A Tale of Two Guardians XXVII
Part 1 of the Destined Series Chapter 27 : The Promethean Code masterlist
word count : 2.5k tag list : @mail-me-a-snail @basically-nacl @shins-wife @speed-boop
I stirred a bit from my sleep the next morning when I felt my body being adjusted. I sighed quietly and rolled over. I was startled awake when the door then flew open, and hit the wall with a loud thud. Before the intruder could announce themselves, I threw a Thunderstrike their way and hit them square in the chest, killing him instantly. I jumped up, reached for my sword on the table, only it wasn’t there. It started to process in my brain that this wasn’t my apartment, it took me another moment to recognize the Ghost, and Maverick was holding in his laughter as he walked over and revived him. Skinner stood in the living room, staring me down like he was ready to stab me for it.
“Oh Fuck!” I exclaimed, my face flushing bright. “I’m so sorry Skinner! It’s a natural reflex!” I then turned to Maverick, who had a smug look on his face. “Why didn’t you wake me up and tell me he was coming?!”
“Because I wanted to see what would happen. And I was not disappointed.” he said trying to hide his laughter.
Skinner then looked at Maverick with revenge filled eyes and said, “Oh you cheeky motherfucker, I’ll get you back.”
“I’m sure you will, now that we’re all here we need to talk about our next mission.”
“Wait, what mission?” I asked.
“Well we have to go steal something.”
“Steal something? From who?”
“...From Rasputian…”
I must have been the only one in the room that was clueless, because I looked between both of them and they were staring at me expectantly. “Umm who’s that?” I pressed.
“A Warmind.”
“A Warmind?” I was dumbfounded. Warminds are Golden Age Artificial Intelligence that connected the entire solar system through warsats, satellites, and weapons. “I thought they were lost during the Collapse?”
“Well, they were, until we activated the last array in Old Russia and reactivated him,” Maverick answered.
“He should be okay, right?” The thought of venturing into a Warmind made a pit form in my stomach. This may be familiar for Maverick and Skinner, but this was uncharted territory for me.
“After we ran Omnigul out of there, Zavala sent in a few teams to seal the vault. Only one team came back.” Skinner said, and promptly took a bow.
“Oh, then why are we going to a killer A.I. then?” I crossed my arms and glared at both of them. I didn’t like this idea one bit, but if there was no other way, then maybe we didn’t have a choice.
“Because we are the only ones to come out alive in recent times.”
“Fair enough. So what’s the plan Mav?” I walked over to the table, where the two of them were standing over the mission summary that they got from Cayde.
“Well we land in the Forgotten Shore, make our way to his bunker, go in, find the codes, take the codes and get out. Should be simple enough, the Vault's been sealed since Omnigul, so nothing could have gotten in.”
“So let me get this straight.” I took a deep breath and rubbed my temples. Why did mission summaries and plans always have to be discussed right after I woke up? “We're headed into the deadliest Golden Age Warmind and stealing from it?”
“That’s the gist of it yeah.”
I looked at the two of them, standing there as if this mission was no big deal, and sighed in defeat. “What have I gotten myself into with you guys?”
“A lot of fun, duh.” Skinner cackled.
“Well let’s get going then.” I split off from them, giving Maverick’s hand a small squeeze before I left to get changed into my armor. Skinner must have noticed, because I could hear him giggling like a giddy schoolgirl and the muffled sound of their voices. I shook my head and smiled. As much as these guys had a tendency to lead me down suicide missions, I don’t think I could live a day without them anymore.
— — — — —
We all boarded our ships later on in the morning and flew out of the Hanger, though we stayed in the atmosphere and fell into formation. Our Ghosts synchronized our ships and we all set a course for the Forgotten Shore. Before we arrived Eris came over sounding both angry and concerned "Stealing from Rasputian… You are entering a world you do not understand."
"Don't worry about her Fireteam." Cayde interjected, "She's still mad about what you did to her ship. We need stealth tech to slip by the Taken and Warmind's bunker has the codes we need."
"Do you really think it should be this easy?" I asked Maverick.
"Honestly no," Mav sighed, "I can almost say for certain that we are going to see some Taken in there."
"But the Vault's been sealed for months!" Skinner protested. "There's no way Taken could have breached it."
"And that's where you're wrong, I've seen enough Taken coming out of thin air and the walls to know better. But for now let's hope we don't have to fight Taken."
We landed in the Forgotten Shore and Maverick asked, "Cayde how do you know Rasputian will still have the codes?"
"I already stole it once, used my last copy making that stealth drive you blew up. Eh, it was getting old anyways." He said.
We hopped on our sparrows and rode over the shore. I followed Maverick and Skinner to an old building, and we quickly dispatched the Fallen that were outside of it. We made our way to the bunker in the basement of the building. As we began to descend the stairs, it must have finally clicked with Maverick that we couldn’t get into the Vault if it was sealed.
"Cayde, how are we supposed to get inside?" He asked.
"You've got the same bypass frequency that got me inside."
"He will protect his domain." Eris warned.
Maverick didn’t even have to input the codes, the doors opened on their own. As the door opened, we saw more Taken rifts and my heart sank. It was never going to be that easy. I reloaded my weapon and followed Maverick inside, Skinner bringing up the rear.
"More interdimensional goo, the Taken are here," Maverick reported.
"What? Not possible," Cayde said "We sealed the vault after the Omnigul breach."
“Cayde look at this.” He had his Ghost turn on a video feed to the Vanguard channel.
“Oh that does look bad. Okay, so if you see them ah, just shoot’em."
We make our way further into the vault and head toward the end of the hall before Taken started popping out of thin air as they normally do.
“How did they get in there?” Cayde asked.
“The Taken are not bound by terrestrial constraints.” Eris said.
“Yeah, I bet they’ll be constrained by terrestrial bullets.” Cayde added.
With that, we charged at the Taken. We cut down the Thrall and thinned their ranks. I hung back a bit and started sniping the Vandals and Captains towards that back of the room. The Vandals, however, became Maverick’s main aim of aggression. Most likely because they cast their own ward. Once everything was gone, I caught up to Skinner and Maverick and they led me further into the Vault. This place was familiar to them, they knew the halls like the back of their hands.
We began to push toward the end of the hall where more Taken began popping out. More Thrall, a Vandal, and a Captain. Captains have a tendency to throw literal Darkness blast at us, not to mention they teleport way too damn much, more than the Thrall do. When everything else was dead, Skinner and I stood next to each other, watching Maverick ruthlessly blast off the captain’s leg with his shotgun, let it collapse, before lining up his gun and blasting off it’s head.
“Really?” I asked. “Was that necessary?”
“What? He was pissing me off!” he snapped back.
“Nice one Mav!” Skinner said as he laughed and clapped at the display of aggression.
“Listen, Storm, if it was a normal Captain I would have shown it mercy. But these aren’t Fallen Captain’s anymore. Killing them is mercy at this point”
“Okay I’ll keep your word on that one,” I said in defeat. As much I hated the Taken and as much as my morals wanted to spare every creature, regardless of its nature, I knew he was right. “Now let’s keep moving.”
We continued through the bunker walking through what looked like a cooling chamber, most likely for the computer cores.
Maverick’s Ghost commented, “I can’t believe the Taken can track us so easily. Oryx really does hate us.”
“Well you did kill his son.” Dawn pointed out.
“Yeah, please don’t remind me. Skinner and I have a small army after us to do the reminding for you.”
“Which is exactly why we’re here. We need those cloaking codes.” Cayde piped in.
We left the cooling room and took another left as a door opened for us. Rasputin was leading us right to his data center.
“Do you think Rasputian is guiding us to the codes?” I asked.
“It’s entirely possible, he probably recognizes us and the threat at hand.” Maverick replied.
We went through the door and more Taken came out to greet us. This seemed to be never ending. The Taken Centurions were interesting to deal with; they summon this seeking missile to try and kill us thankfully it's shootable, it’s very similar to my axion dart grenades.
We fight through them with little problems. After they’re all dead the next door unlocks and opens. We follow the door down to what looks like a power tunnel and more Taken Thrall popped in. We cut them down easily and proceeded to the only door in that room. The next area was a small intersection where we stopped to catch our breaths.
“Ugh I’m covered in Taken goo again!” I exclaimed in annoyance. I shook off my hands and watched it cake the wall. I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning my armor when we got back.
“Oh, you’re covered in goo.” Mav muttered bitterly, and Skinner and I turned to face him. My eyes widened at the sight. Taken goo covered most of his armor.
Skinner almost died of laughter. “Oh no! Look out for the Taken Titan!”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed along with Skinner. “Wow, I thought I was covered but never mind.”
Maverick sighed. “Very funny, you guys.” He shook off his hands and wiped the goo off the face of his helmet. We used this time to take a breather; we reloaded our weapons and replenished our ammunition. We went to the open door. As with the other rooms, more Taken came to try and stop us. At this point, it was tiring
“Alright I’m done with these Taken. Skinner if you would please?” Mav asked, making a grandiose sweeping motion in front of him.
“My pleasure, Metal Man.” He said.
Shortly after, he brought out his knife and Arc Light swirled about his body. He then began to cut down all the Taken in the room and more that they came after the first wave. After they were all dead Skinner took a bow.
“Hope you two enjoyed the show! I know I enjoyed making it. It’s a shame though, I wanted to cut open one of those Vandals.”
I rolled my eyes at him and patted him on the shoulder as Maverick and I walked by. “Excellent work, Skinner.”
“Alright now, let’s go. We must be close.”
We went through the door, and another… and another… and another… and another, until it finally opened up to the control center. "Really? How many damn doors does he need?" I commented, my annoyance clear in my voice. And just like that, Taken spawned into the room.
“Okay, enough's enough,” Maverick growled as Solar Light illuminated his entire body. With that, he pulled solar hammers out of thin air and threw them at the Psions and Centurions in the room. He cleared them out in no time.
“Cayde we’re clear which console are we looking for?” He asked as the Solar energy faded from his body. Skinner and I walked closer to him.
“Umm, the one in the back I think.” He said.
“Found it.”
“Alright, see what you can pull out of Rasputian. Hmm, there’s a joke there somewhere.”
Mav deployed his Ghost and it scanned the computer.
“These cryptosystems follow no logic I understand. I’m not sure it can be modified to work on a Guardian.”
“Where do you think Bladedancers got their cloaking ability?” He said mockingly, “Grab the codes, I’ll upload my modifications.”
“If the Vanguard is satisfied, we can finally end this. Return to the Moon. Steal Crota’s soul.”
The three of us followed the path back out of the bunker; there were no Taken left to slow us down as we headed into the early afternoon sunlight and transmatted back into our ships.
“That was a successful mission if I do say so myself,” Maverick said over the private channel.
“Yes it was,” Skinner agreed. “And I’m, uh, I’m gonna head to the bar. I’ll catch you guys tomorrow.” He dropped out of the channel as silence fell between the Maverick and I.
When we landed in the Hanger, I turned to Maverick. “I’m going to head home to wash off all this goo. You’re welcome to join me for a pot of coffee.”
“I’m actually going to head home, too. Have a good night though, Angel.”
— — — — —
A few hours later I was sitting in my living area, glimmer piled on the table, and I was finishing up getting the Taken goo off of my armor. It was around midnight now and it was pouring rain outside. I sat back on the couch when I finished and yawned. I looked over at my Ghost. “Ghost, open a channel with Maverick.”
I waited a couple of minutes before he answered. “Yeah?” He asked aloud, like he didn’t really pay attention to who had called him, or that he was preoccupied with something.
“Allô, mon chérie,” I said softly.
“Oh, Storm, hey… everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine.” I paused for a moment, and fiddled with the ends of my sleeves. “Mav… I know where we’re going tomorrow. Are you sure you guys are going to be okay.”
There was silence on his end.
“Mav?”
“I’ll be fine, Skinner will be fine. Don’t worry about it.” There was a chill in his voice that made me doubt him. “You should get some sleep.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Maverick…”
“Angel, please…” He was pleading with me now. “Get some rest.”
“Okay. Je t’aime, mon chérie. Bonne nuit et fait de beaux rêves…”*
“Good night, Angel.”
--- translations ---
* I love you, my dear. Good night and sweet dreams...”