Chapter Text
[The Sol System, Mars orbit.]
A lone ship glides through the night, a black-on-black shadow sliding across the fabric of reality. This is the stealth jumpship, Shadow Trespass, captained by the Guardian Athetos and his Ghost, Blink. It’s been a long day. Mars has returned, and with it The Witch Queen Savathûn and her Lucent Brood. Got the tar beat out of them by said Queen, unlocked Deepsight (as his Ghost, Blink calls it) which apparently allows one to temporarily manifest the past in the present, and met with Fynch, an apparent traitor to the Brood. Past that, he doesn't know what he should do. The question of whether or not to trust Fynch, while pressing, is one that must be sidelined - the ship’s console pinged with a communication request from The Drifter. Athetos reached over and accepted the call.
“Hey, Brother! Get ready for a firefight, ‘cause there’s Vex on the field!” And there he is, the Man himself. Athetos sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“This isn’t one of your Gambit matches.”He smirked, “Germaine.”
“Force of habit. But I thought I told ‘ya never to call me that!” The Drifter had the decency to look angry for a moment, before continuing on with his spiel. “Anyway, remember that time you ‘n’ me ‘n’ Moondust ‘n’ Elizabeth took down Eramis? Real good times there.”
His head on the console, Athetos mumbled “Get to the point, Drifter. I’ve had A Day.”
The Drifter held his hands up in an attempt at placation, and with his trademark winning (in his opinion) smile, forged ahead.
“Y’know how you ‘n’ yours went and closed that big ol’ Vex Gate on Europa, down in the Glassway? Dang thing’s been actin’ up again. Mind helpin’ me out on this one, since you did such a great job last time and all?”
“You scammed us into clearing out the Prison of Elders for the Spider last time. Try again.”
“Well, if that’s how ya wanna play it…I’m calling in that favor from when you yanked me into your head during your little Dragon hunt. I had stuff to do that day! You. Owe. Me.”
“Fine. Okay. I get that the Gate’s a huge problem that apparently isn’t going away anytime soon, no matter how many times we deal with it. I get that my Fireteam is apparently the expert when it comes to things like these.” He said, putting his head in his hands and slumping even lower in his captain’s chair. “But why in Light’s name are you running the show?”
The Drifter shrugged, only giving a noncommittal “I was in the area.” Clearly he won’t be revealing the real reason anytime soon, though if Athetos was a betting man his guess would be on a half-assed attempt at getting back into Elsie’s good books.
“Alright, we’ll take a look if it’s that big of an issue,” he said as he got out of his chair, walked over to the door in the back of the cockpit and left the room. As the door closed, he called out “Blink, if you would?”
“That was rude,” she said as she hung up on the Drifter, despite his protestations. “Shouldn’t you be a bit more friendly? You are one of his Reckoners, after all.” She nodded sagely.
“Bah, I’ll be friendlier if he brings back Gambit Prime.”
Stepping into the cargo bay, Athetos pinged the rest of his Fireteam with the mission details, letting them know to sync up in Europa’s orbit. Knowing them, they’ll be jumping at the chance to fight some Vex, especially after the last fiasco they called a strike. Athetos grabbed his favorite gear - The Forward Path, an auto rifle he won in the Iron Banner, the Jotunn fusion rifle, and the Other Half, a sword that he earned through a sick and twisted gameshow run by a horse that exists, has existed, and will exist outside of time. He can still hear the whinnies.
“Alright Blink, plot a course to…what the hell are you wearing.”
“Well, if we’re fighting the Vex, I’ll need a disguise! What’s more foolproof than looking like a Harpy?”
“ Harpies don’t wear hats. ”
“You’re just mad because I’m prettier than you.”
Athetos let out a long suffering sigh, sure that it would not be the last released today.
[Europa, Sol System. The Glassway.]
Three Guardians stand on a cliff overlooking a waterfall of what can only be described as…milk. This is Fireteam Jester, apparent experts in all things Vex on Europa. That particular honor should have gone to multiple other people, but with Osiris in a coma and Asher in the depths of the Pyramidion, there’s nobody left to take that title.
After fighting their way through what feels like every Fallen in the Asterion Abyss, they finally arrived at what was in essence the Glassway’s front door.
“Something’s not right. Where are all the Vex? We’d usually see a few on the approach, but nothing this time.”
Brave-4 was the first to speak. Brave’s a straightforward guy, always preferring to forge ahead with the best intentions and smack anything in his way aside, but apparently the oddity of the situation was enough to elicit a comment.
Xol decided that now was a good time to say his piece. “I’d assume they’re further in, waiting for us. Some sort of ambush maybe? A trap, perhaps. A sneak attack, if you will. Guerilla Warfare, if you’re so inclined.”
Xol is a fan of delivering beatdowns just like the rest of his Fireteam, or he was in the past, at any rate. It was what brought the three Warlocks together in the first place, after all. Then, everything changed when Jester killed that damn Worm God. Now he’s obsessed with the Whisper of the Worm, a Taken Sniper Rifle he found sometime after the encounter, which as far as Athetos can tell just appeared after he passed out face down on the floor in one of Io’s caves for 20 minutes. He even went so far as to take the Worm’s name as his own. It’s worrying to be certain, but as long as he keeps that thing pointed at the Dark instead of at Humanity, there’s bigger problems to deal with. Always bigger problems.
“Be that as it may, we can’t just leave the Gate active. If we don’t deal with it now it’ll turn into an even larger problem later on,” said Athetos.
Keeping caution close at hand, the three forged further into the Glassway, eventually coming to a stop in the final chamber. Unlike the last time they were here, the massive Gate is once again active. Blink started scanning while the three poked around the room - but there was nothing to find in all the bland Vex architecture. Jester started to relax a bit, wondering why they even had to come all the way out here if there’s nothing barring their way.
“This is the same Gate we closed before,” Blink stated. Continuing on with her analysis, “but this time, something’s different…this gate doesn’t lead anywhere within the network, or even outside it. It’s like it has no destination at all! I can only imagine what the Vex were thinking when they did this - and it has to be intentional, otherwise it wouldn’t even open.”
“It’s gotta be a trap,” Xol shouted from the back of the room. “It’s GOTTA be.”
Athetos shrugged at that. All other reasonable options are exhausted. It’s time for some unreasonable ones.
“The Vex set up this wonderful invitation for us. Let’s kick down the door.”
The Fireteam flexed their light - Arc jumped between Athetos’ outstretched hands, Void boiled and ate away at Brave’s surroundings, and Solar’s warmth spread from Xol, covering all of them in a blanket of life.
“Always putting out the Drifter’s fires,” muttered Brave.
And with that, something finally happened. What had to be the biggest Hydra any of them had ever seen descended from the ceiling, firing all of its’ Aeon Mauls as fast as it can, cutting off the team’s escape - or at least the escape route they wanted to take. Seemingly endless waves of all types of Vex swarmed the room - Hobgoblins taking sniping positions on the periphery, Minotaurs flanking the unknown Vex Mind, with Goblins interspersed throughout to complete their ranks. The Gate loomed behind them, like the Unit Circle on the worst Trigonometry exam you’ve ever taken. Athetos unslung his Forward Path and started mowing down the small fry. Brave started slapping the Minotaurs and Hobgoblins. Xol spread his Light into a rift, and fired the Whisper at the largest targets he could find. It all seemed to be working too, until Athetos ran out of ammo. The team lost ground until they were forced back within spitting distance of the Gate. Xol and Brave kept firing at the Hydra from the opposite side. With the Hydra’s attention on the two, Athetos called out.
“Blink! I need you to launch an airstrike!”
She paused for a moment. “We’re in the middle of a glacier. Are you sure you w-”
“No time! Just throw everything we have at that thing!”
Three things happened at once: The Shadow Trespass burst through the icy ceiling with its guns blazing, The Hydra took enough damage to rupture its core, and the resulting blast flung Xol and Brave to safety…and Athetos directly into the Gate. Blink did the only thing she could and brought the ship through for a rescue attempt. This proved to be a bad idea as the Gate sputtered and died, cutting the Fireteam off from each other and sending their leader spiraling into the unknown.
[Unknown Space, Vex Network.]
“Well this sucks.”
Athetos tumbles through a white void. There’s no telling how fast, how far, or even what direction he’s going. His ship, though comforting to see, isn’t any help either - while it’s stable and heading in the same direction, it’s farther away than he can reach. He has a solution, though probably not the best idea. Athetos throws a grenade into his other hand. While this may seem like an incredibly stupid idea (and he’s had more than his fair share of those over the years), what else can he do? It’s not like there’s anything he can push himself against. After what feels like an eternity, he slams into the ship and holds on for dear life. As he gets back onto his feet, he summons his Ghost.
“Blink? Anything you can tell me about our current situation?”
Blink floats away from wherever it is she hides and starts scanning. “As best as I can tell, we’re lost somewhere in the Vex network. This…place? Isn’t on any of Misraaks’ maps, and it certainly isn’t on any of the Vanguard’s. Luckily, I’m detecting several weak points we can probably make into an exit.”
“Then I guess all we can do is get cracking, then.”
Athetos has been many things in his long life - Risen, Young Wolf, Kingslayer, and starting recently, Splicer. Just as he thinks about backing off and attacking from a different direction, he becomes aware of a noise. Screaming. He looks to his left.
“What.”
Falling out of a Gate is the oddest group of people he’s ever seen. First is an absolutely massive boulder of a man, dressed in red and armed to the teeth, cradling a green chicken, followed by a man in a suit who has an almost gentlemanly look about him, and a woman who can only be described as a catgirl. Even stranger, the group seems to recognize him, what with the catgirl’s frantic waving and the gentleman pointing at him in abject surprise. Unfortunately, there’s no time to do much more than wave in confusion as he’s unceremoniously sucked through a different Gate - ship and all. As he exits the network in its typical rush of light and sound, he does the only thing he can: plummet to his death.