Chapter 5: The First Mission
Clea was even more nervous than she had been for her training when she had to the hangar; waiting for her were Bela and Ash.
"Volunteered to come along, didn't think you could get away from me that easily did you?" Ash joked.
Clea laughed before turning to Bela and rapidly asked "What's the mission? How are we getting there, what do I need to do?"
"There's been increased Fallen activity in an area they haven't been in years, so we're gonna scout the area and see what they're up to. As for your second question, normally each guardian would take their jumpship, but since you don't have one yet, I requisitioned the Harrier again. Finally, just follow our lead, and please relax. We've got your back" Bela assured her.
The trio once again boarded the Pragmat Harrier, and after a moment, took off into the sky.
Clea was sitting in the back with Ash while Bela was flying, but then Bela turned her head back and said "wanna give flying a try?"
The awoken gave a nervous look and asked "I don't want to crash us…."
Oh, our ghosts can revive us, and you'll need to learn somehow" Bela explained.
Ash gave Clea a pat on the back, and she got up, walking up to the co-pilot seat and sitting down.
Bela's ghost took over the controls as she turned to Clea and began to point out the dials and controls. Within about five minutes, she had explained everything.
Clea put both hands on the yoke, and after getting a feel for it, Bela's ghost relinquished control. Most jumpships had control sticks, but the heavy harrier had larger two-handed controls.
As soon as Clea turned the yoke, the harrier responded and turned sharply. Clea then made a few maneuvers before Bela guided her back on course. Clea couldn't explain it, but piloting the ship felt natural, the way the ship turned and moved, even if the harrier felt heavy and sluggish to her.
"I feel like I've piloted a ship before…but I thought guardians lost all their memories" Clea thought offhandedly.
Polari chimed in over internal comms, as she could hear Clea's thoughts when she was dematerialized inside her, and said, "there's a difference between actual memories and what your experiencing. If you flew ships a lot in your past life, then this will feel familiar, even if you don't have memories to explain it"
Soon enough, they had arrived at their destination, and Bela's ghost materialized, saying, "I'll set the ship in a holding pattern."
"Thanks, Plato," Bela said as she put on her helmet and checked her magazines. Ash loaded his hand cannon and holstered it before cocking his sniper rifle and putting the strap over his shoulder.
Clea loaded her shotgun and holstered it in her coat before putting on her helmet and pulling out Nightshade.
In a flash of light, all three of them were on the ground; it happened so fast that Clea blinked rapidly. Ash and Bela laughed and said, "most guardians don't land their ships, since the fallen love ripping them apart when they're unguarded, so we just transmat to ground. Don't worry; you'll get used to it"
The cosmodrome was a massive junkyard full of cars, crashed ships, and abandoned machinery as far as the eye could see. There were a few buildings in the distance, but there were no signs of life aside from the chirping of a few birds in the distance.
Ash held open his hand, causing Orion to project a holographic map of the area.
The hunter pointed to a glowing blue dot on the map, and said "we're here, but the facility is about three clicks away…we should use Sparrows until we get closer, then stay stealthy. Remember that this a recon mission; we want to avoid a firefight and learn as much as we can."
"Sparrows?" Clea questioned.
Bela facepalmed and said "crap, we didn't get her one….Plato, can you transfer her one of mine?"
On cue, a vehicle appeared next to Clea. It looked like a miniature jet and had two handlebars along with two petals, and it was solid purple with a dual-pronged front end.
Ash and Bela summoned their sparrows, and Clea timidly got on. She pressed the large button in front of her, and the bike hummed to life, hovering slightly off the ground.
Polari appeared and scanned the bike with a blue beam from her eye, scanning for a moment before she said, "Scanned and saved," before disappearing again.
Ash walked up beside her and said, "each handlebar is for steering, the right pedal is the accelerator, and the left is the break.
"What's the handle here?" Clea questioned as she pointed to a lever on the side of the bike.
"Parking break, and if you twist the right handle, you fire the booster, huge burst of speed but you can only maintain it for about a minute before it needs to recharge" Ash finished.
Clea nodded and began to feel up the pedals, however as she reached down to take off the parking brake, she forgot to take the pressure off the accelerator.
Clea rocketed off at an obscene speed, and straight into a nearby bolder. As soon as the sparrow slammed into the bolder it exploded.
The warlock didn't even feel any pain as the explosion vaporized her. Polari appeared a few seconds later, and after a brief flash of light, Clea was revived.
"Well…that didn't go well" Clea admitted as she swayed from side to side from dizziness. She still wasn't used to the sensation of being resurrected. Unlike on Europa, where Polari was able to revive her in the blink of an eye from the massive chest wound, there was nothing left to heal, and reviving a guardian from scratch took a few seconds, and during that time, her mind was essentially floating around like spirit, looking around at what had just happened. The truly disorienting part was the revival, though, as it felt like getting smashed into a cramped place in seconds before the sensation of having a body returned.
Ash and Bela arrived on their Sparrows; Clea took a look at the massive scorch mark on the bolder and said "sorry about the Sparrow.."
Bela laughed and said, "I made the exact same mistake; lucky we had your ghost scan it beforehand."
In another flash of light, the Sparrow returned as if nothing happened, with Poalri saying, "Ghosts can store dozens of items, but we can also make things as well. There's so much metal around here that I could make glimmer in seconds. Ghosts can make glimmer out of any matter, but metal is the easiest. Now that i scanned it, I can recreate it perfectly"
Clea nodded as she got on and carefully took the parking break off; after tapping the accelerator a few times and lurching forward a few feet, she took off, weaving through the junkyard without much issue.
After about twenty minutes, Ash stopped, and Clea overshot him before hitting the break.
As Clea pulled up back beside Ash, Bela's sparrow disappeared from under her as she levitated for a moment.
Bela noticed her look and said, "didn't Ikora teach you how to do that?"
Clea shook her head and Bela replied, "most warlocks learn how to glide on their own. More experienced warlocks can hover indefinitely or even fly. Try jumping and imagining the light keeping you stationary."
Cela did as instructed, and sure enough, she floated in the air for a moment. After focusing on the sensation of the light swirling around her feet, she was able to keep aloft for about a minute before she fell to the ground again.
After testing it a few times, the two warlocks went over to Ash, who had posted up on an overturned car with his sniper rifle.
Bela chucked as she looked at Ash's weapon, and asked, "please tell me you found that on the ground while we were practicing?"
"Ha-ha, ok, get your jokes out now," Ash mocked back.
The weapon was a long sniper with a boxy barrel and wires flowing into it. Some of the wires had been cut off and rerouted into a black power box that was clearly not part of the original weapon. On the side of the scope were five letters in white, DARCI.
Clea turned to Bela and asked, "what's wrong with that rifle?"
Bela couldn't help but laugh as she said, "The DARCI is the single most pointless sniper ever made. It was built to give guardians strategic advice, but everyone just ended up muting the artificial voice for being too annoying. The round wasn't strong enough for heavier targets either, defeating the entire purpose of a sniper. You need to channel a lot of light into the rifle to make it worth using…and Ash can't."
"But I tore out the voicebox and replaced it with a modified elemental capacitor; this thing can analyze and pierce any shield. Then I chambered it in a higher round and added a magnetic barrel to increase the muzzle velocity; now if you're done mocking me; I've spotted some fallen" Ash countered.
Clea and Bela intently focused their attention on where Ash was aiming, and spotted their prey about 400 yards away.
Four fallen were sitting around a campfire outside a rusted building, with their weapons strewn about. Four of them were smaller, and only had two arms, but one was slightly larger and had four arms. Around the edges of the camp were five large hovering bikes, similar to sparrows.
Clea looked through Nightshade's scope and noticed that all of the fallen had red cloaks on. "What's with the cloaks?"
Bella pulled out her pulse rifle. Much like Clea's pulse, it was black, but instead of painted purple in places, had visible purple energy flowing through it.
"The red cloaks are from the House of Devils, most fallen are part of a house, being a group of fifty more, and the House of Devils is the strongest house in the solar system," Bella admitted as she looked down the scope on her Graviton Lance.
Clea then took a look at the smaller fallen and noticed metal caps over stumps on their lower body. All of them were missing their two extra arms aside from the larger one.
Clea then whispered to Ash with "do fallen lose limbs that often fighting guardians?"
"Nope, when a fallen reaches maturity, they have to fight the current leader in a duel along with five other initiates. The leader then chose three out of the six who fought the best. The three who fought the best-become Vandals like the big one over there. Vandals are the elite soldiers, pilots, and mechanics, while the three who weren't chosen get their arms docked and serve as dregs, grunts in every aspect of life," Ash finished as he tweaked the scope one more time and double-checked the range.
"Well, are we gonna attack?" Clea questioned.
Ash shook his head a replied, "not yet; Orion is over there listening in."
Clea scanned the area but saw no sign of Ash's ghost. She was about to ask where he was when Polari explained, "ghosts can turn invisible along with dissolving and teleport long distances."
After about three minutes, Orion appeared above Ash's shoulder and said, "they just finished a scrapping mission and are heading back towards home. Apparently, they're heading to meet the Archon."
"Wait…the Archon…as in the leader of the House of Devils? We can't let this opportunity go," Bela realized.
"Hold on…need I remind you that this is Clea's first mission? If these guys really lead us to the Archon, then he sure as hell won't be undefended….no offense," Ash said with a look to Clea.
"None taken, but I'm with Bela. If we can get a shot at the leader of the House of Devils, then we need to take it" Clea affirmed.
Bela nodded and pulled a device out of her trench coat, and said, "cover me, I'm gonna go plant this…" before vanishing in a flash of purple light.
"How did she do that?" Clea questioned.
"Used void light to make herself invisible.." Ash admitted though the longing in his voice was apparent.
Clea noticed his sad tone and said, "Ikora told me about your light problem, but don't feel bad. You saved my life just fine without it"
"Thanks, but I'm never gonna amount to anything if I never can use a super. I'm the first guardian who's never been able to use solar, void or arc light…and I'm so sick of being looked down upon for it…or pitted," Ash admitted.
"I'm sorry; I don't think Bela was trying to mock you," Clea stated confidently.
Ash nodded and said, "yea, she wasn't…she's always been nice to me, but it still reminded me of that."
"You did all that to the rifle by yourself? Was it hard?" Clea questioned, trying to change the subject.
Ash nodded as he adjusted the scope's zoom and said, "Not really, I'm good with tech; it just clicks naturally for me. Orion found me in an old lab on Mars, so I may have been a scientist or something. Given how I was literally a scorch mark on the wall when he found me, I was probably vaporized when the Collapse began on Mars."
"99.87 percent vaporized. I was very lucky that my chosen's DNA survived. Then again, I suppose I could have just chosen another sample, even if he was my chosen match" Orion bluntly said over communications, as ghosts could share internal comms with other guardians if they wished. It was effective for mid-battle strategizing and the frequency could never be jammed, as it was a built-in telepathy between guardian and ghost.
"I would never have chosen anyone but Clea; her light matched mine!" Polari responded sharply.
Just then, Bela returned and said, "I planted the tracker where they won't find it; now we wait."
After 20 more minutes, the Fallen mounted up and blasted off on their Pikes.
As the three guardians returned to their Sparrows, Clea turned to Bela and asked, "should we contact the tower?"
The other warlock shook her head and replied, "No. Normally we would, but the House of Devil's Base has been a mystery for decades. The only way they've survived this long is because they know when to fight and when to run. It's been speculated they have a way to listen in to guardian communications, but we've never found proof."
Clea nodded and allowed Ash to take the lead. About an hour later, they arrived at the base of a large complex. There was no other Fallen present; in fact, the building looked mostly untouched, resembling a large empty hanger.
"This may not be their base, just a place they're meeting up," Bela whispered.
The three guardians dismounted and slowly walked up the stairs to the top of the facility. Surely enough, the five fallen were in the building, with the four dregs standing back while the Vandal was speaking to another fallen.
The Archon was more than twice the size of the Vandal; his armor was much more refined and sturdy looking than the other fallen. His most noticeable feature was his large white helmet with two massive white horns and multiple orange lenses on top of the helm to compliment his four eyes.
The three guardians peeked in before Bella said, "we've gotta attack them all at the same time or they're gonna bolt; any ideas?"
Ash pulled out a glowing purple grenade and said, "im gonna climb up to the top and drop in from over there. I'll drop the Vandal, while you take the Archon and the Dregs" with a motion to a hole in the roof, he then smashed the grenade on his chest, turning invisible.
"I make those smoke bombs for him, '' Bela whispered as the duo snuck into position for the ambush. As they got into position, Clea was shaking. The two warlocks got into position, with Bela summoning a ball of void energy in her hand while Clea simply aimed Nightshade.
Ash arrived on the other side of the building and leveled his sniper rifle; after taking a deep breath, he fired.
The Vandal didn't have a chance to blink as the sniper round went directly into its top right eye, and its head detonated in an explosion of white gas.
Clea killed two of the dregs with a burst to each of their chests while Bela's ball of void energy vaporized the other two. However, the Archon was ready to react as soon as the Vandel died.
The Archon chuckled as he drew his shrapnel rifle and fired directly toward Ash. The four blasts of solar heat vaporized the rusty rafters.
Ash used his double jump to avoid hitting the ground, but hanging in the air allowed the Archon to fire his shrapnel launcher point-blank into his chest. Ash's shields collapsed from the four beams of the rifle as he was thrown back. The archon then fired two more rounds into Ash; his armor was torn apart as he slumped against the wall, his charred chest showing that he was either dead or too wounded to move.
Clea drew her shotgun and rushed forward, unloading three blasts into the Archon, but the orange flash over his body revealed his powerful shield.
The Archon teleported behind Clea and punched her in the gut, then blasted her point blank as well, sending her flying into a nearby wall, her shield collapsed as well.
Before the Archon could blast Clea again, Bela leaped into the air and summoned a massive orb of void energy.
The Archon turned around just as the Nova bomb was launched. In a blue flash, he teleported just under Bela and grabbed her out of the air. the nova bomb detonated behind them, releasing smaller orbs that honed in on him, but the Archon quickly blasted the orbs with his gun. It was clear that he had fought many guardians before, given his reaction time and skills at overwhelming guardians up close, as many guardians lacked strong melee options if they weren't Titans.
The fallen laughed as he held Bela in place with his two lower arms, he then held up his upper right arm, and the silver gauntlet on it whirled to life. The three metal prongs on the gauntlet then flipped out and began spinning like a buzzsaw, firing a beam of blue energy into his captive.
Bela's chest glowed white as the gauntlet begin drawing the light out of her. Clea managed to recover consciousness as she heard Bela screaming..
Across the room, Ash's chest was glowing white as his ghost began sewing up the damage, but it would be a minute before he could move, let alone fight. Orion could heal the damage in seconds if he didn't have to remain hidden within his guardian, but he couldn't risk materializing with the Archon right there, not now that he had demonstrated a way to drain a guardian's light.
Clea forced herself to her feet and summoned her dawnblade, glowing golden wings appearing behind her as she rose into the air. With each swing of the sword, she unleashed blades of solar light that streaked towards their target. The first two broke the Archon's shield, and the second two chopped off the two arms holding Bela; the final two then took the Archon's other arms.
The Archon roared in pain as he turned around to see Clea landing as her dawnblade vanished from a lack of energy.
"POLARI, HOTHEAD!" Clea shouted, causing the rocket launcher to appear in her hands as Polari summoned it from her storage.
With all of his arms gone, and his teleportation belt fried from the intense solar heat, the Archon could only scream as Clea fired, the rocket hitting him dead center and blasting him apart, his entire body disassembled in an instant. All that remained was his massive helmet, which fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
Clea fell to her knees in exhaustion, dropping her rocket launcher. Bela instantly ran up to her and said, "you got him…."
"Yea….guess I did," Clea admitted as she took off her helmet, gasping for air.
Plato, then appeared; his shell was a dark purple with fins on the edge, saying, "he was draining my light; how did he do that?"
Bela then went over to the Archon's severed arms and took off the silver gauntlet, saying, "it must be this gauntlet."
Ash then got up, his wounds and armor mended, as he looked at the gauntlet and said, "that would explain why Archon managed to finish off so many guardians…glad we got him, I'm gonna go make sure the rest of the building is clear."
As Ash went off to one of the adjacent rooms, Bela helped Clea to her feet and said, "he almost killed me for good…thanks."
"Don't mention it…but the Fallen can permanently kill guardians…i thought guardians could only die in places where darkness was heavy," Clea questioned, remembering what Polari had told her last night.
Bela nodded and said "yea, but some of our enemies, like the hive, have ways of draining the light, but the fallen had never shown the capability to do it… at least, not since the battle of Twilight Gap."
Ash then returned and said, "the fallen have been around the cosmodrome for centuries, yet they've only killed about 50 or so guardians permanently since Twilight Gap; this must have been something only a select few fallen knew how to do, and most of them probably died at Twilight Gap. That aside, there's something over here you may want to see."
The two warlocks followed Ash around the corner, revealing a massive metal device with a screen on it.
Orion had just finished running a scan over it, and said, "it's a communications splicer; they've been using this to listen into guardians comms; luckily, now that I've scanned it, I can track the energy signature it makes."
Blea smiled and said, "great, now let's trash this thing."
Orion opened the top of the device, reavling it's glowing blue energy coils and dematerialized as Bela pulled out her own rocket launcher and fired, reducing the device to smoldering metal.
Polari then appeared, saying, "I transmatted the Archon's helmet into storage; it may be worth studying."
The trio then tranmatted back into the Harrier and plotted a course for the city. Clea sat in the back while Ash and Bela were in the pilot's seats.
Polari made loops in the air around her guardian as she said, "you did it, YOU DID IT!"
Clea laughed at her ghost's excitement. As they approached the tower, however, Clea noticed a bright light slowly rising up over the plaza, and asked, "what is that?"
Bela and Ash looked at each other before the hunter facepalmed and said, "crap…the dawning starts in two days!"
"What's the Dawning?" Clea asked.
"It's a celebration of the end of the year, essentially the result of several holidays from earth's past being melded into one. It lasts from the start of the second week in December to the first week of the new year. Guardians and Civilians give gifts to each other and celebrate with the people throughout the tower and city….I still can't believe I have my own guardian to spend the dawning with!" Polari explained, her voice sounding like she was about to cry, even if Ghosts couldn't.
As soon as the trio landed, they headed straight to Vanguard Command. Clea was in awe of the decorations being set up around the plaza as they arrived.
Zavala, Cayde, and Ikora were all waiting when they showed up. Ikora smiled as they entered and said, "how did the mission go?'
Bela opened her mouth, only for Polari to appear and say, "we killed the House of Devil's Archon!"
All three of the Vanguards gasped, only for Bela to chuckle and say, "that's the short version….but let's start at the beginning of the mission…."
Author's note- Happy holidays, everyone!
1. Poor Ash, is stuck with the DARCI, but his modifications are what the rifle should honestly do in my opinion. This chapter hopefully set up some more of his character without being too exposition-heavy. Also, he explained my idea for the selection process of dregs and vandals, which I don't think the campaigns ever explained.
2. For those of you who played the original Destiny 1 campaign, you may have noticed I condensed two of the early missions into one…people aren't exaggerating in regards to the original destiny campaign being 70% filler…
3. The Archon's splicer gauntlet explains a plot hole that was never addressed, being how the Fallen were able to finish off guardians in the past, as for how the Awoken were able to….we'll get there eventually. Splicer gauntlets allow the Fallen the access the vex network directly, and we know that vex can infect and disable ghosts, so this was a logical progression. Not only that, but given that by the time of Season of the Splicer, Mithrax was one of the only splicers left, and what would be better to reduce their numbers than massive battles like Six fronts and Twilight Gap?
4. There will be some time jumps during this story, and the next chapter will be after the first; rest assured that I won't be skipping anything important!
Leave a review; I always appreciate the feedback!