#weehee i love writing my guardians its so much fun

[artist-assassin]

Perspective [Destiny 2 Fic]

[[Title: Perspective

Description: As a challenge from a Destiny server I’m in, I wrote a piece about the same scene from three different perspectives. Bryviks and Senri are original characters. Everyone else is just a throwaway character I’ll likely never mention again in future writings. I hope it’s easy to follow, and hope you all enjoy!]]

High upon a hill overlooking the flattest plains of the frozen planet of Europa, where the vantage point was unbeatable, sat a lone Eliksni vandal named Bryviks. He held a high caliber sniper rifle in his top set of arms, bound in rags in a half-hearted attempt to conceal the weapon from sight if anyone spotted him on the cliff edge. He sat and pondered his future, and where he could go from here. House Salvation was doomed, according to the radio he’d scavenged from supplies found among the corpses of his fallen brethren. The Guardians killed the leaders, encased Eramiskel in a dark ice that other Eliksni whispered would never melt (was she dead in her frozen tomb? Or was she still alive, seeing and feeling the world around her but unable to speak her thoughts aloud or ask for help?). He tried not to think about that, for it was a gateway to thinking about every other horrible thing the Guardians were capable of. 

They always destroy what the Eliksni build. 

A familiar anger burbled in his chest, the only thing keeping him warm in the otherwize icy tundra he found himself stuck on. He had no ship, had no idea where to procure one. Every ketch that House Salvation or even House Light ferried to and from the planet were often shot down out of the sky with blazing guns that burned everything their accursed bullets touched. Bryviks had seen other Eliksni shot with such bullets. There is never anything left of their bodies to mourn over, nothing but a faint trace of ash in the snow where they had once stood.

Bryviks shook his head firmly, checking and rechecking the tubes that connected his breathing apparatus to the dwindling ether supply strapped to his back. Perhaps he hadn’t had enough Ether, perhaps his thoughts were taking such dark turns in delirium. He wanted to stop thinking about the Guardians and everything they have stolen from him and his kind since the Great Machine blessed them with immortality.

The shake brought him back to his present, sitting upon slick ice in a frozen wasteland. He lifted his rifle to his inner left eye, surveying the surroundings attentively. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he refused to sit in a dark cave somewhere and starve to death.

                                                               ---

The snow across the icy lands of Europa sparkled beneath the planet’s sun, nearly blindingly bright if it weren’t for the helmet that the woman wore shielding her eyes. She trudged onwards even as the small white flakes began falling from the sky once again. A storm was on its way, she knew, and she wanted to find shelter before it began. 

“Guardian,” Her Ghost said in an urging tone, hidden safely in her backpack and talking to her through the helmet’s communication systems. He didn’t use her name even when it was just the two of them.

“I know,” she whispered back. There was no need to whisper, but she did it out of force of habit. 

There was a sniper on the ridge to her left, several kilometers away. She’d known about their presence for half an hour now, when her Ghost had warned her about his scanners picking up a heat signature a fair distance away. His next warning was of the poorly concealed weapon he carried on him.

“If it shoots us...” he began, worried.

“We’ll be fine,” she hushed him. She did not pause as she trudged onwards. She lived and fought by one rule and one rule alone: she does not shoot unless they shoot first. She may be renowned for her ability to finish the fights, but she will never be the one to start it.

She didn’t want to start any fights. She hated the unnecessary violence, hated the bloodshed of it all, with a burning passion. She fought only when she thought it was necessary, and now… She pulled out her Dead Man’s Tale, making sure it’s fully loaded (it is, of course, she never goes anywhere with unloaded weapons) and resting a finger on the trigger just in case. Her grip on the weapon is light, but the weight of it felt heavy in her arms. If they shot at her, at her Ghost, she would defend herself. That was all.

She saw the lone figure pull the covering off of their rifle and aim straight at her.

                                                              ---

The snow began falling again, dark clouds gathering in the skies of this forsaken frozen planet. Bryviks wished he were anywhere else in the universe than here, right now. For a moment, he even considered trying to find a way to the Tangled Shore. He has heard terrible things about the Spider, but he has also heard that he pays his workers a fair wage for their work. Bryviks is a good worker, a hard worker - he could do well in the Spider’s lair…

Suddenly, he paused. The blood in his veins turned as cold as the wasteland around himself. There, beneath the crosshairs of his rifle’s scope, was a lone figure. Not an Eliksni - this was the shape of a human body. And Bryviks knew that mortal humans did not leave their planet for any reason - rarely did they ever even leave their shining City.

A Guardian.

He had a Guardian in his scope.

He climbed up onto his knees, tearing off bits of fabric from the weapon so he could position and aim it better. One clawed finger hovered over the trigger, and he finally paused. What was he going to do? He’d acted purely on instinct upon recognizing the Guardian - a hunter, by the intricately detailed cloak it wore over its shoulders - but now, he tried to form coherent thoughts over the fog of his mind. Was he going to kill this Guardian?

He wanted to. Bryviks thought about his two sisters, and his little brother, and all of his ketch family that had fallen to Guardian hands for no reason at all. His father had joined Eramiskel in her fight against the Great Machine, and had been gunned down by a Warlock and his body looted for more ammo - more ammunition to shoot more Eliksni. A burning feeling surged through his body, and he shook in fury as he looked at the Guardian between his crosshairs.

His hand paused, his clawed finger hovering above the trigger just a breath away from shooting. If Bryviks shot this Guardian - even though he knows the little machine will appear and bring them back to life once again in a miracle of Light, he’s seen it happen so many times before - it will close so many doors of his future. 

What options would he have, after this? Where could he go? He was all alone in the universe now, no family left to guide him. He had to find his own way, somehow. His grip faltered, and he lowered the weapon with several distressed clicks of his mandibles. He thought about going to House Light. They live in the Guardian’s gleaming City now, don’t they? A part of him thinks of them as traitors to their own kind, cowards willing to turn over and dock themselves before a human Kell just for another day of survival, but another part of him wonders... Could they welcome him, possibly? He knows they wouldn’t if he tried to kill one of their precious Guardians.

He put his weapon away hastily, wrapping it up with eager, rigid movements, as if somebody would know of what he’d just tried to do if he waited even another second on this cliff. Once it was properly wrapped up again, he stood to leave. He was already thinking about how to tune his radio to a frequency that could get in contact with Misraakskel. 

A golden, burning bullet tore through his chest carapace.

He fell to his knees in an instant, more overcome with shock than pain, and looked down at his own body. It melted away into ash, and for the last split second of life he had left, he saw the Ether leaving his body in a haphazard shape of a lonely, wandering Vandal.

                                                              ---

Senri was no friend to House Salvation, or to any Eliksni who attacked her or other human-kind, but there was a familiar sensation of guilt twisted in her gut when she saw the lone figure disintegrate into ashes as the Ether seeped from its corpse.

She hadn’t fired the bullet - hadn’t even summoned a Golden Gun. In her arms was her Dead Man’s Tale, and nothing else.

Within seconds, another figure appeared on the ledge where the Eliksni once stood. Another Guardian, a Hunter with annoyingly bright yellow and orange armor, traipsed through the Vandal’s ashes with no regard to the life they had just ended and waved jovially at Senri. She could just imagine a big grin on the Hunter’s face. She frowned in her helmet, eyes narrowed. She turned on her heel, slung her rifle over her shoulder once more, and simply went on her way. The storm was approaching faster by the second. 

She wanted to leave this damned place.

                                                              ---

A week later, in some ruined little hut somewhere in the EDZ, sat two Hunters huddled around a fire. Well - there were three of them, but they had all had more than enough to drink that night and one of them had passed out cold an hour ago. The passed out man wore all black and grey clothes, using his tattered cape as a blanket as he snored soundly in one corner of the broken room.

“Wait, wait, there’s no way-!” One of the others, still awake but very much drunk, tried to whisper-shout excitedly. She wore purple and blue armor, with an electric blue cape to match her glowing Awoken eyes. The final Hunter, sitting across from her, laughed energetically and nodded his head fervently, swinging a liquor bottle as he continued his story.

“Yeah, way! That sneaky bastard snuck right up on ‘er, got his gun out an’ everything! I saw the thing power up, he was ready to take the shot!” 

The Awoken woman cooed in awe. “You saved… The Guardian. Like, not just any Guardian, but, like-”

“The Young Wolf,” the Hunter clad in obnoxiously bright yellow and orange armor nodded, far too proud of himself and not ashamed at all to make it obvious. He spoke her title in reverence, then giggled in a drunken stupor and stood up to put on his helmet and summon forth his Golden Gun once more. The Awoken Hunter grinned, stood up as well, and crouched down and put her hands out into a claw-like stratagem, mimicking a scary, bloodthirsty Eliksni warrior.

“Grrr!” She play-growled, stomping around the fire to approach her friend. She stuttered as she tried to seem threatening. “I’ll kill your Red War Hero, and then- and then go after your City next!”

“Y’er not goin’ anywhere, monster! Not if I have any say in it!” The yellow Hunter said proudly, heroically, and aimed his Golden Gun straight at his friend. He made a pew sound with his mouth, and both Guardians fell into fits of laughter. 

“You’re a hero, man!” 

And to them, that was the truth.