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lizzieraindrops · 3 years

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Chapters: 6/6 Fandom: Destiny (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eris Morn/Ikora Rey Characters: Eris Morn, Ikora Rey Additional Tags: 5+1 Things, Hello destiny sapphics; allow me to introduce myself, Femslash, if nobody is going to write the content i want to see then i will create it myself, listen. it’s about perceiving the weak and wounded places in someone you love, and lavishing love and care upon them even when they won’t admit they need it, it’s about the Mutual Support, it’s about being kind to them even when you don’t know how to be kind to yourself, Light Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, oh and ikora has the most Distinguished Bisexual energy i’ve ever seen so jot that down, it doesn’t come up but you needed to know, this is all just a bunch of softness and tenderness don't @ me okay, Grief/Mourning

Summary:

Five storms Eris and Ikora weathered and one they didn’t need to.

The Shadowkeep weblore lives in my head rent free. Set post-Taken King and mostly during Shadowkeep.

“As I told Asher, there is a storm coming…” “Oryx is dead. We’ve weathered the storm.” Ikora is upset. She has yet to understand the bigger picture. “Yet his sisters would see his will done. There will always be another storm.” “Then let’s weather it together.” -Shadowkeep Narrative Preview #1

Chapter: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | +1 |

Set early Shadowkeep. Happy Ikora returns day!

As the afternoon sunlight sweeps across her study in slow motion, Ikora thinks on time, and distance. Their immensity and insignificance are so deeply, paradoxically interwoven. Leaning over the many strike reports on her heavy wooden desk, she thinks on decades passing, centuries, and the way the earth still turns under the sun every day the way it always has. She knows that even without encouragement, the sun has always been running down to eventually collapse into darkness. Yet the process is so slow that she has not witnessed the slightest telltale change to indicate it in all her long life, and unless they are all very unlucky, she likely never will.

She considers the great stretch of space from her desk chair in the Tower to the near reaches of the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system, the pitted stones of which her own eyes have beheld in her youth. That great span is not so different from the kind of invisible gulf that oft forms between people. Ikora will sense that spaceless distance yawning wide even between herself and someone mere paces away. With some time and thought, she can often close it again. Compassion and carefully chosen words, thoughtful gestures; they hold more power than most people credit. But other times, no matter what form of communication she employs to attempt to bridge that void, people cannot or will not hear her. It is endlessly galling. It can happen with anyone from intractable faction leaders during a Consensus meeting to dear friends she does not want to lose to her own Traveler-forsaken ghost.

Despite any physical separation, she knows that felt distance would collapse if only she could understand and make herself understood to those she cares about. If only she could find the right way to reach them. Then she remembers all over again: the too-frequent sensation of reaching and reaching and reaching and not even being met halfway.

Ikora thinks about the universe’s tendency toward entropy, and the way time and space have torn people away from her again and again, be it by kilometers or eternities. She cannot forget the way she lost her mentor, her closest thing to kin, to his obsession with the mysteries of temporality long before he physically left the City. She remembers the way someone she could have loved was already leaving before Ikora could ask her to stay, vanishing to parts unknown. She considers her own time on Io during the Red War: Lightless and lost, desperately seeking a connection to anything that would give her hope or answers. All she found was herself even more alone, feeling farther from everyone than she ever has.

Then, Ikora recalls the way Cayde and Zavala seized her in a doubly crushing hug the moment she returned to Earth and stepped onto the unexpected refuge of the Farm. There she was, weaker than ever and harshly humbled by her own insufficiency in the face of insurmountable odds. Yet they not only reached out to her, but caught her as she fell into their arms broken. Maybe, in their own way, they had been reaching all along, and she had been turning away unknowing. She didn’t know how she’d gone so long without letting herself lean on them.

Now though, with her closest friend ripped out of her life and buried in a few years of grief, she still doesn’t know how she’s going to do it again. There’s only so much of each other’s pain and weariness that she and Zavala can hold.

She thinks of the way it felt when Eris returned, feeling their separation in time and space draw to a close while a buffer of uncertainty remained. Truly, after the years of silence following their painful parting, Ikora had never expected to see the woman again. Yet Eris came back. Now she lingers at the edges of Ikora’s space, in the back of her mind; sometimes closer. Ever drawn back to the Moon, Eris comes and goes; but now, she remains within reach.

Eris has always been hard to keep up with. Impelled by her immense grief and rage and pain, she drives herself so hard in pursuit of vengeance or closure. Ikora has always admired her tenacity in reshaping her suffering into a knife of purpose, one effective and deadly beyond even the means of most Lightbearers. Eris’ knowledge and sacrifices are what enabled them to defeat two gods of the Hive. And still she strives to further eliminate the possibility of her cruel fate ever befalling another. But it pains Ikora to see her still flinging herself into the fight with fury while foregoing her own healing.

It feels different, though, to be around her now. While as fierce and focused as ever, something has gentled some of her edges while sharpening others. It’s evident that Eris’ return to the Moon has spiked her dread with memory. Sometimes she is as wary as she was when she first returned from the Hellmouth, hissing at shadows. But her conversations with Ikora turn soft and halting far more than they ever did before. Perhaps she has found some measure of peace, given a few years with the defeat of Crota and Oryx to turn her avenged grief over and over in her hands. Or — as Ikora distinctly suspects — she, too, regrets the harsh words of their previous parting and thinks of reconciliation.

Maybe it’s just that Ikora is hearing her more clearly now. Or perhaps Ikora herself has just finally learned how to listen. What she hears is something that could be, not an answer, but the beginning of a conversation.

Shadows grow longer and Ikora moves from her desk to one of the soft chairs in her little library of an office. Ophiuchus compiles in a small flurry of Light, and she brushes a hand over his shell as she passes by. He watches her settle into the chair to watch the setting sun through the window. They do that sometimes: just watch each other. It has only been a few years since they started speaking to each other again after many decades. It’s still hard. But now that they have, their silences are friendlier. Ikora isn’t sure that they’ll ever be as close as they were before they pulled away from each other. But she’s still glad for what they have now. This is the kind of thing she promised herself she’d do better at after the Red War, so she’s been trying even harder. If she’s going to rely on anyone, her own ghost should be first among them. All the time they spent so far apart right next to each other has left its mark. But this is one of the few rifts that Ikora has been able to even begin to repair, and she treasures every rebuilt link.

Ikora thinks about the way Osiris tore time and causality itself apart to breach one of those unfathomable distances and bring back someone precious. With a little help, he saved someone thought irretrievably lost beyond a thousand layers of temporospatial distance. And yet, Ikora cannot help but see the way Osiris still struggles to close that gulf even when Saint is right in front of him, impossibly alive. As guardians, they are given so, so many second chances, but they are still far from infinite.

Ever since the day she formally became Vanguard, Ikora has been telling herself she’s not going to let herself repeat his mistakes. She keeps a firm grip on her emotions, leashes her ego, puts the City and its people’s safety first. She has failed many times, but succeeded more often; the Last City stands yet. But it’s been so hard to reconcile those imperatives with the harsh lessons of the Red War: sometimes, she is not enough; and sometimes, having others in her corner with her makes them enough, together.

Perhaps she should have paid more attention to those smaller lessons before then. Losing her Light, however temporarily, showed her just how fragile the greater ones are without that groundwork. No matter how mighty, a tree that does not anchor its fine roots into the ground will bow before a stiff wind.

When the dust had settled and her Light returned, she swore to herself that she’d learn to let herself need other people. Intellectually, she knows it makes her stronger, even when she feels weaker. But losing Cayde so soon after that decision demolished what progress she had made. Time and again she ends up trapped in her own attempts at self-sufficiency, alone whether or not anyone else is there.

Ikora already knows what she wants, what she needs. She knows she needs people. And she knows she wants someone.

She just doesn’t know how to go about it yet.

#ikora rey #eris morn #destiny 2 #eris/ikora #ikora/eris #erikora #ikoris #destiny the game #destiny fanfiction #lizzie's adventures in writing #HAPPY IKORA DAY #look. ikora needs a hug #fun fact i wrote this before the splicer trailer drop so the sun thing was UNINTENTIONAL #anyway as always [shoves this in your face] CARE ABOUT THESE LADIES #long post #destinewt

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blacky-nikki-art · 4 years

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Destiny 2 OC: Eva - Reference Sheet

Name: Eva

Species: Ghost

Sex/Voice: Female (♀)

Guardian: Iberis-3

Nicknames:

Baby-Lady (Only Iberis-3)

Cry Baby (Only Sagira)

Little One

I know I a bit failed drawing of ‘Normal Ghost’, but srl, drawing them is harder than it looks sometimes

If you wanna knows more about my tiny, little, baby-lady more under keep reading -u-

Personality, Traits and History:

Eva is a small, friendly and curious ghost. With her adorable lifestyle, some people think she’s cute. This is NOT mean she’s naive or stupid - actually she knows many stuff about enemies, history after collapse and much more.

She was one of the first ghosts created by Traveler. She has seen the world after the collapse and how it changed during the time. Eva is a watchful observer.

While searching for her guardian, Eva also met other ghosts, guardians and ordinary people. Some were nice, some weren't. The small size caused different reactions in others. At first, her small size didn't bother her, but after the first suggestions that she might be defective, Eva began to worry.

Maybe she was really defective? Was she a mistake of Traveler? What if its guardian never existed or the body completely ceased to exist?

Eva had spent a lot of time searching for her guardian. ‘Cuz I had never played Destiny 1, she found guardian 2-3 years before the Red War campaign from Destiny 2. Anyway, it was at Cosmodrome on Old Russia.

His name was Iberis-3 what they would find out about his marriage ring - Iberis-(1 changed to 2) and Alexander. Eva never really cared what class would be her guardian but she was more like - YES, I FOUND YOU!!! OMG!!! YESSSSS!!!

At first she didn't worry that Iberis had problems at the crucible. He was just getting started, right? However, Eva slowly began to notice that something was wrong. Iberis developed his skills more slowly than the others. She tried to help him but to be honest, she didn't had idea how to does it.

Eva got really pissed off when Iberis left The Tower. Where the life in danger? Never ending battles? Enemies? The glory?

What if her guardian was defective like her? No no no...

She felt dissapointed and sad but she still tried to remember she was created for him, she had to stay with Iberis no matter what happen or what he’ll do. Well she was with him all the time.

When Iberis-3 worked at The Farm (not The Farm at the EDZ but around Last City), Eva realized that Iberis-3 didn’t need someone to teach him how to fight, but someone who would support him emotionally. She saw that Iberis-3 was more sensitive than she realized, capable of worrying terribly about little things.

He needed emotional support.

During these 2-3 years, Eva learned how to help Iberis, she knew him better. Of course, living among ordinary people was extremely interesting, too, even when she had to hide most of the time. Only two of Iberis'es friends knew about Eva. They were for him like brothers from another mother.

The calm life has end durring the attack of Cabals at Last City. Eva convinced Iberis to join the fight. She had several weapons hidden within her for a "special occasion". However, the little ghost didn't foresee the devastating consequences of this attack.

After they lost ligh, Iberis-3 and Eva saw the unknown guardian falling from the Red Legion’s battleship. The unknown guardian and his/her/them ghost didn’t survive that. They were dead.

The litte ghost and her Warlock had to run for save their lifes.

After fled the city, the story is not different than the original story from the game: Helped at The Farm, light back, helped vanguards, and finally beated Ghaul.

Eva was terrified as hell during this time. She was worried about Iberis-3, didn't want to lose him. She had been looking for him for so long, and despite this disappointment for a short time, Iberis was still her guardian. Iberis-3 was special to her, he was hers. Eva loved him, but not in a romantic way. She cared more for him and wanted to know that he was fine. Somethin’ like mother to child or siblig to sibling. I dunno, It’s hard to explain but NO ROMANTIC. Hell no.

Eva and Iberis' relationship is strong. The white exo trusts her the most, only her is able to reveal his innermost thoughts, worries or just spend time fooling around in the most absurd and ridiculous way. Just two best friends.

Other Facts:

When I realized already at the game is another Eva, was too late for me to change name my ghost name. I only have a hope it won’t give me troubles.

The name come from Evangelion Unit-01, or shorter Eva-01 from anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Eva love light pink color. It’s not mean everything have to be pink but Iberis is careful when he asks Eva to order something online. He has already pink flip-flop and pink-purple shorts with black palm tree pattern.

Her fav game is Animal Crossing New Horizons. Eva can hack computers, well she doesn't need to use Joy-Cons from Nintendo Switch.

Her plushie alpaca is named Cherry.

Eva likes to hide in the scarf that Iberis wears around his neck. He wear this only for her ‘cuz Ibi wants make her happy and feel comfortable.

Eva likes being around Iberis, but in the Tower she loves talking to other ghosts well she usually leave him alone for longer while. She gets along with Sundance - Cayde-6 ghost.

Eva usually is not a fan of big, loud Titans but she very likes Saint-14. When Saint saw her fist time, probably he thought - it’s the smallest, cutest ghost that I ever have seen. *watching her* I have to say hello!

That’s all from me. Probably, I’ll gona update this ref’ smoethimes but I think it’s enought for now.

Sorry for my english, I try to do my best ;/

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 ghost #destiny ghost #destiny 2 oc #blacky try draw #eva

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theidiotwhowritesthings · 5 years

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57 Pings

The prompt from anonymous was this:

From the prompt list!! Can I get #51 w/Cayde-6 x female hunter reader? I don’t see any Destiny stories on ur page but it look like u mentioned it!🙏🏻

Cayde-6 x Female Hunter!Reader

Warnings: fighting and non-descriptive mentions of dying

1,698 words

“He is pinging us, again.”

You banked your sparrow against the Exodus Black debris sending up a spray of sand and dirt as your ghost spoke in your ear. Your cloak whipped around you, slapping against your helmet once, making you feel even more aggravated than you did 10 seconds before it happened. Usually you weren’t so sloppy or reckless on your sparrow, but according to the 57 pings from your Vanguard, time was of the essence.

“Open the communication channel.”

Static briefly filled your helmet before it turned to voices. The first full statement directed to you came from a cheery, robotic voice you recognized with ease, “Captain! Welcome back! The Cayde-6 is once again in grave danger, are you here to provide assistance?” Glitching static turned into a disappointed, dreary version of the robotic voice, “Somebody needs to put out the fire he’s caused.”

“Yes, I’m here to help the dumbass. Where is Cayde-6, Failsafe? Is he still in the Glade of Echoes?”

“Why yes, I am, and I do not appreciate the tone or derogatory comment on my intelligence.” Cayde replied himself and you had to resist the urge to roll your eyes. A pack of Fallen fired on you as your sparrow flew by them, but you just hunkered down onto your seat and sped up.

Nessus scenery was a blur of red and white around you as you finally reached an open portion of the terrain where you could really open up the engine. Failsafe, both her cheery and depressed side, rattled off another comment this time directed at the Exo himself.

“Just know this, Vanguard.” You interrupted whatever he was replying to Failsafe to speak up, “If the Vex and Fallen don’t kill you, I will.”

“Oof. Vanguard? You’re really upset at me aren’t, you? Did I interrupt something important? Were you—”

You groaned, “Shouldn’t you be shooting and not talking?”

“I’m a very good multi-tasker.”

You took another sharp turn and the sound of gunfire and yelling filled the air. The Glade of Echoes was not your favorite spot to visit on Nessus even on a normal day. It was a mess of metal wreckage where Vex and Fallen liked to wage war against one another, and there was just enough tunnels and coverage spots that made fighting back a giant pain in the ass.

A large Vex minotaur stood in an alley opening firing toward a half-broken billboard relentlessly while a smaller pack of Vex goblins fired at a pack of Fallen that were also shooting at the billboard. Something told you that’s where you’d find a certain, impossible Exo.

You drove your sparrow straight into their warpath and leaped off last minute. The sparrow tumbled into the goblins while you slid under the Minotaur, between its legs, tossing up a grenade at it at the same time. Shots were fired at you, you didn’t even know who from, but you ducked and rolled toward the billboard. The grenade went off, throwing the minotaur off balance, and you took this opportunity to climb up the wreckage and dive behind the cover it provided.

“Well howdy, Guardian.”

Cayde-6 was crouched down in front of you. His back was pressed against the wall and his hand cannon, Ace of Spades, was held up in front of him ready to fire when needed. His signature cloak’s hood was pulled up as per usual but none of the hood hid the smug look on his blue, metallic face.

You dismissed your helmet, letting strands of your [hair color] hair fall into your face. Cayde’s glowing blue eyes were trained on you and his jaw flashed yellow as he spoke, “Welcome to the party.”

“How did you manage to make every living thing in the vicinity angry at you?”

“Hmm, good question.” He held a finger up and motioned it toward you, “Why are you angry at me? That might help me figure out an answer.”

You pulled out your own hand cannon and Cayde’s eyes darted to it before landing back on you. Quickly, you made sure it was fully loaded and Cayde mimicked your actions. This wasn’t the first time the two of you were up against a crowd of angry enemies who wanted you dead. As Hunters, working as a team didn’t come naturally to either of you granted. It took years before you found a fireteam you trusted or worked well with. Cayde-6, though? Working with him was never difficult. Interacting with him was effortless, and you’d done it enough now that much talk wasn’t needed.

Your Vanguard gave you a look, and you returned it with one of your own. His eyes lit up with amusement as you brought your helmet back into place. Cayde nodded once, and then the two of you went to work. In a flurry of gunfire and solar energy, the two of you took out Vex and Fallen alike one by one. Their numbers dwindled down to only a handful.

You fired your last shot, blowing a particularly annoying Fallen away, and then backtracked away from the corpse while reloading your weapon. As you turned, you watched as Cayde threw out his knife, taking out a Vex, and fired the Ace of Spades point blank into the face of a Fallen that leapt toward him.

One Vex crept out from behind a lump of broken metal and snuck up behind Cayde. You hadn’t finished reloading but gave up on it to grab your knife in your opposite hand. Without hesitation you lunged forward and buried it into the back of its head at the same time that Cayde spun around with his gun up.

The barrel was aimed at your head for only a second or two before Cayde grabbed the cloth of your cloak wrapped around your neck, yanking you towards him. He kept his grip tight on you as you stumbled into his chest and then he fired two shots towards enemies behind you. You glanced over your shoulder in time to see the last two Vex fall to the ground in sparks.

“Captain! The two of you did amazing! Thanks to you, the area is clear.” Failsafe spoke over the comm channel in her typical flip-flopping ways, “Granted, it was your fault the area was flooded with enemies anyways.”

Your shoulders relaxed and you put your hand cannon back into its holster. It was only then that you realized Cayde still had one hand tangled in your cloak, and now his other hand twitched at his side as his gaze didn’t waver from your helmet.

“Do you want to kiss as bad as I do right now?” Cayde said in a tone that held amusement and something you didn’t quite recognize.

You dismissed your helmet again, gave him a soft smile, and replied, “No.”

His blue eyes blinked in shock, and you took his confusion as an opening to untangle yourself from him. Cayde rubbed the back of his neck, the confusion still evident on his features, “Well, either I’m bad at reading a room or you just ruined a perfectly romantic moment.”

“Romantic moment?” You scoffed, “Cayde, you’ve ignored me for nearly a month now and suddenly just call me up out of the blue to save your ass on Nessus randomly??”

You shook your head and brushed past him to leave the area. Maybe you’d stop by and see Failsafe in person before taking off entirely. That thought was interrupted as Cayde caught up to you with ease, “So that’s why you’re upset at me, huh?”

It was silly to be upset at this situation which was why you tried to avoid thinking about it the past month. There was too much going on in your life, and the universe, for you to worry yourself on the Hunter Vanguard dodging your messages and calls.

Cayde whipped around to stand in front of you, forcing you to come to a screeching halt, “Hold on, hold on.”

“What?” You crossed your armored arms over your chest tightly and twisted your lips in annoyance and embarrassment.

“Yes, I did sort of ignore you for a month and that is on me.” Cayde spoke with his hands, “But in my defense I was… thinking about something.”

You scoffed, “Oh, you were? Hope you didn’t hurt yourself too badly.”

You tried to push around him again, but Cayde side stepped easily and stopped you. This time he kept his hands on your shoulders as he spoke, “You said we should hang out more.”

That was accurate. On one of your last missions together, before the silent treatment, you suggested that the two of you should spend more time together. It came from an after-mission buzz of confidence. Things had gone very well, the two of you walked away with some great loot, and the words slipped out before you even really knew what you were asking. Cayde had nodded in response, went his own way, and then hadn’t talked to you until today when he sent a random message asking for back up on Nessus.

“Cayde-”

“I want to hang out more.” He said quickly. For the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, you saw hesitance on his face. Cayde-6 was a lot of things, but hesitant was not one. He tore his gaze away briefly before settling it back on you, “Sorry it took me some time to work through it and figure it out.”

Your own features softened and Cayde squeezed your shoulders with both hands. With a sigh, you lifted one of your hands to set on top of one of his, “When I said hang out more, I meant like get a drink. Notpiss off every Vex and Fallen in a 2-mile radius.”

Cayde shrugged and shifted so his hands on your shoulders turned to one of his arms hanging off it. You responded by putting your own arm around his waist as the two of you continued walking through the now abandoned Glade of Echoes, “Who says we can’t do both?”

#cayde-6 #cayde-6 x female reader #reader insert #destiny #destiny 2 #female hunter reader #fallen #vex #hand cannons #failsafe #nessus #guardian #cayde #hunters #ghost

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lumi-klovstad-games · 5 years

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Ramses-17′s opinions on Destiny 2′s cast in the unfortunate event of his Death or Amnesia

The Prompt: Your Guardian, or a character of your choice, making video logs in case they die or start losing their memories

Ramses-17:

*shuffles nervously in front of the camera*

Hey you... so, I guess I’m either dead-dead or I’ve lost my memory completely. If I’m dead, I hope I pulled a Cayde-6 and went out like an absolute badass, defiant to the end. I mean, not that I’m eager to punch out or anything, but I at least hope my death measures up to what I hope my life amounted to. Preferably, even more so, but that’s a tall order. It’s been quite a life so far.

Some notes: I hope Saint-14 is still hanging around. If he is, go say hi. Make friends with him. He’s a damn good example of the very best of us. The image of a Guardian. He’s the icon I strive to live up to -- he taught me what it means to be a Titan and a Guardian. Just don’t don’t engage in a snowball fight with him. I don’t care how tempting it seems.

Be nice to Zavala. Yes, he’s made some dick calls, I mean, really dick calls... but his one love and loyalty is the City. Everything he’s done, smart or not, kind or not, was in its defense. He just... doesn’t understand that not all Guardians are like him, I think. You can get the story of what went down between us from Ikora, Shaxx, or Reena Feng but... dammit I’m just no good at telling stories. Point is, don’t judge him too harshly. There’s a good man underneath that gruff and social ineptness. Kind of like me, I guess.

Speaking of Reena Feng... it’s taken me a while to come to terms with the girl, and the choices she made, but ultimately... she made a better call than I did at the time. Showing mercy to Kaya-Sei was absolutely the right call, and I’m glad she was there to stop me. If she hadn’t been there, I think I would have regretted my decisions forever. If it’s Ramses-18 watching? Go thank that plucky Warlock. Say 17 told you to do it. She’ll laugh it off, tell a joke to try to deflect how much it makes her feel, but she’ll really appreciate it. With luck, you’ll be best friends with her, just like I used to be.

On the note of Kaya-Sei: she’s not that different from Zavala. She’s stuck in her way of seeing the world, but she’s not a bad person. If you cross paths with her, don’t treat her like the traitor everyone says she is. You can absolutely trust her, and this is coming from me, so that’s gotta mean something. Normally I wouldn’t say “trust the personal hitwoman of Mara Sov”, but if Kaya’s involved, take her side. She’s damn well earned that apology from me. Also her judgment is much better than it looks from the outside, which is a good thing because sometimes she really looks like a moron. Don’t tell her I said that. I mean, the part where I called her a moron. Go ahead and flatter her with the bit where I said she has good judgment. Mostly because it’s true.

Quick bits: Ikora Rey? Excellent sagely counselor. If you have concerns, she has some of the best advice out there. If you’re concerned about where to turn or what to do, ask her. You won’t regret it.

Drifter? Keep well away from that smarmy bastard. Something about him doesn’t add up, and the loot just isn’t worth the risk.

Ada-9: Worth kissing up to. Her gear is second to none. Just... learn to put up with the attitude; it’s not going away.

Devrim Kay: I may not have taste buds, but his tea is so good I’ve forgotten that fact any number of times. You can rely on him too. He may not have a Ghost, but he’s every inch a guardian in my book.

Asher Mir: ...kind of an asshole with a heart of jerk. Deal with him only when you must.

Sloane: Lady gets stuff done. Can be gruff, but don’t let it get to you. She’s worth getting to know.

Failsafe: I used to stop by every weekend and play board games with her. You should too. I know she likes the intellectual stimulation and the company.

Ana Bray: Ana Bray.... what do I say about her? That she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen? That I’m grateful to have ever known her? That she’s kick ass? That she helped me discover some bits about myself before I was all... metal? Ana’s brave and beautiful and unconventional and a trouble magnet, but she’s up there with the best of us. She should be a legend, in my opinion. But maybe I’m biased. If you’re watching this, Ramses-18: go get her, Tiger.

Eris Morn: Queen of spookiness. Has a knack for knowing where we should really make our stand. You should absolutely dance in front of her. The worst that can happen is raisins. *barely contained laughter*

Emperor Calus: Bad news, and definitely that “friend” nobody should like. Steer clear.

Xur: Oh dear god, ditto. Even if his loot is awesome, he’s shifty as hell and keep an eye on him. You don’t need his gear anyway. A real Guardian makes do and has plenty of tools in every situation anyway. Whatever he’s selling, you don’t need it. Even if it is really, really cool.

Tess Everis: Shrewd woman. Offers some neat stuff, but keep your hand on your cash when you deal with her, because she’ll probably rob you blind and call it “commerce”. Cayde never did finish that investigation of whether or not she ran Eververse sweat shops in the City. You should look into that for me.

Fenchurch Everis: I really don’t think he exists. Tess 100% made him up. I mean, has anyone ever actually seen him? Like, in person? Exactly. He’s pure fiction and you need to tell Tess to knock those stupid stories off.

Petra Venj: God I hate her. But... *sighs* she occasionally makes a good point and she’s handy in a fight. Also, if you kill her, I’m pretty sure Kaya-Sei will go all hitwoman on you and you will not make it through the rest of the week so play nice, I guess.

Mara Sov: Everything I just said about Petra Venj goes triple for Mara Sov.

Mithrax: Pretty damn chill for a Fallen.

Spider: Same, and oddly trustworthy. Do not trust him anyway, just for pragmatism’s sake.

Osiris: Means well but will 100% screw you over purely by accident. Keep your distance, but be ready for Ikora to draft you into cleaning up his latest mess on a monthly basis.

Banshee-44: Ever seen an Exo with Alzheimer’s? Banshee’s as close as you get. I heard a rumor that 44 is just the amount of reboots he lost count at. Either way, he’s got a memory like a sieve, but it’s hard to find a better gunsmith. Be patient with him. He’s been through more than I could possibly know.

Shaxx: He’s loud, he’s proud, he will get you killed many, many, many times, but he’ll help you stand back up every time. He’s quality guardian.

Lord Saladin: He’s grim, but like Eris, he comes by it honestly. Make sure he adds my name to his list.

Amanda Holliday: God I love her. She’ll have more than few tales to tell you about me. Not just me, lots of interesting stuff from our recent history. I think she’s seen almost as much as I have, and in a much shorter span. I have no clue how she keeps it together, but she does, and I’m grateful.

Suraya Hawthorne: I mean, she’s a nice gal and a great ally, but I think her desk job is getting to her -- sometimes it seems like she doesn’t realize how much stuff actually happened since she took her posting in the Tower. Poor girl needs some time in the field again if you ask me.

Who else is left? I guess I should mention Caesar, my ghost. Hopefully he’s watching over a Ramses-18, who is hopefully watching this. We’ve been through some times together, and hopefully, he’s there to get you through some more. I couldn’t ask for a more stalwart partner.

I guess all that’s left is me. I’ve always been a survivor. From Twilight Gap all the way to the Crimson Spire Offensive, I’ve made it through battle after battle. If I’ve lost my memory, maybe in some way it’s a blessing. I can’t begin to tell you the things that witnessing what I have does to a mind. Sometimes it’s better to simply know what you’ve faced and overcome and not know the details. I wouldn’t choose to forget any of it, but... if I have, I’d be hard pressed to say I regret the loss. But if you’re watching this, I don’t care if you’re Ramses-18 or someone else: by watching this, you’re picking up a piece of my legacy.

Go on and make something great with it. Most (keyword: MOST) of the folks I’ve mentioned will help. But you’ve sat and listened to an old Exo reminisce long enough. The future’s yours, Guardian. Go build it.

#ramses-17 #ramses 17 #destiny #destiny 2 #destiny the game #my guardian #The Guardian #my guardians #guardian #destiny guardian #fanfic #kaya-sei #kaya sei #reena feng #reena #writing prompt

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nitewrighter · 5 years

Text

Gency Destiny AU Pt. 3

Requested by @thenugget2008

Previous Chapters: 1, 2

----

McCree was snickering as he and Genji-3 both took cover behind a large iron crate as Fallen fired on them. Genji-3 always felt a little worse fighting Fallen than fighting Vex or Cabal or Hive. Vex? Evil time travelers trying to fold reality to their will. That was bad. Cabal. Conquerers. Tried to take the Traveler so they could conquer better. Obviously also bad. Hive? Well, on top of smelling of death, ammonia, and rotting crab meat, they worshipped the Darkness and were hell-bent on obliterating the Traveler and everyone it protected. That was also bad. But the Fallen? As far as Genji could tell, civilization-wise, the Fallen were only a few degrees removed from their own situation. They were chasing a Traveler they felt had abandoned them. The Fallen always made Genji a little afraid that the Traveler might leave the Guardians one day. Or maybe he just respected the Fallen a bit more because they had a shared proclivity for knives. Genji-3 glanced over at McCree, still snickering, before clearing his throat, leaning over the barrier, and dispatching a few dregs with his hand cannon.

“It’s not that funny,” muttered Genji.

“It’s a little funny,” said Echo, peeking out from McCree’s cloak.

“It really is though,” said McCree, vaulting over the barrier and laying down some cover fire at the Fallen rushing the area to grab some motes of Darkness. He tossed one of the little black and white pyramids up and down in his hand before shooting a Fallen Vandal in the head and spinning his hand cannon, “I’m still imagining the whole scene like...the ghost is glowing, the light of the Traveler is breathing life into the lungs of someone who was dead for hundreds of years... and your first instinct is to ask her out for ramen.”

“It wasn’t my first instinct!” said Genji, chasing after him, doing his best to dodge out of the way of the enemy fire, “She was in the middle of hostile territory! She was overwhelmed! I thought... maybe she could use a friendly face.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” said Zenyatta, his plates whirring as he repaired Genji’s shielding.

“Aw, your ghost is jealous,” said McCree.

“Ghosts don’t get jealous,” said Zenyatta.

“Ehhhh....” Echo glanced off.

“I mean, I don’t blame ya, Genji,” said McCree, pivoting to face him with with a shrug, as Fallen fire blazed past him, “She’s cute--Didn’t know Awoken could be cute like that, y’know? Pretty, sure, but it’s pretty in a way that you’re always a little scared they’re going to use void magic to rip off your--”

“Enemy team’s invading!” The drifter’s voice sounded in Genji’s helmet and he snarled in frustration.

---

“I think they like you!” said Mercy’s ghost as Mercy walked out of the Vanguard’s war room.

“You think so?” said Mercy, glancing back over her shoulder, “They seemed very... serious.”

“Well we are standing in the ruins of our formerly great civilization now facing down total annihilation from multiple sides,” her ghost said matter-of-factly.

Mercy pursed her lips.

“...Cayde made them easier to talk to,” her Ghost admitted.

“Cayde?” Mercy repeated.

“Cayde-6. He was the Hunter vanguard. He died a few months ago,”

“The menu in the Ramen restaurant mentioned him!” said Mercy, a little excited to be able to put her observations together with what she was seeing, her smile faded, “He died?”

“Well Guardians can die--Just because I brought you back from being dead doesn’t mean you can’t die,” said her ghost.

“As you’ve mentioned,” said Mercy. She stopped at the guard railing overlooking the last city and the Traveler. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she said, folding her arms across herself.

“Of course you’re not! That’s what you got me for!” said her ghost, nudging into her shoulder.

Mercy smiled, “My ghost,” she said, and then her smile shrank a little, “That’s a little morbid, don’t you think? Calling you ‘ghost?’”

“Well you die over and over again--well hopefully you won’t die too much--but I’m the part of you that keeps you around! I’m a Ghost! It’s not morbid, it’s what I am!”

“I suppose that’s fair but--You don’t want a name?” Mercy tilted her head.

“A name?” the ghost’s plates whirred thoughtfully, “I’ve never had a name before. Pulled Pork got a name and he didn’t even have a guardian.”

“I won’t call you Pulled Pork,” said Mercy.

“Lots of ghosts of really great guardians have names! Ikora has Ophiuchus , Marcus Ren had Didi, Nnekchi-32 has Agu---”

“Genji has Zenyatta!” Mercy suggested.

The ghost made an eye-rolling movement with its plates, “Genji-3 is no Nnekchi-32.”

“I kind of like him,” said Mercy.

“Well yeah, he’s the first guardian you met. You’re going to meet all sorts of guardians in our adventures! We’ll need to think up a very good name so we make a good impression. It’s going to be very hard. It could take very long--It took me centuries to find you, it could take forever to find a name that--”

“What about Engel?” said Mercy.

“I like Engel!” said the ghost.

----

“I blame you, by the way,” said McCree over the comms, as they both flew their ships away from the Emerald coast and toward the lost city.

“You spend the entire match goofing off and teasing me and you blame me for when we lose?” said Genji.

“I was doing my job! I can multitask!” said McCree, “You were a million miles away. You expect every opponent that comes up to you to be as slow and dumb as Cabal. You’ve been out of the Crucible too long.”

“Patrols are important!” said Genji.

“It’s all stragglers out there. If we wanna defend the city, we need to get better--not plateau off moping in no-man’s land.”

“I wasn’t moping,” Genji muttered. He glanced off. “Her past is already disappearing.”

“Come again?” said McCree over the comms.

“The awoken?” Zenyatta glanced at Genji.

“I know Guardians aren’t supposed to get caught up in their pasts but... doesn’t it make you sad, sometimes? Don’t you wonder who you were before your Ghost brought you back?”

“I assume I was just a bigger, less competent idiot than I am now,” said McCree, a shrug in his voice, “I know it was Vex that got me. Don’t like thinking about that part too much. You’re gonna bring up your brother again--”

“It’s the one thing that’s stuck with me through three reboots,” said Genji, “What if it’s important? And why is it always I always find myself drawn back towards Mars? I mean, Bray and Rasputin have it more or less covered over there...” Genji paused, “What if I knew her before we both--”

“Bray?”

“No, Mercy,” said Genji.

“What, you think she’s your pre-Collapse soul mate or something?” said McCree.

“I don’t know. For all I know I could have known you before we both died. But... it’s a lot easier to have someone help you out when you’re revived. Zen, can you hail her?”

“Give me a moment,” said Zenyatta, scanning Genji’s comm.

---

“...And this shader is called ‘Watermelon!’” said Engel.

“Definitely not,” said Mercy, looking at the hologram of herself in a garish iridescent pink and green version of her current outfit, still leaning against the guard railing with the Traveler behind her.

Engel’s eye suddenly flashed green. “Oh! Incoming message! Guardian Genji-3 would like you to join his fire team over in the EDZ!”

“Oh! Say yes!” said Mercy. “Wait--I don’t have a gun--I should probably get one--”

“You have one!” said Engel, materializing a sidearm in her hand, “This is golden age tech, but I was still able to rematerialize it when I revived you! It was on your person when you died! It’s called ‘The caduceus.’”

“The caduceus?” Mercy repeated before extending her arm and looking down the sights of it, trying to see if it sparked a memory, “The name sounds familiar and yet...”

“Of course there’s a strict ‘no-firing’ rule here on the tower. I mean some people practice at Banshee-44′s firing range, but that’s more for getting used to different guns and most just go to the Crucible if they need practice.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” said Mercy, tilting the gun with her arm still extended as she looked over it, “I don’t even know how to turn the safety of--”

The gun went off and the surprise of the shot sent Mercy flailing over the guard railing. She was falling down, down, down the length of the tower.

“Try to glide!” her ghost shouted after her as she screamed and fell.

“WHAT!?” was the last thing Mercy yelled up before her ghost winced and looked away at the sound of a wet thud on cement.

“Oh boy,” said the ghost, whirring its plates and glowing. After a few seconds Mercy rematerialized, perfectly fine, next to her ghost. She exhaled a half shriek and slapped her hands over what was previously her broken body, trying to make sense of no-longer shattered ribs and leg bones.

“What--what just--I just died! I was dead!” her voice was half hysterical.

“To quote Cayde-6, you just popped your guardian cherry!” said her ghost, delighted.

“I--what..?” said Mercy, looking at her ghost.

“That’s what Cayde would say. It means you did die. I don’t know what popping cherries means. It’s kind of funny that it was here and not out on a battlefield though. But anyways you’re better now. Shall we go to the EDZ?”

Mercy’s breath was shuddering. “Oh... okay.”

---

“Any response?” asked Genji as they flew.

“I was confused for a moment--,” said Zenyatta, “It would seem Mercy’s ghost is now designating itself as ‘Engel.’”

“She named it?” Genji’s face lit up.

“Engel says Mercy died but, quote, ‘Is okay now.’”

“She what?” said Genji.

“She died at the tower!?” McCree was audibly cracking up over the comms, “I thought you said she was a warlock!”

“But Engel is still confirming a meeting place at Devrim’s church in the EDZ,” said Zenyatta.

“Oh... okay then,” said Genji.

“Gotta say, really loving your fireteam picks, Genji,” said McCree.

---

“Ship time! Ship time! Ship time!” Engel was bouncing excitedly as she walked, still shellshocked, over to the landing platforms to meet up with Genji.

“I died,” Mercy said hollowly as she walked.

“Yep!”

“I died twice,” said Mercy, eyes still wide.

“And I brought you back twice!” said Engel.

“I’m going to die again,” said Mercy.

“Probably! Then I’ll bring you back again!” said Engel.

Mercy looked at her ghost with some horror in her eyes.

“We’re a teeeaam,” Engel whispered loudly, zooming close to her face.

#gency #destiny au

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creative-frequency · 6 years

Text

Cayde-6 x Reader: The Trigger Ch. 2

Word count: 2816 Pairing: Cayde-6 (Destiny) x Female Reader Contains: Rating eventually up to mature/explicit, Cayde being Cayde, hunting trips into the EDZ, reader is tired with Cayde’s shit

Previous Chapter | My Writing Masterlist

You had compiled a list of Cayde-6’s new hobbies at the Farm:

Tagging along on hunting trips Being unhelpful Throwing stupid comments about everything Acting like a nosy buffoon Spoiling your dog Dramatically lamenting the lack of ramen Enraging you to the point where you’re planning his violent murder

And he had stolen (or rather, adopted without a permission) your chicken.

“This is Colonel!” Cayde held the brown chicken high in the air. His voice was lilted with pride.

“…Is that one of my chickens?” you paused to ask. It was time to head out again, so there were a lot of preparations to make. The last two hunting trips hadn’t been as bountiful as you would’ve hoped. Or solitary, thanks to a certain Exo. His presence was distracting, to put it mildly.

“Not anymore. I love her,” Cayde announced, holding the bird tenderly in his arms and stroking its head.

You replied with an angry glare. “You can’t just go and steal animals.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No you can’t.”

“Yes I can.”

“No you– Y’know what? FINE.” You shook your head and started walking. “Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

Cayde silently labeled the term from adoption to rescue and kissed the chicken’s head.

For the last two trips into the EDZ, you had stayed close to the Farm. There were still deer and hares in the forests, but the more the Cabal surveyed the area, the more scarce the animal population got. You were not a soldier, maybe a scout at best, but you had an inkling feeling that soon you’d have to lay down your bow and resort to stealing instead of providing.

Cayde had of course wanted to follow every Cabal aircraft you had seen fly over. Or infiltrate the dark nooks and caves where the Fallen resided. Neither of the propositions was tempting. Your prey wasn’t the kind that carried weapons.

The Exo was itching to get into action and it was as difficult as it was annoying to watch. He didn’t carry a bow, so he was forbidden from shooting any animals that were meant to become food. He would sometimes play practice without actually firing at cones in trees with his hand cannon. It would’ve been easy to ignore, but he made ridiculous explosion and pew pew sounds.

The tranquil silence and solitude the forests had provided for you before was long gone in Cayde’s company. The guy was able to shut up only when you hissed at him and he saw you taking aim. He didn’t want to tempt you to turn the aim towards him any more than you already wanted to.

So, there were multiple reasons why you were not so eager to wander further from the Farm. It meant sleeping under the starry sky with the noisiest person on the planet. Stealth was a thing in hunting. You had pretty much given up on the hope that Cayde would decide not to come.

You had complained, obviously, but any and all of your protests had fallen to deaf ears. Zavala and Suraya didn’t seem to care. They were too busy coordinating the defense efforts and distributing supplies evenly to the residents of the Farm. In fact, the two seemed satisfied that Cayde had something to keep him busy, and as long as you kept sending food to the table, they saw no problem with him tagging along into the EDZ – no matter how much trouble it meant for you.

Babysitting hadn’t been in your job description before, but neither could you have guessed you’d be hanging out with a Guardian. Or several, in fact, since it had become impossible to completely avoid the surviving ones at the Farm.

The fabled hero of the Light had not yet returned from Io and it was making everyone worried. Your only worry was that you would happen to be at the Farm at the same time. That would be one too many Guardians.

“Got something botherin’ you?”

Cayde waved his hand in front of your face. You were staring at the contents of your rucksack under the pretense of checking everything was packed but didn’t really see anything.

“Stop that,” you snapped and his hand dropped. The dog whined next to you. You didn’t want to take him with you since you didn’t know where exactly you were going. Not that you wanted to take Cayde with you either.

“That’s a yes, no?” Cayde continued.

“It’s nothing. Time to go,” you said, closed the bag and threw it to your back. The dog got onto its feet, puppy eyes looking for yours in an attempt at melting your resolve.

“Okay then, let’s go!” Cayde pumped his fist in the air but stopped abruptly to clear his throat. “Uh, I mean, yeah, I’ll come and make sure the Cabal don’t ambush you while you– you do your… thing. Great. This is great.”

You didn’t even have it in you to argue anymore, instead just shaking your head. The first time that argument had taken over an hour, unnecessarily delaying your departure and had brought no results. Cayde had tagged along anyway. Not to mention the unwanted publicity the volume had brought to you at the Farm.

Hunting was a solitary art form, which you had perfected during the long years outside the City walls. As much as you tried to ignore Cayde while you were in the forest, his presence still bothered you. You had to be continuously aware of his movements and at least pay enough attention to know if he tried to warn you about the Fallen or Cabal.

Cayde’s Ghost appeared in the air when you started walking. It had taken some time for you to get used to its sudden appearances.

“Cayde, remind me again why we–”

The Hunter silenced it with vigorous swatting in the air. “Nope, we already talked about this, Sundance. We’re not doing it again. Not in front of the lady.”

A light huff escaped your lips before you could stop it – a slip that would tell you had been listening. Cayde had taken a peculiar liking to referring to you as a lady. Maybe because it was so bizarre to anyone who had actually met you.

Sundance warbled disapprovingly, but let the subject go. Based on what you had seen, the Ghost was eager to go along with the stupid shenanigans Cayde came up with, but they didn’t always see eye to eye. She seemed to think they had better things to do and you were inclined to agree.

The plan was to trek towards the mountains in hopes of finding larger game than brown hares. You had completely given up on laying traps since the Fallen would pick them clean and steal them before you would have the chance to check them. It wasn’t worth the materials or the work.

“Now, I was thinking,” Cayde began and hurried to walk beside you, “We could take a ship, fly there, hunt some deer, transmat it here and fly back. Hm? How does that sound?”

In the direction away from the City, the untamed wilds started literally from the Farm’s backyard. There were several Cabal scouting camps close by, but they were small. A larger base nearby had been under construction for a few days and it made the refugees anxious and worried. Soon you would have to figure out a way to circle around to get deeper into the forests and the mountains.

“Great, but we can’t spare a ship for that right now. And the air traffic is restricted,” you said.

“Aw man, can’t we even get a lift there while cloaked? Save some time? And our legs?” Cayde pointed at his feet as you walked. The undergrowth was engraved with clear paths that were used for patrolling and the terrain would stay rather easy until you’d have to start climbing. If you were going to try and find new hunting areas, you’d much rather get to know the route on foot.

“Does it really save time that someone dumps us into the middle of the forest?” you retorted with slight humor in your tone.

“Is that a rhetorical question? ‘Cause yeah, it does.”

You glanced at Cayde. “And do you know where the deer are?”

“Uhh, well…” He motioned towards the vast forests ahead, “There?”

You turned to quirk an eyebrow at him.

“…Damn it. You do have a point.”

You kept the smug smirk to yourself to not make Cayde think you were enjoying the banter.

“We can hunt while we move and transmat on the way,” you said, “With some luck we won’t have to go far.”

Cayde sighed in defeat. “Okay. Fine. Let’s do that. That’s smart.”

“That’s what I thought,” you mumbled.

Getting back to the Farm for the night was ideal, but not probable. The day was only just beginning but you were already mentally prepared to sleep under a lean-to. A foreign feeling of anxiousness swelled inside you, but you brushed it away.

It took several hours filled mostly with Cayde’s monologue and a couple of hares until you were in an area with even hope for finding larger prey: Promisingly thick undergrowth and no Cabal. The weather was warm but cloudy, so the walk so far had been fast and easy. The mechanical bow was pitched in your hands, an arrow ready to fly at the smallest sign.

Cayde was hanging back while you looked for tracks. He kept talking in half-whisper about his heroics during the Cabal attack, or was it something about the Taken? It was hard to focus on listening to him while watching out for any animals trying to make a run for it.

“—They kept coming at me, but I took out every. Last. One. Burned my fingers on the Golden Gun, too, but it was so worth it–”

Cayde chuckled to himself while you drew in an exasperated breath through the nose.

“Okay, okay, but the best part was when–”

You hissed sharply to silence him and motioned for him to stop moving. There were clear tracks where something larger had laid down underneath a thick spruce, but they were cold. When nothing turned out, Cayde continued his bored humming, about to start blabbing again.

You took another deep breath to force yourself to calm down. He was swaying on his heels, hands planted on his hips and looking around for something interesting.

“You’re bored, I get it. But you need to–”

Just then you caught a flicker of motion between the shadows, four legs that were ready to gallop to safety. The first deer on your path and the reason to go back to the Farm was right–

“Hey, did I ever tell you how I became the Vanguard?”

The arrow landed on a tree. In a flash of a white, fluffy tail, the deer was gone.

You turned to Cayde with a wrathful glare. He had the most unapologetic “Oh shit” -look on his face. Partly, because for a fleeting moment, he had thought you were going to stick an arrow into him.

“Why don’t you ever just SHUT UP,” you practically growled, bow shaking with irritation.

“Shh, don’t be so loud! You’ll scare the animals away,” Cayde hissed.

You snarled in anger and wished for his painful death. He was distracting you despite your direct wishes and orders cultured with swear words against that.

You took three quick steps and shook your index finger at Cayde’s face while letting it all out:

“I’m trying to pull my weight here – even help others, which is not like me at all, but you’re making it really difficult, so if you could just kindly SHUT THE FUCK UP OR STAY AT THE FARM WITH YOUR GUARDIAN BUDDIES. I DON’T HAVE TIME TO BABYSIT YOU.”

Cayde’s mouth was hanging open and he tried to motion for you to calm down, but you were not done.

“I don’t care about the Guardians. I don’t care that you’re the Vanguard – I barely even know what that means”–Cayde tried to interrupt you, no doubt about to explain the term, but you kept spitting the words at his stupid, metal face–“What I do care about is getting the job done cause those people need to eat. Unlike you, I’m not here to play around.”

You paused to take in a breath, nostrils fluttering in anger.

“Wow. That’s more words than you have said to me in total before that.”

“Fuck you. Go home.”

You turned to leave, but Cayde rushed to block your path. His hands were raised in a soothing motion, but for each second he stood in front of you, your blood pressure kept rising.

“Okay look, I get that you’re angry. I’ve been cooped up in the Tower for Traveler knows how long and to get to walk in the forests like this… It’s just…” Cayde sighed heavily and hang his head. His hands dropped to his sides. “I’ve really missed it.”

For a moment, you were at a loss on words. Hunter was a hunter, no matter whether he was a Guardian or not. Anger slipped from your grasp with each short, annoyed breath.

“I was just so happy to get out, y’know? The thrill, the danger! Gaah! I’ve really missed field work.” Cayde chuckled and shook his head in regret.

You stared at his animated face until you found the right combination of words and tone to describe your feelings.

“Then why, pray tell, you’re trying to muck it up for me?”

Cayde scratched the back of his neck, looking around the undergrowth for an answer. “Uh… I got sidetracked? I wanted to impress my new friend aka you? The baseline– no, wait, don’t leave!” He circled around to stop you again and started speaking faster: “The baseline is; I get excited. And I didn’t take this as seriously as I should have. Sorry. There. I said it. Please don’t make me apologize again.”

You shot an unconvinced look at the Exo and puffed the air out of your lungs.

“Whatever,” you mumbled.

“Sooo, does that mean I get to come with you?” Cayde asked carefully, eyes lit with excitement.

“…Whatever,” you repeated and shook your head. You were probably giving up too easily but based on previous experiences Cayde wasn’t an easy person to disagree with regarding his comings and goings.

He pumped his fist in the air behind your back but didn’t make a sound.

You returned to tracking the deer. That particular individual was already far away, but the herd was in the area, so there was bound to be other tracks. Miraculously, Cayde was silently following right at your heels. There was a whole different aura about him: He was focused, attentive and serious about the hunt. You eyed the gun on his side, hoping he wouldn’t reflexively use it to spoil the food.

You stopped at the edge of a clearing. Judging by the tracks, the area was like a shopping center for the inhabitants of the woods. The lack of humans outside the City walls was good for the animal population. The Fallen had zero interest in the local fauna and there was nothing valuable to them anyways so deep in the forest.

You found yourself hoping the Cabal wouldn’t destroy the whole planet. There was indescribable beauty in the untamed wilds and it was a privilege to be able to appreciate that.

“Got anything?” Cayde asked suspiciously quietly. As if he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

When you turned to reply, he was crouched right next to you, closer than you anticipated. You ignored the jump your heart made, but the words got momentarily lost on your tongue.

“Some of these tracks are probably from this morning,” you said after returning to looking around.

Cayde’s brow plates quirked up. “Uh-huh. How can you tell?”

You side-eyed him and held back a sigh that wasn’t as annoyed as the previous ones of the same day. “It rained last night.”

“Riiiight.”

The dents in the soft moss were steep and the tingling feeling of getting closer to your prey grew with each step.

The forest was spotty beyond the clearing, even sparse in patches. Prey animals wouldn’t stay in such areas where they could be easily spotted, so you turned to follow your instincts towards area with thick undergrowth, similar to the place where you had seen the first deer.

Cayde followed you in complete silence and you had to glance over your shoulder to make sure he was still there. He could be unbelievably silent when he wanted to.

When the first faint rustling broke the normal background noises, your body moved on its own. Every other sound disappeared. Your eyes fixated forward.

You aimed without thinking and let go.

Next Chapter

Tagging: @bleucommelhiver @lucianhuntress @singlebecauseofthechocobros@sherniwrites @owlwrites @toastyfiction @sevansheart @xcayde6

#destiny fanfiction #cayde-6 x reader #cayde-6 #destiny #destiny 2 #fanfiction #my writings #im having too much fun with this fic #getting into the good bits soon #i hope yall like it

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404botnotfound · 5 years

Text

Corrupt [2]

Come, oh bearer mine, and show them that even a rose can be deadly.

SERIES: Destiny WORD COUNT: 6,806 SHIP: N/A CHARACTERS: kel, luke, cayde-6, lord shaxx, eris morn, ikora, zavala, quinn

Almost two weeks later, Cayde’s call comes at an inopportune moment.

Middle of a firefight with a group of Fallen that he’s sorely underestimated, and he makes the mistake of opening the line at the exact time he sees the Captain bearing down in him. Before Cayde can start to speak Kel grunts and calmly says, “one second,” before diving out of the way of a pair of shock blades that descend on him.

Reaching for his belt and one of the sticky grenades resting there Kel rushes forward, ducking underneath the Fallen’s four arms and two blades, not stopping to look behind him as the Captain roars in offense.

An explosion causes the rocks under his feet to shudder. A blink of red disappears from his HUD radar.

The comm line, surprisingly, remains patiently silent.

He takes stock of the enemies left: a dozen Fallen, all of them conveniently grouped up.

Propelling himself forward he leaps from the ground and pushes off the surface of a broken pillar, light roiling around him and shrouding his body in rippling flames—flames that he pulls handfuls of etheric, fiery knives from that fly from his hands too fast for the Fallen to dodge.

Kel lands as those knives erupt around him, and when the dust settles there are no Fallen bodies to be seen. Just ash and smoldering, blackened shrubs.

His fingers flex over the grip of the hand cannon held in them, eyes scan for any more enemies in waiting.

Cayde can’t seem to keep silent any longer. “Was that the trick I taught you? Tell me that was the trick I taught you. It was the trick I taught you, wasn’t it.”

Kel ignores him, glancing at Echo as she materializes to survey the area. “Did you have news?”

“We know how to find her.” Cayde answers without missing a beat or acknowledging the snub.

He holsters Thorn and turns away from the battlefield he’d just cleared, and Echo calls in his ship without prompting. He doesn’t need to hear more explanation than that, but Cayde gives it anyway, voice briefly drowned out by the roar of engines.

Kel wonders if he does it just to reassure himself that Quinn was still alive and they would get her back now that they had a lead.

Luke’s assumption that the Taken had pulled her through a rift into the Ascendant Plane had been correct—and her ghost, after having found a way out of that alternate dimension, had gone on for several minutes about how terrifying it was until Ikora had gently urged it to focus.

Apparently she had managed to turn the Taken’s own paracausal powers against them, tearing a hole in that reality herself. A rip only big enough for Glyph to slip through, allowing it to return to the Tower, frantic and exhausted by the long and rushed journey between Saturn and Earth.

It knew where to enter the Ascendant realm to find her—the tricky part would be hoping they got there quickly enough to keep whatever lurked there from either corrupting or killing her.

Kel’s fingers twitch near his holster and he wonders: were they one and the same?

He wonders: what would Dredgen Yor have said?

He doesn’t dwell on it, spending the entire flight from Venus back to Earth silent and aware of the rising hum in the back of his head the closer he got after days of peace. Like when he had found it, Thorn was eager.

The little girl still appears in the corner of his eyes and tugs on the hem of his tattered cloak, begging for his attention. Sometimes he feels her fingers curl around his own, finding upon looking down that they’ve been replaced by the grip of a handgun that purrs at him to lift the barrel to his chin and pull the trigger.

It’s getting easier for him to recognize the signs and brush them aside, but the visions and whispers had intensified and Kel knows he’s on a short timer. Part of him wants to just toss the damn thing, but the rest of him doesn’t enjoy the thought of what might happen should someone that hadn’t spent hundreds of years practicing intense self-control got their hands on it.

It had already proven itself to be a ticking time bomb for even him—how deep and easy would it sink its claws into someone else?

So, no, he wouldn’t toss the gun and hope for the best, and he had done everything from emptying every round of his rocket launcher’s ammo on it to dropping it in the lava flows of Venus in the hopes of destroying it without success.

The lava flow attempt had left him blacked out and he had woken later with the gun vibrating with furious energy.

That had been the first time Kel had felt true, all-consuming fear since his rebirth, and it was also the moment he realized that Thorn was more than just an accursed weapon in the City’s and in humanity’s history—it was a curse in and of itself.

One that he now held the responsibility of containing.

Eris had said there was a way to silence it, to make it easier to control, but in two weeks he’d had no luck finding how. He was running out of time, and quickly, but he had enough time for this detour. He wouldn’t abandon Quinn. Not when there was a chance she was still alive, not when Gil had given his life to make that chance possible, and not when her bright presence had burned away the shadows of his memories.

When he arrives on Earth he’s met with more greetings that he only briefly acknowledges before moving on. The less time he spent here, the better.

Eris is absent from her place in the Vanguard hall again, but Kel’s steps slow and then stop when he catches Shaxx’s gaze.

From behind their helmets they stare each other down. Shaxx’s fists are clenched tightly at his sides, and Kel sees arc energy sparking around them. He could apologize for what had happened—he had violated the sanctity of the man’s training grounds, unknowingly or not—but it would be hollow and they both knew it.

There was nothing forgivable about murdering one of their own.

“Shaxx.”

The bold greeting sends a fresh ripple of furious static sparking over the titan’s form. “Dredgen.”

Kel can’t put a finger on whether it’s the icy treatment of a stranger he receives or the cold accusation behind the simple moniker, but the painful sting nearly cripples him. The former he had expected, but the latter?

He swallows it down and continues forward as though it didn’t affect him. Though Shaxx looked as though he was ready to intercept him and wanted to do nothing more, the titan remains in place and stares him down as he passes.

Like the last time he had approached the war room an argument is underway, only this time the doors are wide open and the subject, thankfully, isn’t him. Ikora is silent, her hands clasped behind her back, while Zavala and Cayde butt their heads together.

“—I’m going, Zavala. You can run my hunters through Shiro or Marcus while I’m gone, but I’m going.” Cayde says, heated. Not quite as rare attitude for him, but still out of the norm.

“We need you here, Cayde,” Zavala jabs a finger down onto the table in front of him to emphasize the statement, firm and unyielding in everything from his voice to his body language, “let her fireteam run the rescue op and we’ll send a temporary third with them.”

Cayde refuses to concede. “And I need to be there.”

He’s the first to notice Kel’s entrance. His expression shifts to something neutral, but Kel doesn’t miss the quick glance to where Thorn is strapped to his thigh. Cayde’s gaze lingers—and then he gives Kel a nod in greeting. “I gotta be there for more than one reason.”

Kel returns his nod and understands.

Zavala doesn’t look happy about Kel’s presence, but whatever protests he has to it are held in check; he makes no effort, however, to hide his distrust. Ikora just gives him a once over and a long, considering look before lifting her chin ever so slightly in acknowledgement.

Two out of three wasn’t bad.

He says nothing, quietly continuing down the steps and veering off to the side once he’d reached the lowered landing and finding a spot apart from them where he can stand silent and still as a statue. Maybe they could pretend he wasn’t even there.

Distraction put aside Cayde continues his argument. “Only way you’re keepin’ me off this op, Zavala, is by puttin’ a lock on my ship.”

“Which you would find a way to break or circumvent.” Zavala sighs explosively, pushing away from the table and folding his arms over his chest. “This isn’t like Venus, or Mars, or any of our other warzones, Cayde. You’ll be heading into Oryx’s turf, not one we control.”

“I know the risk. It’s worth it.” Cayde replies.

Silence falls, stretching out until Ikora speaks up. “Think of it this way, Zavala: there would be something especially inspiring for our guardians and City to see one of their leaders heading a direct strike into the heart of the enemy. Morale is something we’ve...been seeing a decline in recently.”

She must’ve been taking a backseat to mediate their argument.

Still, Zavala says nothing, leaning forward on the table again and showing his distaste openly. “And if you die, Cayde? If this fails?”

“It’s a risk all of them take every single day. ‘Side from the fact we’re the ones givin’ orders, what makes us so special?”

Kel had already had more than enough respect for Cayde but that simple rhetorical question tips it even higher.

Hunter Vanguards historically had the shortest details—in the years since the City’s beginning, both warlocks and titans had seen less than five leadership changes combined, and hunters alone had seen at least five—that were typically cut short thanks to a stereotypically flighty nature that usually got them killed.

Cayde was the ‘youngest’ of the current Vanguard iteration, and he still knew what it felt like to be one of the rank and file. Zavala and Ikora had forgotten, and both look sobered by the statement.

In the end Zavala relents, and Kel wordlessly follows Cayde from the war room.

Luke is rushing across the plaza when they run into him, apparently trying to get to the war room himself. Cayde intercepts him before he bypasses them entirely, and Kel has to spend a handful of heartbeats carefully controlling his breathing and beating down the rage that threatens to resurge. It wasn’t his fault, he reminds himself.

Cayde and Luke are staring at him when he returns to the present. Luke looks nervous, and Cayde was once again unreadable. He says nothing to it. “Are we going or not?”

He wants Quinn back within the City walls, safe. He wants to strike a blow against the Taken King, retaliation for his lost brother. The sooner he does both, the sooner he can retreat from the remnants of humanity and seek a way to control Thorn’s influence, keeping them safe from the threat it poses to all of them.

He keeps his distance on the flight from Earth to the rings of Saturn, remaining in the middeck of Cayde’s ship and listening while the Hunter Vanguard and Luke discuss their plan with Glyph giving input based on its knowledge of the chunk of the Ascendant Plane they’d be infiltrating.

Luke glances over at him every so often and Kel returns the looks from behind his helmet impassively, saying nothing; like with Shaxx, he knows that there aren’t words to make up for what he had almost done, and he doesn’t expect Luke to forgive him for it.

They journey deep into Oryx’s floating fortress once they arrive, directed by Glyph who had opted to share a ‘backpack’ with Cayde’s ghost, Sundance. Neither of his allies comment on him using Thorn, but Cayde does conspicuously order Luke to fall back and bring up the rear and Kel to take point, keeping himself between the two members of Fireteam Ward.

It was just as well; the proximity to so much Hive power and magic made the black static at the back of his mind roil, so Kel doesn’t mind pulling ahead so his back was to them rather than the other way around.

Pulling an Ascendant Soul from one of Oryx’s many ‘children’ on the Dreadnaught is no simple task but they accomplish it through equal amounts skill and raw determination—there would be no other way to force open the tear that Quinn had created.

Glyph’s directions lead them into a passage small enough all three of them have to duck down to file through. Luke’s vocal disgust about the chitinous growths and writhing hive worms surrounding them allows a brief moment of amusement to push back Thorn’s greedy grasping at his mind.

The passage darkens the further in they move, all the colors reaching his eyes suddenly washing out in shades of dark blues and grays and blacks as though a painter had stripped all of the vibrance from their universe.

The change from the plane of existence they call home and the Ascendant one is immediate and disorienting, as though they’d stepped through a pressurized barrier, the weight of the air around them suddenly oppressive and stifling. His light feels small and choked and he knows that he can’t remain here long.

Already, Thorn is drawing strength from the darkness.

The passage opens up after a ways and all three of them are struck dumb by the void that greets them, littered with cracked stone pathways and floating islands of sand and Hive growths consuming nearly every visible surface.

All around them a howling gale roars, dark clouds twisting and and swirling, obscuring every broken, floating pathway until a blinding flash of lightning within the unnatural storm around them sets the endless horizon alight and reveals them.

Along with the shadows of massive, writhing tendrils somewhere in the far distance within the smoke-like clouds of the storm.

The reports of Crota’s throne world, infiltrated by that six-man fireteam decades ago, hadn’t done this chaotic realm justice. It was terrifying in its seemingly endless, haunting expanse with the storm around them both deafening and silent at once.

He couldn’t see any of Oryx’s mindless army, but he can still feel countless eyes watching them, greedy and hungry, something ancient and eldritch and powerful waiting for them to fall into the yawning abyss below.

Thorn feels abnormally warm in his palm. It speaks to him for the first time in nearly a week, voice almost incomprehensible within the deafening cacophony of echoes that accompany it.

Do you hear it, oh bearer mine? The song. Listen to the song. Hear its truth.

Light-wielders shouldn’t be here. No one should be here. He knows this instinctively, and with a glance at the other two Kel knows that both of them have come to the same conclusion.

And Quinn had spent over a month trapped in this hell. Alone.

A massive, distant roar rising over the silent gale snaps them all of them out of their horrified awe, reminding them of what they had come here for.

Cayde readies his Ace. “C’mon, let’s move.” To the point and devoid of his usual good humor. It’s a testament to the wrong-ness of this place, to the danger of it. This wasn’t a place to underestimate and he knew there was no place for his usual levity and devil-may-care attitude here.

This time he leads the way, Glyph’s nervous voice over team comms telling them that Oryx’s throne world was massive, and it had no idea how much further in Quinn may have traveled in its absence—they hadn’t been able to find somewhere safe to just bunker down, and it wasn’t likely she had found a way to since.

Monsters unlike anything they had ever seen wandered these teetering paths and inexplicable ruins, apparently, and it makes near-frantic emphasis that even if they couldn’t see any now they were still everywhere.

So they moved forward carefully, following Glyph’s direction further into the throne world, all on high alert. Cayde quickly grew visibly frustrated with their slow pace, but with the roaring winds and fog around them they could scarcely see twenty feet ahead, and knowing that one wrong step sent them into a dark abyss that Kel doubted they could survive, ghost or not, they couldn’t afford to rush any more than they could afford to dawdle.

Several times Glyph had to call out for them to abruptly change direction or for them to stop before they walked right over the edge of one of the floating structures they traversed.

Kel had to reach out and grab Luke’s robes one of these times, just barely catching the warlock before he completely lost his footing. By the way he had gone completely still, staring at Kel as he held him over the edge, he’s sure Luke had wondered in that moment if he was going to just let him fall.

Thorn tells him that he should and then howls its rage into his mind when he instead pulls Luke back onto solid ground.

“Thanks.” Luke says, voice shaky.

Kel’s head hurts. “Don’t mention it.”

Twenty minutes pass. Then thirty. Only twice did they have to stop to fend off a wave of Taken-warped thrall, vicious and screeching at them as they scale and traverse the twisting and broken landscape of their King’s territory.

Cayde works flawlessly with both of them as though he’d been part of their team for years, and all the thrall and acolytes and knights unlucky enough to be in their path fall.

They take a moment to breathe after a wave of thrall clear, all acutely aware that they didn’t have many of them to spare. Tick tock, tick tock.

Luke breaks the silence first. “Anyone else a little worried we haven’t seen any of those monsters Glyph mentioned?”

“Think it’s somethin’ we should be grateful for, kid.” Cayde replies easily, flicking his wrist and dropping the empty magazine from his Ace so he can reload it.

“No,” both Cayde and Luke’s attention snap over to him at the single deathly certain word, “it’s not.”

“What’re you thinkin’, Kel?” Cayde’s hand flicks the new magazine into place within the barrel of his gun.

He struggles to find the words he wants to say through the deafening static between his ears. Thorn doesn’t want him to speak at all. “Oryx wants us to keep going. He wants us as deep into his world as he can get us.” He pauses, one of his gloved hands settling on his helmet over the crown of his head; he’s not sure why he knows this. Or how.

His fingers tighten around Thorn’s grip.

“I mean, we know Oryx wants us dead, Kel. Why not just try to kill us here?” Luke asks. He doesn’t have to mention that thrall and knights were hardly a challenge for veteran guardians that had faced them before.

He can’t make the words form, though they’re on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t know. He does, but he doesn’t.

“‘Cause we’ll be farther from a way to escape,” Cayde supplies, and though there’s something crucial missing from the answer Kel knows that he’s dead to rights, “we find Quinn, he kills all of us at once. If he’s lucky, which he ain’t. This handsome mug ain’t dyin’ today.”

Kel needs to figure out what that crucial missing piece is. He needs to. What was it?

“Question is: why?” Cayde continues, and Kel sees him shift impatiently in the edge of his vision. He knows the answer to this question is important, just as Kel does, but he’s gotten far enough that his biggest concern is finding the woman he still hasn’t admitted he loves.

Listen to the song. You know the words. Let me sing to them, oh bearer mine. Join me, let us sing together.

“I don’t know.” Kel finally says, his tongue feeling leaden within his mouth. And it’s true that he doesn’t, but the melody between his ears is beginning to make horrific sense.

Cayde’s watching him with sharp eyes, likely trying to assess whether or not Thorn was getting its hooks into his head again—but he apparently comes to the conclusion that Kel had it under control, because he turns his back to him and then starts forward, calling for them to keep moving.

Fool.

‘Shut. Up.’ Kel thinks forcefully, his jaw grinding until it’s painful. Miraculously, Thorn retreats to an incessant buzz in the back of his head in response.

It gives him no comfort.

They move forward, minutes ticking by, until the silent thunder cracks and the roaring winds around them are broken by a single, piercing scream that causes gooseflesh to erupt all over his skin. All three of them stop dead in alarm that’s quickly replaced by urgency.

Cayde breaks into a run first, followed without prompting by him and Luke, and Kel can hear Luke muttering a staccato repetition of shit, shit, shit from beside him.

It’s as they round a colossal stone column that Glyph speaks up, having remained silent long enough Kel had nearly forgotten it was there, its voice a shrill, tinny yell of warning over the comms: “Abyssal Knight!”

Barely a second after it yells in warning a massive behemoth materializes right in front of them in an unnatural, crackling storm of something like dust or gravel. It looked like a Hive Knight in shape, but was so huge that their heads just barely reached the height of the bottom of its knees, and its chitin was soot-black and nearly invisible in the inky darkness of the Ascendant Plane.

They notice the massive blade raised above the creature’s head nearly too late.

The shockwave of the blade striking the already cracked and crumbling ground sends all three of them along with shattered debris flying; Kel feels his back slam into the jagged stone surrounding the path, the blow knocking wind from his lungs and stunning him.

On the other side of the path a blast of arc energy sends more debris scattering and Luke stumbles out of it on his knees. A few feet to Kel’s side Cayde crouches almost on his knees as well, feet dangerously close to the edge of the floating path and one of his hands curled tightly around the exposed root of a dead tree.

Shaking the daze from his eyes, Kel lifts Thorn as the Knight raises its blade again.

“Just run, you can’t damage these things!” Glyph yells at them, panicked.

The issue, Kel thinks, wasn’t that they couldn’t damage it—but that they didn’t have the time to figure out how. Was that hubris? He doesn’t care.

Reaching for his belt quickly Kel lobs a tripmine up onto the stone that towers above him, the explosive beeping only once before its sensor picks up the Knight and explodes. The Knight stumbles, and a furious roar that sounds less like a creature and more like a force of nature follows them as they push forward.

“Glyph, where is she?” Cayde slows slightly to raise his gun and fire off a few shots at the thrall that had picked an awful time to come swarming from the shadows.

“Dead ahead, but there’s more knights!”

Poor word choice.

The exo swears, word nearly lost to the horde of screaming thrall blocking their way forward and the heavy, lumbering steps of the Knight giving chase behind. “Luke, we need a path!” Cayde calls out.

Kel expects Luke to let out a whoop and a jubilant ‘let’s rock n’ roll!’, but the warlock is instead silent as electricity flares up around him, flying from his open palms and ripping through the horde of thrall before them.

It’s unnerving to see Luke without the gusto everyone knew him for, but Kel doesn’t have time to wallow in self-loathing at the fact he’d been the one to dampen it.

He and Cayde follow after Luke, single shots from their pair of hand cannons picking off whatever Hive escaped from the warlock’s raging storm. Kel turns around once to fire a shot at the Abyssal Knight still pursuing them, hoping to find some weakness, but the bullet doesn’t so much as cause it to stumble.

Echo beeps at him to get his attention just as he turns away and he pauses, watching as though in slow motion as something incandescent wavers around the Knight’s gargantuan form; an image flashes in his mind of a dead titan in a Crucible arena.

The Knight’s body shifts as it moves to strike down and Kel dives out of the way, rolling back into gear and taking off after the other two.

They can see more of the Abyssal Knights ahead, clear of the screaming thrall that Luke had successfully reduced to smoking ash. Something glows brightly in the darkness of the Ascendant Plane right in the middle of the three monsters, and both Kel and Luke immediately recognize the opaque white shield unique to their teammate.

One of the knights rears back with its weapon and slams it down on the shield, scattering the sound of cracking glass on the wind around them. Quinn lets out a scream of helpless fear from within the shield’s dome.

“Cayde, we can kill these things, do you have a barrage ready?”

“Hold on, what?” Luke demands.

There’s no hesitation in Cayde’s answer. “I do.”

The easy, unflinching trust for him to give an affirmative without even knowing what his plan was, after everything he’d done and nearly done, punches Kel in the chest. He sequesters that feeling for later, a weapon to use against Thorn when it tries to press into the depths of his mind for an advantage.

Nine bullets in Thorn’s magazine. Three Abyssal Knights.

He takes aim—three shots each, a full magazine of hungry, caustic bullets that do exactly as he had hoped they would. The three knights stumble when the rounds chew through whatever paracausal shields they had and shatter them, massive weapons slamming to the ground and making it rumble under their feet.

Cayde takes to the air with his light burning wild and unleashes a barrage of fiery knives that erupt violently over the carapace of the now defenseless goliaths, leaving them to howl as the fire of Cayde’s light rips them to shreds and turns them to ash that’s swept away by the wind.

Immediate threat to the one they came here to save out of the way, the three of them turn for the last Knight still lumbering heavily towards them. Kel reloads quickly and empties the full clip into it, his teammates hailing it with even more the moment its shields are destroyed.

Nothing but the roaring silence of the storm around them follows. It’s a reprieve and nothing more, Kel knows this even without the hissing laughter he hears cut through his thoughts.

Cayde doesn’t hesitate, immediately turning and bolting back for the center of the massive open platform they find themselves on. The opaque shield they’d seen, so similar and yet so different from a titan’s at the same time, dissipates and reveals Quinn lying prone on the crumbling stone within a small divot.

The knights had been hammering at her shield for longer than they’d been witness to, it seems.

He and Luke join Cayde.

“Hey, sunshine,” he’s saying as they approach, Ace gently set on the ground next to him as he reaches for her, “you’re alright. You’re alright.”

It seems more like he’s trying to convince himself rather than her, but Kel doesn’t mention it.

She’s pale as a sheet and there are dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes, that much more pronounced with how white she looks, and there’s a thin sheen of sweat visible over her skin even in the desaturated colors of the Plane.

Her chest heaves with exertion and she shakes with something he can’t tell between weariness or unfiltered relief that they’d found her; morbidly, Kel wonders whether Oryx would’ve become unstoppable if they’d gotten here too late, for he knew now that that is why he wanted all of them here, deep in his realm.

Power feeds power. Blade versus flesh. Blade versus Eternity. There can be no survival without teeth.

Thorn’s laughter grows louder and Kel goes stiff as he fights with himself, suddenly struggling not to lift the barrel of the gun and fire off three very specific shots.

Weight hits him and nearly throws him off balance, and Kel only realizes that someone’s embraced him when the contact somehow pushes the dark static from his mind and leaves his thoughts clear again. He blinks, looking down and seeing Quinn with her arms tight around his back and face pressed against his chestplate.

His throat feels tight; he wasn’t deserving of the silent thank you she was projecting to him, not at all, but he hesitantly wraps an arm around her back in return.

“Can you move?” He asks her, following Cayde’s line of sight when he lifts Ace at the ready. Already the Taken were swarming again. They couldn’t stay here.

She looks like she might pass out at any moment, but when she steps back he spends a moment wondering at the sheer force of will the woman had to be able to keep upright after being trapped here for so long, after an ordeal that must have drained her to the brink.

She nods, pausing when Glyph materializes briefly to shift from Cayde to her.

“Good, that’s good, because there are a lot of bad guys heading our way,” Luke says, already hop-stepping back in the direction they’d come.

“Kel, take point again. Quinn, stick close. Luke, you ‘n me bring up the rear. Move!” Cayde barks out quickly, and all of them—all four of them—take off, hoping that their path would remain clear as they’d made it.

He didn’t hold out hope, knowing that now Oryx had them where he wanted them they weren’t going to leave easy. Part of him wants to argue Cayde’s order for Quinn to stick close to him with Thorn’s possessive, dark whispering growing disorientingly loud and demanding, but he doesn’t.

It was a double-edged sword, grasping at his mind greedily and testing every ounce of his carefully honed restraint, but the only weapon among them that could damage the powerful creatures that he hoped could only exist within this realm.

Instead, Kel took solace in knowing that Cayde still trusted him to maintain his control over something that could be both their and and salvation here.

Taken swarm at them from all sides as they run, the King of this world throwing oceans of screaming and howling thrall and knights and acolytes at them to slow them down and tire them out. To stop them from leaving.

Kel understands now why the disastrous mission that Gil died on went the way it had.

It’s nothing but sheer luck that sees the four of them back to the beginning, back to the passage they’d come through and out of the choking void.

They weren’t safe, far from it—if Gil’s death had told them anything, things were about to get even more difficult.

The moment they’re out of the tight passage and into the cavernous halls and suspended platforms filled with rock and chitinous growths and writhing worms that made up the Dreadnaught, they stop for nothing, slowing only to push back against the waves and waves of enemies Oryx furiously throws at them.

By the time they make it back to the transmat zone and are pulled into the confines of Cayde’s ship all of them are exhausted—though, he imagines, nowhere near to the state Quinn likely is—and Sundance immediately sends the ship into flight away from Oryx and his throne and the Taken.

The ship makes it into hyperspace and it’s only then that all of them allow themselves to catch their breath and relax.

“How long was I gone?” Quinn asks quietly from where she’d collapsed against the hull of the ship, hands hanging limply on the ground on either side of her and legs bent unevenly where they stretch out in front of her.

“Almost two months.” Sundance answers her from within the ship’s systems, her voice soothing and gentle.

There are tears in her eyes. “It felt like so much longer.” She whispers, and then the first sob wracks her body.

Cayde is at her side instantly, pulling her against him and settling his chin on top of her head, jaw lights flashing erratically while they’re caught somewhere between his choking relief and concern. “You’re alright now, sunshine.” He says, rocking her gently while she clutches at him and cries. “You’re alright. We’re taking you home.”

Kel looks away, unable to stop the feeling that he was an intruder to the scene and wordlessly moving for the rear of the ship. He doesn’t belong here with either of them, not while the corrupting grasp of the Darkness claws at him and tells him to just end her suffering.

Somewhere between there and Earth she falls asleep, too exhausted from her ordeal to remain awake, and she stays that way even when they arrive at the Tower and are transmatted down into the hangar. Cayde carries her all the way to the medical ward, Luke and Kel both following and remaining outside while they wait to hear how she is.

The silence between them is stifling.

It’s comfortable enough for Kel, but it leaves Luke twitching and fidgeting restlessly until he speaks up.

“I don’t think even Gil could’ve held up a ward against those things after a month of...all that.” He says, the statement seemingly more to himself than to anyone else, but Kel’s helmet tilts up to him just slightly and the warlock freezes as though only just remembering he was even there.

Kel stares at him for a length, Thorn clawing at his thoughts after hours of silence and telling him to get up, to reach out and strangle Luke for daring to speak Gil’s name. Instead, he nods and evenly replies: “No, he couldn’t have.”

The look of shock on Luke’s face is absolutely worth the pain of acknowledging a still raw wound.

He won’t stay in the City. He can’t. Gil had been the only reason Kel had ever agreed to work as part of a team, the only reason he’d grown to enjoy someone always having his back while he was out in the wild.

He’d miss Quinn. He has to hope she wouldn’t lose the bright personality that had wiggled its way under his skin, and she was one of the few that acutely understood why he found solace in silence and solitude.

Deep down, he’ll miss Luke and his obnoxious, optimistic energy, too; he knows he can’t keep blaming the warlock forever, and it’s only the sharp sting of loss and Thorn’s desperate, hungry whispering that has him pointing the finger of blame in his direction.

Cayde, Ikora, Zavala, Banshee, he’d miss all of them. Shaxx, too, though he’s sure the feeling wasn’t going to be returned.

At least with Quinn back in the Vanguard’s hands, Kel could be satisfied in knowing Gil’s death wasn’t in vain.

Maybe once the wound has healed he’ll come back.

Maybe.

His thumb drags along the grip of Thorn, still hissing at the back of his skull, still urging him to rip open Luke and drink in the light he’ll bleed. It was furious at his careful restraint, frantic that it was being ignored by him ever since the debacle in the war room.

That had been the first time Kel had lost control of himself and snapped in hundreds of years since the phantoms from his first life had begun to plague him, and Kel swears to himself that it was going to be the last.

He speaks with Quinn once she’s awake again, quietly and evenly, just as she remembers.

Cayde stands nearby, unwilling to leave her side and relaying his messages and report to the other Vanguard members through Sundance. He doesn’t mention how close Kel had come to putting down the only other remaining member of their fireteam, nor does he watch Kel like a hawk as though expecting that buried rage to reappear, and Kel appreciates it more than he’ll ever be able to put into words.

She’ll find out, eventually. Luke has too big of a mouth for her not to, and once he vanishes from the Tower he knows she’ll wonder why.

When he leaves the ward and heads back through the Tower he figures it’s well enough that her last impression of him before he left for who knew how long is just the same as before the loss of his best friend ripped open old wounds and nearly changed him for the worse.

She needs the stability right now, and while that implies him needing to stay he knows he can’t. Cayde and Luke were fixed enough points on their own, and they could fill in where he’d never be able to so long as Thorn was at his side.

Eris Morn is out in the sunlight of the plaza for once and Kel stops in his path to stare at her.

She’s watching him expectantly.

“There’s no coming back.” It’s more of a statement than a question. He already knows the answer.

“Not fully.” She says, her head tilting slightly. The answer as well as her covered, glowing gaze are surprisingly lucid. “The corruption digs in, burrows into the fiber of your bones as tenaciously as we cling to this dead rock of a planet. You yet hold the weapon. It is still trying. It will continue. It will get worse.”

Worse, implying that killing another guardian and gunning for his own teammate after only a few weeks with the weapon wasn’t that bad. He supposes, compared to the pain and torment she’d suffered at the hands of the Hive, it wasn’t.

They had stolen her eyes and poured corruption into her veins.

She had stolen theirs in return, and used that corruption to exact retribution in spite of the Light now shirking her.

He nods in response; he can still feel it at the back of his mind, insistent and angry. Whatever evil the Hive had planted in the weapon, it didn’t like being ignored.

Kel glances into the distance, his eyes settling on the gargantuan form of the Traveler hovering over the Last City on Earth. “You said there was a way to sever its connection to the Hive magic controlling it. I haven’t found it yet.”

“Xyor. The moon. Slay her.” She offers him, and he looks over at her, both of them sharing a quiet moment of understanding. As he turns away what she says next causes him to stop in his tracks again. “Perhaps you will get to keep your eyes when she is gone.”

Had she just made a joke?

He blinks at her, and her head simply tilts the other way. “You will also be free of the worm wearing a dead girl’s face.”

Anyone else might have jerked back in surprise, but Kel simply curls his hands into fists at his sides. “How—?”

It’s a stupid question; all three of her stolen eyes blink slowly at him.

“I’ll silence it.” He says after a pause, wondering for a moment at just how wrong he may have been about Eris. “And I’ll make sure it doesn’t dig its claws into anyone else.” He’s not sure yet if it’ll even be possible for him to maintain control of it. But he will.

Her lips twitch into a smile so slight and so brief that Kel might have missed it. “Conviction. Eriana would have liked you.” She says, and as she returns to the Vanguard hall she leaves him with one more piece of advice: “Do not let it consume your light, and you may become something even the Hive fear.”

He watches her leave, then looks up at the silent Traveler in the distance, taking in the sight of it for just one more time.

Echo chirps at him cheerfully, confidently, and Kel leaves the Tower and the City behind.

#v: destiny #c: kel #c: luke #c: quinn leonis #ch: cayde 6 #ch: eris morn #ch: zavala #ch: ikora rey #ch: shaxx

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tinytveit · 6 years

Text

lanterns;

destiny 2

based on shit ive seen around the tower this event (and shit i’ve done)

saturn // sleeping at last

Ao3

They put a plaque in the ground for him. A subconscious way to commemorate him that wasn't something that would pull a tear to your eye. She walks over it every time she's in the tower, they all do.

The kinderguardians don't know who its for, what it really means – they've all heard the stories, sure, but they never witnessed the man himself. A shame, honestly. Years go by, sun beats down upon it, snow falls on it, only to be hastily moved to the side by a frame. Sometimes she walks over it and forgets its there, sometimes she waits until the sun falls from the sky and the courtyard is somewhat silent, Zavala having moved from his usual spot staring out into the city – probably to stare out at it in some other part of the tower. She settles down beside it, back leaning against the railing and toes barely reaching to touch the stark contrast of the white stone against the ground. The myriad of people that have found her there in the past, sitting in silence, staring out at the ruined tower further down the wall, they've all said different things. Some have said nothing, a few sat down beside her – they all ended up leaving her there, no matter how they happened upon the scene. She's thankful that its there, that somewhere through the broken fragments of her heart that can't ever be repaired, the thoughts that come and go that blame her for letting him ever leave – somewhere through all of that there's a sense of warmth that runs through her every time the soles of her shoes press against the golden gun.

There are some things she will never forget. Some things that people do that seem to be subconscious, but it comes from the heart.

She was about to begin lugging a particularly large package she'd received earlier in the week from the courtyard all the way home when a hunter had brushed past her to pick up the lantern barely held down on top of some crates. The Dawning decorations had been lighting up the tower for just under a week now, and by the looks of it, most of the guardians running around had left the lanterns in the same place they'd found them. Though, most only moved them so they could dance on whatever it was sitting on. Naturally.

This hunter seemed to be set in a motive, though. Different than the ones who liked to move in packs, usually picking an unsuspecting warlock or titan to follow around for a day, or, at least until they got distracted. Gloved hands grasp the round lantern firmly, and Illaethea was interested now, watching them softly jog back towards Zavala, but stopping short and staring at the ground. A breath catches in her chest as they softly let go of the lantern, letting it float up into the sky above, the hunter's head tilted up, watching it go until they couldn't see it any longer. She doesn't know if Zavala had been watching, she doesn't know if Shaxx or Tess could see – but she will never forget it.

And maybe she can't remember his voice that well, or just quite how his laugh sounded, but she knows that as long as there are hunters, there will always be a story to tell about Cayde-6.

#callie writes #cayde-6 #destiny 2 #fresh and crispy fic am still afk in the tower while posting this #zavala is still fuckin TALKing in the background #sometimes he turns to look at me and says indeed and turns back around #same honestly #implied thea/cayde but meh #MEH #c; illaethea

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sapphic-scylla · 6 years

Text

Cassus, The Devil of the Reef: Prologue and Forging of a God (Chapters 1 & 2)

(This is a Mass Effect/Destiny crossover so keep that in mind)

Prologue

Before the Traveler came, several races came together. One man investigated a beacon on a human colony on the outer rim of council space. What he found would kick start a war between the races of the Milky Way and a race of sentient machines.

This man was my great grandfather. Zachary Thomas Shepard was a Commander in the N7 Alliance Navy. Now, the timeline may sound fucked up, but that’s not true. As the war fell to a close and Zach’s decisions lead him to a crossroad, his gravitation towards the protection of the galaxy gave him the ability to destroy the Reapers once and for all.

Not without heavy casualties, the races began to rebuild. Before the war, the humans, asari, quarians, krogans, turians, and the rest of the races sent out a vanguard to the far off galaxy of Andromeda. This led to the colonization of a new civilization.

After the war on the Reapers, a new arrival caused the universe to flourish. A Golden age was upon them as a god had graced them with its blessing. This huge white ball called the Traveler. This ball blessed us with amazing tech, incredible healing abilities, and to many people it deemed worthy, immortality.

As this Golden Age settles in, my great grandfather fell in love with a quarian who was my great grandmother. Tali Shepard vas Normandy was a strong woman and a main inspiration for most of my life. Each of the heroes of the Citadel was gifted with that blessing of life and, with that, they decided to travel to Andromeda to protect and defend as well as start families.

Generations continued and, while in Andromeda, our family progressed to where I was born. As I grew I learned from all different sources until I turned six. I know my great grandfather and my extensive family is out there somewhere watching and praying for us as they watch from Andromeda.

My father eventually married my mother, coincidentally also a quarian, who was to be the last of her kind in the Milky Way.

Eventually, a small group of people desired to see the fruits of the Traveler more thoroughly. Several humans wanted to return to the Earth to begin a new life. Unfortunately, that was the plight of my grandfather as well as my father.

The rest decided to stay in Andromeda. Thanks to modern technology, she and my father were able to have four children together. I was the youngest and somehow was the only one to gain the traits of both races. Human in nature, but my eyes flowed a deep blue.

As my grandfather and the rest of our family stepped on a return ship leaving our great grandfamily behind, several years passed as we sat in cryosleep. As we reached earth.

Unfortunately, the god we had was also running from someone or something. That something was already there

Eventually, the universe began to take notice of where the Traveler was. The Earth and Solar system was attacked by heathen races vying for the Traveler. As we ferried into the atmosphere, we were shot down, thankfully with no casualties. As we bunkered down in Manhattan, we began to learn the history from the few that were left.

The Fallen scavengers attacked first. Then, the ritualistic Hive rained down nature’s vengeance, which just happened to be the ones that shot us down. They were followed by the time-traveling Vex and the relentless warmongers, the Cabal. With their attacks, they pushed us to the last remaining city on Earth, Vostok Russia.

I continued to grow up in the MDZ, or the Manhattan Dead Zone, as it became known as. Time moved forward as we defended our city and settlers. I eventually lost my grandparents in a raid by shadowy doppelgängers of the other races attacking we learned all too late were named “Taken.”

My father and mother became part of our small sectors leadership as descendants of the heroes of the Citadel. More details about life growing up will come later, but let’s just say life until I was 23 formed who I was as a man.

As we tried to push them back, the Traveler began blessing thousands and thousands of people with Light. These men and women were known by many names. Most of them were risen from the dead to aid the fight. These men and women became known as Guardians. As these demon forces began attacking our final city, this is where my story begins and ends and begins again.

Forging of a God

I’d always admired heroes. I never was one. I hid a mask of light over the shadow that consumed me. I always knew that my flip side would consume me one day, but most people like me had a lifespan. I did not. I was gifted immortality. Leader, savior, hero...all names I was saddled with. The only one I knew fit was killer.

I was one of the people that flocked to the mercy of the Traveler. Me and my best friend, Dredgen Yor, looked to it as a start of a new life, a change from who we were. We were 24 year olds who lost a sense of where the world was going. We knew our settlement was doomed and got what people we could out. We got as far as we could and thought we were safe. Just not as safe as we hoped.

We reached the outside of the wall when we were ambushed. Guns went off and explosions shook the ground. I yelled for people to get inside the wall as we held them off. As we fought off these demon creatures, I was shot in the leg and I knew it was over. Dredge died quickly. He was impaled and it was over. Me? They tortured me, left me to die, and all I saw before I blacked out after 3 days of the worst pain I’d ever experienced and the severing of all four of my limbs was a three-eyed swordsman from Hell, laughing as my head rolled away.

What feels like seconds later, I wake up in an unfamiliar skin. My limbs are all there, but a few feel metallic and rough. All except for my torso and the stumps of arms and a leg I had left were pure steel, parts, and stuff I can't explain. My face felt mechanical and strange.

I look up to see a pale, little box telling me in the most frantic yet sarcastic voice that we need to get inside the wall and that’s how I met Sapphire, my loyally sassy ghost. She’s a goofball, bubbly, and a weirdo most of the time, but she’s a nerd at heart and god help her, she knows more about me than I do and yet she loves me regardless. Strange, I don't remember the wall being that big.

As we move forward, I hear the foreign mumblings of what seems to be anger and interest. She finds me a Kvostov. Not my wheelhouse as I preferred pulse rifles and handcannons but I could never turn down a machine gun. As we took off in a derelict ship with not much more than guesses and questions as to what came next, I flew towards what felt like the right way.

I walk into the tower to see the first familiar face. Cayde-6, my old mentor, was waiting and somehow knew me from this new face. I guess considering he was an Exo now, an AI with the memories, emotions, and senses of a human, I shouldn’t be talking because I was in the same position. Guarantee he lost a bet to be saddled with tower duty. He was always a free spirit.

I guess all “Exos” had their own distinct personalities and mine stuck out like a sore thumb to him. He explained what had happened to me and filled me in on the beings in the wall. Fallen. Never heard of them, but they weren't who I was looking for. Cayde, being Hunter Vanguard, passed me a good hand cannon (he knew me too well) and said we have some work to do.

“These are gonna be just like your Hellfire days, dude. Only this time, you will actually be making a difference as actual heroes, not vigilantes. Do what you do best, Guardian. Welcome to the best of the best, the Hunters.”

Hellfire was a nickname I had gained in the MDZ. They said I could shoot a demon square in the face from a thousand miles away with a pistol. I wondered about the whole badass flaming pistol thing. I had always been a gunslinger by choice due to my weapon expertise and pinpoint precision, but with that and all of the throwing knives and grenades I could ever ask for, all of this could not be more amazing and perfect. I grew accustomed to these new powers, I began to wonder more of Dredgen and what of him.

“There are rules to being a part of the city’s Vanguard that you would do well to remember.” Zavala droned on.

God, this tour was long. I mean, I’m ADHD and overly hyperactive in my head at that, but, Jesus, it’s like Father Time was dragging a boulder the size of a krogan around with him. And why the hell were Titans so big. I felt like I needed a Sparrow to keep up with him.

“First, no researching past lives unless authorized by the Vanguard. You also must fill a patrol quota each week to make sure that everyone does their part.” He said, sternly.

I figured as much. That being said, my curiosity could kill nine lives off of the world’s luckiest cat.

“Also, only the Vanguard’s majority vote authorizes high-priority mission. We choose fireteams unless we trust the person’s initial choice. Any questions?” He finished.

“What is the capital of Assyria?!” I said in a witchy voice.

He literally just sighed and moved on. If he had to deal with Cayde, I can’t imagine how many of these jokes he had heard.

“On a serious note, where do I live?” I ask, honestly.

“We give glimmer for bounties, missions, patrols, and a finder’s fee for new tech, weapons, materials, and relics. You can use that to buy an apartment. We’re not picky as to where you stay as long as you report to the Vanguard regularly.” Zavala said.

“Fantastic.” I responded.

“Forge your light. Master your abilities. The more powerful and trustworthy you become, the more missions you get sent on and the more specialized weaponry we trust you with. Ever heard of a Gjallerhorn?” He asked.

“Wasn’t that, like, a rocket launcher forged by that old army of warriors?” I said, wondering where this was going.

“Correct. Gain our trust enough and maybe we will allow you to create your own. But not today. Good luck, Cassus. Make us proud.” He said as he trudged off.

A year passes and I guess a perk of being a guardian is that I’d be staying 24 forever. My body was already 30% armored steel but I wouldn’t be aging anymore, which is good. All of those mortal wounds didn’t hurt anymore which was brilliant. The Traveler had remade me and for that I’d be forever grateful.

Eventually, curiosity overtook me and, with permission from the Vanguard, aka Cayde signing me off ‘cuz he’s my bestie, I spent days in the Tower archives, digging out the remains of my past life. I spent hours, searching through pages and pages of scouting reports, histories, and biographies until I broke through. My brothers had been guardians. Pahanin and Praedyth. In fact, Pahanin’s old HMR was the first Exotic I’d been allowed to own. But his history was a different story completely.

Several decades ago, Kabr had been sent with my brothers into the Vault of Glass to investigate at the orders of none other than Osiris. Just when I thought I had avoided him for good. The Vex were the enemy that had attacked our town and forced us to evacuate. Their attempt at a foothold on Earth had lasted for a good year. Assault after assault we held them until they finally broke and forced us to make a run for the Last City. I had been split up from my brothers and my father. All I had was my best friend, Dredgen, and the very few refugees we could help escape. Until now. All of this was Osiris’ fault.

Osiris was a fanatic. He was unnaturally obsessed with the Vex and everything about them. Their networking, their hive mind, their terraforming, every aspect of them was something he wanted to dissect. He was also head of defense for our zone. Because he was eccentric, he was consistently dressed like a fucking Egyptian bird. See what I mean? So overly dramatic and egotistical.

What really bothered me was that he always put knowledge and curiosity before everything and everyone else in his life. He never gave a second thought to his own actions or the consequences. All he wanted was unlimited amounts of pure knowledge and if that meant risking a few humans’ and loved ones’ lives, so be it. However, the worst of it came about three years before my death.

The attack came when I was 21. It was a perfect summer sunset evening. I was about to switch out for the evening. Dredge and I matched schedules, so we would be meeting up soon for my “second job” as the city’s police force. Crisis and chaos can turn people nasty as all hell, so Dredge and I kept the piece the best way we knew how: through fear. As I walked in to Osiris to report on my watch, I found him tinkering with a Vex Hobgoblin.

“Osiris, what the hell are you doing?! This is not ok! This is going to end like the last time and someone else important is gonna die.”

“How will we know if we don’t study this?”

God, was he eccentric… “First of all, I am not a scientist, I am a bounty hunter. Second off, THIS” I said, shaking a Vex arm at him, “puts lives at risk! Great grandma Tali would not be ok with this! Shit like this almost destroyed the Migrant fleet! Society is crumbling. My mother died the last time you pulled a stunt like this!”

“But I’m so close! If I can backtrace to the main neural netw-“

“Osiris, the Vex have hive mind, if one of them got captured-“

I never got to finish.

For those of you who have never heard a Vex Mind scream, it is not something I can describe perfectly. It is a demonic screech of a vengeful machine god louder than anything you have or will ever hear. There are only a handful of things that were worse than what I heard that night. I ran out to see a Minotaur ten feet tall leading an army of other Vex, marching towards us in the distance.

“Evacuate…..EVACUATE!!!” I yelled at full volume.

“I can control them. If I use this unit-”

“Osiris, look outside, you ignorant bosh’tet! You can’t control that!”

“We can’t kill them, but if we can coerce them to fight for us, we can take back this planet! Our honor depends on…”

“DEPENDS ON WHAT EXACTLY?! Your obsession has saddled us into too many life risking situations already and for what!? Your own personal interest?! This planet or so you say?! My mother lost her life because YOU thought she could harvest their radiolarian fluid! And you think this is about HONOR?! Remember Javik’s words, Osiris? Stand on the mounds of hundreds of dead civilians YOU caused and ask them if honor matters. The silence is your answer.”

Those were the last words I said to him before we died. Words I had learned from the very last survivor of a an ancient dead race. I let those words echo in his brain before I stormed out to save the civilians.

That day, we lost everyone but the few families that Dredge and I could save along with a few orphans. Pahanin and Praedyth were nowhere to be seen. I learned from the Tower that the Vex in that town had been destroyed about a month after by Rasputin, the AI Warmind. He launched an attack, eliminating any chance for a Vex foothold on Earth. The Warminds were more active then.

After we escaped, it turned into a 3 year journey searching for civilization. Every place we reached was empty. We lived outside of Manhattan and we walked west. Cities, the whole country, was just gone. We knew the MDZ was gone, but we didn’t realize it was this bad. Eventually we reached the city and you know that part of the story.

That being said, a lot of lives were lost because of Osiris’ carelessness and lack of restraint. He was dead to me and he always will be and no action he can do will change that.

#destiny2 #destiny #guardian #fanfic #masseffect #cassusshepard

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arrogance-is-my-middlename · 7 years

Text

A New Sun

A short thing on Osiris and the loss of Light

Silence between the two of them wasn’t uncommon, nor particularly unwelcome, but this one was so much… heavier. Panoptes had shifted focus, just for an instant, and there was a reality branch that had processing power boosted—a clear indication that something in the real world had shifted. Osiris didn’t know what it was that caused it (when was the last time he had been aware of anything outside the Forest?), but if Panoptes cared then Osiris cared.

Whilst the Vex Mind never had mastered the trick of simulating Light (“How could anyone simulate something as great as me?” Sagira had jeered), he got around that by using combat data from thousands of encounters with Guardians, especially the Vault of Glass, to approximate as best as he could. It was clever and not entirely pointless, but there was enough of a percent error caused by the simple unpredictability of Guardians. Beings of paracausality are particularly frustrating like that. The gift of deciding one’s own fate cannot be overstated, and Osiris knows the instant the Vex learn to bind the Light and its Guardians to the rules of fate, all is lost. The burst of processing power to a seemingly innocuous reality branch is, for this very reason, a cause for concern.

“Panoptes will be there,” Sagira warns. “An effort like this won’t be easily abandoned. We can’t face him directly.”

“Then we won’t,” Osiris replies dismissively. “I’ve sent one of my echoes to investigate.”

“Echoes can be traced.”

“Which is why the message of whatever is found will be handed off to many echoes. Panoptes is not omniscient, if he was this game of hide and seek would’ve been lost long ago.”

Sagira grumbles more about how she doesn’t like it, but in the end Osiris wins the argument (as he always does).

xxxxx

It turns out that her worries were baseless however. The reality branch comes to life before the echoes of Osiris can even reach it, and for the first time in centuries, Osiris feels fear.

The light leaving him is violent, visceral and profound in ways too painful for true comprehension. He feels every molecule of his being forcefully cut away from the Light, as the node of power that has always been so very bright inside him is stamped out mercilessly. Sagira’s screams of pain are the only thing that keeps him conscious and moving, so he cradles his fallen companion and takes shelter in the deepest corner of the Forest he can find. Panoptes has put so little effort and processing power into this small branch that Osiris can see the objects and lifeforms literally load into being as he stumbles forward. It’s almost laughable, really, but the way Sagira shudders in his hand sobers him.

xxxxx

“It’s the Cabal,” an echo tells him later. “The Red Legion descended on the City and caged the traveler. Panoptes is simulating Guardians without light now.” Osiris feels rage (or is it despair?) but Sagira tells the echo to monitor Panoptes “just in case”.

“What does it matter? The Vex stayed their hand because they could not defeat the Light. Now there is no Light at all.”

Sagira tilts her frame forward, almost challengingly. “Nothing is lost forever, Osiris. I can—I can feel the Light. It’s still there. Someone has it.”

xxxxx

She’s right. Osiris doesn’t fully understand how she knew, but Sagira was right, and he cannot help but smile at the clear frustration that Panoptes cannot properly simulate just one single Guardian. Because that Guardian has the Light, they are paracausal, and for Osiris, that is enough. He is patient, he tells himself. He can wait and watch on the sidelines, just this once. Panoptes maintains this almost accurate simulation to adjust accordingly to what shifts in reality, and Osiris is a silent and unknown attendee to the spectacle.

Months pass. The Guardian is impressive, in their own way, but Osiris is… confused. He has theories on how the Guardian got their Light back (Panoptes himself creates several simulations, all different, but they don’t end quite right and it always opens up inaccurate reality paths), but the aged Warlock cannot figure out why it is this Guardian. They are neither the strongest nor smartest, and if Osiris is being honest, their biggest claim to fame is simply being the one with the job handed to them. Osiris is not a humble man, but he’s no fool either. There were so many other better candidates, stronger candidates, Guardians who were so absurdly close to the light that they hurt to look at. Shin Malphur, who was born and not revived, Ana Bray who was so full of Light that she leaked wells of it at Twilight Gap. Any member of the Vanguard would have been wise; Ikora effortlessly flowed between Arc and Void with little hesitance and struggle and who had been beyond terrifying when she ran Crucible runs with the Invective ever present in her hands, Cayde 6 who (Osiris loathed to admit this) had amassed more powerful weaponry than any other living Guardian simply because he was that good, and Zavala, who was strong enough for the ever-taciturn Saladin to take on as a pupil alongside only one other. Speaking of, Osiris had to admit that even Shaxx would’ve been a wise choice. Though if it had to be a Titan, Osiris would’ve wanted it to be Saint 14 who—no, he forced himself not to think about that. Osiris knew where Saint had went. Osiris had not let himself follow his brother the Titan, not when the research was this important.

“They’re making progress,” Sagira notes.

Osiris adjusts his position and frowns as the simulation plays out in front of him. “They found Ikora on Io, managed to even drag her back.”

Sagira spins her tines, something Osiris has come to realize is an expression of quiet excitement. “They can’t lose now, not with Ikora back.” Osiris agrees, but he doesn’t vocalize it.

And then…

The attack. Ghaul dissolves and the Traveler explodes in order to escape its cage and Osiris wonders if maybe the once-dead God Machine is every bit as angry as the Guardians are when they retake their torn apart City. He speculates and he muses until he isn’t because Sagira is screaming again but this time it’s elation and joy and he feels the Light reconnect with his synapses and Osiris feels true strength that he hasn’t felt in months flow back into him in a rush. In a fit of curiosity and relief he lets the Light fill him, ready to embrace the Song of the Sun he had once so powerfully drawn upon, but this time it’s different and Osiris realizes that he is no Sunsinger, not anymore.

What was once uncontrolled and wild Solar Light that had filled him to the brim and spilled out so spectacularly that death shrank away in fear, was now concentrated and centered around rage and need. Osiris still felt himself float off the ground as he had once did as a Sunsinger, but this time he felt the Light coalesce and form the Dawnblade in his hand and he knew that the time of endless praise and raw power had been shaken off. Now he wielded Light as a weapon and with strength to not just chase away the Darkness but to cut it down. He lets the blade fade from his finger tips and the sun fire cool and recede. The stripping of the Light had fundamentally changed the army of faithful undead that called themselves Guardians, and this sword was just a symbol of that change. As Sagira whooped and chattered in pure unfiltered joy, Osiris felt himself wonder, for once without apprehension and dread, what could possibly happen next.

Tumblr is a bitch to format on and I’m making an AO3 account for this very reason. Until the account gets approved I’ll keep posting here. Come yell at me about Destiny 2 in the meantime.

#my writing #destiny 2 #destiny the game #destiny2 #osiris #sagira #panoptes #fanfiction

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phthalology · 7 years

Text

Destiny: Covenant Between the Idle Dead

Cayde and Zavala both have a nagging sense that when Andal introduced them wasn’t the first time they met. Yuletide fic for @gethporno. On AO3 here.

1. Scraps

Zavala was raised on a beach. Grains of sand flecking his hands and salt so thick in the air he might as well be drinking the water, and the little silver Ghost beside him, telling him to attend to the eternal war.

Ikora almost died beside him once. A rocket took the boulder next to her with a glancing blow, and then the follow-up turned into a firestorm. Zavala wrenched his Sparrow to the side and held the spot, expecting her to idle dead there until his own Light could bleed back enough into Ikora’s for her Ghost to raise her. The mingling told him that she was alive. Furious, dirt spattering her arms, she vaulted back onto her Sparrow and drew a sphere of Void energy in the air. The rocket did not fire again, and thereafter he remembered the burning cryogenic-cold of her Void Light.

The first time he met Cayde-6 he thought the strangeness in the Light came because Zavala was mourning Andal. Duty to the Tower, duty to the institution of the Vanguard, duty to the title Osiris had held before him — Commander Zavala kept these things in mind while he looked at the Exo and tried to figure out where they had met before. Had Andal brought him around before? It was hard to find a Hunter Vanguard, so having two with similar sensibilities was not only understandable but expected. Was Zavala tired, needing hot tea and warm quilts, searching for something to which the Light was answering you have met Cayde-6 before? The sense of recognition did not fade. Instead it became manageable. It waited like a word unremembered, forever on the tip of his tongue.

2. Code Strings

The simulation becomes clearer every time. It is not a memory: Cayde-6 is certain of this because it does not flow through the same channels, does not generate the same code. Recall feels linear: one after one after one, cause and effect (such as they are for Guardians, such as they are for the contested Earth). The Deep Stone Crypt feels disjointed, non-chronological, eternal. Zavala’s Light feels this way, also.

Cayde-6 does not know whether the tower is his own memory, or his ancestor’s memory, or someone else’s entirely. Maybe it is a memory of only his body, wired into his brain at the spine but not originating with him at all. It is a tower that is not the Tower. He kills neophytes and civilians there, the ramen chef with the flowers in her hair, the Frames in their neat lines. He never kills either of his fellow Vanguard, not after he takes the Dare and does the ritual. He does not know why.

He wants to rattle Zavala. Cayde-6 thinks he understands Ikora Rey, although he does not entirely: she indulges his jokes, smiles with full lips and bright eyes. Zavala just looks at him, and Cayde’s mind turns over and over trying to figure out why. It’s distracting, like an itch — an alert without pain. Cayde feels like he has experienced this before, that somewhere in his buried memories is the way to get Zavala to smile at him.

3. Official Records

DATE: REDACTED

KEYWORDS: Fallen; Eliksni; Vanguard; Commander Zavala; Ikora Rey; Cayde-6; Ace of Spades; Scene-Stealer

There are battles that feel older than others. Timeless, if dreams feel timeless. Medieval, in the sense of iron and blood. The Fallen had brought a tank up to the Wall, in one of the opportunistic pushes big enough for the Vanguard themselves to attend to the forever siege. Ikora had a sword dragging behind her, a sliver of folded titanium she called a Scene-Stealer.

“Give me room,” she said, and Cayde popped the Golden Gun and fired down into the swarming ranks.

One, two, three shots and then the tracers found him and he danced back. Rock crumbled. Cayde found himself falling, metal screaming against metal, the acute discomfort of chips ripped from his body through his fieldweave. He tumbled to the feet of the tank with the gun still ablaze. Fine opportunity — he fired upward.

Zavala landed next to him, fighting like an Exo in a dream — no weapons in hand at all, just a shield wall and then his hands dragging Elksni around behind it. Zavala used the wreckage of the Wall like a crucible, pressing squirming arms against its stones until the Eliksni cried out and Zavala went for the eyes, ignoring shots fired against his plating —

Cayde rolled to his feet, ducked behind the Titan wall while the last golden sparks dripped to his feet. Out of sight, Ikora’s Light sparked and crackled like a live wire to his left, held in reserve for now.

The tank stepped forward. Then the hands that had broken Fallen arms were dragging Cayde back, out of the mud beneath the tank’s creaking feet.

“Let’s go,” Cayde thought he heard Zavala say, his breathing loud in the comm.

Cayde wriggled to his feet, patted Zavala’s shoulder blade as the tank reared against the City Wall. They stood like that while Ikora saw her opening — felt her see it, felt her mind like the intricate gears and golden ribs of the Speaker’s astrolabe. Ikora flew on a whirlwind of Void Light and stabbed the tank in the back of the neck with her Scene-Stealer. She leaned back and dragged, kicking her feet for a moment against the downward momentum of her own stab, and pulled the sword across as smoke and fire began to bleed out of the head of the tank. It collapsed beneath her.

Afterward, the Guardians on the Wall took care of the Fallen’s main spearhead. The bugs scattered back from around the corpse of the tank. The soles of Ikora’s boots had melted into the cut across the neck, and she stumbled as she walked out of the tank, fixing the sword to her belt. Black goo trailed from her boots.

Zavala reached out to help her up.

“We did it,” Ikora murmured, quietly enough that Cayde moved closer to hear. Zavala waved him into arms’ length. Cayde bristled at first, realized a moment later that it was in expectation of a rejection that was not coming. Zavala was usually so untouchable, body and mind — but now they had struggled and won, and Cayde sank against Zavala in a shrugging embrace that Ikora took up on the other side. She tugged them into the wreckage and they sat there against the smoking skin of the walker, watching the smoke rise, hearing the civilians cheer.

Zavala, sure of the duty of the Vanguard and the eyes of the civilians on the Wall, stood first.

4. Unofficial Records

They both have a nagging sense that the day Andal introduced them isn’t the first time they met.

Or at least, Cayde-6 supposes they both have it. It might be normal Vanguard Light-muddling, a side effect they don’t write about in manuals.

Cayde-6 reads people. He has to, in order to know how to call bluffs and push buttons and escape parties too boring or dangerous to endure. But Commander Zavala smiles with silvery lips and long canines, and you cannot just ask a man of such principle and gravitas whether it’s significant that you know and do not know him, that you actually never saw him in that particular dream ever and isn’t that strange? Isn’t he someone you know? Or does this nagging mean something else, that the three Vanguard are all shadow-selves to one another, reflections? Were they reflections before Cayde took the Dare? Was he always partially here around this table with these people? The idea is disgustingly noble, disgustingly boringly fated. It makes him want to run. But that nagging is something that keeps him rooted. He feels like he knew Zavala when they were both first raised, how ever far down the muddled memories that was. He has to remind himself that he is not certain Zavala feels the same way.

The question dogs him, but he doesn’t feel right asking. That would be needy. Cayde is not above asking assistance from a friendly Guardian or passing ranger but the Vanguard have jobs and Cayde respects their time. There is always a fight, now Oryx and now Ghaul — and besides, asking would make him look uncertain. If a person needs kindness Cayde will provide it, but his own curiosity is no kindness. He will not burden Zavala with this — not quite yet.

His chance comes weeks later. In the hangar Zavala is examining a new weapon from Fenchurch’s wanderings, an automatic day-ruiner as big as one of those Cabal cannons. Zavala says something about the strange abilities of the thing, a sense of foresight that guarantees the bullets hate physics. Cayde isn’t paying much attention. The gun looks good in the hand, sure, but — “…like déjà vu. Insistent cryptomnesia, inflicted. Made useful.”

“What now?” Cayde is leaning on a crate in his usual hangar hang-out, one leg stretched out behind him. Zavala is standing a few meters away from him, so Cayde makes sure his turn looks lazy.

“Just examining this.” Zavala’s expression is calm, controlled. It’s weighty like the Wall. Cayde wishes he could see what it would look like for Zavala to emote. (Although there was enough of that after Mare Imbrium, wasn’t there, enough ragged looks like piles of rubble.) There are techs around, but right now their presence doesn’t matter. Cayde can’t see anything except Zavala and his need to ask this question, to receive this answer.

“Do you ever get the sense that you’ve met me before? Like, you know, as if we were both experiencing déjà vu at the same time but like all at the same time and just with you and I, specifically. Is that normal Vanguard behavior because if not I thought that it might be useful for you to know, you know, in case it was the sign of some crypto … mania.”

Zavala sets the gun down. It thunks. “Cayde, I don’t expect that you knew this already, but some Awoken and some Guardians feel that all the time.”

“What?”

Zavala rolls his shoulders for a moment before walking toward Cayde, circling around toward the hangar techs as he speaks. “Not all Awoken do, and not with all other people. Some people think that it’s because we have the memory of our original remaking in us, the thing that changed the first Awoken from human into us.” He’s meeting Cayde’s eyes as he goes, and it isn’t condescending so much as very intense. Zavala could make Cayde into a crater if he stood here long enough, that stare says, but he chooses not to. He chooses to stand here and defend, like that Wall, and that’s as close to a Fireteam as Cayde has ever had.

“But it doesn’t happen with everyone,” Zavala continues. “Usually with people who have a shared destiny, or a deep bond.”

“So which are we?” Cayde is made bold and shy together by the directness of the answer.

“Probably both,” Zavala says. He just stands there with his hands on his hips and lives with that, with a bond from which he does not want to escape into the pine forest, and Cayde sighs.

“So is this normal?”

“Not normal. But I’m honored to have it,” Zavala says.

Cayde sighs again. Considers and discards saying “I Light-memory-bond you too, buddy,” or something, but it feels too small. The bond has been there after all, self-evident, pressing in on them. Cayde had looked into a kind of eternity, not like the Crypt, but a definition of non-memory, and was struck silent with the depth and strangeness of the respect idling in the Light. Cayde sighs and idles, and Zavala reaches out a hand in a glove of his own making, and Cayde shakes it.

#Destiny 2 #writings #Cayde-6 #Commander Zavala #Ikora Rey

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seburath-aryes-ancunin · 4 years

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🖊

Akdjdkekendnjd yiss. Today I'mma talk to you guys about Seburath my main Destiny 2 OC.

Seburath is a special girl. She's part Eliksni part Akamhara. Now you might be wondering......how in the fuck did that happen???? Well, I'll tell you how. Prepare some tissues cuz it might get sad.

Seburath's mom (unnamed for now) was injured in an explosion when she was young (teenage/young adult) that made her unable to have offspring. Due to that, she was cast out from her house and was branded a loner. Well one day on her wanderings she found a gravely injured Ahamkara. Not wanting it to suffer alone she went to comfort it as it died. Seeing kindness in her, it asked her what she most desired for and she told it that she wished for a child as she was never able to have one. The Ahamkara also wished to have a child but was never able to find a mate (which is why it was not in hiding) so Seburath's mother told the Ahamkara that she would bare it's child if she was able. And with its dying breath, their wishes were granted.

Her mother was overjoyed that she was finally going to have a child but when she was born.....her mother realized that she might have spoken too soon. Unlike other Eliksni, Seburath looked to be an albino. She was a pearlescent white and faded pink and her eyes were bright blue. Nonetheless, she cared for Seb the best she could.

But life isn't without it's troubles. Since Seb wasn't the normal color of Eliksni, it was hard for her to blend in and hide, even with her baby fluff (which was a pale gray color, not a good color to hide in grass or bushes). More than once her mother had to fend off Guardians and cabal who saw Seb and tried to hurt her while she looked for ether for her.

Then it happened. While her mother was scouting around, Seb (now at human toddler age) wandered off from where her mother hid her and was found by another patrolling house. Her mother heard her cry and ran back to her. Seb was laying in peices, torn apart by the others. Her mother was so distraught with anger and anguish that she ran after the the ones that killed Seb and attacked them.

Although she killed them, she ended up getting shot in the chest. With the last of her energy she crawled back to Seb and curled around her before dying.

Now, you might think the story ends there. But it doesn't. Some time later, a lone ghost was floating by when it came across the bodies of Seb and her mother. Hearing a voice within the ghost revived the small hybrid Eliksni. Yes. Seb had become a Guardian but she was still very young and her ghost was clueless as to why the traveler would chose a young Eliksni to be a guardian. Nevertheless, the ghost did her best to help guide the young Seb to the tower.

Of course it was a long journey and most of the time her ghost was carting her around in a wagon she found. Halfway through the journey, the little ghost had to go and find ether for Seb so she would be fed then she decided to keep some ether tanks on them. Luckily she found some in an abandoned cache.

Once they were finally at the tower (with the now 3-4 year old human equivalent Seb), the ghost looked around to find a way to get Seb up to the top. Somehow there was a ship left in what seemed to be an abandoned hangar. It wasn't able to go far but it would do. Transmating Seb into the busted ship, they flew to the top of the tower the just before the ship exploded, the ghost transmatted Seb onto the top of the tower.

The sudden explosion of a random ship caught the eyes of many, who came to see what had happened. All the noise was bit too much for Seb so she skittered to a more quieter place which happened to be the ramen shop in the Tower Bizaar.

This didn't go unnoticed however. A certain curious exo followed her and when he came to the ramen shop he ordered two noodle bowls the asked if he could come around the corner. When he appeared, Seb let out a cry to which her ghost came out and tried to fend off the newcomer but the exo just grabbed the ghost and blinked. An Eliksni with a ghost? That's unusual. He then explained to the ghost that he didn't want to hurt her Guardian but to offer some food.

Seeing as Seb was still hungry, the ghost gave a nod and the exo sat down the small bowl in front of her. At first Seb didn't know what to do but she watched the exo and attempted to use a fork. Only having 3 fingers was hard using a fork but she managed. After the meal, Seb promptly fell asleep (kinda like ponyo)

The exo asked her ghost if he could take her back to his place where she would be safe and he would answer any questions she had and he could ask her any he had. The little ghost hesitated at first but seeing that Seb really had no place to stay she agreed and the exo carried her back to his place.

The exo, revealed to be Cayde-6, was extremely curious about Seb and how a Fallen became a Guardian at such a young age. Her ghost, nicknamed Den by his own ghost, explained to him all she knew. Seeing as Seb would need somewhere to stay and more of someone to teach her how to be a Guardian, he took it unpn6 himself to keep her.

Fast forward a few years to when Seb is a late teen, young adult. She had learned to be a hunter by Cayde and she knew almost all his tricks. She had friends on the Reef and in the Dreaming City. One-day while on her way to meet up with Mara she feels something calling to her. She doesn't know what it is but it calls to her from the depths of the palace. For the time she ignores it to see Mara. While she talks with Mara she feels it again and Mara sees it. She decides to take her to see Riven. When Riven sees Seb, she doesn't address her as an Eliksni but as one of her own kind.

Not understand what Riven meant, the Ahamkara tells her that she too is an Ahamkara and the reason why she's not known before now is that she doesn't yet know how to shapeshift. Riven then attempts to show her and both her and Mara are surprised to know that Seb is truly part Ahamkara.

When she returns to her 'dad' Cayde about her being an Ahamkara, he's both happy and worried, telling her not to tell everyone she's an Ahamkara. Seb is shocked to hear this and demands to know why but Cayde is unsure how to explain it so he calls in Shaxx to explain. It's then that Seb learns that Ahamkara are actually really dangerous and he owns a skull of one. After Shaxx tells her his story, she flees from the tower feeling like it's too dangerous for her to stay.

At this point it's a good idea for me to explain that this story is Seb's canon. There are actually 4-5 other backstories with Seb but those involve characters made by my lovely wife @astridanalisenightshade and some of which include that one of her Eliksni characters are Seb's mother, one of her abandoned characters are found by Seb and they both travel to the tower together and a few others. For the sake of not confusing people i won't be using those for RP and while may mention them, they are between me and her.

From this point Seb lives in Four Horned Gulch, helping Spider as she can and fighting off the scorn. He gave her the rank of captain even though she doesn't technically belong to his rogue house and this is usually where I would have her start with meeting another OC. Either out on the gulch as she's scavenging or when she comes in to see Spider.

I am still working on her final design but its a bit troublesome seeing as I've not really drawn an Eliksni but I am also working on making a cosplay of her to wear.

But I think I've gushed enough about her so enjoy this backstory and info tidbits on her.

As a side note: I do ship her with Crow and I'm working on a fanfic series with her and Crow. I've gotten 2 of the 5 parts done and I will be uploading them to A03 maybe after all this 5000+ tag BS is over. And don't worry. I'd NEVER do that. I'm not that good with tags >_> but anyways. Enjoy!

~TKL

#ask game #seb's backstory #shes really a good spoder #she might look all big and scary #but i promise she wouldn't hurt a fly #mosquito probably #but she would do anything to help a fellow guardian #Cayde raised her well #shes still kinda mischievous though

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luvleekaotix-imagines · 7 years

Text

Liar (Reader x Cayde-6)

anonymous asked:

hey can we get some more uhh cute cayde-6? maybe a continuation of absolutely, most definitely? in honor of the destiny 2 open beta?

A/N: I’m gonNA CAPTAIN AMERICA MY WAY THROUGH THIS FUCKIN’ GAME. Also not tooo descriptive cause I’m still not 100% sure of lore in this game. I’LL LEARN.

“That’s why you gotta give me my hug,” The Exo hunter opened his arms and wiggled his fingers to will you to come closer. “So I’ll absolutely, most definitely come back.”

You hated liars the most. You did—and damn it all if any liars would escape your wrath.

“Don’t you touch him!” Bullets bounced off your shield of light harmlessly. “If anyone kills him, it’ll be me.” You charged at the squad of Cabal in front of you, fully intending to crush them beneath your heel.

“Hoo boy.” Cayde-6 carefully shuffled away until his back the wall. Not a moment later, the body of a dead Cabal elite was thrown against the concrete next to him. “You dead buddy?” There was silence from the corpse. “Alrighty then.”

Like you the Exo hunter had no ammunition left and had been left in a very sticky situation. The rest of his team had been lost in an ambush and it would be devastating to give the report. If you hadn’t shown up in the nick of time there would be no report at all.

The light faded from your body and body was shaking from exhaustion, adrenaline and sheer anger as you turned to face Cayde-6. The stupid hunter simply waved a hand at you in a simple greeting. “Really?! That’s all you’re going to say?!”

“I didn’t say anything—”

“Shut up!”

“Oookay.” He knew you were upset, he knew you were angry, but most of all, he knew you were afraid. “Thanks for coming to save me.” Cayde knew what was coming as you marched towards him with sure steps. “You know it’s always a pleasure to see you kick ass—”

Your hand connected with the hunter’s faceplate and his head turned with the impact of the slap. “How fucking dare you, Cayde. I sent you off and—” You choked at the memory of stupid goodbye hug Cayde-6 had asked you for. “—you said you’d come back, but then there was a distress beacon and it was your signal—and I—you’re—” You removed your helmet and lobbed it at Cayde-6 in anger before crying in earnest. “You’re such a fucking asshole!” You threw a weak punch to his chest, still mindful of what could have been bullet wounds. “You just—”

Cayde-6 let you hit him a few more times before he grabbed your wrists and pulled you into his arms. The armour your wore made things slightly uncomfortable, but he wasn’t going to let any bulk get in the way of holding you. “Y’know this is why I asked you for that hug.”

He said it softly, so surely that you knew exactly what Cayde-6 meant; at least you think you did. “Why didn’t you just tell me about your feelings, you idiot?”

“Hah, my feelings?” Cayde-6’s usual sarcastic lilt weaved its way through his words. Of course, he would never tell you that he had hidden his feelings because he was too much of a coward to tell you outright. Also, he was scared of losing you and never seeing you again too. “Uh, I have no idea what you meant, but I meant that you would never let me be a liar since you hate them and thusly you’d come save me if I was in trouble—ow.”

You gently shoved the hunter in a spot where you knew he had been injured before resting your head back on his shoulder. You hated liars, but what you found was that you hated the idea of a life without Cayde-6 even more. It was a terrifying thought. The both of you lived for danger for the greater good, but it risked so much.

“So…” Cayde cautiously interrupted your thoughts. “I don’t wanna rush this moment, but do you think we could get out of here a-sap? Kinda hurting here.” The last few words sounded a little strained and you panicked slightly.

“Right, we should get out of here before more Cabal show up.” You scrambled back to your feet and helped pull Cayde-6 back to his feet.

While your back was turned to the Exo, he picked up your discarded helmet and walked around to your front to hold out the piece of equipment to take. “Mmmmaybe we should try and team up more often?”

You observed Cayde-6 for a moment, watched the glow of his optics and tilt of his head as he waited for your response. It would be scary to see him fall if he was by your side, but—you supposed it would be scarier if you didn’t have the chance to try and save him if you had to. “Let’s discuss me babysitting your sorry butt once we get back to base.”

“Hah, I’m not hearing a ‘no’.” Cayde-6 sung as he saw right through your indifference.

“I’ll leave you here~” You sang in retaliation and gestured for him to follow you.

The Exo hunter watched you take point and chuckled quietly. He could have fallen for worse; you were perfect.

#destiny #cayde6 #cayde 6 #cayde6 x reader #cayde 6 x reader #destiny imagines #destiny imagine

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games-benedict · 7 years

Text

Destiny 2 Is As Beautiful As Ever

Destiny 2 is out. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to find there. At this point, it’s pretty clear Bungie’s never going to make the Destiny game I want. But I’m going back nonetheless because 1) the guns still feel great and 2) there’s some damn pretty stuff to see.

After getting to spend a fair bit of time with the game last night I ended up with quite a few screenshots, so rather than go on a long rant about how this series is still a mess, I’ll try to keep my list of grievances to a minimum and focus instead on some of the cool world building that happens in the game despite itself.

There are all different types of science fiction, but I think Destiny’s version tends to come off as inconsistent and off the wall. But really it just reminds me of the illustrations artists would do for old sci-fi paper backs or even astronomy coffee table books. It’s not built around a particular technological question, or hypotheticals about life in the future. Instead, the game’s approach is to simply take the Wikipedia page for a planet or astronomical phenomenon, dream about it, and then start throwing lines and colors on a page. On the surface, Mass Effect Andromeda seemed to be doing the same thing, but in reality the results ended up feeling much more engineered and modular; the difference between scanning a planet from above and painting it from below.

Destiny’s backgrounds are great. Especially because they’re always balanced with a middle ground you can actually get to and nearby objects that contrast in volume and help frame the vista ahead.

The early part of Destiny 2 veers heavily into Lord of the Rings and I sort of dig that.

Bungie knows how to take good looking scenes and really make them pop by adding dramatic lighting effects. The Sleeping Beauty bramble cave below a pedestrian looking aluminum silo is also cool.

Whatever you wanna call it--instagramification, neon-drenching, etc.--I think it works and helps give Destiny 2 a visual identity apart from the first game. Fighting uphill in the woods below a pink and teal sky against camping aliens is better than a lot of the alternatives.

I've really missed this series’ skyboxes.

Titan is definitely my favorite location to date. Even if it was giving me hard Gears of War 3 flashbacks, and most of the fights weren’t as good as Gears of War 3, trading empty expanses for narrow corridors and ledges was a nice change of pace.

Destiny is also at its best when there’s extreme terraforming involved. In this case, Titan basically functions as a combination of Star Wars’ Cloud City and Minos.

More teal! But also lemon yellows and sun baked sheet metal. There’s been a subtle shift in Destiny 2 toward big industrial equipment which, intentional or not, helps give some actual shape to some of the backstory about what civilization was up to before the fall. Giant turbines, hydro-pistons, and big alien drills draw a nice contrast with the sleek space ships and magic armor; more Alien than Star Trek.

I’m not sure what exactly it is about the designs on Titan, but felt very IKEA to me. Maybe it was just the yellow, or the rain at sea on a rig (all of which I weirdly associate with Scandinavia). Between the first game’s old Russia Cosmodrone and Destiny 2′s European Dead Zone, it all feels a bit eurocentric.

This is my favorite tunnel in the game so far. And there are a lot of tunnels.

Skyboxes with giant planets in them are even better.

Seriously though, Titan’s the best.

The giant biodome has a very Logan’s Run feels to it and, assuming there are some interesting side missions, strikes, or (fingers crossed) and eventual raid there, it will immediately jump toward the top of my list of best post-apocalyptic malls.

7066 Nessus is a small Vex rock, and as such, looked equal parts beautiful and re-used assets from Venus. The hazy teals and electric blues are once again in full effect, but I’m down with it. While the rest of the game seems content to double down on the “log on and shoot shit with your bros” appeal, the art direction in Destiny 2 commits much more strongly to the series’ trippy sci-fi vibes.

The eye motif that follows the Vex around is one of my favorites, even if it makes Nessus look like the GLaDOS home world.

Otherwise, here are some quick thoughts so far, in no particular order:

The writing is bad. Destiny’s writing was mostly silly nonsense, but Destiny 2 tries to invoke this feeling of being under siege, especially in the beginning, that makes it feel like you’re supposed to be taking it all totally seriously

I’m not the only one to point this out, but anytime you tell the player not to die and then let them respawn seconds away the first time they die after that, there’s probably some holes in your design.

To that point, why even bother to Metroid the player if you’re going to re-introduce the bulk of their powers a few moments later with no interesting obstacles in-between? Not being able to run, jump, or throw grenades is a very jarring thing in Destiny, and yet that brief survival-horror sequence is played mostly as a walking sim. Normally that’s something I’d encourage, but in this particular type of situation, it seems to completely miss the point.

I’m so tired of loot boxes. Overwatch and PUBG have ruined us. Especially since most of the loot boxes that appear in Destiny 2 are full of tedious junk.

The environments are big and beautiful but still mostly empty. 99% of interactions boil down to “Hold square to spawn monster closets.”

You can tell Bungie really wanted to go for it this time in terms of the linear narrative, but it feels completely uneconomical given the dearth of plot throughout the rest of the game. Too many of the cutscenes don’t advance the story or tell me something I couldn’t have guessed before. More importantly, they don’t introduce more questions. This was a problem in the first game, but it feels even more acute in the second given its apparent emphasis on getting us to care about these characters and their struggle. Basically, every time Bungie has a chance to build out a mystery it chooses to make a bad joke instead.

It’s a sequel, so stuff is bound to be different, but I got the sneaking suspicion on more than one occasion that stuff was changed from the first game to the second simply to make the second feel like more of an upgrade. I don’t see the point of the new skill tree look, for instance. At bottom it’s still asking you to make the same trade-offs as before and not allowing you any greater degree of customization. While there are plenty of small graphical and quality of life improvements, there’s also an awful lot of crap that looks like it was given a fresh coat of paint just cause. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, but it feels hollow and overly conservative on Bungie’s part.

Finally, what’s up with Zavala and his crew scattering to the four corners of the solar system? Shaxx is on Earth still? Nathan Fillion (sorry, Cayde-6 literally doesn’t exist as a character) crash lands on a jumble of No Man’s Sky assets to look for a teleporter? One thing Destiny 2 has done a good (read: slightly better) job of is introducing a certain amount of skepticism and dissension within the ranks. The three principal Guardians all have slightly different priorities and interpretations of the game’s central premise (is that big ball in the sky good, bad, or indifferent?), and there are some regular old humans who think the City (run by the Guardians) was kind of a sham. It would have been easy to explore that tension more explicitly and then send Zavala et al scattering on account of those divisions. Instead, Destiny’s just like, yea they all ended up on random planets, guess you need to go track’em down *wink* *wink*.

#Destiny 2 #Bungie #Scifi

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