Chapter 3: The Warmind
Review Replies
Randomguy0110100100110: Two OCs. I'm good.
Dragon Emperor0: What's that supposed to mean? Of course they're OCs. Most Destiny stories are about OCs. What did you expect?
ThermalsniperN7: Exactly.
-Tower, Last City, Earth-
An indigo haze stretched across the sky as night fell in the Last Safe City, and the Tower soon became alight with torches and electric lamps as shops and post master stations closed up for the day.
Watching over these idle meanderings from above in the Speaker's observatory, was an Exo. More specifically a hunter, tossing one of his knives in one of her armored hands, and catching it by the tip. His blue eyes scanned the ground below him, as if contemplating the mundanity of it all–despite such a post apocalyptic setting.
'The fact that they recovered enough to build a walled off city to shelter themselves speaks volumes…' He mused internally.
"The Hive, not since the Great Disaster have we seen their ilk cross onto earth's surface…" The Speaker's voice ruminated, pulling the Hunter from his musings. "Why here? Why now? And why the old Cosmodrome of all places?" He questioned, turning to face Alex–the exo doing the same.
"Could be anything, but my glimmer's on them using it as a beachhead for the rest of their rot loving buddies." Alex replied.
"That is a possibility." The Speaker nodded. "You took initiative in the Cosmodrome. Can I trust you to take your fight to the moon on their turf?" He asked. The Exo twirled his knife before sheathing it.
"I'll hunt them all down." He promised as he took his leave, flipping his hood over his head.
Snake Eyes quickly floated by his Guardian's side, bobbing like a buoy in water.
"Uh, Alex. You do know that there's a reason why Guardians don't go to the moon alone, right?" The Ghost stated.
"Because the Vanguard doesn't sanction missions there due to the Aftermath of Mara Ibrahim?" The Exo questioned.
"Close. They don't go there because it's a death sentence!" The drone corrected.
"Then I'll come and go from there regularly and show them that it's not a big deal. Call it a rallying cry." Alex chuckled as he continued walking.
"That's not the point!" Snake shouted as he got in his partner's face, stopping him in his tracks. "If you go there, you will die. What part of that are you not getting?!" The ghost snapped, his serpentine shell shivering with anger at his Guardian's ignorance.
"How about getting this City a slice of revenge?" Alex retorted. Snake was about to snap, but the Exo continued. "Every soul in these walls has been living in fear of the Hive since the Collapse, and every other major event regarding them. They killed off a lot of Guardians in the Great Disaster, yeah, and I don't blame everyone for getting intimidated by that." He continued.
"What are you getting at?" The Ghost questioned impatiently.
"What I'm getting at is: It was so easy to kill so many of us because we let them know where we were. I intend to carefully hunt them from the shadows, and terrorize them instead." The Hunter stated. "Is it suicidal? Yeah. But at the end of it all, someone's gonna have to do it sooner or later." He added.
"... I hate how right you are about that." Snake sighed as his shell relaxed. It wasn't him spewing hot air; it was a fact. Eventually, Alex's idea would have popped into another Guardian's head and they'd commit to it in a different way.
Plus, the idea of getting some revenge did appeal to him. He lost a lot of friends in the Great Disaster.
"Good, now we agree." The Exo said. "Now come on, I gotta see about that set of those engramss I left with Master Rahool." He told his Ghost as he made his way to the main square.
(Later)
A couple of minutes later, the future Hive Bane was in front of the Cryptarch who had finished decoding the set of five engrams moments prior. The armor looked fit for a reaper, given the light armor resembling bones and the helmet that imitated an orange skull with empty eye sockets.
It was known as the Epialos Following set, and it gave the Exo a serious power boost.
"Alright, Snake." The Hunter stated, twirling his piece before placing it in his new holster. "Let's go kill some Hive." He added, running to the ledge and leaping, right as his ship arrived–transatting him inside.
On the moon, every single Hive on it suddenly felt a chill run down their spines, and they didn't know why. One particular member of the Fallen House of Exiles, on the other hand, felt like they were about to be in for one hell of a show for some reason.
(Meanwhile)
Elsewhere in the Tower, Vulcan was currently tossing his solar hammer in his hand, before throwing it at the wall adjacent to him. Watching it rebound and fly back into his hand.
He was currently doing this because he was trying to relieve his own boredom. A condition brought about by not having any pressing missions to do, and no leads into his investigation.
It was very agitating and left him with a sense of restlessness. Before another second could tick by, Sentry appeared before him.
"Hey, got something that might interest you. It's not major, but it beats sitting around like this." She said.
"What is it?" Vulcan questioned.
"Reports of the Fallen tearing into the Skywatch of the Cosmodrome. They're clearly looking for something. Could be worth looking into." The drone responded.
Vulcan looked up at the TV, seeing an old Crucible match of a Hunter with a hand cannon he'd never seen before decimating an entire fireteam with a Void Light Scythe of all things.
The locals took to calling this particular Hunter the Sin of Wrath. The Dragon Sin.
"Fine." The Titan sighed as he got up, the sun finally starting to rise.
(One flight later)
The Lion Sin popped his neck as he arrived in the Cosmodrome, the area looking as it usually had. Barren and dilapidated.
"The Fallen are around the Forgotten Shore, which is miles from here." Sentry stated. "Let me call your sparrow." She added as a silver lion-like sparrow appeared. This was the Nemean Chariot, and Vulcan had recently had it painted gold.
The Titan then faced his ghost and flicked a new shell onto her from his inventory. It was a matching shell to his Sparrow, the Nemean Shell. It was similarly shaded gold as well.
Just as well, because he'd recently purchased the same set of armor from Eververse a few weeks prior. If he was going to be called the Lion Sin by the populace of the City, he was going to go ahead and own it.
He then hopped on his Sparrow and darted off to the Forgotten Shore at high speed. It only took a minute to get there, and he could make out Fallen lingering about.
"Sentry, can you pick up anything?" He asked as he looked around.
"I'm picking up a signal, but the Fallen have set up some amplifiers.Tagging them." Sentry replied, highlighting the tech he needed to target on his hud.
Getting off his mode of transportation, the Titan then made his way to several beached and rusted out ships, which the Fallen were crawling all over.
Deciding to get off, Vulcan then reached to his hip and pulled out his Sunshot hand cannon, training it on a Dreg that remained unaware of his presence, before blasting it, causing it and the two next to him to explode and burn the Vandal that had been supervising them.
The captain that had been out of sight let out a surprised roar as jogged into view of Vulcan and growled before firing a shot from his wire rifle at him, only hitting the shoulder of the Titan. The Lion Sin looked at the captain before he broke into a run and charged right at the ship.
Igniting into flames as he entered reentry speeds, the Sunbreaker slammed into the hunk of metal, Hammer in hand as flames spread everywhere. This sent the ship toppling over into the second one and sent the spider crab pirates flying.
Stomping over to the remaining aliens, Vulcan put away his pistol, resolving to finish this with just his hammer.
The two captains let out roars as one started firing his shrapnel launcher–which Vulcan deflected–while the second attempted to charge him, aiming a haymaker at the Titan's chest…
Only for it to have no effect as the alien was forced to look up and see that the blue musclebound behemoth was now twice his size.
"So, you have chosen death." Vulcan said calmly before grabbing the alien by the neck and squeezed as tightly as he could. The captain let out strangled roars of pain as his neck was burned before…
SNAP!
His life was ended via a snapped spine. Vulcan dropped the body and looked at the other captain, who was intimidated by the Lion Sin's display of strength.
Tossing his hammer up, he hurled it at the dumbfounded and bewildered vandals and dregs next to the captain, which caved their skulls in as it made impact–exploding in the process before returning to his hand.
He then followed this up with forming another hammer in his other hand and then getting to a running start–before leaping into the air and slamming the blazing blunt instruments onto the ground, causing a Lava wave of solar energy to head straight for the Captain.
The Captain let out a pained roar as the power of the attack reduced him to nothing, and left a good amount of molten metal in its wake. Vulcan let out a pleased sigh as he stood tall again.
"... You went overboard again." Sentry deadpanned as she scanned the now tipped over transmitters.
"And?" Vulcan responded with a raised eyebrow.
"Nevermind." The drone sighed as she finished her scan. "OK, there should be another one in the Skywatch. Curious thing is, the transmission they're amplifying isn't Fallen. It's Russian." She added, going back into her Guardian's armor.
"Curious indeed." Vulcan nodded as he hopped back on his Sparrow, but before he could, he picked up something on his radar that was nearby.
Deciding to get the Fallen in one go so he could leave Sentry to work and allow him to investigate, the Sunbreaker rose his hand up, a finger to the sky as a sun started forming above it.
Hurling the star at the Fallen, they were immediately obliterated, ashes scattering everywhere as the heat nearly destroyed the hallway.
Though when he got there, he couldn't stop himself from pausing. What had he happened across?
A Vandal having sex with a female Awoken Hunter. He was currently face fucking her, and the latter of the two was looking like she was really enjoying herself if the ahegao face she had was anything to go by.
The Awoken woman was actually rather attractive, if he was being honest. So he could definitely see why the Vandal decided to have his way with her.
She had pitch black hair and the common blue skin like all Awoken. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that she was being ravaged with most of her clothes still on. She had a red cloak, a piece of exotic chest armor that he recognized as the Lucky Raspberry and gauntlets he couldn't identify. Her pants had been ripped off, allowing the Vandal to easily fuck her brains out if desired.
As she was being face fucked, her C-Cup breasts slapped against the Fallen's waist, and as soon as he got a good look at the Vandal, Vulcan recognized him immediately.
It was a House of Devils Vandal that was just shy of being a captain that the Guardians in the Tower called Randal. He was smarter and stronger than any other Fallen in the Cosmodrome. So strong, that even the Vanguard were wary of him. Issuing a "Run on Sight" order on him.
The Hunter probably got in a fight with him, knife fight, probably, and lost. So now he was using her as a cum dump as a reward for besting her.
He mentally debated on intervening and driving him off or walking away and pretending he saw nothing.
"Vulcan, I'm finished." Sentry stated. This made the choice for him, as he soon remembered why he was there in the first place.
He wordlessly left the two apparent lovers to their devices, choosing to let sleeping dogs lie and never speak of what he saw. He may be the Sin of Pride, but he had standards.
His thoughts then idled to what the Dragon Sin was up to.
'Probably doing his own thing.' He thought with a shrug.
(Meanwhile)
On the moon, the Eon Trespass soared above its surface as it found a suitable landing zone not far from an old mass accelerator facility. He looked around before his gaze settled on the Earth. It looked so different when he wasn't flying towards it.
"Ya know, I often look up here and wonder just what the Hive are doing. But any signals I get are usually garbled. Like they're hidden. Or buried." Snake mused as they transmatted.
The Exo shook his head and pulled out his trusty hand cannon, pointing it ahead of him as he started moving.
"A Guardian set up camp in an old colony watch not far from here. One that was being occupied by the House of Exiles." The Ghost stated before groaning. "Jeez, not those guys again."
"What's the matter?" Alex asked as he kept walking.
"Friend of mine's Guardian got jumped by the same house awhile back and they managed to knock him offline." Snake stated. "When he came to, he found his Guardian unconscious, but alive. But it also became apparent that the guy'd been violated by a particularly eager Female Fallen." He added. That made Alex pause.
"... Okay, I think I'll steer clear of that female Fallen if I can help it." The Dragon Sin resolved before he continued moving.
"Not sure you'd be her type, Alex." Snake chuckled.
"Yeah, but I don't know what goes through a Fallen's head, so I'd like to avoid taking any chances." Alex replied as he reached the accelerator. "Okay, let's have a look around and see if anyone was here before I was." He muttered as he took a look around before coming to the control panel for the facility.
"Let me have a look at that." The Ghost said before he came out and scanned the Golden Age tech. "Hm… Somebody did come through here, and by the look of things, it was about a month ago." He reported.
"So we've missed our chance to offer aid. Great…" The Exo groaned before his audio receptors picked up the familiar boom-bump of a Fallen skiff entering from orbit. "Shit." He hissed.
Without a word, Snake returned to his partner's inventory so he could stay safe before the fighting happened. A few moments later, a squad of Dregs led by two Vandals entered the room and, upon spotting Alex, started shooting at him.
"Come get some!" He yelled as he shot a Dreg in the head, causing it to explode. He then pulled a void grenade and sailed it at the Vandals, covering them in a fog which allowed him to dodge behind and shank them.
As he left the building, he spotted more Fallen leaving their Skiffs and firing at him, forcing him into cover before he tossed a smoke grenade their way, the smoke giving him an opening to fire off a shot that detonated a Dreg and chained to the other Fallen, though the Captain leading them managed to survive the blast.
"Shit. Okay, time to beat it." The Exo said as he backflipped over a Pike and threw the Dreg driving it out, causing it to crash into the Captain and fall over. He then sped away on the vehicle to another checkpoint, shooting every fallen he saw.
He soon came to another area with an old and damaged hub structure that Snake had highlighted for him to check out.
"I'm picking up some recent City tech in that structure. Let's check it out." He urged.
Alex then double jumped into the structure and let his partner get to work. "No Fallen so far." He mused, scanning the area for any of the four armed aliens.
"Then let me scan that terminal before that changes." His Ghost urged. Alex did just that as he went up to the terminal and let his buddy do his work. "Hm… Looks like the Guardian that passed through here went to some place called the Temple of Crota." He noted, looking through the logs.
"Let's see if we can catch up." Alex said as his partner returned to his inventory. They then went through a canyon that looked like a very brutal place to get ambushed in and found themselves in front of a very Hive looking door.
"There's the temple." Snake said before he spotted something in front of the door. "Up ahead, Guardian down!" He exclaimed, prompting his Guardian to rush forward and find the corpse of a male Titan.
His armor was too damaged to make out what it was, and looked to have been like this for a month… The same amount of time since the last Guardian before Alex came to the moon.
"There's… Nothing left." Alex gasped.
"Not even the light… Wait, where's his Ghost?" Snake questioned.
Alex said nothing as he looked up at the door to the temple, his mechanical body tensing. He then suddenly heard the sound of a transmat behind him, prompting him to turn and see a stranger on top of the ridge looking down at him.
"... Elsie?" The Exo said in confusion before a sound tore his attention away from the female Exo.
Turning to the door, he saw the runic chains lighting up along with the door itself. He quickly turned back to the ridge, but saw that Elsie had vanished. He cursed silently before returning his gaze to the door.
"We may want to move back…" Snake said nervously as the Dragon Sin backed away with clenched fists while the locks vanished, allowing the temple to open.
(Elsewhere)
Meanwhile, back at the Cosmodrome, Vulcan was currently in the midst of an absolute brawl with Fallen from the House of Kings, who sent everything from Shanks, to Reaver Vandals, to even Four Servitors to try and take the Lion Sin down.
All while the Titan's power was reaching its apex: High Noon, and his one minute state of ultimate power–The One.
He now stood as tall as a Kell with just as much muscle mass, and was now radiating ludicrous amount of solar energy and heat.
When he reached it, the Fallen could only retreat and avoid losing anymore of their people, seeing that the battle was lost.
"Divine Blade: Vulcan." The Sin of Pride intoned as he swiped his hand down in a chopping motion, a wave of heat slicing through the aliens like a one thousand degree knife through butter.
"A bit much, but still, I managed to decode the transmission." Sentry chimed. "It's from an old AI… So it is true: A Warmind did survive the Collapse." She whistled.
"Rasputin?" The man asked as he turned back to normal.
"Yeah." Sentry nodded. "We need to figure out a way to find him." She added, looking back at the device. "We should probably destroy this thing."
"I got it." Vulcan nodded before he slammed his two hammers onto the device, destroying it instantly.
"Okay, now we can head back to the City and report what we found." Sentry said as she transmatted both of them back to their ship.
(Meanwhile)
Back in the Temple of Crota, a Hive Knight let out a groan as he was cut down by Alex's scythe, the light weapon making him resemble an actual reaper.
"I found that Titan's Ghost." Snake sighed as he highlighted said drone, prompting Alex to go and find it on some kind of pedestal before he picked it up and allowed Snake to look through its logs, his scythe dissipating in the meantime.
"What's on it?" He asked.
"Plans. Invasion plans. The Hive… they're raising an army to attack Earth." His Ghost told him.
"Shit, we need to get out of here and back to the City!" The Exo shouted in alarm as he made a mad dash for the exit, but on his way out, he missed a Cursed Thrall and when he passed it, it blew up behind him.
The resulting blast caused the Dragon Sin to cry out in surprise as he flew through the air and crashed into the ground, his head hitting a rock hard enough to knock him out cold.
Snake Eyes was quick to try and jolt his Guardian awake, but due to him being dazed from the blast as well, he wasn't able to do so quick enough.
Suddenly, a shadow was cast over them and it looked like that of a Fallen. Rather than kill them both, it grabbed them and started taking them somewhere.
"Hey… let us… go…" Snake protested weakly, his daze making it hard to think. The figure didn't release them and kept going.
Dragon Emperor0: … God I hate those boom thralls, they pop up all the way behind you and blow you to kingdom come out of nowhere.
ThermalsniperN7: No shit. It's annoying. Anyway, sorry about the lack of a chapter after… How long has it been?
Dragon Emperor0: Can't remember. We've been doing a lot of other good stories, so I have no idea.
ThermalsniperN7: It feels like a year at best… Anyway, yes that's the Season of the Haunted armor Alex has, which made sense given that his super is a Void Scythe. And there was a female Awoken Hunter getting ravaged by Randal… Yeah, expect Awoken-Fallen babies after that one.
Dragon Emperor0: Awoken-Eliksni babies. But yeah, anyway guys. See you later.
