Chapter 13: Valus Ta'aurc
All of the command center personnel funneled back down the elevator, one load after another for 20 minutes.. Soon enough Ash and Clea were the only ones outside, apart from the two guards at the door. 5 minutes later, Deputy Commander Indra arrived, her electric blue eyes boring into the duo as she said "Ash, go make your chaff canisters, tell the techs code AYB3 and they'll follow any of your orders"
The young hunter paused for a moment, before nodding and running off towards the tank garage.
"Follow me" Indra ordered to Clea, as duo began walking towards another landing pad.
"From what Zavala told me, your friend's pretty tech oriented, do you vouch for him on his technical skills?" Inda questioned.
Clea nodded.
"Do you believe he can handle this mission…given his handicap?" Indra questioned.
Clea paused, before nodding and saying "he can think on his feet, and I trust him."
"You didn't answer my question" Indra bluntly replied.
"I'm sure he will…" the young warlock was cut off by the deputy commander.
"Don't bullshit me…answer the question" Indra pressed.
"I…Yes he can" Clea said as confidently as she could.
Just then the duo came to the landing pad, and Indra stopped, standing at attention and looking at the horizon.
Clea was confused and asked "What are we doing?"
"Waiting, let's solve a math problem. How long to jump from Earth to Mars and then arrive if you drop straight down from orbit?" Indra inquired.
Clea opened her mouth only for Polari to materialize and say "30.024 minutes"
The young warlock smiled at her ghost as Indra nodded and said "correct, which means that our guest should be arriving at our twelve O'clock right about…now" Indra said as a ship appeared on the horizon.
"Who's this?" Clea questioned.
Indra sighed and said "your friend was absolutely correct in saying no ordinary guardian could handle holding off the cabal at the land tank's entrance, so I called in a favor with a guardian who is anything but normal, and old friend of mine from the days of the great hunt"
On cue the ship stopped and hovered down, turning around as it landed so it's rear end was facing them. The ship was anything but standard. It had a two pronged long body that spread out in front of an orb like cockpit. Behind the orb sat two cylinder sections that clearly served as airlocks, and the wings on the sides resembled solar panels that came to a flat rounded point, like the front on a boat. The wings themselves only ran along half of the ship's body, and seemed small in comparison to the overall ship, and it's dark blue paint job was so dark that it could easily be mistaken for all black.
As soon as three landing struts dropped out of the ship, much like the Castillo Lancer's landing gear, a large back ramp dropped, and smoke exited the vehicle with a hiss. Down the ramp came the single most intimidating thing Clea had ever seen, even surpassing the massive hive knight she had fought on the moon.
He was the largest titan Clea had ever seen, easily 8 feet tall, and was clad in rugged electric blue armor. The armor had a stylized depiction of two wolves back to back in his chest, and a similar blue wolf symbol was present on the pitch black mark hanging at his waist. His helmet was the most striking part of his appearance, looking like a metallic wolf head with a blacked out visor serving as the mouth.
Clea was too stunned to speak, she didn't even need to ask the name of the titan in front of her. Polari's eye was wider than Clea had ever seen.
Indra stepped forward and held her hand out. Merrick took her hand and the two gave each other a quick hug. After they separated, Indra gave a small smile and said "good to see you Merrick"
The thunderwolf nodded before turning his attention to Clea, and sizing her up.
"Oh hello, it's an honor to..um..uh.." Clea was cut off by her ghost saying "We honored to meet you Merrick."
The legendary Titan gave the ghost a nod before walking off towards the armory, planning to service all his weapons before the mission.
Indra gave a small chuckle and said "starstruck?"
Clea nodded while Polari instantly gushed over the encounter with "I can believe I just met MERRICK! Survivor of the Great Disaster, bane of the hive, successor of the iron lords…"
"Friendly word of advice, DO NOT ask him about the moon, he doesn't like hearing about it, let alone having to think about what happened" Indra warned, her friendly tone vanishing instantly.
Clea nodded, but then another thought struck her, and she asked "do you know what really happened on the moon? Did he actually fight Crota and win?"
Indra nodded and said "yes I do, but that's not my story to tell. Enough reminiscing, let's prepare for the mission"
Soon enough everyone was gathered in the hangar, as Indra repeated the plan to the two other members of her strike team. One was a hunter and the other was a warlock.
"We'll infil on the top of the land tank, then Rico and Bogs will fly the harrier back out of the exclusion zone. They'll come back with a payload of rockets in case we need to blast out of here" Indra said before turning to her two stealth specialists and saying "Merrick will cover our backs, Sola, you and Tevis are responsible for keeping us cloaked until we find the target
The voidwalker nodded before saying "I'll gonna practice cloaking the ship" before walking off.
Ash then screwed the last canister shut, allowing the technicians to take it away, before walking up to Clea and saying "I can't believe I'm going on a mission with Merrick….and an actual Nightstalker"
Clea noticed the excitement in Ash's voice regarding the hunter and asked "is void light your favorite type?"
Ash shook his head and replied "no, it's just Nightstalkers…hunters that can use void light offensively are very rare. Probably the rarest type of guardians."
Merrick noticed Ash's comment and gave a very, very small chuckle, so much so that no one heard it, but clearly the legendary titan knew something Ash didn't.
"Are there just not enough night stalkers to train new ones?" Clea asked.
Ash shook his head and replied "No, that's not it. It's not like warlocks where anyone can be a voidwalker after a few decades of disciplined training, the potential to be a nightstalker is something you have to flat out have to be born with."
Polari then chimed in with "I've never actually met a nightstalker either, Ikora and Bella have a natural affinity for void light, but like ash said, it's a skill that all warlocks can eventually use if they train hard enough"
Clea nodded then said "I've managed to turn myself invisible a few times, but that's it"
Ash immediately bowed his head and replied "of course you have…" before sulking away.
"No Ash, I didn't mean…" Clea did even get a chance to finish before the hunter left the hanger….
Clea clutched her palms together as sat down in one of the Pragmat Harrier's jump seats. The sun was setting, and it was time to depart.
The two void specialists arrived next, sitting down across from Clea, silent and focused on the task ahead.
Ash arrived and walked past Clea, sitting two spaces away from her in the forwardmost seat on the right side.
Merrick arrived soon after, sitting next to the void specialists before a large blue machine gun transmated into his hand. Clea stared at the weapon as Merric double checked his equipment, the weapon was unlike anything she had seen. It had a large energy cell attached to the stock, along with two small cables running along the left side, and ending just before the round ammo drum, and a single long cable ran from just after the drum, all the way to the end of the handguard.
Indra arrived last and sat down in the remaining seat between Ash and Clea, only now she was wearing her helmet, which was black with sharp angles and a blue visor, with the top covered by the hood of her cloak.
Indra finally broke the silence and said "Rico, Bogs, it's time to depart. I informed Commander Zavala of our mission, and he has a message for you all.
The commander's voice was broadcast over comms, with the pre-recorded message saying "Whether we wanted it or not, we've stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars. It's time to take out their command. Valus Ta'aurc commands the Siege Dancers from an Imperial Land Tank outside of Rubicon. He's well protected, but with the right team, we can punch through those defenses, take this beast out, and break their grip on Freehold. Good luck guardians"
The Pragmat Harrier lifted off, and headed towards the exclusion zone.
"Alright…here goes nothing" Tevis muttered as explosions were heard in the distance, the drake tanks had begun firing the chaff.
The harrier dived, flying low and entering a canyon to avoid a radar lock, the chaff would take a moment to spread, and they needed to stay undetected or the whole mission would be over.
"Coming up on the first battery…" Bogs announced.
Sola and Tevis placed their hands on the walls, void light appearing on their hands as they clocked the ship. The chaff may have protected them from radar detection, but they couldn't risk a cabal soldier on the ground spotting them.
Merrick was a stoic as ever, but everyone else tensed and held their breath.
For 15 agonizing minutes, the guardians sat in silence, fearful they would be blown out of the sky any second, until finally, Bogs announced "coming up on the land tank, get ready!"
The harrier came to a stop and began to hover, the side doors opened and the team quickly exited the ship. Being on top of the massive tank was striking, as they were instantly in the heart of enemy territory and it gave everyone a view of the Cabal base, including the dozens of scorpius turrets that were scanning back and forth. Clea could even see a few Cabal soldiers standing guard, and they were intimidating to say the least. Bulky figures in full body armor that covered their entire body, and all of them were over 9 feet tall. The armor made them look like walking tanks, and Clea certainly wasn't looking forward to fighting them.
In the distance, Clea saw orange flames lighting up the night sky. The drake tanks had opened fire on the forwards operations base.
As soon as everyone else was out, the two void specialists pumped more energy into the walls of the ship, giving it a few precious minutes of void invisibility to escape. Clea refrained from talking, but it was odd to see what appeared to be an open door hovering in the air with nothing around it.
Sola and Tevis jumped out, and the Harrier's doors closed, rendering the ship completely invisible. The ship blasted off, turning straight up for a vertical climb. All it had to do was get above the layer of chaff coverage and it was safe. Merrick pulled out his machine gun and took an overwatch position, while the others went on ahead, he would stay behind and be ready to halt any reinforcements.
Indra double checked their surroundings and motioned for everyone to follow, as they crouched and walked after her. Soon enough there was activity below, as dozens of cabal soldiers and a selection of tanks began rushing to the gates. The plan was working so far.
Indra guided the team to a maintenance hatch at the very back of the tank, but just before they reached it, something happened.
"STOP" Tevis shouted over internal comms, causing everyone to freeze in place as he threw a smoke grenade, cloaking everyone.
Polari placed a marker on Clea's heads up display, and she looked up to see what had stopped them in their tracks.
At the top of a nearby communications tower, there was a smaller, skinny creature with two horns on its helmet and one central eye. It was holding a sniper rifle and had a thin suit of armor, painted in the same colors as the larger soldiers. It was walking around the side of a platform at the top of the spire. Just as she spotted it, the creature looked straight down at them, causing Clea's heart to pound in her chest. Luckily Tevis's cloak held, and the creature walked away, back around the tower.
"Psion, small psychic aliens that the cabal use as tech experts, snipers and scouts. Good catch Tevis" Indra complimented before moving towards the hatch and summoning her ghost.
Just then the cloak wore off, and everyone was visible again, Zeus scanned the hatch and said "hacking, give me a second"
"We don't have a second, that Psion will be back around soon and he'll see the hatch opening even if we're cloaked. Ash warned.
"Relax, we're fine" Tevis said as he walked past Indra and purple energy swirled around him, summoning a bow of purple energy with a glowing arrow in the center.
The Psion came around the corner again, and just as it came into view, Tevis let the arrow fly. The Psion was struck dead in the eye, and vaporized in an instant, gone in the blink of an eye via a silent blast of void energy.
Clea's jaw dropped. The shot Tevis made with his bow would have been difficult with a sniper rifle, let alone the pinpoint accuracy of the shot. The distance of the straight up shot had to be more than 200 meters, and while paracausality made gravity and wind resistance a non-issue, it did nothing to aid marksmanship.
Zeus then opened the hatch, and the squad dropped down. They were in, and had managed to enter without raising the alarm.
The hallways of the land tank were cold and lifeless, as they moved slowly and methodically under the cover of Sola's invisibility bubble, until they came to the door of the bridge.
Indra drew her hand cannon, finally allowing Ash to see the weapon, and it was unlike any hand cannon he had ever seen or heard of.
The gun was black with a customized grip and a round back, with a glowing blue light on the back, at first glance it looked normal enough, but with a tap to a small button on the side, the front opened up, with two prongs flipping out like fins, and now revealing metallic rails on both the prongs and within the center spine.
"Is that a rail gun?" Ash questioned with a whisper.
"Yes, now focus!" Indra snapped back as Tevis stepped forward, out of the cloaking bubble and pressed the button to the side of the door.
The door opened and everyone froze, barely able to avoid gasping as every Cabal in the room turned to face the door that appeared to have mysteriously opened on its own.
The bridge was multi-layered with a central ramp, leading up to a main platform where three Cabal stood in front of the massive rectangular window. Two soldiers were manning the controls, and a third Cabal, twice the size of his subordinates, was overlooking the base.
Then, on the sides were four rows of consoles where Psions were watching over the radar and communications equipment.
The massive cabal in the center drew the weapon on his back and turned around, but didn't fire as he saw no intruders. Valus Ta'aurc was an absolute behemoth, with thick blue and white armor, along with two massive banners on his back and a helmet with a feathered crest on the top, which looked comically small compared to his massive shoulder pads.
Everyone held their breath as Indra's hand cannon charged, blue energy humming to life as she charged the weapon for a single, lethal shot aimed right at Valus Ta'aurc's head.
Just as Indra's finger began to tense on the trigger, a cabal legionnaire ran straight into the group from behind, sending the five guardians flying forward, straight into Ta'aurc and the other two Cabal. Their perfect ambush had been ruined by a Cabal running into the room to speak with the Valus, completely unaware of the invisible guardians in front of him.
There was a brief pause as everyone took a moment to process what had just happened, with both the Cabal and guardians staring blankly at each other as the realization of the surprise attack registered, before all hell broke loose.
Ta'aurc backhanded the guardians in front of him, sending Ash, Indra and Clea flying back while Sola and Tevis jumped away.
One psion hit a button on his console, sounding the alarm while the others drew their rifles and fired.
Clea, Ash and Indra dove down behind the nearest consoles while Sola and Tevis vanished into the shadows.
Gunfire pelted the entire bridge as every cabal shot in every conceivable direction trying to gun the guardians down before they reached cover, but no shots landed.
A nova bomb was launched, wiping out the right side of the bridge, while a volley of void arrows obliterated the right side. Soon there were no cabal left but Ta'aurc himself.
The Valus was far from helpless however, as he spun up his slug launcher, and unloaded.
The armor piercing rounds shredded Tevis and Sola, blowing them apart in an instant. Ash met the same fate as Ta'aurc's rounds sliced through the console, killing him, and blowing Clea's arm off. Only Indra managed to escape the rounds by teleporting in a quick blink of arc light.
Indra appeared just above Ta'aurc and leveled her hand cannon, firing a quick three round burst, aimed right at the Valus's weapon.
The burst hit the slug launcher's ammo box, causing it to explode in Ta'aurc's face, but the bulky cabal was unphased and unleashed a barrage of missiles from the launchers on his back. The missile homed in on Indra just as she landed on the ground, blowing her up in an instant,
As the smoke cleared, Ta'aurc surveyed his surroundings and ran out the door, down the long hallways of the land tank.
Clea clutched her arm as the white energy pooled at the stump. Guardians regenerated from flesh wounds so fast that they never bled, but losing an entire limb was different, and liquid light splattered in place of blood as her healing factor kicked in, luckily the lost of the nerves meant there was no pain, and the vague outline of her arm appeared as Polari repaired the damage.
Clea had no time to think, and ran after the cabal commander. As she left the bridge, she heard a thunderous boom that shook the entire tank, clearly Merrick was making quite a roadblock for the Cabal trying to reinforce their commander.
The bulky cabal was by no means a fast runner, and Clea caught up to him just as her arm finished reforming. She reached behind her, only to grab nothing but air, as it dawned on her that her pulse rifle was back where she had lost her arm, Ta'aurc launched another volley of missiles to cover his escape.
Clea was ready this time and dodged the missiles by sliding on the ground, causing them to detonate behind her. A door then opened automatically in front of Ta'aurc, revealing a room with large swords and various other trophies on the wall along with a huge chair for the Valus.
Just as Clea drew her shotgun, Ta'aurc grabbed a weapon off the wall, one that Clea instantly froze at the sight of. A Gjallerhorn in pristine condition apart from a missing trigger guard that allowed Ta'aurc massive finger to fire the weapon.
The Valus pulled the trigger and hit Clea dead center, vaporizing her in an instant with the legendary weapon. Just like the last time she was vaporized, Clea was now just a formless, invisible presence, able to see but not interact.
Ta'aurc laughed as he waited for Polari to materialize, but the elder ghost knew better. A guardian weapon like a Gjallerhorn was infused with light by a guardian using it repeatedly, and it could kill a ghost as a result.
However, and electrified knife flew into Ta'aurc's arm, and he turned to see Indra running down the hall, cloaked on arc light to boost her speed.
Ta'aurc fired again, and Indra ran straight into the rocket, unable to stop in time as she met the same fate as Clea.
The Valus then pulled the knife out of his arm, still sparking and threw it towards the particles of Indra's swirling light, and it connected, forcibly materializing as the arc light zapped the ghost and sent it to the ground.
Zeus twitched as the arc light zapped him, he was completely helpless as Ta'aurc opened the Gjallarhorn and slipped a shell into the breach.
"NO, I WON'T LET YOU!" Clea thought as she focused on the dim light surrounding her consciousness. Polari was low on light from restoring the limb. Such a specific use of the light was actually more costly than resurrecting Clea from scratch, and thus her reserves were too depleted for a fast revival.
Then, it happened. In a brilliant burst of fire, Clea was revived, glowing wings appeared behind her as she was restored, and Ta'aurc looked at her in shock. The warlock's entire body was glowing a brilliant yellow as a ring of light appeared around her body.
Clea felt power surging through her like never before, and unleashed a blast of solar energy from her hand, she meant to just throw a fusion grenade, but the attack that came out was completely different. A continuous stream of flame erupted from her palm, brutally scorching the Cabal commander and sending him flying against the wall. The Gjallerhorn flew out of his hand as his front armor was burned to a crisp. The flamethrower of gleaming light continued, burning hotter and hotter until the mighty Valus was nothing but a black scorch mark on the wall.
Finally the power left her, and Clea fell on one knee as struggled to breath.
Just then Indra was revived, as Zeus had recovered from the stun. The bladedancer ran up to Clea, helping her to her feet as she asked "how the hell…why didn't you tell me you were a sunsinger!"
Clea gave a confused look and said "I thought you said Zavala told you my abilities along with Ash?"
Indra facepalmed and said "he didn't tell me you were AN ACTUAL SUNSINGER!"
Clea was even more confused as Polari appeared and said "Clea, Sunsinger is a slang term for any warlock good with solar light, but the term originated from a Guardian named Skorri, who developed a technique called radiance, a level of solar light so far above what other guardians could achieve, that many people thought it was just a legend."
Indra nodded and said "And that's what you just did, you just used fireborn, a radiance technique so impossibly advanced that only three other guardians have ever pulled it off, Skori, a sunsinger named Gabriel, and the most powerful Guardian to ever live, Osiris"
Clea was awestruck, with no idea how to respond. Just then the rest of the team arrived, and Ash said "we better go help Merrick"
Indra nodded and motioned for Clea to follow, they had no time to marvel at what Clea had accomplished. Polari transmatted the Gjallerhorn into storage before dematerializing back into safety.
As they were running down the halls, Indra talked to Clea over internal comms saying "keep what just happened between us….just trust me" in an incredibly strict voice.
Clea didn't protest, if what she did was as rare as Indra had said, she definitely didn't want to publicize it.
They arrived at the bottom if the land tank, and after a quick hack, the massive hanger door opened, then everyone gasped as they saw what was before them.
Hundreds of dead cabal, their armor scorched by electricity, were sprawled out before them, along with several destroyed tanks, and standing at the bottom, between the ramp and the sea of carnage, was Merrick. His armor has few extra dents, and they could hear the titan panting from exhaustion, but he was still standing, and an entire army was not.
Merrick walked to a nearby corpse and kicked it aside, revealing his thunderlord machine gun. It had been dropped in the battle and buried under his fallen foes, but was undamaged.
He then went to the body of a cabal centurion, and reached down. There was a disgusting popping sound as Merrick removed another weapon from the cratered torso where a cabal head had once been. The weapon was a gleaming, metal war hammer covered in a black fluid that was leaking from the cabal armor, but it wasn't blood, as Cabal blood was actually red like humans.
Arc light surged over the hammer, removing the tarnish and revealing an ornate, wolf head engraving on the side of the hammerhead. The weapon's handle was five feet long and clearly meant to be wielded with two hands. After inspecting the weapon for any damage, it dissolved in a flash of sparks, and Merrick turned back to face Indra.
"We got him" Indra revealed.
Merrick nodded and turned away, gazing at the stars as Indra radioed for pickup.
Everyone was too stunned by the titan's handiwork to say anything, but Clea had one thought on her mind.
"If Merrick is this strong ... .could he have actually killed Crota like the rumors said?"
Author's Note-I'm not dead! The Final Shape was everything I wanted, and I've already thought of ways I'd adapt it into my story, thought that's A REALLY LONG way away…
1. I'm not going to try to make excuses, having a full time job makes writing a lot harder. Not only that but my writing often depends on when an idea hits me so it's a bad combination. Regardless, I fully intend to finish all my stories eventually, including this one.
2. This is nothing at all like the Cerberus Vale strike….but let's be honest, most strikes are boring to go through step by step. Expect more twists like this in the future.
3. Indra's hand cannon is based on a weapon from Call of Duty, I'd be surprised if anyone has heard of it
4. Thoughts on Merrick? He's pretty heavily based on Master Chief. His armor is essentially a spin on Lord Saladin's with the days of iron crown helm
5. Ah yes, the infamous self rez, fireborn. This ability was only in D1, for good reason, but the fact remains that it did exist, so I decided to make it an astronomically rare ability that you have to be born with the natural talent for, since lorewise there's no explanation why guardians just stopped having this power. I'll go more in depth on it later, but this is the first part of another running theme in this story. The young wolf is supposedly the most power guardian ever, but we're never given any real reason to think that…so we need reasons why this one random guardian manages to achieve things even guardians with centuries of experience couldn't
Please leave a review, the feedback motivates me to write more than anything else