04- The Dark Within
It took us another twenty minutes to relocate and find the front entrance to the Skywatch itself while also fighting off the fallen that were protecting the outside of the building. But unlike the fallen that we had to fight in the Terrestrial Complex of the Skywatch, these ones were more spread out and not in any condense spaces. Ghost told me that the Skywatch used to serve as a place where many people would board on ships to settle on other planets before the collapse. This also included the moon as well, since he had mentioned that there was a series of array stations that served as a supposed ‘link’ to the lunar colonies.
Of course, the only other problem that we had at this moment besides the fallen… was a locked door that the fallen were guarding. And not just a simple door that you open when going inside a room. I mean something to that of a garage door or a door to a storage unit. Because that was how big this thing was. “Well, shoot,” Big Mac grumbled. “This looks like a dead end… Hey, Winona? Do you think you can get it open?”
“Yeah, I can get it open,” She replied back as Mac brought her out to work on the controls that operated the door. “Gotta say though… The Fallen must’ve gone through a LOT of trouble in order to keep people out of this place. And just when you think they weren’t crafty enough.”
But it was then that I heard Ghost now speak up this time. “Yeah… or maybe there was something in there that they were trying to keep in. Like they didn’t want to have get out in the first place,” He told her. “They were keeping a pretty tight guard on this place after all… and if it’s something worse than the fallen… well… I don’t want to think about what could possibly be worse then that right now.”
“Me neither…” I added on as I looked at Mac and made sure that my weapons were loaded properly. Shortly afterwards though was when Winona gave us a good sign and got the door open. However… what was on the other side of the door soon began to really make me shiver.
The interior walls were all covered up in what looked like dried sea crustaceans and clusters of green crystals were sprouting up in places like weeds. And if that wasn’t a creepy sign to begin with… there was no power in this part of the facility and nothing to possibly restore it right now. Ghost and Winona tried to assist up by coming out and providing some light as we went up a staircase that was hidden in a darkened hallway… but the further we got up, the more that Ghost was picking up something.
“What is this…?” I heard him say to himself as we carefully reached the top of the stairs and into the next room. “Guys… I’m not liking this… I’m picking up a lot of motion ahead…”
Motion? As in something’s actually here in this whole entire mess? Could it be the fallen? And why would they hide in a place like this? “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Mac…” Winona then spoke up. “The motion that we are picking up right now… It’s being drawn towards us. Like moths to a flame…”
And just when things weren’t creepy enough… I was beginning to hear noises. They started off small… but they began to grow once we stepped into another room. That and the motion tracker was acting like crazy… But as I looked at what looked like a steel door, that was when we saw what was here. Several different creatures that had no eyes… but were coming at us like a swarm.
“The Hive!!”
Immediately, I took aim at the monsters charging at us, shooting down two of them as Mac took down a couple others. However, more of them began to flood the room as it forced me to move up and seek higher ground. Whatever they were, they came at us in a frenzy… and if the ones charging at us weren’t creepy enough, there were also some of these same ‘Hive’ that had weapons and were firing at us. Forcing Mac and I to have to try and find cover while also killing whatever tries to get it’s claws on us.
“W-what the hell are those things?!” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around what’s going on.
“That’s the Hive… But they haven’t been here in Centuries… Ever since the Collapse,” Ghost told me, looking back at Winona. “We need to keep moving. Staying here’s going to make us more of a target for them if we’re here too long.”
“I agree,” I heard Winona say to us. “There needs to be someone or something leading this group here. If we don’t deal with this now, the City’s going to be in big trouble.”
“Agreed,” Mac nodded, preparing his Fusion Rifle. “Let’s push through and find-” Before he could finish though, we had to take down a flurry of incoming Hive as the two of us fought farther into the Lunar Complex.
But when we got to one particular point… That’s when we found a big problem. One Hive that was floating around in the air and ordering the others to come after us as it fired off energy volleys at us. “It’s a Wizard! You need to kill it, now!!”
“Wha-? Why!?” I asked, just as that same floating Hive swung her arm forward and put a dark cloud in front of us. Immediately, things were beginning to sting all around me and I was finding it hard to breath.
“That cloud is toxic and can kill you if you stay in it too long! Move!!” Ghost told me, prompting me to run to another ledge and beginning to open fire. But my shots weren’t doing anything to help me here.
That was… until Mac got an idea as he and I hid behind cover as the Wizard continued to blast at us with energy bolts. “Sunset… ah got an idea, but ah need you to bear with me on this one,” He said, before looking to Winona. “Winona, do you still have that Gozen-C in my inventory?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Give it to Sunset,” He told her… which, made the ghost surprised at first, but she soon nodded her head and began to reconstruct what looked like a sniper rifle in my hands while I felt Ghost put my shotgun away. “Ah’m going to try and get the Wizards attention since it’s got a shield around it. Once that shield’s down, aim for it’s head and fire. It works on the fallen and ah think it can also work on the Hive as well.”
“So wait…” I then spoke up, realizing what he meant. “You’re… going to use yourself as bait to get it’s attention?”
“And when it doesn’t have any shield to protect itself, you are clear to open fire.” Mac then explained again. “It’s the only way this is going to work because it’s likely that when it’s shield depletes, it will try to run off. Just like what a Fallen Captain would do.” He had a valid point there, that I can agree with. But… I thought I would get a second opinion.
“Ghost, what do you think of Mac’s plan?”
“It’s worth a shot in the least,” He replied back to us. “We don’t exactly have a lot of options though because if we wait around too long, more of the hive are going to come swarming in any second.” Well, if that was something, then I guess we’re doing it.
It was when I nodded my head to Mac that he took that as a cue to start running. Leaping out of his cover and beginning to circle around the Wizard while firing at it. As for me, I has to crouch myself down over to a crate in one corner of the room and get myself ready. Unlike the shotgun, I needed to aim down the sights with this weapon so that way I actually get an accurate shot off while also making sure that I had none of those other Hive Monsters trying to interrupt my focus.
However… the one thing I didn’t think on was how much time it would take for Mac to put his plan into motion. Come on… I already got my sights on the target, how much longer do I need to wait for him to get that wizards shield down?
Then, I heard a Fusion Rifle blast from where Mac was at right now… followed by a high pitched screech. “NOW!!”
I was hesitant originally. A little unsure about if I would hit my target or I would accidentally hit Mac. But when I squeezed the trigger and let out a deep breath, the shot I fired hit the Hive Wizard directly in the head, reducing it to nothing but ashes as I let out a sigh of relief from that as I regrouped with Mac.
It was only once we did meet back up that Ghost finally spoke. “If the Hive are here on Earth, than the Darkness might be a lot closer than we think… And that could be a big problem.”
“Then let’s get back to the city and tell Twilight and the rest of the Vanguard,” I replied back. “This is probably not going to be the only time that we have seen them… and it’s likely that there’s someone at the Tower who knows more about the Hive than we do.”
Tower
“You two encountered the hive?” Rainbow-6 first spoke up upon our return to the hall of guardians as we were telling them what we encountered in the Skywatch just a few moments ago. However, Rainbow… seemed to be more confused than concerned with what we were telling them. “On Earth… Am I hearing this right?”
“Yes you are, Rainbow,” I sighed a bit in response to her disbelief. “We encountered them while looking into something for the speaker at the Skywatch. Originally, we were lead to believe that it was one of the high ranking members of the fallen… but once we made our way inside, we found out that it was a lot worse than we originally imagined.”
“If that is the case, then this is definitely going to be a problem for Guardians out in the Cosmodrome right now,” Twilight then spoke up from the other side of the table in the middle of the room. “The fallen are one thing, but having to handle the hive as well…”
“If anything right now, we should focus less on being on offense and focus more on defense… and only have experienced guardians proceed with caution near the skywatch…” Flash then added in something to that… before turning to the warlock next to her. “Twilight, what current active missions are going on now within the vicinity of the Skywatch?”
The Warlock herself was looking at a screen on a data pad and trying to piece together what to do, before realizing something. “Well… there’s only one right now but that team is unresponsive. They were running a mission for Dead Orbit, but we have not heard from them in the last few hours… Star Tracker fears that they’re dead-”
Wait, Dead who now? “I’m sorry, what?”
“Oh… right,” Twilight sighed, before using the table to bring up a series of holographic signs. There were five of them, but four were in a particular group. “There are a series of factions that call the Tower their home and base of Operations. The Vanguard is one of them, but there are four others that relate to the Crucible, overseen by Lord Thunderlane.”
I blinked at that for a moment, before recalling something from earlier. “I heard that name before from Rainbow. Can you bring me up to speed on who he is?”
“Well… let me put it to you like this…” Rainbow then began to speak, turning to face me now. “Lord Thunderlane is a Guardian like us, but he oversees the Crucible. Think of it like… guardian combat training for the Vanguard. Teams of Guardians are organized to compete against each other in a series of exercises and anytime they happen to die in the crucible, their ghost resurrects them a few seconds later.”
“Experience in the Crucible can also be used very well in the field,” Flash added. “Though, in terms with the topic… Dead Orbit, whose representative is Star Tracker, is what’s seen as a Crucible Faction and there are three of them. The other two being New Monarchy, represented by Diamond Tiara, and Future War Cult, represented by the Exo named Noteworthy-2.” The Titan took a deep breath for a moment before continuing. “Though… Twilight, what exactly were the details of this mission that was being run?”
“Well, according to what I have here,” She said, before scrolling through what was on the datapad with her finger. “They were running a mission and had codes to a hidden array that could be able to reconnect us with other colonies in the system… only problem was that they had to go directly through the Skywatch.”
“And likely through the Hive too…” Mac added. “But wouldn’t it be possible that the Hive would keep the Fallen busy for the meantime?”
“It’s possible… but it would not be best to bet on it.” Twilight replied back, before setting the datapad aside and looking at us directly. “Both of them are unpredictable and if they see you, they could stop shooting at each other and redirect their focus to you.” Even though that really did sound unlikely… Twilight’s tone on the subject told me that she wasn’t messing around.
Of course, the real surprise came when we heard Winona suggest something. “Hey… Could it be possible that we can continue that mission by ourselves?”
That single question surprised everyone… including Ghost. “What did you exactly have in mind, Winona?”
“Think about it… If they had access to specific codes for the array, then the codes would be on that particular Guardian’s Ghost,” Mac’s ghost told us. “So, if we find their ghosts, we can be able to finish what they started. And we were able to overcome the hive the last time we were at the Skywatch.”
“That may be true, but your guardians just returned from their last mission not too long ago,” Flash soon interjected as he looked at the Ghost. “Plus… before any other fights in combat, I think both of you need to gear up for any future confrontations.” It was after he told us that where he slid something across the table to us, which almost looked like the same thing I had to give Vinyl-3 when I was getting my Assault Rifle, while also looking at both Ghost and Winona. “Give the Gunsmith this so you two can be able to have access to Heavy Weapons… Also, did either of you happen to acquire any engrams while you were in the Cosmodrome?”
I wasn’t sure what exactly he was talking about, but from how Ghost seemed to be nodding, I can only assume that I was soon going to find out for myself what they were in a minute. “We did happen to acquire a couple from the fallen during our last couple of missions, but we haven’t had the chance to visit the cryptarch yet.”
“Then I recommend you do so,” Flash suggested to us. “For Guardians, having good weapons in a fight is only half the battle. The other half is having good armor to help protect yourself from enemy combatants.”
“Oh, where have I heard this speech before…?” Seriously, Rainbow? Was that really necessary?
“In any case…” The other warlock in the room spoke up as she looked towards us. “We would like for you to get yourself ready before we tackle that mission. The Cryptarch, Moondancer, should help you with those Engrams you have and Vinyl can get you your heavy weapons. When your done, come see me.”
Well, that sounded simple at least. Especially since one of the people that we needed to visit was someone that I had already met before. Though, Ghost had to explain to me what exactly did Flash and Twilight mean by ‘Heavy Weapons’… and as it turns out, it was exactly along the lines of what I thought it would be. They were described as weapons that could be able to do a massive amount of damage in a short amount of time. Right now, there were only two weapons in this category, according to the Vanguard. Rocket Launchers, which would deal a massive amount of damage in a large radius, and Machine Guns, which had high rate of fire and a huge magazine capacity.
The only catch with these weapons though was the fact that some of the weapons in these categories, even though they were rather fast to fire, were slow to reload. Leaving you in an uncomfortable situation if you run out of the magazine and you were in a corner with fallen coming at you from all sides. This was something that was also brought up as well when we were talking about it with the Gunsmith.
In the end though, we both decided to have a different type of weapon. I chose the rocket launcher, since I already had my auto rifle on hand and didn’t need a machine gun for rapid fire at all. Mac went with the machine gun himself since his main weapons were different when it comes to rate of fire, or how fast we shoot.
Lastly, we visited the Cryptarch… who had her equipment set up not so far away from where the vault was as we both went to see her. The Cryptarch, who’s name was Moondancer, was almost similar to Twilight in a sense… but with a few differences. For one thing, despite them both being Awoken, Moondancer kept her hair tied up at the top and seemed… rather surprised at first. Like she wasn’t expecting us. But, when we told her that Twilight told us that she could help us out with the engrams, she was more than happy to help us.
“So how many engrams do you have for me to decrypt?” She asked. For that, I turned to Ghost and asked him the same thing. Afterwards, he brought them out for me as I handed them to her. “Well, looks like you got two coded engrams and an encrypted one… Hold on a second and I’ll be able to get out what’s in here.”
“Wait…” I asked, sounding puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, Engrams are encoded physical objects that can be just about anything given the color or the rarity of the one that you happened to find,” Moondancer told me. “By bringing them to me, I can be able to decode them and turn them into equipment that you can use… just like that.” Within seconds, I watched as the multi-sided shapes that I had given her before was transformed into a new set of garments, gloves and a new shotgun that was better than the one I was originally holding onto. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Miss…”
“Sunset,” I replied back to her. “And… Mac, did you have anything you needed to do?”
“Just one,” he replied, bringing out what looked like a blue colored engram for her to decrypt as that turned out to be a new… I think Ghost called it a ‘Titan Mark’. Note to self, ask Twilight about that later. “And done. Thanks for the help, Ma’am.”
“Always a pleasure,” She told us as we proceeded to go back to the Hall of Guardians. “Be safe out there.”
Even though the Cryptarch meant that as just as a way to say farewell… I got a feeling that ‘safe’ would not exactly be the kind of word to describe our next mission. Let alone, the Cosmodrome for that matter. But at least we have a better chance of surviving out there now.
Yet, as I equipping my new armor pieces, that was when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It looked like another guardian, but a hood covered their head and she had goggles around her neck. Her appearance took on that of a hunter and she was fiddling around with a knife that was in her hands, but was glaring rather intently at me as I looked at her for a moment.
Until… “Hey Sunset, you ready to go? What are you staring at?” I turned around, noticing Mac was headed towards the hangar. I was wanting to tell him about that guardian I saw, but by the time I glanced over at where I saw her, she was gone. Disappeared without a trace. Leaving me personally baffled as I turned back around to catch up with Big Mac.
I had a feeling though… that I might be seeing her again real soon. And not in a good way. “Alright… we got everything we need… Let’s get going,” Ghost suggested to us. “That Array isn’t going to reconnect itself.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
673 users online
851,188 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I'm callin it! Thats Pinkimena
Hmm... Funny thing, but we haven't seen Pinkie in a while...
8831694
8836086
Both of you will be surprised by who it actually is
This fimfic is amazing! Keep up the good work!
I had to crouch
New monarchy for life!!
I like the idea of moondancer being the cryptarch