Gah! Now I'm in two stories as Ragashingo the shady, two timing, double dealing weapons dealer!

Anyway:

"I don't get why they call them Repulsion Grenades," Mr Daax commented after having scattered another swarm of Hive warriors, "I think they're quite nice!"

"Because they push, aka repulse, the enemy away, you dolt!" his squadmate replied.

An embarrassed "Oh…" was all Mr Daax could think to say in response.

Haha, you also have a slight dislike for warlocks. They think their "Gifts of the Traveller" are so much better than your weapons!

It's funny you..er, my squadmate, called me a dolt. I can occasionally be hilariously dense, just like that.

Anyway:

"I don't get why they call them Repulsion Grenades," Mr Daax commented after having scattered another swarm of Hive warriors, "I think they're quite nice!"

"Because they push, aka repulse, the enemy away, you dolt!" his squadmate replied.

An embarrassed "Oh…" was all Mr Daax could think to say in response.

“Contact. Silver reflective object around the next turn,” Ragashingo’s second in command reported over their comm channel. “It’s the door.”

“So the scouting team was right. There is a vault down here,” Ragashingo replied.

Accessing the vault was simple. The large number of shaped charges they used on the door made sure of that. Inside, the curved black rock walls of the cavern were replaced by silver-gray metallic walls lit by light panels mounted in the ceiling. The company’s boots clanked on the metal floor as they proceeded inside, but otherwise the vault appeared empty. There were no directional signs or markers, but the metal work, the way the seams and panels were evenly placed, felt Human. They were Human as far as Ragashingo was concerned.

Traveling through the Vault’s corridors was a slow process. Each curving hallway had to be mapped, each door at the end had to be marked, all before protocol allowed them to start digging into the riches they had potentially secured. Though secured was, perhaps, too strong of a word…

“Contacts! Contacts! Five light Vex units advancing. One survey unit at the rear.” Ragashingo’s second evenly reported.

They’d all been in combat before. A few low end Vex combat units would hardly slow them down. The team of Guardians handled the enemies by the numbers. One Titan at the front provided heavy fire and shielding while the other covered the rear. Ragashingo and his second, the group’s two hunters chipped away with their more accurate, longer ranged guns leaving the unit’s lone Warlock free to pound the enemy robots with powerful blasts, and debilitating distortions. Barely two minutes elapsed before the final Vex unit went down.

“It looks like they were guarding a room seventy meters ahead,” Ragashingo’s second reported a short time later as he continued scouting.

A door, cut open in the Vex’s usual oddly geometric breaching pattern, marked the location. With careful precision the team checked the entrance for more enemies, then one by one proceeded inside, with Ragashingo bringing up the rear. From the doorway the unlit, higher ceilinged room appeared to house assorted machinery, but everything changed the moment Ragashingo crossed the threshold.

Out of nowhere four armor clad figures, humans by the looks of them, appeared and took aim. The room was lit by crisscrossing exchanges of gunfire and energy, but it wasn’t until Ragashingo watched what seemed to be large caliber rounds pass harmlessly through his arm and chest that he realized what he was seeing wasn’t real. He turned and watched more of the enemy’s fire pass through him and spark and ricochet off the wall behind him. He had to admit that it was very convincing. Amazingly, his own team’s shots appeared to be hitting the enemy, but none of the newly appeared soldiers seemed to notice.

“Hold fire! They’re just holograms!” Ragashingo ordered. A moment later his team obeyed.

“Some sort of defensive program? To scare away unwanted guests?” Ragashingo’s second guessed, even as virtual bullets whizzed around him. But even as he said it, their make believe enemies obeyed a quick hand signal from what was obviously their leader and ceased fire as well.

“No… I don’t think so…” Ragashingo replied, “There’s something else going on here… I think.”

The leader of the mysterious soldiers approached Ragashingo and then, quite unexpectedly, snapped off a salute, which he held until Ragashingo hesitantly reciprocated. The soldier, by all appearances, seemed to be a human wearing some sort of advanced combat armor. The armor's various hardened plates glowed a gently pulsing white that somehow spoke to Ragashingo of intense power. Something about the armor seemed familiar somehow, but the familiarity of it danced at the back of Ragashingo’s mind, unwilling to reveal itself.

“Can you hear me? Understand me?” Ragashingo asked, putting the odd feeling aside.

The soldier nodded his helmet yes.

“Can you speak? Who are you? What is this place?”

This time the unspoken answer was no. Instead the soldier turned and gestured for Ragashingo to follow. Another hand signal had the rest of the soldiers forming up. They marched deeper into the room while their commander lingered behind, waiting.

“What is this?” One of the Guardians asked over comm, but nobody had a good answer.

Ragashingo, seeing no better option, ordered his own men into formation and cautiously followed. The soldiers led them through an exit on the far side of the room and back into the narrower corridors. They proceeded through several intersections, sometimes continuing straight, and other times turning to the left or right. What seemed to be sealed doors, like the one at the vault’s entrance and the one the Vex had cut through, slid open as the commander approached them. The vault must have been truly enormous given the distance they traveled and the numerous pathways they simply walked past. Finally though, the commander led them into a small, dark room. In its center was a strange spherical object, a machine of some kind, surrounded by four curved metal humps or tubes that connected to the floor. As the four soldiers approached it rays of light streaked from the sphere to their bodies, distorting them slightly.

“That must be the holo-generator,” Ragashingo’s second said softly.

The commander pointed to the sphere then unsheathed a short combat knife and dropped to his knees. He plunged his knife into the spherical object, as if trying to kill it. He was still for a second but then repeated his stabbing action, again and again, each time with more desperation. Finally, he rested his helmet on the sphere in obvious despair, before looking back at Ragashingo.

“He wants me to stab it,” Ragashingo told his unit as he pulled out his own combat knife, one of two Traveler Blades he carried with him. Then it hit him! The way his blade glowed and shimmered when close to The Traveler, it was the same as the glow of the four soldier’s armor! “Be ready… for anything,” he ordered before stepping towards the sphere.

The commander stood clear, and nodded as the other three soldiers under his command moved so that each stood near one of the tubes. Ragashingo nodded in reply then thrust his knife into the sphere. The room around him exploded into chaos as the various panels making up the floor, ceiling, and walls began randomly fading, revealing the black rock tunnel just beyond, or blazing so white they were hard to look at. The effects alternated so rapidly among the panels that it cased the room to blink as if lit by powerful strobe lights. It was so intense that Ragashingo had to squint his eyes shut despite the active filtering performed by his visor. An instant later it stopped and everything was dark once more.

“What on Earth?” Ragashingo’s second wondered aloud. Ragashingo couldn’t believe it either. The metal room had vanished. Even back down the hallway the metal of the vault had been replaced by the dark rock of the cavern that contained it. The vault… the entire vault must have been a hologram! But that wasn’t the strangest part of it, not by a long shot. The odd sphere remained at the center of the underground room, but surrounding it floated four wispy, indistinct figures. Each was connected by dim, blue glowing filaments to what seemed to be the remains of the four armored soldiers. Each of them lay dead on the cavern floor, and each of them was arrayed around the sphere in place of the now vanished tubes.

“Thank you for releasing us,” came the … ghostly… that was the only way Ragashingo could think to describe it… voice of the figure who floated where the soldier’s commander had just been. “Leave us or burry us, it does not matter, but take our armor back with you. Though damaged, it will prove useful if what I suspect has happened… has happened. And do not put too much faith in The Traveler, it is not entirely what it appears… Just Be Brave… and… I wish I could tell you more, tell you everything but… “ he paused then yelled, “Attention!” Salute!”

The four wispy, translucent figures straightened and, in unison, proceeded to give one final salute before being sucked back down into their respective bodies like smoke and fire being vented from an airlock.

Each of the four Guardians under Ragashingo’s command carried a fallen soldier back through the caverns, back tracking along the twists and turns the long dead commander had led them down. Ragashingo, himself, carried the mysterious spherical device that… that what? Had it killed the four soldiers? Had they died defending it?

So much remained unclear.
Why had the soldiers died? How had their… spirits… remained?
Why had a human looking vault been projected deep beneath the surface of Mercury?
What were the Vex doing they and how had they even found it?

The only thing clear to Ragashingo was that his team had accomplished their objective. They’d found new, ancient technology, and would soon return with it to Earth.

As heroes.

Xaad Industries almost discarded the prototype; however, a visiting weapons distributor who goes by the name of Ragashingo, saw the potential the prototype had as a tool for Guardians caught in a bind. He had heard nightmarish tales of Guardians stuck in the midst of a Hive swarm. He convinced Xaad Industries to continue manufacturing the prototype as-is (as-was?) and acquired sole distributing rights. The repulsion grenades can now be found only at Ragshingo's Weapons Emporium, or on the dead bodies of Guardians too foolish to use them.

Get your Blades of the Traveller HERE! Made from the most durable metals and the choicest pieces of our favorite protector! Who needs a warlock when you have one of these heavily infused bad boys! For a limited time only, get your very own blade of the Traveller for half the normal credits, and we'll even throw in a couple free repulsion grenades, for when those Hive swarms get a little to close for comfort! You'll only find 'em HERE, at Ragashingo's Weapons Emporium!

*Sorry to defuse the whole mythic feel you were going for, but this immediately came to mind and I couldn't resist posting it :) Awesome weapon idea!

Haha. No problem. "Who needs a Warlock…" was a great line. :)

*Sorry to defuse the whole mythic feel you were going for, but this immediately came to mind and I couldn't resist posting it :) Awesome weapon idea!

Every Guardian is required to carry at least one Blade, especially Titans. There are things out there, beyond The City's walls, that cannot be easily killed with bullets or lasers, or bombs. Some, apparently, cannot be killed at all, at least by traditional methods. Warlocks and Hunters have the ability to direct The Traveler's energy, without the need for ammunition which can be heavy, bulky, and is often in short supply. Titans, however, have no such ability. Efforts in imbuing special rounds with materials from The Traveler were successful, but were considered highly wasteful. As large as it is, Humanity is careful not to assume The Traveler is an unlimited resource. Firing unrecoverable bits of The Traveler at enemies just wouldn't do. Then there was the issue limited availability. A Titan out of special rounds could find himself defenseless at the worst time.

Blades of The Traveler, in addition to pooling The Traveler's energy, and releasing them to devastating effect, are demonstrability lighter, stronger, and sharper than the same weapon of purely traditional design. Science, like with many things related to The Traveler, has no explanation for these unique properties. Even so, the Blades have proven to be highly useful to the Guardian's dual mission of defense and exploration.

Also, they glow.

Blades with a piece of The Traveler glow wherever that piece was embedded. Blades with Traveler alloy added to their composition shimmer slightly, as if thousands of tiny stars are trying to shine through the Blade's metal. Neither glows brightly enough to attract attention or light your way down a dark corridor, but the effect is noticeable upon close inspection.

It occurred to me, after reading ZackDark's tale of Roger the Hunter, that I was writing my short story based replies while stuck in something resembling Halo's military scifi world. I'd dutifully changed the names and locations to fit in with what we know of Destiny, but for the most part there were no or very few mythic elements in my stories. I think the mythic in mythic scifi is one of the things that will set Destiny apart from Halo and so I was failing to accurately explore Destiny's world. This weapon, and accompanying story, yet to come, is my attempt to correct that, and to knock my storytelling more in line with what I hope and expect Destiny to be.

Born and raised under the shadow of the Traveler's ship itself, Roger was considered a spoiled little mommy's boy by his fellow colleagues, born with a platinum spoon in his mouth. Always under his father's shadow, the greatest Warlock in the City's history, Roger never could quite achieve the necessary level of abstraction to successfully be trained in the dark arts of wizardry and so he was reluctantly inducted into the Guardian infantry, such as to not completely shame his father into political disgrace.

Excelling in the crafts of Huntership, partly due to his royal upbringing, partly due to his inability to make friends, Roger was rapidly dispatched to the Advanced Scouting Program, a program infamous for its high mortality rate.

His first day of duty had him orbital dropped halfway across Earth, in the midsts of the surviving Amazonian Forest, Earth last natural bastion. His briefing suggested there were possibly hidden pre-Traveler treasures within, relics from the Golden Age space endeavours, gifts from the humans of the past of incalculable worth to the City. Roger was to search and find them, securing as many as he could and placing beacons for future Titan incursions.

Day one was possibly the worst day of Roger's life. After swallowing up a bug bigger than Roger's foot, his Pike lost all its air-worthiness, sucumbing to a simple night heater and immobile power pack. By staying at one place for so long, Roger was easily tracked by the local fauna, which quickly made short work of Roger's rations and portable equipment. Luckily, he had carefully studied the briefing datapad, so he had deep knowledge of which plants could be used as poisonous barbs to fend off the bigger animals, the ones that would consider Roger for dinner.

Day two was a bit better. Even though he stayed up all night, Roger found the sight of the sunrise among the forest canopies the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Making good use of the Sun's hard stare, he scouted out the surroundings and was pleased to find a river. He quickly cleaned himself up and, with much effort, managed to drag the downed Pike to its margin, setting up a much more resourceful camp than the crash site. Protected by the rivers strong odors and sounds, Roger was able to peacefully sleep that night.

Day three began with a heavy downpour. Due the peculiar geography of the reagion his Pike crashed, the river suddenly turned into a raging rapid, so fast Roger had no time to escape its fast and forceful claws. Much to his chagrin, the Pike didn't even bulge and so Roger was relentlessly threw downriver away from his only source of sustenance and security. A mere hour later, though it felt like years, Roger was washed up beneath a massive stone ruin. He, correctly, observed the ruins must have predated even the Golden Age humans, certainly predating space flight. Excitement quickly recovering his energies, Roger set out to explore the ruins.

At night, Roger finally stumbled into a chamber that promised to be more than a simple dining hall. It was a room about 10 meters underground with a single pedestal, two meters across, sitting in the disconcertingly precise middle of the chamber. His excitement could barely be contained, given he found the symbol of the Traveler. The symbol of the Traveler! Buried beneath clearly pre-space flight ruins! Roger could all but keep himself from touching the pedestal. His whole perception of self suddenly shifted. The room was no longer. Roger was now standing on the Traveler, several kilometers above the City. A sense of dread filled him, but it was not his. A golden god, clearly the personification the Sun told him of the imminent threat locked in stasis beneath the City. One of the Terrors. Roger, being the only one told with sufficient advance, would be the only one capable of stopping the threat. Thrown back into the pedestal room, Roger found himself surrounded by similarly golden people, each holding a small tinker in their grasp.

The first, the personification of the Moon, gave him a cup of the poison that could kill the Terror long enough to put it back into stasis. The second, the personification of the Nature, gave him the only dart sharp enough to pierce the Terror's hide. The third, the personification of the Stone gave him the magical stones that could accelerate the dart fast enough to keep the Terror from dodging the attack. Finally, the fifth, the personification of the Sun, gave him the Cerbatana, the ancient weapon that the Terror's terrible curse could not break. The five, together, chanted the Song of Distance, transporting Roger back to the heart of the City, where the Terror was now bursting from the ground, its ominous song crushing the heart of the bravest Guardians as far as the Wall.

As the Song of Distance's chanting faded into the back of his mind, Roger heard the urging: "Go, chosen one. Blow the Dart of Salvation into the Terror's hideous form! Save the world from its grasp another thousand years!"

Roger, the Hunter Guardian, couldn't believe his luck.

He finally had the chance to be a greater hero than his father. To finally break the image of a mommy's boy he always carried. To be properly treated among his peers. To have his name written on the inside of the Wall.

Roger, the Hunter Guardian, couldn't believe his luck.
After all, he was an Exo. And Exos don't have lungs.

;-)

<ZackDark's Helmet Cam> Flat plains and a blue sky dominate the camera's feed. In the distance a river can be seen along the top of the image. The view shifts from left to right as ZackDark does a through scan of the landscape in front of him. Every third or fourth scan the view briefly shifts downward to a table and a deck of playing cards arrayed in what appears to be a Solitaire type layout. Guardian ZarkDark appears to be losing. Badly. On the fifth cycle of watchful observation and clearly frustrated card shuffling ZackDark breaks his routine, the view jerking up and to the right. Just visible, at extreme range, a column of Spider Tanks can be seen advancing. ZackDark glances downward and slams a fist into a sizable red button then readies a large, shoulder mounted anti-tank weapon.

<Interior Base Camera, Aimed At Entrance To Armory> Red lights along both sides of the hallway come to life, and an alert siren sounds. A single Guardian can be briefly seen rushing past the camera's field of view, weapon in hand. Two more slide to a stop at the heavy door marked Armory. One appears to enter a code on the keypad, but nothing happens. Even fully suited up his movements, and those of his peer, convey an obvious sense of distress.

<ZackDark's Helmet Cam> ZackDark fires his weapon's two rockets, the second rotating up into firing position as soon the first is away. The first rocket travels quickly towards the enemy units but is fired upon by several of the small spherical drones floating around the advancing Fallen column. It explodes uselessly still some distance from its target, but the second gets through, and strikes a Spider Tank which topples in a heap. A secondary explosion sends a plum of smoke stretching up into the sky. Seconds later the sound of all three explosions reach the outpost. A Guardian appears at the right edge of ZackDark's view holding a long barreled rifle. Sharp cracks and bursts of flame exiting the barrel indicate that he is firing at the advancing enemy. Multiple Fallen foot soldiers drop, but there are now obviously more than the one rifle, no matter how well aimed, will be able to stop.

<Interior Base Camera, Aimed At Entrance To Armory> The two Guardians are still attempting to gain access to the armory. One is now pulling at the door, trying to slide it open, while the other angrily tries several codes in sequence before slamming his into the keypad fist hard enough that the resulting thud can be heard from the ceiling mounted camera.

<ZackDark's Helmet Cam> The image from ZackDark's helmet cam darkens considerably as he unleashes an intensely bright burst of energy. The burst speeds across the battlefield and erupts into a momentary inferno, setting several Fallen ablaze. Even the advancing Spider Tanks pause for a moment as the wave of heat washes over them. ZackDark appears to be getting set to repeat his attack when his head suddenly turns towards the entrance of the base. An instant later he is in a flat sprint, his footfalls echoing off the outpost's metal flooring. He passes through the open door and rounds a corner using his hand to slingshot himself down a long hallway lit with red lights.

<Interior Base Camera, Aimed At Entrance To Armory> ZackDark races into view, apparently having been called to assist the other Guardians in their efforts to access the armory. He briefly looks at the smashed keypad, then seems to motion the other Guardians back. He moves with them, back down the hallway, and out of frame. A couple of seconds later same searing energy burst that he unleashed on the advancing Fallen screams down the hallway and impacts the stuck door, the sound of the explosion overwhelming the camera's microphone. The heavy door crumples inward into the armory, but only for an instant, as it is flung back out again into the hallway. A mass of hundreds, if not thousands of small furry, spherical creatures follow it, spilling out of the armory with plenty more still visible inside. One of the Guardians plows into the mass of creatures, desperately throwing them aside, each purring loudly as he touches them, but it is no use. There are too many of them and they are too tightly packed. Access to the armory is effectively blocked.

<Exterior Base Camera, Aimed At The City> Four Guardians can be seen fleeing the outpost in their four wheel drive all terrain armored vehicle. A short time later two pursuing Pikes speed into view, and trade fire with the retreating Guardians.