Hey! Fallen Rose is back up for an update in my fic rotation (go read the others) so that means both you all and my beta-reader/editor Gaj get another chapter of this second take of Guardian shenanigans. Gaj gets it before you lot, obviously.
Well, I've got nothing else so here ya go~
2 TAKE 2
Last Time on Fallen Rose:
Our team of Guardians arrived on the planet of Mercury as a punishment detail from Vanguard and Kell, Angela Six. Consisting of Summer Rose, Krux Jani, Serpent-11, and Ikaldys – this team of experienced Guardians deduced that something was amiss as soon as they touched down on the scorching planet's surface. Enemies from all known factions were conducting an all-out war on the Vex-converted world, and the fighting suspiciously got even denser the closer the team approached their mission objective.
After stealing Fallen pikes to expedite their travel, and having Kurux haul them up a plateau, Fireteam Rumbler found the objective of their trip. An almost untouchedBraytech installation, sealed shut and being fought over by all manner of hostile targets. With their strength as Guardians, Fireteam Rumbler fought through the hordes and made it into the installation safely, gaining room to breathe from the constant battle.
Inside the facility, they explored the ancient technology left in it. With investigation from Serpent-11, they quickly learned that this facility was special for one fact: It held a powerful portal device capable of making a path out of the Sol system. Immediately going to the cavernous room holding the massive structure, Rumbler opened an overhead hanger door to communicate with Vanguard member Ikora Rey. This transmission was cut short, however, when both Cabal and Taken forces began to invade the portal room. With permission from Ikora, Ikaldys piloted the fireteam through the portal.
Unsure of where they would end up next…
2 TAKE 2
Summer woke to the dull noise of someone… calling her name? and a crackling noise. A… really loud… crackling noise. It was almost like a roar. Oh, someone was shaking her. Why were they doing that? She was pretty sure she didn't have a mission today…
And then Summer's vision turned white.
"IKALDYS!" Kurux's voice shouted.
Summer immediately knew why Kurux was shouting at Ikaldys in a reprimanding way because she had to spit out the fire extinguisher foam that the tiny eliksni had fired into her own face. At least it woke her out of her stupor. Wiping the rest of the goop from her face, Summer was then able to get a coherent look at her surroundings. It was the inside of Glittering Bandit, yes, but it was completely and utterly trashed.
There were small fires everywhere, although those were decreasing thanks to Ikaldys putting them out with dual fire extinguishers, one in each set of hands. Exposed, frayed and snapped wires hung from the roof or spilled out of snapped panels. The front of the spacious cockpit had deformed, causing it to warp inwards in an ugly and mangled way. The ship didn't seem to be punctured anywhere, a testament to the quality of the metal Ikaldys had sourced during a previous rebuild of the jumpship.
But this sturdiness couldn't be extended to the rest of the jumpship. Many components were still wrecked, by what Summer could only guess was a crash, and many more were damaged nearly beyond repair. A good portion of the memorabilia that Ikaldys decorated her spacious jumpship with was destroyed, damaged or missing from its usual place.
Turning her head, Summer assessed her friends and team. Ikaldys was still using the extinguishers in her hands, moving from fire to fire. Kurux was doing his best to push on the emergency hatch near the front of the cockpit, and if the titan couldn't pop it open as easily as a yogurt lid, then it was really stuck on there tight. Serpent was scavenging any tech peripherals that were still working, and both she and all four of the ghosts were going through as many logs as they could find.
"Wha… what happened?" Summer asked blearily, still recovering from the sudden consciousness and spraying in the face.
Serpent looked up and deadpanned (it was easy with a robot face). "We crashed."
"I can see that! Why did we crash?" Summer rephrased.
"The gate killed me and Serpent, paralyzed Kurux and knocked you out," Ikaldys answered. Summer had to flinch back slightly when Ikaldys appeared out of nowhere next to her, the former girl's highly trained hunter senses still not having kicked back into gear.
"And since – nghhh! – Nobody was flying the ship…" Krux implied.
"…We crashed. Okay." Summer deduced. "If we made it through the gate… then where are we then?"
The other three paused and exchanged glances. In the end, it was Kurux who answered.
"We don't know. We haven't been able to make it outside yet."
"And there's no known channels we've detected so far." Serpent included. "We've boosted the radios as far as they would go with the damaged equipment. They should go as far as the closest moon, or planet if we're already on a moon."
"So we need to get outside then? Ikaldys why haven't you phased outside?" Summer asked. Ikaldys paused in her work to hold up the two fire extinguishers, emphasizing them. Summer got it about four seconds later. "Oh, right. Carbon monoxide; not fun."
Sure, they could breathe the stuff. But it still wasn't pleasant.
"Actually," Ikaldys stopped in thought, "why don't you take over this and I go outside?"
"Sure-" Summer got no further before an extinguisher hit her in the face.
2 TAKE 2
Ikaldys phased outside of her ship, weapons in hands and mask on. She had pulled Gooseberry away from assisting Serpent with the other ghosts, to instead run an investigation outside with her. Initial checks of the environment made it clear that it was a forest at night, and besides the destruction left by the recent crash, a rather flourishing one at that. The innate night vision of her species told Ikaldys that it was a forest of deep green, flowers littering the bottom floor of the biome and shrubbery doing much the same.
"Looks like what's left of the forests in Europe…" Ikaldys remarked. She knelt down to touch some of the budding grass on the ground, the parts that hadn't been torn up by her jumpship. It was firm and springy, the sensation muted by Ikaldys' gauntlets. "Any life other than these plants around, Goose?"
"Je vérifie maintenant…" Gooseberry replied. The humming sound of a ghost's scanning filled Ikaldys' ear holes. It took all of twelve seconds before any information returned. There was certainly something; Ikaldys could tell from the red on her threat sensor, which had just lit up in all directions.
"Well huh. Guess there's a welcoming party." Ikaldys stated. She had yet to raise any of her weapons, instead doing the exact opposite and holstering the four guns. "Hello? Who's out there, I know it's someone!" Ikaldys called, cupping two of her hands to her face even though she was wearing a helmet and it made no difference.
At first, nothing happened. And at second, nothing happened either. But at third, something finally began to prowl out of the shrubbery. It was large, far larger than the small Ikaldys – possibly close to twice her size at the thing's full height. Pitch black fur, bone-like plating, red eyes that felt so, so deep. And all in the shape of a wolf. Or more accurately a semi-bipedal wolf.
"(Wolfy…)" was the only thought that floated into and out of Ikaldys' mind as she stared at the beast. Which soon became beasts as more, nigh identical, creatures began emerging from further into the woods. A whole pack of them, if wolf logic was to be applied to the far more monstrous beasts.
"Hi wolfies!" Ikaldys greeted with reckless abandon. "You're all so big! Is that normal around here?"
Ikaldys almost remained oblivious when the wolf-things began growling. their bodies lowering and teeth being bared.
Well, she almost remained oblivious.
"Oh. Mean wolfies."
She drew her gun as the first one leapt.
2 TAKE 2
"Guardian down."
The almost automatic response the ghosts made immediately caught the attention of the three remaining guardians still stuck inside of the jumpship. They glanced towards Kurux, who in turn was glancing to the still-sealed hatch he was continuing to work on. There was not an extensive need to know exactly what was going on outside, the notification of Ikaldys' death was information enough that the outside was hostile in one form or another. Whether that be Ikaldys' testing the air and it turning out to be toxic, falling into a pit of acid or lava, inspecting something dangerous she really shouldn't have, or simply just hostile native life, none of them knew for sure. But just in case they made sure to equip their helmets to rule out possibility one.
Kurux waited twelve seconds before trying the radio to contact Ikaldys. "Ikaldys, are you back? What's going on out there?"
It took a moment or two before any kind of response was heard, and even then, it came back scratchy and harder to hear.
"U̴h̵.̵.̵.̵ ̶Y̴e̴a̸h̴!̵ ̷J̷u̴s̸t̶ ̶s̴o̷m̷e̴ ̵-̵ ̷n̸g̴h̷!̸ ̶-̶ ̸b̸i̵g̷ ̸w̷o̸l̸f̵ ̷t̶h̵i̸n̷g̷s̴!̶"̵ the gargled reply said.
"Big wolf things?" Kurux asked quizzically.
"Y̸e̶a̵h̵!̶ ̵T̴h̷e̵y̸'̷r̸e̷ ̶r̵e̵a̷l̶l̸y̸ ̵m̶e̷a̴n̶ ̸a̷n̸d̴ ̴a̸g̷g̷r̶e̶s̶s̷i̵v̵e̴.̶ ̵A̴l̵s̶o̶ ̴t̶h̸e̸y̵ ̴r̸e̷a̷l̵l̷y̵ ̶a̸r̸e̴ ̷s̴u̶p̸e̵r̸ ̷f̶r̸ -a̷g̸i̷l̶e̴,̶ ̷i̶t̸'̶s̵ ̵l̸i̷k̴e̶ ̸t̵h̷e̷i̵r̸ ̸b̵o̵d̴i̵e̴s̶ ̷h̴a̷t̵e̷ ̸L̸i̷g̶h̴t̶ ̷m̵o̷r̴e̵ ̸t̴h̷a̵n̴ ̴n̷o̴r̷m̷a̶l̸.̷" Was the answer that Ikaldys gave.
"Well… okay."
"We'll be out of here soon so I can do an autopsy on them to see what makes the 'thing' part of these wolves." Serpent added whilst packing away the equipment she was using.
"U̴h̶h̷,̶ ̵t̶h̵a̶t̷ ̶m̵i̶g̷h̷t̴ ̵b̵e̶ ̴a̷ ̴b̶i̴t̴ ̸h̸a̵r̶d̴.̸ ̸T̵h̴e̶s̴e̷ ̷g̸u̷y̸s̷ ̵a̸r̵e̸ ̶d̴e̷s̶i̷n̴t̴e̸r̴g̶r̸a̴t̵i̷n̵g̸ ̶a̴f̵t̷e̸r̸ ̵I̴ ̴k̶i̷l̵l̶ ̵t̷h̶e̷m̷.̷"
"What? Disintegrating?" Serpent furrowed her metal brow. "Ikaldys are you sure that's not just your Royal Strait's elemental damage? We both know you can turn that down."
A grunt of disconfirmation preceded Ikaldys' next reply. "N̴o̴p̸e̷.̷ ̵D̶e̶f̸i̶n̴i̸t̸e̴l̴y̸ ̸d̶o̶i̵n̴g̴ ̸t̶h̴i̶s̷ ̵o̴n̵ ̵t̷h̶e̷i̵r̷ ̴o̴w̵n̶.̵"
"Alright then, that's it. I need to see this for myself."
Serpent pivoted to the hatch Kurux was at, raised one hand, coalesced a hungering purple orb into it, and then casually tossed it at the hatch. The effect was instantaneously viable, as the 'pocket supernova' disintegrated both the hatch and the surrounding part of the ship. Strong though the ship may have been, it was small potatoes when compared to Serpent's terrifyingly potent prowess with void abilities.
Ikaldys, who was right outside, turned when she heard the telltale sounds of void energy. Seeing what had happened, two of her hands grabbed her head whilst the other two grabbed futilely in the air towards the gaping hole.
"MYYYYY SHIP!"
Ikaldys dodged the incoming lunge from the big black and bone wolf creature almost as if by luck when she began running to the jumpship to inspect the damages. Passing her in the other direction was Serpent, whose helmet was already materializing.
"Kurux! Hold it down, I need to catalog it!" Serpent demanded.
Kurux sighed already knowing that he wouldn't be able to dissuade Serpent when she got an idea into her head. Well, at least she wasn't as bad as Summer or Ikaldys, even if Serpent was the one to pass on the obsessiveness. Lowering his shoulder, Kurux flipped the wolf over in the air by taking out their legs from under them. Once on the ground, he jumped on it and used his titanic strength to keep it pinned to the earth. It wasn't an easy task either, since the creature kept trying to escape his hold and wasn't below trying to bite and claw at Kurux.
"There, now take a picture before it throws me off!"
"What? No, I'll get much more out of it by observing like this!"
"I didn't agree with this!"
B L A M!
The rapid debate between Kurux and Serpent was executively cut short by Summer, who put a slug into the monster's skull as the two bickered. Both turned to look at Summer, who had been uncharacteristically quite since Serpent had made the impromptu exit.
"Summer? OOF!" Kurux made to speak but dropped to the ground when the wolf thing disintegrated from under him.
"Summer! I was going to study that! You… are you okay Summer?"
"Hm?" Ikaldys turned around to the woman she called sister, noticing something was happening.
Summer Rose hadn't moved. She stood exactly where she was when she had fired her Thorn. The barrel still smoked, and Summer's arm was still extended in aim. But her teammates, her friends- herfamily, only noticed the harried breathing that she was using, coming and going in frantic and uneven intervals. She wore no mask and no hunter's hood, so her haunted and slightly apprehensive expression was bare to see.
"…Summer?" Ikaldys forgot about her ship for a moment and reached a hand to her shoulder. Unexpectedly, Summer flinched away at the touch and spun to stare at Ikaldys as if the little human hadn't seen her there. Keeping her hands close to her body this time, Ikaldys tried again. "Summer? What's going on?"
Summer's eyes darted to Ikaldys, then Kurux and Serpent, and then back down to the monster's corpse.
"Beowolf. A common form of grimm. Hunts in packs of twelve to thirty. Typically lead by an alpha, but that is a misnomer as the use of alpha is derived from regular wolves and such term is not usable there either."
Everyone stared at Summer listing off facts about a currently unknown enemy, let alone form of life.
"Summer?" Zac began. "How did you know that?"
"I'm…" Summer stopped to gulp dryly, "I'm not sure… It was just like… a memory."
Kurux stood up and properly joined the conversation. "Summer, do you," he paused to consider, "remember this place?
"I'm not sure. I don't know. But it's just… this greatest sense of deja vu."
"And the facts about the – what was it? Beowolf? – that too." Serpent added.
"Yeah, I guess." Summer shrugged.
"So… – wait, wait, wait. Are we suggesting that Summer is from here? A planet so far out of the Sol system that it's probably not even charted on any of our maps? One where we had to go through a big fuckoff portal to arrive here?"
Kurux put a hand on Serpent's shoulder. "I don't think we're suggesting anything as of yet. But there are two things I'd like to follow with this possibility."
"More than that Summer came from an outer system colony of some sort?" Serpent raised a metal eyebrow.
"Possibly, because it might just be that – a colony."
This roused everyone's attention.
Ikaldys walked over to her team away from the jumpship. "Ku-Ku, if you're-"
"Don't call me that,"
"-if you're right, and Sis did come from a colony here, then why would they still be around? The darkness would have ripped apart anything that wasn't under the direct protection of the Traveler. I still remember some of the older eliksni in the house talking about The Whirlwind. How could a colony survive where a whole civilization didn't?"
"It has the advantage of being smaller, less to collapse that way." Kurux rebutted. "The Vanguard are aware of some still existing settlements outside of the last city."
"Okay, and say we do find this supposed off-system colony. What then?" Serpent proposed.
"We enact the first contact protocols Dead Orbit successfully petitioned the Vanguard for. First, we need to ascertain the level of technology that is present."
Summer nodded, if reluctantly and shakily. "Zac, have you and the others found anything about this place?"
Zac nodded (which included his whole body), but it was Serpent's ghost – Bean – who answered her. "Ya! We do it! We found new radio wave waves!"
"Oh, looks like we've got Spring Bean" Serpent remarked. Bean had the relatively unique trait amongst ghosts of having multiple personalities. Their current one being the childish and excited 'Spring' personality. "But I also guess Kurux is kinda right; something must be making those signals."
"May as well tap into one to see what's up. Although, the existence of radio channels is a good sign of a higher tech level. Ram, if you'd please?"
"Affirmative, Master Jani."
Summer looked around. Her head was hurting so much it was beginning to become had to make sense of things. Everywhere she looked seemed blurry and familiar, even if she knew she hadn't seen this specific scenery before. Had she? No… probably not. She didn't even notice when she found herself having stumbled onto a toppled tree from the crash and sitting down on it. Nor did Summer notice how much time passed before she noticed Ikaldys sitting down beside her.
"Hey, Sim-Sum."
"Ah, hi there 'Kaly."
Ikaldys dismissed her helmet back into her backpack to look at Summer face-to-alien-face. Ikaldys' mandibles twitched as she assessed Summer with all four of her purely blue eyes, worrying greatly about the other woman.
"Uhmm… Ram found a nearby settlement. Kurux and Serp are going to check it out, but," Ikaldys stopped to consider her next words, "But you can stay here with me whilst I repair the ship. If you want."
"No! No…" Summer breathed deeply. "No. I want to… to go and see."
Ikaldys clenched her mandibles hard. "Okay Summer. If you want to. It's just, and I have to ask, are you sure you came from here?"
"What? You don't trust me now?" Summer said, a little too quickly. Summer flinched in regret at her snappy reply.
Undaunted by Summer's brief slip, Ikaldys continued. "No, because remember; we first found each other wandering the Russian cosmodrome."
That information, something that Summer had let slip her mind until now, caused her a shock so sudden that she stilled from the realization. If she had come from this world; then how'd she end up in the Cosmodrome? The simple answer would have been she fled back to the Sol system through the gate, but that would have put any evacuees on Mercury, not Earth. Getting reminded of this information only served to confuse Summer about everything further, instead of helping to clarify.
"Ikaldys," Summer finally said at last. "I need to clear my head. I'm going with Serpent and Kurux."
Ikaldys shuffled closer to Summer on the log, slinging two left arms around her in consolidation.
"That's okay!" Ikaldys chirped. "You go take the time you need. And when you get back, I'll have the Bandit up and running like new!"
This finally put a smile on Summer's face, paired with a matching chuckle. She couldn't help but grin at Ikaldys, the girl just had such an effect on the people around her much like Summer did. The ability to make others smile when they needed it the most. Perhaps that was why they were as close as they were.
"Aww, you're too good for me Ikaldys!" Summer hugged back.
"See! I knew you still had a smile left in you! Now go and do the stuffy protocol thing with Ku, 'team leader'!"
"Hey! Don't you 'team leader' me! I'm fun! Fun and awesome!"
Ikaldys shrugged with mock indifference. "If you say so. But really, you guys should get going. The settlement is about forty-eight kilometers away and is going to take you like ten hours."
"Ten hours?" Summer adopted a puzzled expression. "That doesn't sound right. Sparrows can go much faster than that."
"They sure can! But the place I keep the sparrows is one of the damaged components so you have to walk there on foot!" Ikaldys grinned unrepentantly.
Summer stared at the little eliksni in slight silent horror. "…is it too late to change my mind and stay?"
"Nope!"
And there the two unlikely sisters stood, no blood to relate them, but care for one another none could dispute.
All beneath a Shattered Moon.
Thanks for reading the newest chapter! And thanks again to Gaj for being the Beta reader!
Next up on my chopping block of writing is either going to be my Parahumans Fic 'Lazarus', or a new RWBY fic that has also has Gaj as the Beta. The latter, however, I still want to write another chapter or two just so I can see how I feel about it. It's currently called 'Dreaming of Nothing' and I hope I do eventually post it because I like the original aspects of it and how it ties into my overarching narrative universe (don't worry about it).
But yeah, even if this is the only story you're interested in reading, give it a review! I love reading what you're all thinking of the story – and the more feedback you all give, the more I can refine the story into something even better than before.
So, see you around!
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Elsewhere, Back on Earth:
The Tower's hanger was abuzz in activity. Both workers and guardians alike rushed as fast as they could throughout the entirety of the enormous building. Ships were either taking off or almost ready to, weapons were having their last checks, and sparrows were being touched up. What some may consider an odd addition was the eliksni technicians, considering how they as a greater species were greatly antagonistic towards the Last City and its inhabitants. But these were part of the House of Crosses, whose kell was none other than Vanguard Angela Six.
Three decades wasn't always enough for many to acclimatize to the presence of aliens, let alone ones from a species generally seen as pirates and pillagers. But others did adapt to their presence, and there were many people who only knew the presence of the allied house, guardians, humans and even eliksni. Strangely enough, it was the newer guardians – the ones who fought Fallen almost daily – who were the ones most friendly to all the eliksni present in the city, younger and old. Some even had relationships with them~.
One such relationship stood commanding the hanger alongside their two fellow Vanguard commanders. Whilst Zavala, Ikora and Cayde all took control of their respective factions, there were so few Templars that Angela could focus more of her attention on the combative portion of her house. Currently, before her stood three of her captains, and they oversaw different aspects of House Crosses' military. Their names were Merax, Eksis and Spekki.
Spekki was the most traditional-looking captain of the three. Fur lined the gaps of his armour, which was in the typical and distinct style of the House – pale red and curved, many guardians commented on it looking like 'old Japanese cyberpunk, whatever that meant. Spekki was normal height for a captain and wore a long red scarf with more fur stitched on at the end. There was a Shrapnel Launcher attached to his lower back for comfortable storage and easy drawing.
Merax, 'The Red Baron', stood out like a sore thumb – something that was true wherever he went. He was twice the size of any human, and his shoulders were almost as broad as one of them. His armour didn't help this assumption either, as it was bulky and plated in a way that made him look slightly like an ancient, pre-golden age samurai if not a little more techno. He wielded a sword that was more like a slab of metal than any recognisable weapon.
Lastly, Eksis was not a captain by size or amount of ether consumed, but simply by appointment from Angela. Standing at only the average height for vandals, Eksis was the primary splicer for the House and took his work very seriously. He always wore a fully-covering insulated white jacket with a furred collar that completely obscured any and all carapace. This was helped by the equally insulated black gloves he wore on all four hands. There were tubes of what was assumed to be ether coiling around his body, and a spear in his upper left hand that doubled as a walking stick.
"Merax, are the skiffs loaded?" Angela asked.
"As of thirteen minutes ago," Merax grunted with a nod. He spoke in the chittering accent typical for the eliksni species, only guardians of their kind ever spoke in truly proper diction.
"And ready to set out on order, Angelakell. We collected all of Eksis'… equipment, as per your request." Spekki added.
"That equipment is important!" Eksis angrily chittered at Spekki. "Angelakell specifically requested that I bring anything useful for Vex gates! All of it is useful you buffoon!"
Spekki then dodged a feeble whack from Eksis' spear.
"Okay, that's enough you two. If everything is ready, then there's no sense in delay. Have the pilots make the jump to Mercury and stay behind guardian lines – support only. We can come back, you guys can't."
With nothing more to say, Angela nodded to them and strode off. The guardians had work to do.