Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

—She dreamt of a portal, hidden in reports and forgotten as a prototype. A little sister to the greater version created by machinations of a madman.

—She dreamt of a morgue. A familiar cold, ice and snow breaching a sanctum of metal and decay. She recognized it, not old enough to forget the place she was first risen.

—She dreamt of a girl with dark hair and a man, features lost but not the feelings. Of salt on the wind with the calls of an extinct bird.

—She dreamt of concrete and asphalt, young and innocent compared to the decayed and rotted ruins she'd seen.

—She dreamt of sirens, wailing, signaling the death of thousands.

—She dreamt of a people that defied physics. Not Guardians, no, they didn't have the divinity of a silent god made manifest by motes of light. Instead, the burrowing stink of worm-like gods clouded around them.

—She dreamt of a false-fleshed deception glowing with false divinity but worshipped as one.

—She dreamt of metal curling around her, crushing her as-

She woke with a scream, tangling her limbs in the blanket covering her as she fought an unseen foe with the wild abandon of a cornered animal. Eyes wide and unadjusted to darkness, she searched for her enemy, finding nothing but a room cast in a dim artificial yellow and shadows from a too bright sky in the night. Panting, she looked to the right, at her alarm, with its red lettering telling her it was three thirty-four in the morning.

With a sigh, she tried to control her breathing as she shed the blanket and swung her legs off the too small bed. The cold air brushed against sweat coated skin as she covered her face with her hands. She stayed like that for a moment before holding a hand out in front of her, and in the audible shimmer of transmat, her Ghost appeared in front of her, adjusting the blue glow of his "eye" to not blind.

"Same dream?" he asked, concern flavoring his voice as his front four tetrahedral spines twirled around a spherical body.

"Different, but similar," she answered, voice low. "Similar locations. Similar events. Different details. Save for one," she added. "I saw the morgue. Where you rezzed me."

His fins stopped twisting. "Europa."

She nodded, face still in her hand. "These are nightmares, right?" She asked, hopeful, fearing otherwise.

"I don't know," her Ghost replied. "They could be. Guardians have nightmares all the time, especially after... recent events. It could be from that."

"No. No, they aren't," she denied. "Those would be random, nonsensical save for fear. These are targeted."

"...It sounds like you know what they are."

"No. They can't be. They can't..." her hand fell away, dark brown eyes meeting a singular light blue. "I'll prove it. I'll prove it," she repeated, quieter, as she stood up.

Moving to a chair in the corner of the room, she picked up the armored bodyglove undersuit that laid atop it and began slipping it on, ignoring the clothing that pressed against her. Pulling on the armored pants and vest, she slipped into her duster, using a belt with pouches to secure it.

"Standard armaments, Asimov," she whispered to her Ghost as she opened her nightstand drawer and pulled Midnight Coup from it. Checking it was loaded and finding it so, she snapped it to the back of her belt via magnetic attachment.

Being careful not to step on the creaky floorboard, she made for the door as quiet as she could, picking up Nezarec's Sin as she went. Holding out her hand, Asimov floated to hover above it before beaming the Director into her eyes. Blinking over to the Roster tab, she composed a message to the various fireteams that might ask after her, explaining that she'd be unavailable for a few days. Closing her hand, she watched her Ghost transmat away as he returned to his space in her mindscape.

Slipping out of her apartment and locking the door, she made her way down the stairs and out the lobby, pausing only to take in the nightlife of the Last City for a moment before she continued. A cold wind blew a plastic bag down the street as transport trucks drove past her, various commodities in their storage. Up above, transport ships brought in recovered supplies and food from frontier farms that contributed to the Last City in exchange for protection. Personal transports flew or drove around them; people leaving for work at offices or to set up their stall at the markets.

She continued down the street, making her way towards the Wall. Stretching high above and surrounding the Last City, it was lined with guns, artillery, and Guardians. While it was the not the main line of defense - that came from offensive operations - it was the most visible. A constant reminder of safety, even if that safety had been tested in recent years.

Getting into the tram that allowed travel inside the Wall if one didn't want to walk, she punched in for hanger "B". Waiting for several minutes, the tram left with a few more civilians and another Guardian who she didn't recognize. The journey was a short one, at most two minutes. It was part of the reason she bought the apartment.

Stepping off, she went for the lift that would take her to her ship, pressing "12" and feeling it move up to the requested level. Walking past a few spaces, she found her ship, an Eos Rapture. If a brick were to have a cockpit on a small end and two engines on either side, painted black, it would look almost indistinguishable save for the Warlock phoenix painted in yellow on the top.

Getting in, she filled out and sent a flight plan to the ATC tower before following the instructions given to exit the Last City. Earth fell away behind her as she left its orbit, autopilot guiding the ship. She, however, was working through potential landing locations.

"You said you found me in an offsite BrayTech facility?" she asked out loud, pulling up a map of Europa on a datapad that had been left inside the ship.

"Yes. Marking the location for you now," Asimov answered, a pin appearing on the map. Typing in the coordinates, she set the autopilot to come out of the jump just before the ship got in the gravity well of the planet.

She angled the ship to the correct vector before activating the jump, stars bleeding as they stretched into streaks of the rainbow in her limited vision. The ship shook with turbulence before smoothing out, swinging in graceful swoops through the tunnel of distorted gravity.

Leaning forward in the seat, she ran a gloved hand through her hair, gathering it up before placing Nezarec's Sin on her head. The HUD came to life, showing her vitals, armaments, ability energy, and threat detector. It would show a reticle when she was holding a weapon.

"What is it you plan to do?" Asimov asked.

"Figure out if the dreams are worth anything," she replied, clipped. "There's a way to find out. I've seen a portal- a smaller Glassway. If we can find that, they have merit. If not, it's just dreams."

"...You're worried you may be the next Spe-?"

"No," she cut him off, before continuing, quieter. "No. I'm not the next Speaker. No, I'm worried about what I'm supposed to do, if all of this is reality. I've never seen that portal, so if it exists, then what do I do? What would all the other parts of the dreams mean?"

"I can't answer the second, but I can answer the first. Would you like the correct answer or the one you'll choose?"

"Both, please."

"Contact the Vanguard. Tell them what you found and what you've been seeing in your dreams. They'll likely have some Warlocks poke around in your mind, see if there's anything you missed and try to help you."

"And the one I'll choose?"

"You'll investigate it yourself, trying to piece together its secrets and how you're involved before performing the logical answer's actions."

"So what benefit does the 'correct' action provide that the other doesn't? If I let them know too soon, then all the possible answers it could provide will be classified, locked away from me."

"As I said, you'll pick the second option."

"And you'll be with me?"

"Always."

The door shrieked as she pulled it open, revealing the white and decrepit room. Metal drawers had been left out, revealing a few long frozen and preserved corpses in their grotesque glory. Stainless steel tables were immaculately clean; crimes from an age of immoral experimentation and exploration purposefully hidden. A light that should have been anchored in the ceiling was dangling for dear life by a single cord.

Her feet sunk into the snow that had made it through cracks as she pushed forward, Asimov floating over her shoulder and providing light. He floated ahead, past steel tables that shined bright in the light, toward the drawers on the far wall. He scanned each of them for a brief moment before stopping on the second to last one.

"This one," her Ghost announced. She made her way over, using the tables for balance, before stopping in front of the drawer. Looking at the nametag on the door, she was unable to make out more than "08" on the label. What she did see was a thin gray film over it, smoky like glass. Pulling the drawer open, it was empty, but that was not what interested her. Making a claw with her hand, she forced Darkness into the tips of her fingers, before digging them into the film and pulling.

A woman's corpse stared back at her. Its skin and organs had rotted away, revealing a dirty yellowed skull. The worm-eaten remnants of a dress were rags draped over bone, but the hair was the same. Long, dark, and curly; just like hers. Looking up, she saw two people in white lab coats and masks. They were holding clipboards, frozen mid-script, and that caught her eye. Taking a glance around them, there was nothing but indistinct scribblings in the fading memory. Still, if scientists were writing notes about her, then they were compiled somewhere. Braytech was many things, and meticulous was one of them.

Turning on her heel, she started toward the door. "I saw a server room on the way here," she called back to Asimov, who was quick to catch up. "There might be a local copy of their notes stored in there."

White metal hallways stretched through the small facility. An intermittent window allowed view into various labs, all smaller scale. The facility was located south of Beyond, out of the way for the experiments of more dubious moral quality. When she was first Risen she hadn't put much thought toward why she had been there. The concern then was not freezing to death when Asimov found himself cut off from the Traveler.

Two intersections and a turn to the left had her in front of the servers, still blinking with power. The door was not, and had to be pried open with no hand holds to aid its opening. After that, setting up the servers to transfer their files onto her datapad was a simple matter. Sitting in a corner of the room, Buried Bloodline in her lap, knees up and datapad resting against them, she set about solving the next problem: how to find what she wanted in several hundred thousand files?

She filtered it to only show files that had "08" in it. Down from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. She tried other keywords as she went through them, trying to get more manageable file numbers. Out from the thousands and into the hundreds. "Autopsy", "black hair", and "female" narrowed it down to the tens. Concerning that there were that many, but she pressed on.

The first file had a picture of the body, not looking like what she'd seen. Same for the second, third fourth, all the way to the fifty-sixth.

"Asimov, look for a record with ident 4987F31D$EUR-0.403," she told him before going back to reading the file.

That ident code corresponded to a referenced file. The image matched what she saw, though cleaner. She read through it, committing the details to memory. Vertebral fractures, sternum crushed, right ulna and radius snapped, and damage to the finger bones. The scientists theorized that the cadaver had been in a vehicular accident about six and a half months before they got it. They pointed to the cause of death being blunt force crushing the sternum, leaving her to drown to death as blood filled her lungs.

There were more notes about things they found about the body than the autopsy itself. It was a glimpse to the past for them, suggesting a paper could be written about it if Clovis ever approved one. The bones were carbon dated to two-thousand eight, she'd been on a diet of processed and organic food, and microplastics were found in the body. The rest were details she already knew: roughly six foot, thin build, about thirty-nine at death, and the position of the pelvic bones suggested-

She froze, cold spreading through her spine as her limbs became jittery. No. No, it- it changed nothing, she told herself. Only suggested, it didn't mean it actually happened. If she was, they were dead by now. Yes, that was it. Just... another forgotten soul in an uncaring history. Taking a shuddering breath, she looked up into the eye of her concerned Ghost.

"You good?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

She didn't respond for a moment, trying to get her breathing under control. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm- I'm fine. I'm-," her throat seized, cutting off her assurances, as she let out a hollow laugh. "I found out I may have been a mother."

Asimov's shell rotated, waiting for her to continue.

She buried her head against her knees. "I- I don't know what to do with this information. It changes nothing; just another footnote on what we accidentally discover about ourselves. I'm still going to fight for the City. It's just, whoever they were, they're long dead, but I would've liked to know them."

She did. She wanted to know what they were like. Were they like her? Who was the father? What was he like? Had it even been the traditional way as opposed to implantation? It raised all sorts of questions about her life before she was Risen. Her mind flashed back to her dreams for a moment, that splash of black on a shorter figure.

But she never would. They were dead, as was the woman they knew. That was why the Vanguard forbid Guardians from searching to learn more about who they were. It just left questions that couldn't be answered. Opened wounds they didn't know were there.

She felt pressure against the cheek of her helmet; Asimov offering what little comfort he could. Her hand reached up and scratched him in the valley between spines. They stayed like that for a minute, then five.

Still, there was work to be done. Lifting her head, Asimov backed off. Taking one last stabilizing breath, she asked, "You find that file?"

Her Ghost was silent for a moment longer before he said, "Yes. It's a transcript, but I also found an image of the portal." Both appeared on her datapad, and she opened the transcript first.

RECORD: 4987F31D$EUR-0.403

SUBJECT: Security Log F-401

TEST NO: 272 - Transtemporal Crossing - Trial 26

STATUS: CONFIDENTIAL

IDENTITIES: C. BRAY I, J. WONG, PARTICIPANT 47

LOCATION: Europa — Eventide Colony

[C.B.] Begin test.

[J.W.] //Participant, step forward through the portal. Maintain your grasp on the tether. Count to ten and step back out.//

[C.B.] We're only running two more tests after this. This has given us nothing but personnel deaths. Project Glassway is showing much more promise.

[J.W.] I'll start packing. 3. 2. 1... //Bring them back.// (crashing sound) (clattering sound)

[P-47] Eugh! Get it off. Get it off!

[C.B.] //Restrain the participant!//

[J.W.] Is that a... skeleton?

[C.B.] Looks like one. I'm surprised so much of it got through.

[J.W.] Probably the dress it's wearing. Still, first participant to come back alive.

[C.B.] With twenty-five failures. We're moving on. Wrap the project after the next two. I'm moving to oversee the next test at the Glassway.

"Eventide Colony," she muttered beneath her breath, before looking at Asimov. "Do we know the locations of any BrayTech labs out there?"

"The Deep Stone Crypt is out there," he responded immediately. "I don't think it's in it, though."

"Keep looking," she ordered as she opened up the second file, an image of... of the portal she saw in her dream.

The morgue was explainable: she'd seen it before, albeit a decade ago. This? This was not. She'd never seen this portal before. It was an amalgamation of human construction following a Vexian blueprint without all the parts.

"I got a hit. It's out beyond Desolation," Asimov told her.

"We're going. Now," she said, getting up and pocketing the datapad and holstering her sidearm.

"Should we send an alert to the Vanguard?" the Ghost asked.

"Not yet. Not until after we confirm it's still there."

Silent, he followed after his Guardian as she left the facility, retreating into her mindscape as she summoned her sparrow and set off towards Eventide Ruins.

The perpetual blizzard in Desolation had blown unabated for time indeterminable. The wind the Guardian rode against flared her coat as it chilled her bones, snow coating her shoulders and head. She had died thirteen times already, and was trying to make it before the fourteenth.

"How much further?" she asked with chattering teeth.

"Two-hundred fifty-seven meters straight ahead," was his reply, safe from the cold by staying in her mindscape.

She gunned the throttle of her sparrow. The cold was unbearable, but she hoped she coul-

...

She gasped for breath before the cold could start sapping her strength to do so. Her head shot around, trying to figure out where she was after her death. She spotted her sparrow, crashed and upturned a short distance away. Several lights were also a couple meters away, outlining a door to a facility. The sparrow must have kept going with her on it, she figured.

Quickly, the Guardian picked herself up and began loping towards the door through the deep snow. The cold was beginning to freeze her limbs by the time she reached the door. Asimov compiled and emitted a beam towards the control panel, trying to open the door for her.

The cold was pervasive, unyielding. The temperature control unit of her undersuit could no longer keep up and failed again. Her lungs became sluggish, freezing half expanded. She could barely move her eyes as she put her back to the door, looking out with blurry vision into the wastes she traveled through.

Just when the Guardian thought she would die again, she fell backward as the door supporting her weight opened, leaving her laying on the floor. She scrambled on her back into the structure, finding immediate relief from the biting wind.

The door to the outside slammed shut, and pressure began equalizing the two sides as oxygen poured in. Pulling herself up, she get to her feet as the inner door to the facility opened. Rubbing her torso to try and warm herself up, she stepped in.

What struck her first was how well maintained the hall was. Other facilities had overturned carts, broken windows into labs, and abandoned robotics. Here, the floor was clean, the area well lit, and the thrum of machines hidden behind walls could be heard. It was active. Alive. That set her on edge.

Defensive measures the she had faced came to mind as she walked through the halls. Laser bars capable of instantly killing a Guardian. Towers shooting lasers that built up a killing charge. The... those were the ones that were in recent memory. There was worse she hadn't experienced. She'd heard Kaz mention that nuclear cores were involved during the Deep Stone Crypt Raid, but he wasn't there and Hunters loved to exaggerate. The details on the raid were still heavily classified, with no Guardians being allowed in the surrounding area even four years later.

She was breaking that edict by just being there.

...

She wasn't sure if she'd have to deal with the consequences after she got what she came for. If the portal was there, she'd call it in and get a slap on the wrist as well as a lecture on disobeying Vanguard edicts. If there was nothing there, she would leave, and no one would be the wiser.

So, with soft steps, she kept walking. Holding out a palm, Asimov compiled and scanned the room before disappearing as a marker appeared down a corridor. No defenses had sprang to life, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Another door, another hallway, down some stairs. The stairs lead to an intersection, with the marker going left, into some elevators.

She tapped the screen and waited as a display above it lit up, digits indicating its progress. She wondered what was maintaining all of this. Cleaner bots? She hadn't seen one yet. Nor those little drones on Seraph Station. Though, those may have been Fallen. It'd been several years since she'd last stepped foot on the station.

The elevator dinged, bringing her out of her thoughts. Stepping in, she paused, waiting.

"Sublevel Seven," Asimov supplied. Tapping the analog button, the doors closed and she felt her stomach drop as the elevator began to move.

In the lull, her mind began to wander, picking up thoughts from the ride over. Would the portal still be standing, or would BrayTech have torn it down? Could it even still work? Should she try and figure out how it works? Should she use it if it works? Would it be safe to use? Could she use it to fi-?

She cut the thought off. She had been dead, and it was probable they were too. She expected this sort of behavior out of Kaz, not herself. She was a Warlock, dammit, not a gung-ho Hunter. Besides, she didn't know what they had done to get her body. All the other tests resulted in failures, and they didn't find a record of what made her test a success.

Her admonishments were put on hold as the elevator stopped and its doors opened. The hallway it opened into was made of sterile metal coated white. A multicolored stripe led down the middle of the floor, guiding those who worked there to their destinations. Workers who were missing, with the only sound present being the hum of air getting pumped in.

"Which one?" she asked.

"Orange."

Following the orange stripe brought her past several intersections, most leading to more laboratories, but some led to places like bathrooms and more elevators. She kept walking, steps hitching for a moment when the first faint fingers of Darkness that lingered touched upon her. Wisps on the edges of her vision, a warning in the back of her mind, that this was an area the Light held no dominion over. There was nothing on her motion tracker.

The orange strip ended in a door marked with warnings against unauthorized entry. Warnings she ignored, pressing the touchpad next to the door and it opening with a hiss. Inside was a large room, comparable to a small warehouse. To her immediate left was a large winch as well as a metal framework staircase that led to an observation tower.

In the back, against the wall, was a large machine. Shaped like a circle, exposed wiring in the outer ring spoke of its experimental design, kept in a structural skeleton but exposed for repairs. It had the distinct shape of Vex architecture, but none of their materials, instead being made of some sort of steel. She drew closer, examining it. Close enough that she saw the metal vibrate as the gate lit into digital white, swirling in the center.

She stepped away as she heard the distinctive storm of Vex transmat. Looking back, she saw the arcing storm cloud forming between her, the exit, and the observation tower. An observation tower that had a Vex Goblin in it. Looked to be part of the Nessian Schism Collective. What were they doing here? There hadn't been much activity from them since the Conductor was killed.

"Send an alert to the Vanguard and any nearby forces. Now," she ordered Asimov.

The first ones formed, revealing Compelled Goblins. Behind them were Choral Minotaurs, and on the stairs were Compelled Hobgoblins, as well the solitary Goblin in the control room, operating the controls. One Hobgoblin was already charging its Line Rifle. The Guardian leant to the right, causing the particle jet to pass by, before she started running towards the main force.

Holding a magnetic grenade and feeding it more Light, she let it loose, the grenade breaking apart into a horizontal line that consumed the front row of Goblins. That consumption fueled her as she shot Midnight Coup, hitting the second Hobgoblin charging its rifle. The first flinched it, and the second penetrated the pod in the middle of its torso, causing the Vex to fall apart in chunks of metal and the milky fluid of radiolaria.

Moving forward, she unsheathed her sword, a wide hunk of metal, before swinging it in a wide arc around her. The first swipe broke the Minotaurs' shields, a burst of void damaging the surrounding Vex. The second cut through the Goblins, leaving the larger ones still standing, but sparking. The last cut through them all, leaving them falling apart in outlines of purple void as it ate through them, fueling her strength.

Swapping to her sidearm before back to the sword again, she jumped and swung it, that swing propelling her to the base of the stairs. Redrawing Buried Bloodline as she moved up them, she fired at the remaining Hobgoblin. The dual arrows tore it apart in a violet light of violent beauty.

A rush of displaced air was the only warning she got before a metal claw impacted her with enough force to send her careening off the stairs and halfway to the portal. She had just enough time to look up before she had to throw herself to the left to dodge the barrage of void explosives shot by a Torch Hammer.

Eyes tracking their arc, she found her new opponent: an Uplifted Overload Minotaur. Its silver coloring had been blackened, almost burnt, and two rings crossed its body, rotating. Thorns sprouted off it, ending in glowing tips as its bright red eye gazed at her with baleful disdain. It teleported, a streak of red-black left in its wake as it changed positions to get closer to her.

She swapped the grenade she was charging into a suppression grenade, its blast capable of neutralizing the Minotaur's movement and regeneration capabilities for a moment. Aiming and firing Buried Bloodline at the Minotaur, she tried to deal as much damage as she could before it regenerated the damage. If she could kill it fast enough, the grenade wouldn't be necessary.

The Overload advanced, teleporting between rapid shots as it closed on her. She backed up, weaving between the shots, before stopping when her boots pressed against raised metal plating. She glanced back at the portal, checking the distance and finding herself too close for comfort. That glance cost her as the Minotaur barreled into her with all the grace of a freight train, sending them both into the portal.

Soft grass and dirt met a hard landing, leaving her breathless and dazed. Her vision swam, each snap of the eyes to something resetting but not ending the motion. Her hands clenched, missing the resistance of her gun, and she tried to search for it on hands and knees.

A harsh stomp on her back drove what little air she had stolen back out as she heard her shield fail and bones break. Breath became harder as the back ribs punctured lungs, but not enough to take her out of the fight. Her hands came together and a violet singularity formed in them. Twisting around, she shoved it at the Minotaur, forcing him off her as he became volatile.

Backing up as her vision settled, she drew her hand cannon and began firing. Two shots, three, four. At the fifth, waves of kinetic force detonated below the Minotaur, causing it to stumble. Its health was down by a third according to her HUD, and her shields had begun to recharge. As she was about to fire again, she noticed the Minotaur not attacking, having paused in the fight and turned to the side. The Guardian sneaked a glance to find what had caught its attention.

People. Civilians running and exiting cars to get away from the confrontation. Had the portal brought them to the Last City? Looking back, she saw the Torch Hammer charging.

She dragged herself up and ran as fast as she could. Jumping, she grabbed onto the arm with the Torch Hammer, wrapping her legs around it as well. The extra weight on the arm caused it to sag, and when the Minotaur fired, it splashed against the soil. Bringing Midnight Coup about, she began firing into elbow joint on the arm, her entire focus on disarming the Minotaur in the most literal sense.

Her shields broke again as the Torch Hammer fired into the dirt again, a wave of radiation brushing over her. Her vision crackled, the shields no longer there to protect against it, but not enough for her to worry. She continued firing, each shot tearing away at the arm that held the launcher.

The Minotaur took umbrage with that, slamming its arm, with her on it, against a tree. She felt the arm weaken as she grunted in pain, and when it went to slam her again, she cast her hand towards the weakened joint, kinetic force erupting from her palm.

The arm broke, sending her back into the tree, but with less force and the Torch Hammer in her lap. She tossed the weapon aside, knowing she couldn't use it against the Vex. Attempts to do so before had all been met with failure. Aiming her gun at the Minotaur, she got off one more shot before the hand cannon clicked on an empty cylinder. In response, the Overload Minotaur summoned a Slap Rifle into its remaining left hand, aiming it at her fallen form.

Before it could shoot her, however, a blue figure interposed itself between her and the Minotaur. They were armed with a glaive, and sent a multitude of strikes toward the Uplifted Vex. Most strikes ended in vain, though, as the Minotaur dodged or parried each slash and stab that would inflict major damage, often with millimeters of difference. The ones that did land were onto its heavier armor, and each earned the assailant a retaliatory strike.

Not about to look the gift horse in the mouth for the brief reprieve, the Guardian cast her hand behind her, letting loose a torrent of void that consumed the tree. Trunk, leaves, roots, dirt, and some concrete further beyond were all devoured with ravenous abandon, their consumption knitting her body back together before she funneled it into forming the suppression grenade that would end the fight.

She waited a moment for the unknown Guardian to back off, and when he didn't she called out, "Back off a moment!"

He did as she ordered, jumping away and toward her side as she threw the grenade. It would've a textbook arc, going to hit the Minotaur dead center-

The Vex shot it the moment it left her hand.

The blast bathed the two humans in violet light as it drained them of their strength. In a sluggish act of defiance, she drew her sword and swung, launching herself at the Minotaur as it knelt-

And disappeared as it transmatted away.

"No!" she screamed in anger. "Son of a bitch!"

Her head shot around, looking for where it might have gone in vain. Holding out a hand, her Ghost came out, scanning where the Vex had been, before shaking his shell and decompiling.

She let out a defeated sigh as her shoulders slumped. That Vex could be anywhere. In the network, on a different planet, a few kilometers away. They couldn't track it, though, not without a terminal, and at that point, it wasn't worth the effort.

"Send out an alert for that Minotaur. May still be nearby," she ordered Asimov regardless, who signaled acknowledgement. There was still protocol to follow.

"You okay?" the unknown Guardian asked her. She turned to face him, taking in his appearance. His glaive was in his hands, ready, but he wasn't in a combat stance. He wore blue armor that reminded her of a Titan, but without the mark or large shoulders. In addition, the bottom of his helmet was open, revealing a mouth and neatly trimmed beard. Idly, she noted that he didn't have a nametag over his head, nor did he show as friendly on her motion tracker. Maybe he wasn't a Guardian?

"I'll be fine," she told him, searching for Buried Bloodline and finding it a short distance away. Plucking it from the grass, she checked the magazine, finding it half empty. "What's your name?"

"Armsmaster," he answered. Odd name, but not the weirdest she'd come across. Those belonged to names the Queen's Wrath took exception to.

"Where are we? I don't recognize this section of the City," she asked, swapping over to Midnight Coup and replacing the cartridge in the cylinder with a full one.

"Downtown," Armsmaster answered, watching as she picked up the discarded Torch Hammer, arm still attached, and transmatted it away.

"This isn't downtown. The streets would be wider, and they wouldn't be driving those cars," she challenged, pointing at one of the offending cars. "So, where am I?"

"The downtown of Brockton Bay," he clarified.

"Never heard of 'Brockton Bay'," she answered as Asimov gave a slight tug on their connection, causing her attention to turn to him.

"I'm not picking up Vanguard comms. Nor infrastructure, for that matter," he told her.

"What?"

"There's a lot of non-Vanguard comm usage, but nothing we're familiar with."

"But we're in the Last City."

"I don't think we are. Where are the walls?"

"They're right over..." she trailed off, not seeing the massive defenses in the distance. They were visible from anywhere in the City, a constant reminder of the protection they and the Guardians provided. On that matter-

She looked up, expecting to see the faint visage of the Traveler high in the sky, but couldn't spot it despite feeling the Light. A waxing crescent was visible, and though the side that held the scars on it was shrouded in darkness, she should've been able to see the endings of them, but she didn't.

Her first thought was that she was in a Vex simulation, since she had gone through one of their portals, but there were a few things gnawing at her mind that made her doubt that assumption. Things like the dirt not being a millisecond too slow to respond to the force in her steps, or that the wind blew against her coat and moved it, as opposed to it moving only when she moved. Those inconsistencies in experience, along with others, caused that doubt to grow.

But where was the Traveler? She could still feel its light. She wouldn't have been able to use the Void without it.

"I'll ask again: are you alright? You've been staring at the sky quite intently for the last few minutes," Armsmaster asked.

"I... don't think I am," she admitted. "Where is the Traveler?"

"The Travelers?" he asked.

"No, Traveler. Singular. Giant ball that hangs in the sky?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." How could he not know? The Traveler was a staple of life in the City. They huddled around it, believing it would protect them. Perhaps that belief had helped them fend off the Fallen at Six Fronts, and retake the City from the Red Legion. When it rose further from the City when they were stopping Eramis from using the Warsats against it, it had caused no small amount of uproar before it stayed in orbit.

Unless... she wasn't in the Last City.

"Does the word 'Vex' mean anything to you?"

The man considered the question for a moment, before answering, "There is a member of the Teeth that goes by that name, capable of creating force fields as sharp as razors in empty space."

"No connotations with what we just fought?"

"None."

"The Fallen?" she tried.

"A group of cultists that worship the Endbringers."

"Never heard of 'Endbringers,'" she supplied. How could they not know two of the enemies that had plagued the Last City for centuries?

She let out an empty chuckle. "I'm not in the Last City, am I?"

"No," was his blunt reply.

She deflated, holstering her hand cannon as she realized she was still holding it. Armsmaster relaxed as well; must have been why he was on edge.

The two stood there, not sure where to go from there in the conversation. She shifted her gaze to the destruction the fight had caused. A tree had been reduced to the few branches that had fallen from the very top when she consumed it. The sidewalk around it had a new curve in the middle, and grass had been overturned to expose dirt or melted into glass. Further beyond, she could see civilians returning, datapads in hand as they peeked out from behind building corners and windows, seeking a glimpse at the destruction and the perpetrator behind it.

"If you're not sure where to go," Armsmaster began, the Guardian turning back to face him, "I'd recommend heading to the PHQ. There, we can help you figure out what's going on. We've had... similar cases to yours appear before, and we can help you in the meantime."

That... That sounded like a good idea to her.

"Alright. I guess I will. Where is it?"

"In the bay. It connects via the southern end of the Boardwalk. You got a name yet so I can let them know who's coming?"

"Annette."

He flinched. "Not your real name. Your cape name," he clarified.

"Only name I got, outside of titles," she admitted.

"Those would've worked."

She thought for a moment, going over the few she had earned, before settling on, "Seraph."

"I'll let them know you're coming."

"Thanks. Which way's the bay?"

"East."

She nodded her thanks before orienting herself east, according to the Director, and began walking.

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