I'm picking up Light emissions. They're weak, but they're there," Suzume said.
"Well, we better go after him, before he gets his dumb ass killed," Shiro said, plunging into the portal and coming out in a field with red flowers as far as the eye could see, a large mesa in the distance, "You picking up any shortwaves, Suzu?"
"One, hooking up now," Suzume said, before a gritty, rasping voice came from her.
"Who's there?"
"Tev, it's Shiro. Ruby sent me looking for you, we need you back at the Tower. Or, well, needed you. Sasha's… she's gone."
"Probably gonna follow her soon, brother," Tevis said, before coughing a bloody, phlegm filled cough, "I took a slap rifle round to the chest. It ain't healin' without Sasha and I got a minotaur comin'. Don't have much ammo left either."
"I'm coming to get you, don't you dare die," Shiro ordered as Suzume lit Tevis's location on his HUD.
"Ain't that easy," Tevis coughed, "Do me a favor. Don't bury me next to Jaren. It's stupid, I know, but I always wanted to be launched into the sun. Figured that'd be a fun way to go."
"Tev, you better not-" the sound of a torch hammer came from Suzume, and Shiro went silent. He slowly stored the Trespasser in his hip holster, drawing his bowie knife. The Arc crackled, and Shiro blinked forwards, landing on the mesa and seeing Tevis lying there, his messy hair singed and his chest caved in. Another blink and Shiro was on the minotaur that had done the deed, driving the large blade knife into its juicebox before ripping it out. Walking over to Tevis, he looked down, "Suzume, call Ruby."
"What?" Blossom snapped, "She's on the console."
"I need to talk to her, Blossom. It's… it's Tev."
"What's up, Shiro?" Ruby asked, and the Exo sighed, picking up Hawkmoon and putting it in Tevis's hand.
"Tev… didn't make it. Got stuck in the Black Garden without Sasha and… took a torch hammer to the chest."
"Bring him home," Ruby said after a second, voice devoid of emotion.
"He wanted… he wanted to be shot into the sun, the showboater," Shiro said.
"We'll do that once everyone's home," Ruby said, "but that'll take a few days. Bring him home for now."
—
