A/N: ENJOY THE CHAP DOGS! I'd better see some reviews fr cuz I REALLY just want to hear your thoughts. It's boring to write without knowing wtf is going on. Write something, anything, AND THROW SOME STONES!
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[Vanguard Quarters, Tower]
Ikorra wearily slid the final slate into place and straightened her back. "That's the last of it."
"Yup." Cayde chimed in and heaved a sigh, a faint crackle echoed while he stretched his joints.
The last 48 hours had been utter chaos. Hunters raced between the war-room and the City's armoury, Warlocks huddled in the courtyard and studied the scrolls they'd obtained from the moon, and drones shuttled hundreds of crates between bay doors. A full two days later, the City had finally wrapped up its preparations.
Now, it was quiet enough to hear the hum under the floor.
"Kits prepped, comms codes synced. Praxic, Thanatonauts, War Cult, New Monarchy, The Crucible, I've briefed every order that can pull Light into a line." Ikorra ticked off a checklist.
"What about the Hunters?" She shot Cayde a glance.
Cayde flicked a coin as he tallied names off a data pad.
"Hunters will be split into three units. Nightstalkers on perimeter, Gunslingers to blast them up and Arcstriders as a cavalry charge. If the plan holds, we're golden."
Zavala nodded as he glanced at Cayde and Ikorra. He keyed a channel on his wrist, selected a name, and sent a simple message.
"The City is ready."
His wrist buzzed again. Zavala's eyes widened as he looked down. The reply was already here.
—Stand up your fleet. Rally at the outermost lunar orbit. Hold short of the Ocean of Storms, find me there.—
Ikorra's gaze cut to Zavala. Cayde's brows furled as he leaned over to peek at the message.
"That was fast," Cayde said.
"He's already there," Ikorra murmured.
Zavala didn't waste a heartbeat. He patched through to Flight. "All launch groups, stack in Earth orbit. We've got further direction to meet on Lunar Orbit, above Ocean of Storms. Wait for launch code."
He closed the channel and fixed Cayde with a look. "Get your scouts on the ground in the Ocean of Storms. They go in first. I want eyes on every approach vector, tell them to locate Viper and rendezvous."
"You got it." Cayde chuckled; his fingers were already moving as he sent Tevis a message. "The Nightstalkers will gladly take up that job."
Zavala swiped on the launch screen, observing all the ships gathered near the Hangar. "Ikorra, get a Colony ship, en route to Lunar Orbit. If anything goes wrong, we must have escape routes."
"The Thanatonauts are already on it. Asher Mir will be leading the Colony ship himself." Ikorra replied, messaging the Warlock Orders to gather for a launch. "All that's left is to give the launch order."
Zavala turned towards the Courtyard's window. He looked at every guardian that had gathered below, ready to launch into Orbit at a moment's notice. His eyes gleamed with a heartfelt resolve; this time, he wouldn't lose.
His hands clasped behind his back, Zavala stood tall, eyes finally shifting to the Traveller shimmering above the city. A silent prayer echoed in his heart.
"Let's go."
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[Ocean of Storms, Moon]
Far behind Hellmouth's Umbral Veil, a maelstrom of dust stirred on the ridges of the Ocean of storms. Dark shadows loomed on the horizon, dimming even the brightest stars in the night sky.
Void looked towards the Umbral Veil, scanning the Hive necropolis for any activity. He typed and finished his message to Zavala and dismissed the pane with a flick. "They're coming," he turned back to his crew.
Pahanin and Kaviss were still mid-argument over a crate of anchor stakes.
"I'm just saying," Pahanin grumbled, punching a code into a cac, he ", if we were meant to camp on this cursed rock, Traveller would've put a marsh here."
Kaviss lifted a spool of fibre. "Your humour does not help alleviate the situation."
"Neither does your face, but you don't see me complaining." Pahanin shot back, then jerked his chin at Void. "Why here and not, I don't know, literally anywhere else that isn't glaring at the Hellmouth from a bad angle?"
Kaviss furled his brows, he snorted and quietly hurled the spool of fibre away while his hand brushed along his face.
"Because here," Void said, "is where the Hive won't bother to look—too far from their nest to matter, too close to make them comfortable. And because here has line-of-sight to everything we care about."
Pahanin stared at the faint green bruise of the Umbral Veil dozens of kilometres away. "You and I have different definitions of 'comfortable.'"
"True," Void said, hoisting another cache of portable utilities towards the campsite.
"Droids," Pahanin snapped, and two VENOM units clanked forward out of their ssledgebipedal, broad-shouldered, with glossy plates cut from Juggernaut salvage. He jabbed toward the rock. "Anchor lines there, there, and there. Run the cabling and get the masts up."
Kaviss set down the spool and drew a line in the dust with his toe, flattening it with a broad hand. "Base perimeter. Power here." He keyed a compact generator awake. Ether-blue glow pulsed once, then steadied. "We will need heat."
"On it." Pahanin popped the lid on a thermal crate and tossed Void a folded panel. "Arc blankets. Set 'em up."
Kaviss knelt by the generator, hands quick and neat despite the splicer steel. "I'll wire up everything."
Pahanin then opened another cache. Inside was a cut-down Vault interface. He tapped the screen and hooked it up to power. Moments later, it winked to life. "All right, you temperamental miracle. Don't embarrass me."
He tapped through a series of menus, entered two codes and waited. The screen hiccuped, spit a warning in eight languages about signal integrity, thunked twice, and offered up a clean, simple prompt: STORE / RETRIEVE.
Void leaned in, a sceptical hum in his throat. "You actually did it."
Pahanin tilted his head, satisfied despite himself. "Told you I could piggyback on the City's vault structure. It's not pretty, but if you queue a transfer here, it'll surface wherever they have an authorised node. City will have to hook up the network itself, though. This one's just an interface."
Obsidian hummed as he analysed it. "It's not the prettiest, but it will work."
"Good logistics," Void said. "I like it."
Kaviss planted a final marker at the perimeter, then set a tripod and unfurled a drape the size of a shuttle wing—a cloak projector salvaged and rebuilt from Fallen scrap. He keyed it. The projector hummed, and the air above the ridge bent until the camp was a smear of shadow to anything looking from the wrong angle.
The camp was small, ugly, and exactly what it needed to be: a simple hub.
Void walked to the cliff's edge and looked out. The Umbral Veil still didn't show any activity. But he still felt tense. Because he knew that somewhere under it, Omnigul watched. Somewhere deeper, Crota slept.
But for now, he had done all he could.
"Now we wait," Void said.
"For them?" Pahanin asked.
"For everyone," Void said, and didn't look away from the dark.
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[Ishtar Academy]
Vines flourished over cracked stones as light scattered through the cracks into the mineshafts below. Countless tunnels burrowed like knife wounds beneath the Ishtar ruins—narrow cut reinforced by plates hammered out of stolen ship hulls. Ether tanks hissed in alcoves, blue-white lamps burned in cages.
At the digging face, House of Winter crews worked in a rhythm of sparks and curses, their tools whining as they chewed through the ruins. When they finally hit the last layer of rock, a call came down the shaft as a series of clicks.
A Captain barked back, and the workers fell away from the wall just before the last sheet of stone gave and toppled into a void beyond.
As they entered the new breach, what they saw was unsettling. Beyond the epace were odd geometric spires that stretched into the abyss below. A hex floor set with panels that hummed, walls that were sharply angled and above it all was a floor that just seemed to descend further down.
The Captain stepped through first, two Vandals at his shoulders, a Dreg scuttling behind with a scanner rig strapped to its back. He sniffed the air out of the habi and lifted his hand.
The scanner chirped. The Dreg translated, voice tinged with fear, "Energy present. Old."
The Captain clicked his mandibles, thoughtful and not pleased. He gestured, and two more crews hauled portable shields into the room, snapping them alive with the slap of a palm.
The scavenger squads crept further down. Among them, a Vandal stiffened. He heard it first—the tiny change in the air, an unsettling presence gnawed at him. He tried to speak. He didn't get the chance.
The geometric spires in the ground stuttered, broke, and became a door. Through them walked a legion of Vex.
Goblins crawled out. A Minotaur pressed its shoulders through and bowed at the opening. Behind them, somewhere deeper, a Hydra cried out.
Everyone moved at once, a nd chaos ensued.
Shields surged. The air turned to glass. Arc rifles screamed, burning lines through the haze. The first wave of Goblins stumbled, sparking open.
The Captain roared and slammed a shock blade into the Minotaur's side. It shrugged, swatted him into a wall hard enough to dent the metal. He bounced, slid, shook his head, and used the momentum to drive a grenade under the thing's arm. It went off with a bang that made the floor ring.
"Push!" the Captain barked, and his crew did. Ether burned through their veins; they moved, crushing the goblins while they tried to take over the room.
But behind them, another wall unmade itself and became an opening. More Vex walked in.
Then the gate behind the Hydra widened, and something older stepped into the threshold, not through, not yet; only close enough to make every Eliksni shudder with fear.
The presence scanned the room, its blue laser covered everything in an instant, and then it recalculated. Moments later, the room changed. Floors shifted, pillars snapped into place, walls crumbled, ceilings lowered.
Before the Winter squads could even breathe, they were surrounded by the Vex. The Captain's eyes shuddered, he looked around, and all he could see was Vex. He growled and held his rifle up to aim while they closed in.
But when the Hydra loomed over his head, his eyes widened with fear, and one shriek later, everything was reduced to ash. With no more enemies to fight, the Vex legions stood silent, waiting, watching until eventually, the presence inside willed them to leave.
They obeyed.
As the news of their failure reached the Winter Kell, House of Winter finally realised that what they'd uncovered underneath the ancient Ishtar ruins wasn't the knowledge they'd desired but something far older, something that should have been left alone to rot in the ruins of the forgotten Golden Age.
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