Who else is excited for the Final Shape and excited to see Cayde-6 and his beautiful horn once again? School's a bitch and as I'm writing this my mind is a bit sluggish from the day and how it went, got sick a few days ago and still went to school on Thursday and Friday, no clue why but I'm still surprised I got this done in a few weeks. I'm unsure if I got Cayde's personality completely down but as I go on it's my hope to completely nail it by the end.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
-OtherwiseR00K
Cayde leaned up against a tree, his hand on his chin and his mind on the situation, "So, to recap, we have no clue where we are."
"Yep," Sundance replied, hovering a little away from him.
"The wildlife is similar to Earth, we literally saw a deer-looking thing like two minutes ago. I somehow have the Ace, even though I remember Sov taking it. We're alive even though I remember you being, well, shot and I died telling the Guardian not to blame themself."
"They'll still blame themselves, you know how they are."
"Yeah, but I'm holding hope. Anyway, the moon is shattered all to hell and I can't remember a planet in the Sol system with that kind of moon, ergo we must be outside the solar system."
Cayde looked at the sky in thought, he knew they had to be far from Earth since he could not recall a planet like this in Sol so they had to be outside of it. If this was a planet outside the Sol new things could be here, never seen before.
Another line of thought reared its head in Cayde's mind and so he looked at his hand and willed the light to ignite and solar fire erupted in his palm. The Light still reached him.
"Sundance, how far would we have to be for the light to not possibly reach us?"
Sundance's shell spun as the ghost thought, "I..I don't know, I'm aware the light reaches us at the edges of the Sol system but, I don't know its actual range."
"Well, it must be pretty far if you're still getting the Traveler's light."
"Yeah," Sundance said, hesitantly as if something was bothering her, "I guess it does."
Cayde noticed the unease in her voice but just assumed she was worried about getting back home and so he went back to thinking.
Cayde snapped his fingers as an idea came to him, "Sundance can you see if you can detect any radio waves?"
"Yeah." Sundance rose higher into the air, about the height of the tree canopy, and her shell split. She stayed like that, her shell spinning around her like moons, for a moment before they snapped back and she came down, "I'm picking up a signal, though it's rather weak and pretty primitive."
"Yes! Can you tap into it from here?"
"No, it's far too weak, we'd need to be closer."
"Okay, which way is it?" Cayde asked in excitement at the prospect of getting off the planet.
"North, and if I'm calculating correctly the signal begins getting stronger about 250 miles north."
"That's not so bad," Cayde waved off the distance and looked North.
"Yeah, but Cayde, we need to keep in mind the possibility the species on this planet isn't as advanced as ours. It's very possible they haven't even gotten to their moon-"
Cayde put his finger to Sundance's shell in a shushing gesture, "Eh, eh, we ain't got time for negativity, Sunny."
"It's not negativ-"
"Doesn't matter, you could jinx us, so just zip it."
"But-"
"Ep."
"Cayde-"
"Eugh."
"I really don't thin-"
"ZIP IT! Don't jinx it!" Cayde grabbed Sundance and shook her, "We can't jinx this, we gotta get home dang it!"
"AL-RIGHT-I-GET-IT-ST–OP S-HAKIN-NG ME!"
Cayde let go of Sundance who spun dizzily in the air before righting herself and glaring at Cayde, "Good, now we got some distance to go so it's time to let her soar once more!"
Cayde turned and summoned forth his steed, a sexy sleek beast of a sparrow, tuned and modified by Cayde-6 with some assistance from Amanda Holliday. Course' if Holliday ever learned of the sparrow carcass he used as a frame for the Gambler's Palm she'd probably kill him.
Cayde lovingly stroked the hood of the sparrow, "Oh, baby, you sweet sexy thing. Your time has come, make me proud."
Cayde climbed onto the seat and revved the boosters, it purred like a cat high on nip. Cayde nodded and pushed the handles forward, rocketing off into the night, "WHOOHOO! YEAH!"
Yelps of jubilation and joy echoed through the forest.
/-/
Four Hours Later
"Knock, Knock" Cayde prompted as he continued swerving between trees.
"Who's there?"
"Nobel."
"Nobel, who?"
"Nobel, that's why I knocked!" Cayde 'eh'd', hoping for a giggle of some kind but got a sigh of exasperation.
"Alright, alright guess you've heard that one before. How do you say hi to a Hive Thrall?"
"Buckshot?"
"Nope, Hi Ven!"
"I think you're running out of jokes, Cayde."
Cayde gasped as if he'd just heard the Colonel had stubbed its toe, "Impossible, the joke vault can never run out! Just gotta think of another one..."
"Your jokes can wait, Cayde, we just crossed the threshold."
"Really? Huh, how convenient. Okay, look for space-related projects and anything relating to the species on this planet."
Sundance was quiet a moment, searching for the things Cayde had asked for, "Cayde?"
"What'd you find?"
"Um, a lot."
"Cool, then point me toward the nearest Cosmodrone and we'll be on our wa-"
"Cayde, they have no Cosmodrones. They haven't even gotten out of the planet's atmosphere."
Cayde pulled the brakes on the sparrow, stopping him near instantly, "What?"
"They haven't gotten any active space programs as it was abandoned after the substance used to fuel everything was learned to become inert after leaving the atmosphere."
"What?"
"Also," Sundance's voice faltered slightly, "Humans are the species on this planet."
"What!? Wait, but, huh?"
"I know, I'm still processing this. Another human planet, the City would be ecstatic at this discovery."
"Wait, wait, wait, you said they didn't even break the atmosphere. How were you getting a signal, then?"
"The tower I've tapped into is massive. From what I can tell the tower was built with a massive range in mind for the continent but strands of that signal went further than the limit, I'm still rummaging through the data but from what I can tell there are three others beside this one, we just appeared closer to it."
Cayde was quiet. His mind whirling for a solution to the issue, but, the Queen of Hearts wasn't connected to him as he couldn't feel the transmat.
"The fuel, what is it?" It couldn't have been anything he was familiar with if the substance became completely inert outside the atmosphere.
"A crystal mined out from the ground, it powers quite literally everything and they named it Dust."
"Dust? They named a power source after dirt particles?"
"Yeah, it's a little strange. But this Dust is all they've discovered to power their machines, so unfortunately we're…"
"Trapped here." Cayde finished for her. The two lapsed into silence, Cayde thought over the things he'd never see again. The sunrise over the Last City, the young Hunters that came to him for help, Zavala's fun-killing, and Ikora's comebacks.
Cayde leaned back into his seat and turned his head to the sky, it'd been getting brighter as he traveled for the signal range and it looked as if dawn had just arrived. His mind took in the beauty of the dawn, the oranges, purples, and blue, "Well, could've been worse, at least the dawn is as beautiful as it should be."
Cayde sighed, "Hope they can handle themselves without me."
Grrrrr
Cayde's head snapped over to the tree line, a large shadow was watching him, and Cayde noticed multiple glowing orange eyes watching from behind its own fiery orange eyes.
Cayde dismissed the sparrow and pulled the Ace of Spades from its holster, "Sundance, I thought you said humanity was the only notable species on this planet."
"Never said that."
"Well, you didn't imply anything else," Cayde watched as the smaller shadows began leaving the tree line and he could get a good look at them. They looked like bipedal wolves, with long arms and long legs with some muscle on them, of course, he couldn't see much more than that as their fur was pitch black.
Most were just that, large wolves with black fur, a few had more though. White plates decorated their bodies, these ones seemed in charge as they were further in the back. They were noticeably larger too.
"Alright, what are these things," They hadn't attacked yet so Cayde kept Ace pointed down but ready if they did.
"Grimm, Beowolves to be precise."
"Name tracks." Cayde looked at, what he believed to be, the younger beowolves and saw they were growling fiercely but still staying back.
"Beowolves will usually hunt in packs, humans to be precise, they are simply the most common form of Grimm."
"So they hunt humans?"
"Yes."
"Hmm, then why aren't they charging, the younger ones look as if they want to make me a chew toy."
"They have a pack mentality, which means they must listen to the Alpha."
Cayde looked past the beowolves and to the large shadow, still in the shadow of the trees, "So that must be the Alpha."
"Yes, I believe it is observing you, trying to figure out how dangerous you are."
"Why, I thought it was an animal. Animals aren't that smart."
"Grimm are different, if what I'm reading is to be believed, the older a Grimm is the more dangerous they are as they get older they get smarter."
"And how old would this Alpha be?"
"At least a few decades."
"Oh, great, so what are my odds of getting out of this without dying once?"
"Don't know, we're not using dust bullets so I can't give you a proper answer."
Cayde nodded and aimed the Ace of Spades at one of the younger beowolves and suddenly the whole pack howled. The howl was loud and seemed like something you'd hear at the entrance of hell, Cayde didn't waste any time and had already sent two bullets forward as the pack charged.
The two rounds punched through two of the young beowolves head, killing them instantly. Cayde sent a few more rounds and a few more beowolves met their end, Cayde had to duck to avoid a swipe from the first beowolf to make it to him and he shot it in the head.
Cayde ducked another swipe and jumped to kick the beowolf, he used the thing's head to spring himself back and landed in the canopy of a tree. He reloaded Ace and sent a throwing knife toward the approaching beowolves, it hit an older one and didn't seem to do much.
Cayde shot two more from his perch and jumped when the beowolves attempted to get at him. He flipped over them, getting two more shots in, and two more dead beowolves. Landing in a crouch, he went to a single knee to duck under a beowolf lunging before fanning three shots into the things back
It hit the ground in a heap and didn't move again.
Cayde stood to his full height and reloaded the Ace, he turned on his heel for any more of them, and when he only saw corpses he spun Ace in a casual manner, "Heh, yup, haven't lost a beat-"
"CAYDE!"
SLASH
Cayde stumbled forward and looked to his right, he had forgotten about the Alpha.
The Alpha stood taller than the rest of the beowolves, it was much taller than the shadow he'd seen displayed so it must've been crouched. The thing barely missed the top of the tree canopy.
It was big, and most certainly scarier. The thing's claws were long and jagged and its bone plating was larger and seemed a little thicker, its spikes erupted from its elbows and shoulders and the mask was more angular with spikes pointed back.
Cayde went to aim Ace and suddenly realized the problem with that. His whole forearm was missing, "Aw, come on, that's the second time in nearly a year!"
Cayde didn't miss a beat and ducked under another slash from the Alpha, he used his left hand and unsheathed the knife on his hip and held it in a reverse grip. The Alpha seemed to notice the knife and growled, its eyes glinting in the sun rising above the canopy.
"Come on, Wolfy, let's go."
As if responding to his challenge the Alpha slammed its paw down where Cayde was, he sidestepped it and slashed at its wrist. It pulled back and tried backhanding Cayde, who jumped over it with a twirl, slicing it in the same spot.
Cayde took a gander at the spot he'd slashed and saw the Alpha could still use the joint even with the tendons having been severed. Cayde rolled away from a stomp, jumped from the roll, and stabbed the Alpha in the back, using the knife to pull himself up onto the back of the Alpha. He ripped the knife from its position and ran up the Alpha's back, it attempted to get him off but Cayde had already made it to the neck.
Cayde brought the knife down hard into the thing's nape, going down to the hilt. The Alpha roared in pain, it tried shaking Cayde off but he held on and twisted it before sliding down the side of the neck bringing the blade with him.
Cayde carved the Alpha's throat out and kicked off it, the knife tore through the bottom of the Alpha's chin and out the jaw. The Alpha fell as Cayde landed a little away from it.
Cayde looked over at the Alpha, not sure if it was actually dead so to make sure he threw another knife at the thing.
It didn't respond.
Cayde relaxed with a chuckle before remembering his arm, he looked down at his stub and turned toward the area his arm may have landed. Walking over, Cayde easily found the remains of his forearm and the Ace of Spades not very far from it.
Cayde grabbed his arm and looked it over, "Hey, buddy, help me out here."
Sundance appeared above his stump and looked at it before looking back at Cayde, "This is why you need to pay attention, Cayde."
"I know," It was something of a bad habit for Cayde, that would have to change as he didn't want a repeat of…Cayde shook his head, better to not go down that avenue of thought.
Sundance scanned the stump and Cayde placed the arm onto the stump. She hovered around it while shooting off beams of light, practically welding it back together, she made sure to fix the wiring as well so Cayde could actually move the limb.
Cayde tested his arm, rolling it and testing his wrist movements and fingers. Satisfied Cayde picks up Ace, wipes the dirt off, and holstered it.
"Fleabags done and dusted, arm reattached, and many questions on my mind," Cayde turned toward Sundance, "the first being what the Grimm are exactly."
"If you're wondering if they are the Darkness, you'd thankfully be wrong, however, they appear to be made of a darkness. I'm not so sure as to what though."
"So, they're completely made of this other darkness?"
"Yes, besides the bone from what I'm reading," Cayde turned toward the bodies and was surprised to see the fur dissipating off the Alpha.
"Uhh, is that supposed to happen?" Cayde gestured toward the Alpha, Sundance turned and looked curiously at the phenomenon.
"Apparently, yes, the Grimm corpses tend to vanish after they die. The older they are they leave more behind though, bones, mask plates."
"Well, I'm sure that helps with cleaning up after a slaughter." Cayde watched as the corpses dissipated, the younger one having disappeared while he wasn't paying attention. The older ones left behind the masks and a few bones while the Alpha left its whole skeleton behind.
Cayde momentarily wondered if any museum would want the bones but discarded the thought and turned back to Sundance, "Alright, are you picking up any local signals, radio, the tower network at all?"
"Yes, I'm picking up a signal about twenty miles North-East."
"Alright, we got our next destination." Cayde went to summon the Gambler's Palm but Sundnace stopped him.
"Wait, Cayde, we should take the bones with us."
"Why?"
"For monetary reasons, Grimm bones can fetch some hefty amounts of money."
"Why would we need money? We got near enough Glimmer to be rivals with Shaxx for Pete's sake-"
"Cayde, not a space-faring race, haven't gotten past the atmosphere, they don't have Glimmer."
Cayde stared at the ghost for a long moment, "So you're telling me, all the Glimmer I have accumulated over my centuries as Guardian mean diddly squat here."
"Yup," Was Sundance's quick and brutal reply.
Cayde sighed long and raspily as his entire body bent over as if deflating. He'd spent centuries collecting, gambling, clearing entire poker tables for the glimmer he'd earned, and it was worthless here.
"Alright, alright, getting bones, finding what the hell they use as currency, and then back to cleaning casinos for what it is. Heh, that'll be fun."
Cayde walked over to the boneyard he'd made and went collecting the bones, digitizing them into the inventory Sundnace held in her drives.
Once done, Cayde summoned the Gambler's Palm, "Alright since I'm going to meet the locals, it'd be best to know the general things about this planet. Sundance, compile a file about this planet and tell me about it on our way."
"Alright, Cayde, first things first is this planet," Cayde sped off toward the signal as Sundance continued, "is called Remnant."
Alright so I want to know how I did with Cayde's character, I did tweak some things as I personally believe he tones down some of the Cayde charms when not around others. Sundance to me is probably the closest person to Cayde, besides any other Guardians including the other Vanguard so Sundance gets to see more of Cayde than others usually do.
I also believe the fact that Cayde not paying much attention to his environment is the cause of his death, he didn't come in taking things that seriously and got Sundance killed. A very bad habit to have, but understandable considering his immortality, it'd make anyone a little cocky. I mean look at Salem, she could give two shits if you blast her to pieces and didn't even defend against the punches from Yang, just took them like a champ.
Anyway, I'm doing this to flesh Cayde out more, as we've mostly seen Cayde in the eyes of our Guardian. We haven't seen Cayde completely by himself, be they enemies or friends that surround him. I also need people to tell me if I'm doing something wrong, If Cayde feels off to you you gotta tell me cause I'm not good at catching some character issues. Tell me what you think is wrong and I'll fix it to the best of my ability if it needs to be fixed.
So thank you for reading and have a nice morning/afternoon/evening.
-OtherwiseR00K