((This hits me with some inspiration, and I’d thought about doing this big long written arc where I make chapters of the Red War for each character, but I think I’ll just stick to writing out short scenes as the mood strikes me. This blog’s... Kinda dead anyhow. Didn’t get much interaction, as I’m convinced a lot of people lurked rather than interact. ANYWAY, here goes: this is after Breaker secures his Light on Titan, at least a source of Light: the Void Light of the Sentinel known only as “Nate.” Bonus points if you can draw the connection there! Enjoy!
The rains in Titan were frustrating. It was always raining. The water seeped into everything, and it made shelters impossible to power. The civilians though... They managed to keep everything together thanks to Breaker-77. The Exo Titan recovered some semblance of sanity, some kind of idea as to what he was and who he was going to be. The Golden Age Heister, the Hivebane, Breaker-77. He had been told by Zavala that they needed to find Cayde, and that the only transmission he’d received was that Cayde was on Nessus. Simple enough. Breaker and Cayde agreed on more things than they’d both like to admit: both were former criminals.
But Breaker was more concerned about Alice.
Alice was by far the most unique member of the Fireteam known as Catastrophe, and Breaker knew it. She wasn’t some Golden Age corpse that was resurrected, she was an Awoken from a dead timeline created by the Vex, somehow having fallen out of the gates and stealing a hand cannon from Henry to survive. Her Ghost was Henry’s girlfriend’s, or... Was it? Breaker knew. He also knew that Alice was a fucking monster, and without her Light she was four times as dangerous. Just like Breaker, she knew how to fight and terrorize and slaughter without it.
It came naturally to her, and Breaker knew it. He chased the signal on Nessus, coming into contact with a defunct AI that insisted on calling itself Failsafe and sending him around the planetoid. He didn’t care, he needed Cayde to talk about Alice.
“So, Cayde?”
“What’s up my bank robbing friend? You’re... Getting me out right?”
“Where’s Alice?”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Tell me. Now.”
“Oh my cotton socks! You gotta be ki-”
And Cayde was gone further into the Vex networks. Easy enough to fix, Breaker just needed to find the vault and crack it. He entered the networks himself, eager to break them apart one at a time. And he did so. Vex screamed as he approached, their forms different somehow. As he traveled through simulation after simulation, he felt his Ghost sputter something and vanish. He panicked initially, but then calmed himself, and walked to a mirror.
This reflection was strange, as Vex didn’t quite like mirrors. After some posing, Breaker took a moment to realize it wasn’t a reflection. He stared at another version of himself: with a book on his hip and a scimitar in his hands.
A scimitar?
The Exos looked at one another. Heads tilted, making strange gestures. Breaker reached out to touch the reflection, and their hands met. The Vex simulation turned red, screaming. The two Breakers collided into one another, and for a brief moment... There were two voices in one head.
Who are you?
“Breaker-77, the Wandering Spellblade!”
No, I’m Breaker-77, the Golden Age Heister and Godslayer.
“Well, we share that last title. Are you... Me?”
Both voices would say in unison: “Ploughin’ Vex,” then there would be a silence. Vex forms began to form, and the Breakers came apart to reach for different weapons. The Vex screamed, and the simulation ripped apart again. Both Exos, side-by-side.
“Follow my moves!” the Guardian spat, and he drew an auto-rifle.
“Can’t do that,” the Wandering Spellblade responded, and drew a scimitar that he charged with what looked like... Magic?
“Fine!” the Guardian shouted, “Then I can do magic shit too,”
The Guardian conjured the Sentinel shield, and the two used their weapons to fight back an endless surge of Vex. Nothing seemed to break the tide. But, the Guardian saw his counterpart. Steps were measured, the breathing even seemed to be something done with years of practice. The Spellblade jumped, rolling sideways through the air to land and pirouette the blade through several Vex. He spun it around him, catching Vex weaponry and launching it into the air before discharging electricity from his blade. The Vex exploded, radiolarian fluid oozing everywhere.
The Spellblade watched his counterpart, seeing the Guardian become a battering ram, that moved and flowed through the combat. Each slam and throw of the shield took more forms, cascading in destruction. Where the Spellblade was a dance of death, of grace and focus, the Guardian was a brutal fight to the death. Standing to the last, being a wall that constantly expanded and created a circle within which not even a shattered Vex part escaped into.
Both made a misstep, at the same time.
The Spellblade’s scimitar skittered across the room to land at the Guardian’s feet, and the shield flew out once too far and bounced comically in front of the Spellblade.
“Do you believe in anything, Spellblade?”
“The Dawnflower, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her,” the Spellblade walked slowly to the Shield, watching the Vex puzzle at this strange interaction.
“Could you plead to her? My Light, the Traveler... Is a little indisposed.”
The Spellblade began to recite a prayer. The Guardian did the same. The Spellblade’s sheath produced a flaming scimitar, radiant and glorious, that blinded the Guardian for a moment. The shield snapped to the Spellblade, floating by him without him needing to hold it. Both the Spellblade’s hands were on the hilt of the scimitar, which was held to his temple with raised arms. The tip aimed at the Vex, the Guardian recognized the stance as one Lord Shaxx had used: it would focus on ripostes and parries unless the enemy was too wild or vicious to need one, in which case it could easily turn into a flowing combat style that lent itself to an absurd dexterity.
The Guardian snatched the scimitar at his feet, and he felt lightning surge through him. He mimicked the movements he’d seen, and noticed with a sideways glance that the Spellblade added force to his dance. The shield would be grabbed at certain points, and slammed down into a Vex Goblin. A Minotaur tried to punch him, only to be parried by the shield and the flaming scimitar cooked away the bronze of the Vex form.
The pair of Breakers continued their dance, moving back and forth to both carve large circles into the Vex that continued to arrive. It seemed there was no end, but... The Guardian and Spellblade both incorporated new tricks. They felt a new piece of power enter their bodies. Breaker surged with electricity, the Arc Light he’d thought he would never see again... It grew! It became...
The Guardian discharged a blast of Arc energy through the scimitar, then became engulfed in it to bring about a Fist of Havoc that obliterated a Hydra.
The Spellblade launched the shield, and twirled as he lowered his body to the ground, slicing two Minotaurs and countless Goblins about as he kept in pace with the Shield.
The Spellblade’s flaming scimitar launched flames about the room, and the Guardian felt Light in them! Good, positive Light! It energized him, fueled him, and the Vex began to sputter and shake.
“It’s time to bail,” the Spellblade shouted, pointing to a gate on the Guardian’s side, “There’s a gate on my side! Say, you ever meet an Ephras in your timeline?”
“You ever fight next to a Henry?”
“Kinda?”
“You’d get along!” Both said in unison. They threw their weapons back to one another, and carved their way to respective Vex gates. The Guardian and Spellblade hesitated, looking back to one another for just a moment. One moment, where they felt as if time had stopped.
Breaker broke from the moment and fell. The Guardian was back on Nessus, in front of the ruins of the Exodus Black. A Fallen Captain charged him, swinging its right arms to punch him in his face. It got him good, and he felt his world spin. He stood up, recognizing the Captain.
[Breaker-77, Kell of House of Thieves! I remember you!] The Captain laughed heartily, [Your fists were match for Baron of House Winter, but they will not be a match for me. I challenge you, for Kell!]
“Then toss me a blade, let’s dance.”
The Captain laughed, tossing Breaker an old, battered longsword with a handguard that pointed towards the tip of the blade with both ends. He saw strange glyphs carved into it, and a weird medallion dangling off it. The medallion looked similar to a woman, her arms outstretched as a radiant sunburst pattern emanated from above her arms. He took the medallion from it, and put it around his own neck. The Captain laughed as Breaker held the hilt to his face, point aimed at the Fallen.
[You face me like that? One blade held to parry? You are no dancer, Guardian! I know your fighting style, yo-]
Breaker had sprinted with lightning at his heels, jumped, rolled sideways, and brought the blade straight down through the Captain’s skull. Falling apart in two halves, the Captain ceased to be. The Dregs and Vandals panicked, charging. The Exo used his force to dance: the blade was heavier than it probably should’ve been, which helped. The Guardian mimicked the movements he’d seen in the Vex... Simulation? Or was it... It had to have been a simulation.
As Breaker continued to fight his way into the Exodus Black, to the place where he believed he’d sent Cayde in his mad dash through Vex networks he couldn’t recall beyond that strange encounter, he found another Captain pinning something down behind a pipe. The Exo finished his dance with a spinning pirouette, one feinting swing to disarm the Captain of his Shrapnel Launcher, and then a reverse of that spinning motion to cleave the Eliksni in half. It gasped in surprise, and all Breaker could understand was a simple phrase:
[Sword Dancer.]
Cayde poked his head out of cover, and stayed silent for a moment.
“Did... Do... You need to talk about anything with me?”
((This begins what will turn into a bit of fic for Fireteam Catastrophe reacting to the Red War. I think this would be the best way to truly capture who these characters are: through the tragedy of the Red War. I think this has the potential to be particularly badass, but I’ll let you all be the judge.))
Breaker-77 was one of the first to hear the sirens, one of the first to respond, and the first one to have the true trauma of all Hell breaking loose enter his psyche. He watched a strange ship beeline for the Traveler, and his equivalent to a gut sank. It was with practiced precision that he took a Legionary out, spinning left to bring his assault rifle to bear. The Shadow Price feeling like a water gun in the hands of the Exo, it smote the Cabal soldier with the precision of someone who truly practiced the weapon in its entirety. However, it was a scrap he recovered from a fallen Redjack. The frames were scattered around the City, and Breaker watched former marks and protection rackets vanish into the smoke of the Cabal Stomp.
He grabbed one Cabal by its wrists as the thing charged with two axes: he was locked in place and the weapon had dropped to the floor. The giant of a creature, known as a Gladiator by his HUD, screamed through its helmet into his face. He smelled rage, pure and simple in its creation and ultimately he smelled his own death. A moment of panic lapsed, and Breaker-77′s mind snapped into the chilling flashback of a heist gone awry in a time he couldn’t remember. Dogs. Wolves.
Hounds.
The Exo was perceiving a large bank, probably one of the largest, no. It was a military complex. Russian, he remembered it by the writing. They were stealing something very specific. It was... No, was it SIVA? No. SIVA was from the Plaguelands. Breaker was holding his hands up to clutch the dropping cage that held something unfathomably valuable. His mind snapped to reality for a second, and he realized the weight of the cage had put him on the ground. He rolled sideways, throwing the ‘cage’ off his body and jumping to his feet. Doing something instinctive, Victor Gonzalez-
Who was Victor Gonzalez?
The Gladiator delivered a tackle to its opponent, and Breaker lost the wind in his lungs as he fell backward. Drawing a knife on his pauldron, the Exo stabbed into the Cabal helmet and pried something off. Smoke and oil hissed out, and the creature became belligerent. Breaker raised the knife again, and dropped it. Smiting easily, he repeated the process several times until the hulking creature fell limp. He climbed from under its weight, and screamed.
“Breaker, we need you up-” The audio was cut off as unknown Guardians met one of their many ends at the hands of Cabal artillery. They revived, and Breaker coughed himself out of another flashback. The Guardians he swore were his old crew from the Golden Age, a long lost group of rogues and thugs who saw him through many heists. Now, however, they were long dead and the warrior who defended the people he would have robbed in his past life was a wielder of the Light. He looked up, wanting so badly to know that his Fireteam was alive, knowing that the Cabal had not found and stomped out their Ghosts as they tried to do his own. Dallas, the small machine, was tucked away in Breaker’s pack. They would not take him again.
Breaker saw refugees being chased by War Hounds, and his body surged with Arc energy as he conjured his Fists of Havoc. The beasts vanished in lightning, and the survivors of their hunger were struck with awe. Breaker watched another Titan wave them into cover. The surging Titan lowered his auto rifle and pointed behind the civilian: old tricks coming into play.
“Get in line! I didn’t say stop running! Fucking move! If I have to tell you again, you’re fucking dead do you understand me?!”
Once, Breaker had used this exact tone on this exact civilian in a robbery on a SUROS exhibit. Or was it the raid on New Monarchy’s stockpiles? It may have even been the Dead Orbit Fuel Raid. Breaker had done so many illicit things for so many awful reasons, he had a moment to ponder what even made him a warrior of the Light. Why did the Traveler choose him? Why did the Ghost known as Dallas revive him? As Breaker shoved another stunned civilian, he spun around and caught a series of slugs to his chest. Several Psions were charging up the way, using thruster packs that he hadn’t seen before. He drew a light machine gun, checked the belt, and felt the arcane energies of this weapon, a custom-built weapon created from fragmented memories and decayed blueprints, whir into motion. The kathunka-thunk! of the weapon tore into the Psions, who were quickly reinforced by War Beasts - Dallas was updating names as he found them - and several Legionaries. The cover of the belt popped up, and Breaker felt various mechanisms click to guide his hands along the reloading process.
It was smooth, efficient, and deadly. The “Full Force Forward” machine gun had devices specially designed to recycle missed shots, akin to another weapon known as “Super Good Advice,” but it would also begin stripping the armor of fallen foes and cycle them into bullets. There were other features, but none of them were relevant. Each kill extended the belt, and Breaker had used this on several thousand Cabal when he began raiding their Martian outposts. It was designed with them in mind, since they held near infinite amounts of suitable metal to salvage, but it had earned its costs twenty-fold on every enemy in the Sol system. One more spin of it wouldn’t hurt.
A massive Cabal wearing a fuel tank approached, and Breaker felt the embrace of death as it cooked straight through him. He found his mind dancing through hallucinations, and an urge struck him: shoot the tank. Reviving on a roof top and letting out a hearty, demoralizing laugh, he dropped from the third story balcony and poured the lead on thick. The Incendior exploded, scorching all of its allies. Breaker found a moment of peace, and heard Zavala’s voice.
“All available Guardians! We-”
Breaker felt something torn from his body. Almost as if his very soul tore from its bindings, he staggered. Dallas sputtered, trying to speak. The voice dimmed, and slowly went silent. Cabal roared, and Breaker suddenly felt every inch of pain he’d felt the entire day. With a roar, he searched around him. This pain was only felt when cleaning out Hive nests where they sapped one’s Light. However, this was far more intense. Breaker’s mind went awry, and he was suddenly hallucinating the burning City as the highway he escaped through upon finally stealing something from a very angry, Russian someone. He felt an urge to run, but couldn’t find out why. The sirens blared in the distance, and he pounded his feet. His softcase on his thigh held something extremely valuable, something he knew was his ticket out of here, and he had to haul ass with it.
“Anyone on this frequency!? Anyone!” Breaker didn’t recognize the voice but he knew that was one of his Crew. The Exo sprinted with more intensity, police firing explosives and hurling the unfire of strange Void magics over him. Civilians were herded into the escape vehicle: a dropship. A strange design he hadn’t seen before, but one that looked like it could fly in a pinch. Could it go to Mars? Breaker had a hideout there. He’d snuck something very valuable away there. But he couldn’t help but feel like that something caused trillions of people intense pain. His mind clouded red, a strange symbol filling his eyes.
~consume enhance REPLICATE
“By the Traveler! Breaker-77!” When did Victor get that name? Who was Breaker? Victor was Breaker. Wasn’t he? “Please, help me,” Breaker didn’t know what was said by his crew, but he felt that the hostages needed to be quiet. They would get rowdy, and ruin their chance to escape.
“Ev... Everyone...” the Exo coughed, turning around and seeing the Warmind’s vaults burning... They looked like a City all of a sudden, a city underneath the Traveler. Something was engulfing the Traveler...
“Everyone! Get on the god damn floor and shut your fuckin’ mouths!” Breaker knew how to handle crowds. He was good at that: he broke their wills, after all. That was his code-name: Breaker. “We’re getting out of this joint if it kills us,” the hallucinations ceased, and the Exo realized that the lives he’d lost had saved him once again. Zavala stood there, concerned.
“Breaker-77! What the Hell is the matter with you!? These are innocent civilians!”
Breaker looked to the cinders fluttering in the breeze, and everything within him ached. His heart ached the most, however. The bank robber covered his face with his hands as the cargobay doors shut. The ship took off, hitting full-speed as soon as it could. Breaker heard women crying, children screaming, and men asking why Zavala was still bleeding, and why they were running. After all, the Guardians could take-
“I said shut your fuckin’ mouths! Lick the fucking floor, or I’ll-” he had spun and faced the crowd, his face no longer concealed by the helmet he’d been so proud to earn. He realized it, and tore the scrap metal from his head. The horns he’d had installed to simulate a demon were apparent, and his scowl was cranked to eleven. “Zavala, did you feel it too?”
“Feel... The Light vanish?”
“Yes.”
“I did.”
The Exo had - without any conscious effort to do so - dropped to his rear and sank his head between his knees. The civilians stayed quiet, quiet enough to hear the horrifying Guardian and Commander Zavala break in half.
“Zavala, I think this whole job just went South.”
“It was likely just a localized ritual done by the Psions. Ikora wou-”
“Zavala! They’re dead! We’re all that’s left! An old bank robber, a tired Awoken, a bunch of nobody civilians, whoever is piloting this bird, and at least two Ghosts that haven’t said a word since that ‘localized ritual.’ Has yours spoken?”
“Break... Er... Do we have... a Plan B?”
“No, Dallas, we don’t. The sirens finally caught up to us.”
((Because I’m making a podcast for Fireteam Catastrophe! I’m gonna start with “Beginnings - the Return of Breaker-77″ and have a sort of introduction to who Breaker is.))
((Don’t worry, everyone’s favorite space-nerd [Henry] will make an appearance and it’ll transition to be more about the pop-punk posterchild.))
((This is a school project, and I’m gonna redo the “The Dubious Tasks“ things to be MUCH more polished. Ideally, I’ll be able to get in the swing of things with a short radio-drama of how Fireteam Catastrophe came to include the three dorks pictured. It’s gonna be extremely fun!))
