A/N: Warning to all. Just a bit of body-horror near the end.
Vex Simulation: Kuroyuri
Infinite Forest, Mercury
Sol System
Nora stood and looked around her at the simulation of Kuroyuri. Of course the Vex would trap her in a simulation of the biggest trauma of her and Ren's lives. They got everything right. The atmosphere, the sounds, and even the smell of burnt wood.
"So, this is where you and Ren became orphans." Sagira said manifesting before her.
"I was an orphan long before Kuro Yuri. Parents died on the road, I made my way here and lived on the streets for a few days before the town fell. During the destruction, I was hiding under some stairs when Ren found me. Using his awakened semblance, we hid as the Grimm went past. After it left, we made our way down the road to Mistral where we were taken in by the local orphanage. We became inseparable and we both joined the local Primary Combat school and then joined Beacon where we became members of Team JNPR." Nora said giving a quick cliff notes version of events. Sagira already knew all of this thanks to the temp-bond, but allowed Nora to explain.
An explosion sounded from deep into the already destroyed town, quickly followed by a roar. Nora would never forget the sound of that particular beast, the Grimm responsible for its destruction: the Nucklevee Grimm.
Sagira flew to Nora. "I'm getting a trace of Aura in the distance up ahead…it's Rens!"
Nora heard Ren and immediately ran to where the explosions were coming from. Sagira flashed back into Nora's head. Nora ran down streets she remembered back when she was homeless and living on the streets. She then came to the source of the explosion. She saw Ren tossing makeshift bombs at the Nucklevee Grimm. The horse/imp hybrid reared up as the explosions sounded around it. It then extended its stretchy limbs and tried to punch Ren.
Tried being the word.
Nora herself stepped in between them, hammer raised blocking the claws. "Nora?" Ren asked in both shock and hesitantly, not believing his eyes. "Hey Ren, just let me deal with this for just a moment." She said before shoving the limbs back. The Grimm growled before charging at her. Channeling Void energy into her hammer, she swung it, sending it flying. It sailed through the air, going through three buildings before slamming into the fourth. The fourth then toppled on top of it, burying it for the time being.
Nora turned to Ren, who to her surprise, hugged her. She was surprised at this since he was the stoic one, keeping his emotions in check. To see him like this was something quite different.
"Is it really you?" He whispered.
"I am Ren." She said ending the hug and looking him in the face.
He had seen better days.
His clothing looking a bit worn, his hair unkept and bags under his eyes.
"Are you? Or are you a Simulation to make my experience worse?"
Sagira took that moment to materialize before them.
"She's the real deal kid. Vex can't simulate me and by extension our bond." Ren took that moment to look at Sagira and back to Nora, who he embraced again tighter! He shook with sobs seeing his friend again.
"Nora, this is horrible! I've been trapped what feels like weeks…"
"But in reality about two days." Sagira finished, understanding the feeling.
Ren nodded at her analysis. "Yes. I was trapped in a Simulation of Kuroyuri, I then saw through the lies…" He then went on about meeting the Oracle Mind by the name of Cassandra, how it spoke about something called The Disciple manipulating events, causing some sort of branch between what Panoptes is planning and what this Disciple is planning called The Final Shape. And how the Vex offered to spare humanity in return for them to stand down."
Sagira may be a Ghost, but she could feel herself getting cold from hearing about this Final Shape. In all her time with Osiris, going through Simulation after Simulation, she has never encountered anything about this Disciple. No record anywhere in the Infinite Forest nor anywhere else. Not only that, but the vex being afraid of this Disciple! Vex aren't scared of anything! Not even being Taken! And the Vex offering to spare a portion of humanity!?
Whatever this Disciple is, it terrified them enough to go through with making this offer in the first place.
"Whatever this Disciple is, no records of it in Guardian database, Lore or Grimoire. And you rejecting it outright was the right call." Sagira said.
"Yeah Renny! They would have found a way to weasel out of it anyway." Nora said placing a hand on Rens shoulder.
A roar sounded from behind them along with a building being moved off of something very big and angry.
Knowing that the Nucklevee Grimm is back on its feert, Nora turned to ren, handing him some spare Dust rounds. "I know it's not the real deal, but want to get justice for our home?" Ren raised his weapons after reloading. "Very much so. But I've face this thing time and again, and nothing worked."
"Well, this time you got a semi-Guardian in tow."
The Nucklevee Grimm shattered the buildings in front of it, its horse half stomping its feet in frustration as it charged in the direction of its prey. As the dust settled, it stopped in place. As the horse half froze in place, the top half started to twitch. Its long limbs clenched its fingers as its head reared back and screamed. Its scream echoed through the quiet town. It horned-head twitched as it looked around for its prey.
Its face got a grenade instead.
As it felt the damage to its face, the body reared back to escape. But it felt bullets impacting its legs. It looked and saw Ren running around its legs firing from Storm Flower. It moved back to extend its limbs to swat at Ren, but felt heat build up beneath its feet. Nora had channeled Solar Light from Magnhild into the ground to burn its feet. Despite the fact that this Grimm was a Simulation created by the Vex, it still felt the heat. Already bits of its feet started to melt off and dissolve. It swiped its arms at Nora, but she managed to slam her hammer down at the last second, pinning the hands beneath the flaming hammer. The Grimm screamed as it felt the flames eat into its arms. The flames burned and burned as the Grimm tried to remove the limbs from beneath the hammer.
And in a way, they were, but not the way it wanted.
The flames ate into the limbs so bad that they burned right through the limbs, severing them. The arms dissolved as Grimm screamed armless. Ren kept firing at the lower legs, finally dealing enough damage that one of the hind-legs collapsed under its weight, sending it onto the ground. It screamed and whinnied at the same time as Nora brought the hammer down on the horse-half, while the rider part stared at them in anger. Ren was the one to approach it, a blade appearing in his hands from up his sleeve. A knife once wielded by his father.
"You may be Simulation, but this is for all those that died by your hands." He said before stabbing it in the throat, silencing its screams as the body dissolved.
The two stood in silence in the Simulation for some time. Sagira left them to their devices as she scanned her surroundings. She was looking for an exit to this Simulation. Normally, in a Simulation such as this, she would look for something that didn't belong, something out of place. That thing would be either an exit or a Vex Conflux containing info on the simulation. But in this instance, she didn't have any form of reference. Unlike Osiris who would throw himself into a problem before finally solving it, she decided to ask the experts.
She floated back to the two. "I would like your help with getting out of the Simulation." Ren, who wiped his eyes of the tears he shed for those lost gave a nod. He looked around the destroyed town-square, looking for something out of place. He walked down the streets looking for anything out of place. He recalled a time when he and his mother were walking down the road, seeing the sights, smelling the food, posters on the walls. One in particular catching his eye. He looked into the window of a bakery that sold numerous things. Very decorative cakes of all sizes, cookies and cupcakes of intricate designs. The one that caught his eye the most were loafs of bread in the shape of a cat curled up.
"This one." He said pointing to the bread. "Originally, they were cats. These are dogs." Sagira flew to the loafs of dog-shaped bread and scanned them. He was correct. These breads were disguised Vex code to open the way out of the Simulation. After a quick scan and hack, a circular doorway opened before them.
Holding hands, Nora and Ren ran right through the doorway and smacked right into Jaune and Pyrrha. "Jaune! Pyrrha!" Ren said rushing back up and giving them a hug. Jaune and Pyrrha reciprocated and Nora joined in the hug. Team JNPR was reunited.
After the hug, they looked to their surroundings. Ren recognized it as the place the trapped Light was. But instead of the globe of trapped Light, it was blown to bits with Lux Syphoid standing in the wreckage. "Bout time you guys showed up!"
00000
Lux was surrounded by copies of Summer Rose singing something about waffles when she simply punched a part of the simulation and she found herself falling out of a Vex portal and into a room dominated by a globe of Light.
"Luscious, please tell me I'm out of that Simulation." She said getting up.
"Indeed, we are. By pure chance, that Simulation was highly unstable and all it took was you punching the right place to shatter it and send you out." Luscious said as he scanned his surroundings. He spotted a bit of green cloth nearby.
"I'm detecting a bit of Aura on this fabric. Based on the color, it's Rens. He must have been here." Luscious floated away from the cloth and up towards the globe up above. "With this…what have they done!?"
"Luscious?" She asked looking up at the globe that caught his attention. She could feel energy from the globe. Energy she recognizes.
"Please tell me this isn't what I think it is!" She said angrily. Her fist tightening and Void Energy forming between her fingers,
"It is. This explains how the Vex infuse themselves with Light. Because they trapped Light in this globe."
"Then We'll just have to un-trap it!"
She jumped into the air and brought her fist back, channeling Void Light and sent the orb flying into the globe. With a blast, whatever the vex used to contain the Light within shattered.
The entire area was bathed in Light. Lux had to shield her eyes from how bright it was. Feeling the energy dissipate, she opened her eyes. The globe was in pieces, the walls of the area scorched or bleeding Vex Radiolaria.
"The Light is gone. I can feel it returning to the Traveler. The Vex won't be making anymore Infused Vex anymore."
00000
"After that, Jaune and Pyrrha came out of a Vex portal, quickly followed by you two. And that is when you four found me." Lux said to Team JNPR in the ruins of the area the Vex used to store the Globe of Light. The four listened to her as she relayed her experience after being trapped in her own Simulation, getting out and destroying any chance of the Vex creating more Light Infused versions of themselves.
"So, how did you two get out of your Simulation?" Ren asked Jaune and Pyrrha. The two looked to one another, blushes on their faces appearing briefly before vanishing.
"Ah…you know…the same thing Lux did with hers…" Jaune said mumbling. "Yes…just what she did…" Her eyes shifted back and forth.
Something embarrassing, no doubt. Sagira said through their bond. Getting back on track, she manifested before the group. "That explosion of Light turned out to be a boon for us on two fronts. The first being no more Light Infused vex units and the second one was that is scrambled a bunch of vex code. Which helps us greatly cause I found out where not only where Panoptes is, but also where Saint is."
Lux smiled, loading her weapons. "The let's go kill a Vex Mind."
00000
Deep within the Infinite Forest, in the place the Vex would consider the main core of the Vex structure, was Panoptes the Infinite Mind hovering above. On a platform below were two beings, one contained and chained in place as bait. The other, another vex mind using the body of a long dead human. The one bound and chained was Saint-14, the other was Cassandra the Oracle mind in the body of An Ren.
"I'm quite surprised about Osiris. We have you, someone he truly cares about, his Ghost trapped in a Simulation of her Temp-Bond's traumatic experience, and yet he doesn't show up. We've been here for hours, and he hasn't made a move whatsoever. Perhaps those stories about him are true. He cares more about us than he does about those who care about him." Cassandra said as she paced around the caged Titan.
"He'll show up. And when he does, I'll break every piece of you." Saint-14 said as he tried once again to get up. Arcs of electricity went up the chains, shocking him and forcing him back down.
A wave of energy bathed the landscape, making Panoptes high above groan in protest. Cassandra fell to her knees. Her eyes widened in a panic. "No. No, no, no, no! Those dumb-ass idiots!" She shouted as she swiped her hand, creating Simulations of fallen and Hive Thralls. Simulations which she tore to bits right in front of Saint-14. He had never seen a vex unit like her get so…emotional.
"Trouble, I take it?"
After ripping the skull out of a Hive Thrall and beating it to death with it, she turned to the bound Titan, approached his cage and pressed herself against it.
"Your stupid allies just destroyed where we contained all of the Light we use to make Infused Vex! We're now ever closer to its preferred future instead of ours!" She then started to pace around the cage, mumbling to herself.
"It's still salvageable. Panoptes has enough info to redistribute to the rest of the Collectives…just need a few more days to analyze the data…"
An explosion sounded from far away, quickly followed by a Vex gate opening up. Out spilled numerous pieces of Vex units followed by Lux Syphoid and Team JNPR.
Saint-14 smiled under his helmet and looked at his captors. "Looks like you don't have a few days."
Every Vex unit has a purpose. Whether it be a data analyst, constructor, weapon manufacturer, or Axis Mind. Cassandra was designated to be an Oracle Mind. While Oracles were basically prediction algorithms. Cassandra was given a bit more autonomy than the rest of her kind. Most notably, identifying herself as a 'her' instead of an 'it'. Given more personality, and a bit more 'emotion' than the rest of the Vex. Assigned to Ren's Simulation when captured, she studied him throughout the resets and mind wipes. Watching his interactions along with studying the data packets pertaining to Remnant, she immersed herself in the Simulated form of his late mother. And in turn experience a bit of the organic condition that was emotions. And right now, those emotions were overwhelming her. First was fear having the captured Light being released and thwarting the creation of more Light-Infused Vex units. Now seeing the ones responsible for said destruction, anger overwhelmed her and she screamed. Flashes of energy bathed the area and as it faded, all present, Panoptes included saw her transformed.
For her Simulated form of the deceased An Ren had merged with her real Vex Harpy Body.
While the main body was a Vex harpy, other bits were different. More human. The usual tentacles that Harpies usually deploy were replaced with human arms complete with hands and fingers, and the central red optic eyes were replaced with human eyes. Eyes belonging to An Ren. Eyes that starred at them with utter hatred.
Team JNPR, Lux Syphoid and Saint-14 nearly gagged at the human anatomy attached to the Vex Mind. Even Panoptes itself shook in what can now be identified as the Vex equivalent of a shudder.
"Panoptes! Kill the Guardians, these Huntsmen are MINE!" Cassandra said in a mechanical-organic matter as it waved its 'arms' summoning other Vex units and Simulations of other enemies of Sol and even Grimm.