A Hint of Ozone

Crona exhaled slowly and lowered herself down even slower. She held herself close to the ground for a drawn out, too long count of three and then pushed, rising back up. Then down again, hold, hold, slowly...back up. She wasn't counting. With no interest in impressing anyone or surpassing any goals, she rarely did. Her Ghost did, however, and he'd gladly tell her anytime she passed old limits. If there were any goals, that was the only one that mattered.

The struggle came in keeping quiet. Her nephew asleep on her bed, she knew if her breathing overwhelmed the sound of his snoring, she was being too loud. No particular reason Trey was in here, he just liked sleeping in different beds, sometimes her's, sometime's her parents'. His father's childhood bed remained a staunch favorite.

Crona pushed back into the raised position and decided that the trembling in her arms was too much to ignore. She pulled her legs inward, settled her feet flat onto the floor and rose back up to her full height. Shake the arms out, calm your breathing, let the blood flow. Then take one, extend the muscle, stretch out the tightness, relax. Take the other, the left one, stretch out the tension, relax.

She relaxed but didn't let the arm down. Two circles surrounding both her wrist and the flesh just before her elbow. Two small lines dropped down to connect with the head and tail of a diamond etched into her forearm. Easily mistaken for a tattoo, like the sunburst clan mark on her right shoulder; deep black lines stark against the cloudy blue of her skin. Crona turned slightly, ensuring Trey was still sleeping. Then she called on her Light, willing it into her arm.

The Aegis shield materialized, as resplendent and vibrant as it had been the very first time Crona had brought it to life. Test after test had been run on the shield as well as her and her Light. From the Gensym Scribes to Owl Sector to Ikora herself, not a single person was able to explain how Kabr's Ghost had left this on her arm or how to have it removed. The one thing that they were able to confirm was that it had no ill effects on her well-being. And it worked as well out in the world as it did in the Vault so she was in no rush to get rid of it. On the contrary; it was a trophy for a battle well fought and a memento of a friend who fell that day in their defense.

"Crona?" Sol's instinct to speak quietly remained even in her head.

She willed the shield away, covering the room in darkness again and stretched her arms over her head. "Yeah?"

"It's Aro. He's back at the Tower since early this morning," he reported, "Coincidentally, no one's seen him or Daniel all day yesterday."

"Ew," she responded out loud and on instinct, "And shame. The only time I can get a real challenge out of Daniel is when he's in a crap mood."

"He won your last two of three."

"And he paid for those wins with several teeth and a fucked knee." Truthfully, she never enjoyed seeing him in such a bad mood, he was her friend and Aro shouldn't have just disappeared like that, though she doubts she could blame him. Introverted man that he was, this new celebrity status had to have been hitting him pretty hard. Then there was Pride and their uncanny likeness. Crona hadn't missed how the others had been acting around him, mostly because she could feel herself doing the same for some time. It was damn hard not to. She was to head to the Tower today and would find him. She hoped she would, at least, assuming he hadn't gone and developed a taste for running off planet without warning. But again, she still couldn't find it in herself to blame him.

Trey was still asleep by the time Crona had showered, dressed and stepped out. He wasn't a quiet kid. If he had been awake, he'd be running up and down her home, yelling his head off, breaking every little thing as children naturally do.

So it was strange when she found how much of her brother she could hear from her bedroom door on the second floor. He was loud. He was angry, the only time he ever became loud. Her mother and Akira were with him, judging by the softer tones that followed his own.

Crona found them surrounding the main television in the living area. Her mother sat quietly in a chair while her brother practically paced a ditch into their floor, blue eyes blazing with fury. Akira just stood next to him, her face an equal mix of worry and anger.

A news report, voices filling the house. Another Exo killed, the third such event this month. Killed and dismembered. Or rather, she realized as she listened further, killed by dismembering. No doubt by some hateful freak convinced they weren't living things with a concept of pain, just a simulated imitation, as if that made any sort of difference.

To make matters worse, the attack had occurred in their district. It explained the extra voices Crona could hear on the TV; crowds were gathering, people were in an uproar. It also explained why Z seemed to be taking this so personally.

"I still think you're wasting your time, Z," Akira said, breaking the silence.

"No. It should be cancelled."

"Come on. Be reasonable."

"I am being reasonable!"

"Then be like Hideo," she tried, earning a snarl of disgust. She slipped her hand into his shoulder and despite never taking his eyes away from the screen, his own came up to cover her's. "He's funding a big part of this gala," she continued, "Do you really think something like this is going just suddenly change his mind?"

He groaned this time, more resignation than anger. "If he had an ounce of integrity, he would."

"My point exactly." That earned her a smile.

Crona watched them, watched the report and thought back to Asura and Wrath(A), remembering just kind of treatment set him off in the first place. "I have to wonder," Crona said, earning their eyes, "Would we still be dealing with this kind of thing if people knew what was really going on out there?"

Z scoffed softly. "The cynic in me wants to say yes. But I remember the weeks after Dredgen Yor's attacks on the civilians. How peaceful things were." He shook his head. "It shouldn't take so much suffering to bring people together."

Crona turned her eyes back to the report, to the crowds behind the reporter. Roiling, angry and showing no signs of calming down. She hoped it did, before authorities began resorting to more drastic actions as they were inclined to do. Even to the point of trying to pull Guardians into the fray, something that would be done more often if the Speaker and her father didn't keep such a short, tight leash. Crona stepped forward and put a gentle hand to her mother's shoulder to get her attention. "Did father leave already?"

"Yes. The Tower." Eve sounded weary. Whether from this or something else, she wanted to ask but ultimately decided against it. Besides, she knew the answer and it would do nothing for her to hear it aloud.

"Cayde?"

"Crona!" The Exo broke his stride and backtracked. "Crona, my favorite Crona. Is it important?" he asked, "I'm on a mission for the boss."

She chuckled. 'Have you seen my own around anywhere?"

"Which one? Big, blue and beautiful or tall, dark and tired?"

Crona blinked. "Both, actually."

"Aro made his way down to one of the meditation rooms on Ikora's suggestion." He pointed in the general direction. "From what I could get from eavesdropping, it's about his…" He paused to look around before leaning in. "Visions."

Visions. Trouble always started with visions.

"Your old man, as a matter of fact, was just asking after you. I suggest seeing him first."

"I will. Thanks, Cay-" She was cut off by the sound of a voice. A familiar one ringing out from one of the displays hanging in Vanguard Hall. Someone had put on the news, still reporting on the Exo civilian's murder and turned it up so that it had captured the attention of everyone in the Hall. The Hunter's attention had been taken by it and it was the most somber Crona had seen him in a very long time.

He broke eye contact with the screen and gestured to grab the attention of a nearby frame. "Hey, buddy, do me a favor? Change the channel. We all know what happened."

"Z came up here with me," she told him. "He's talking to Hideo about getting the gala cancelled. Or at the very least, moved."

"He's wasting his breath."

"Akira said the same."

"Great minds…" Crona laughed at that. "And yet he's still trying. He's as bad as the old man…" Cayde blinked, "Who is going to have my metal hide for knitting needles if I don't get this done." He bounded past and she let him go, steeling herself before entering the main hall.

The Commander was there, set in the same place as he always was, as resolute and unchanging as the walls of the City or the Tower itself. And she'd spend the next several decades at the very least keenly aware of how much she had hurt him. Unlike her mother, her brother, her sister in law, she had no choice but to give her father the full story of their raid on the Vault, done against orders of his that couldn't have been clearer if he wanted them to be.

She had to look him, Ikora and Cayde all in the eye and tell them about the Templar, the Vex Hydra equipped with a near impenetrable shield and the ability to knock its enemies from the timeline. She told them of the Gorgons, who could take a single look at them and simply make the decision they did not exist. All things she, Erek and Aro had nearly experienced firsthand. Ikora demanded an explanation and oh, how it pained her to give it. The Templar didn't kill them, no, and neither did the Gorgon. The latter simply erased them. The former, knocked them out of the current timeline into some kind of space in between. There, they would have drifted, as Praedyth had. As Praedyth was still doing. All the years Wrath(K) had with control over the Vault and even he could not find a way to bring his friend back. Maybe there was no way.

Had the Templar succeeded, as with Praedyth, no one outside of the Vault at the time would recall Crona or Aro ever having existed. Her father and mother would go through the rest of their days never recalling their daughter. Z would spend the rest of his life thinking himself an only child. And on the rare chance Daniel or Kayla had done what Kabr made Pahanin do and escaped, they would return to the Tower, shaken, ranting and raving to Zavala about the daughter he never had. Odds are, just like Pahanin, they'd be written off as mad, irreparably traumatized.

Neither of them talked much after that. Not for the days or even some weeks after. When it did happen, it was mainly concerning work. It was what she expected this to be about and a part of her wondered if things would ever change. Or at least, go back to the way they were.

He noticed her before she could reach him, straightening up and clasping his hands behind his back. "Crona, good. I'm glad you're here."

"Did you need me to do something?"

"Yes...and no." Zavala sighed, looked around them and then put a hand to her shoulder, leading her to the Hall's back window, facing walls and the mountains behind them. He watched them in silence for some time. She simply watched him.

"There is a project I've been hoping to work on," he told her quietly, "A weapon I wanted to create. Or recreate, so to speak." He turned away from the window to look at her. "During your time in the Vault, did you come across any weapons? Ones that could work in a Guardian's hands?"

"No. None of us did. Was there something we should have seen? And what is this project?"

"You will learn as we go along. I suspect, we both will. A baseline schematic was all we could pull from Ghost's memories. For a weapon that few records seem to match."

"Who else is working on this?"

"Just you. And…me. Us. Together." He cleared his throat and looked away. Before Crona could even begin to discern why he was acting the way he was, he was speaking again. "Your arm, the Aegis. How is it treating you?"

The arm shifted on instinct. "The same as always. No problems."

"Good, good. And your missions?"

"Asura's been enjoying our time out again. Said he wants to go to the Moon, work out a year's worth of frustration on the Hive." Her father gave a smile at that. One that reached his eyes and lit up the entirety of his face.

He sobered quickly. "Crona, listen," he said, "I know things have been...tense for the last year now."

She shrugged weakly. "It's not like it wasn't deserved," she murmured. "Your orders were clear."

"You still do not regret it?"

"No. I'm sorry but I don't. I can't. It was for Asura."

He smiled ruefully. "Shaxx is right. You're too much like me. It's infuriating," he said, "This, I feel, is a chance for us to fix things." He put his hand back to her shoulder, "I would have no one else help me with this."

The warm, comforting hand dropped away. Crona missed it almost immediately. It was as if she was a child again. "My Ghost is sending Sol a list of items. I want you two to take some time retrieving them. Banshee will be your best bet and whatever he can't find, he should be able to direct you to." He turned and started back towards the table, where a few Guardians seemed to be waiting; requiring his attention but unwilling to intrude on the Commander's private conversation with his daughter. "In the meanwhile, I will see what other schematics I am able to discover. If we're lucky, we might even find a name. Go on. I'll contact you if I have any updates."

"Banshee."

"Crona." The old Exo looked up from his work, reassembling a sniper rifle he had taken apart. His hands never stopped moving, even as he was no longer watching his work. "What can I do for you?"

"I…" Her words trailed off as she looked down at what he was doing. "The scope."

"What about it?"

"It's in the wrong-" The Exo deftly flipped the weapon over, showing her that he was doing the entire assembly upside down as well as blind. "Who are you showing off for?"

He chuckled. "You were saying something?"

"I just told Sol to send you a list of items," she said, "Need them for a weapon."

He picked up a nearby datapad and started scrolling. "Hmm. Most of these I can get though it'll take a while. Especially this Arc engine. Haven't seen one of these specifications in years." Banshee brought the pad closer to his eyes. "Who gave you this list?"

"The Commander."

"I...swear I've seen these before." He shook his head. "Memory's not what it used to be." Banshee turned the tablet around and pointed to one item on the list. "Talk to Lakshmi-2 about this. Don't know why. Just know that you should."

Crona took the datapad from his hands. An Arc magnetizer. Along with an Arc engine and an insular containment frame. What kind of weapon were they creating? She wished she could talk to Ghost again. Whatever the weapon was, it would have had something to do with Kabr and no one in the entire system knew him better.

But the more she considered it, the more she found herself preferring it like this. If remaining in the dark meant she'd get to spend more time with her father and finally start putting this whole thing behind them, so be it.

I've meditated before, Ikora. It's never helped much.

Then try differently. Meditate but do not ignore your visions. Focus on them. I believe it is time we considered that they may be trying to tell you something.

So here he was, following his teacher's orders like the good apprentice he was trying to be. That he had been before the Vault.

Kain maintained a list of his dreams as he could only see Aro's memories of them when he woke up. Kept tallies for the ones that showed up more often; the ones near the top of that list as well as the most recent would be his best bet.

"No fire."

"Aro, I understand its uncomfortable. But it's the most recent!" Kain argued, "The one most fresh in your mind."

Damn right it was the most fresh. He could still feel heat on his face. His throat still hurt from screaming, he still had that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was horribly, horribly wrong. Aro swallowed and said again, "No fire."

"Alright. No fire. Which one then?"

Aro exhaled. "Let's go back to where it all started. The first dream."

He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. Then another. And another. With each one, Aro willed the tension from his shoulders, from his back, his neck, even his toes until not a single muscle in his body was clenched. Then he thought of it; the seven pairs of red eyes, the howling dark around them. He visualized each of their faces, the names, who they were, who they are now.

It took seconds for him to realize that his eyes were no longer closed.

It took a little longer for Aro to realize that he was no longer sitting on a floor inside the Tower. No, he was somewhere else entirely. A world of pitch black, deep, roiling fogs and howling winds. He stood, looking beneath himself to find no solid ground but an endless fall.

Another vision. Aro had no idea where this one had taken him and yet, deep down, he knew he had been here before. Occasionally, something akin to lightning would strike in the distance, giving him brief moments to observe this new world farther ahead than his own hand. Aro could just barely make out strange, towering structures. Like twisted, gnarled trees. Or the tentacles of some kind of dead abomination, frozen and fossilized in empty space.

"What is this place?" Aro twisted around, pulling air into his lungs that he couldn't believe was actually there. Why would his mind take him here?

A sharp sting pricked his heart, here and gone, but intense enough to have his hand grabbing for his chest. With it came...indication. Aro twisted around in the void again, this time on instinct and in the direction the pain seemed to point him towards.

In the distance, Aro could see the Heralds. Not just their general presence, dark silhouettes and deep red eyes but the Heralds, five of them, in their entirety. The stubble on Greed's face, the tired lines on Sloth's face, everything.

Aro focused in on Pride, always at the center of everything. No matter how many times he looked in the mirror and thought of his brother's face, it was jarring to see it up close again. There were more lines to him, more living on him, though he didn't at all appear the centuries he had been through. Pride just looked like an older Aro. A bit unkempt, broader in shoulder and chest. He definitely held his head higher and his back straighter. The look in his eyes seemed wild, almost hungry in an unhinged way. Did Pride look like him, before the years got to him? Or was Aro looking through a window into the past? So many questions and he was standing face to face with the man who could answer them all.

Aro was suddenly broken out of his trance. There was some kind of shift in the world around him. Not one so much as seen but felt. The same feeling of indication that pointed him towards the Heralds kept his attention there, on their faces, ever unmoving.

Pride blinked.

Aro stepped back. Pride was blinking. Pride was moving. Pride never moved, none of them did. But now they all were. Pride blinked again, his face contorting into confusion, surprise and anger. All the others, the four surrounding appeared stunned.

The stinging came back. This time in his stomach and this time, the pain lingered. It felt as if there was an open pit, swallowing him inside out. Every second Pride's eyes remained focused on him only made the pain worse and worse.

Pride's face slowly relaxed. His tensed shoulders fell and his large fists unclenched. Still with pain burning in his gut, Aro watched as the corners of his brother's lips twitched and then lifted into a small, warm smile.

Aro's eyes flew open and immediately shut again, blinded by the light of the meditation room. "Kain? Kain!"

"I'm here." His Ghost floated underneath his arms as he slowly moved them from his eyes, blinking and adjusting.

"My memories, you have them?" When Kain didn't respond, Aro called him again. "Kain, what is it? What's wrong?"

"I have memories, yes but...not yours. My own. Aro," he said, "I think I was there."

"What?"

"I was there. Yes, I see it now. Howling winds, deep fog…"

"Lightning in the background, revealing-"

"Weird, twisting spires. And the Heralds, watching us. Pride...smiled."

Aro leaned back on his hands. "This makes no sense. I didn't see you there. You're never there. But...this did feel different somehow."

"Another thing Aro. I'm checking the time now and it appears that about half an hour has passed."

Aro blinked in surprise. "Barely felt like ten minutes."

The sudden sound of the door opening captured their attention. Crona's voice came through in greeting and both turned.

Aro was on his feet in an instant. "The door opened."

"The door opened…" Kain repeated.

"Crona came through…"

"Yes. She...did."

The door was not open. Crona was not standing there, watching him stare at her like some kind of mind-addled idiot. Aro put his hand to his chest, feeling that familiar sting in his heart.

The sound of the lock disengaging nearly had Aro leaping from his skin and Kain darting behind him for protection on instinct. The door slowly slid open to reveal Crona, indeed staring at him like an idiot. Not that he was helping matters, of course. He watched her, she watched him watch her and then spoke. "You back?"

"Yes."

"You talk to Daniel?"

"Yes."

She smirked. "What kind of talking?"

"Get out."

She laughed at him and entered anyway. To her credit, she calmed him enough for him to sit back down. "You heard the news? About the Exo?"

"In passing," he answered. "But it's being mentioned a lot. Talk of the Tower."

"My brother went to Hideo. To discuss the appropriateness of a gala after what had happened. No avail."

"Unsurprising," Aro said, "Even if he does have a point."

"Cayde told me you were here," she told him, leaning back against the door.

"Meditating." He crossed his legs again, "Supposed to help me with my dreams."

"Any progress?"

"No...and yes." He described what he had seen, how he had felt. Kain filling in the gaps of whatever he might have missed. "I can't make sense of a single piece of it," he said, "But I can't deny what I've been feeling." He took a deep breath. "I'd like to try again."

Crona lowered herself to the ground, keeping her back to the door. "Go ahead. I'll stay here." So he does. It was easier this time. Before he knew it, the hum of the lights and Crona's breathing fell away, replaced by the same darkness.

It's quieter this time. Still foggy and hard to see but no howling winds. None of the Heralds were here like before. This was different.

For the first time, he could feel solid ground underneath his feet. He can feel grass crunching beneath him as well as the clink of stone. "Kain?" He called, his voice ringing out.

"I'm here." Aro could hear him in his head, feel him there, deeper than usual. But there was no time to question it, something was drawing him forward. It was the same feeling in his chest that pointed him towards the Heralds, that somehow predicted Crona's arrival.

So step forward he did. Again and again until he felt like he was on the edge of...something. Below him and at a distance, Aro found himself facing a wide open plain. Dark shapes dotted the plain, featureless but humanoid, so he could tell that they were facing away from him and kneeling.

A single red light suddenly appeared, in stark contrast with the dark.

"The Heralds?"

"But there's only one…"

Kain stopped. A second appeared, close to the first. Then a third, then a fourth. The lights illuminated their surroundings only slightly but Aro could see the same shadow figures far ahead as the ones below his feet. The only difference was that these were turned to face behind themselves.

They turned to look at him.

Each and every single one of them was doing the same, twisting themselves around to lock their single red eyes on him.

And through all of it, a thundering, reverberating beat. Like a song with heavy, thudding bass.

Like a heartbeat.

Aro woke again, gently this time though it still took a little while for him to regain his bearings. "Kain, time?"

"Fifteen minutes." Aro stood, "We need to talk to Ikora. And the Speaker."

He turned to find Crona snoring and asked his Ghost again just how long they had been out for her to be falling asleep like this. "We will. Soon. Just…" he rubbed his eyes, "Give me some time to make sense of it."

Red. Why was it always red?

"We headin' out?" Aro helped Crona to her feet and stepped out into the hall after her.

"Yeah, I'm done."

"Anything new?"

"Some weird shit. I'd rather talk it over with Ikora first." She nodded. "But later. I'm going to find Daniel."

Crona suddenly stopped walking and before Aro could turn to face her, she let out the most obnoxious groan he had ever heard. Jarring enough to make him stop in his tracks. "Don't you two ever take a break? Do you know how many men would kill for your kind of stamina?"

"Well, in life, Crona, there are the haves and have-nots. And me and Daniel? The big guy? We have. We have a lot."

"Me and my father are working on a gun-"

"Everyone's working on a gun these days," Kain snarked within Aro's mind.

"And when it's done…" she stuck a finger in Aro's face. "You're gonna be the first person I test it on."

She shoved past him and stalked off. "Is that a threat or a promise?"

"Both, egghead!"