rekindledtitan | Excerpt 001: Enquiring Minds

rekindledtitan

TYPE: Patrol log

LOCATION: Ishtar Sink, Venus

PARTIES: Three [3]. One [1] Ghost-type, [1] Guardian-type, designate Blaze-37, Class Titan [

rekindledtitan ], One [1] Unconfirmed, designate Aran, Samus [

onemorebounty ]

ASSOCIATIONS: Multiversal Nexus; Samus Aran; Chozo; Ishtar Sink; Hezen Protective; Pelsor; House of Winter; Drevis; Blaze-37; Ishtar Academy

They land in a clearing on the city outskirts with grass under their boots and a heavy overcast above. The breeze that greets them is hot and humid, a little acidic. Around them is a densely-grown treeline, with broad leaves that are near-luminescent shades of green. Their rustle is echoed by the distant wash of waves from beyond the ruins.

Blaze turns to scan the area, hopeful of opposition even though her Ghost already checked the site. The broken towers and city blocks are quiet within the overgrowth. But then it’s not the human ruins which really stand out. To the north a massive volcano takes up much of the sky, belching out a noxious plume of ash and gas. Small wonder that each shift in the breeze makes the scent of the air waver between sulfurous and salty. Over the hills to both south and east loom dark geometric structures. Look at them with anything other than the optical spectrum, and they emit some very peculiar readings.

“At last,” the Exo remarks, feeling a thrill that doesn’t break her readiness. Her head’s turned up to check the skyline as she speaks. Then she's moving for the buildings. “We’re in Guardian territory, more or less. Doesn’t stretch too far yet. Won’t take long to find some trouble.”

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From:

onemorebounty

*Samus grunts when she gets her first taste of the reflected beams--interesting that it can bounce them off the shield it previously fired through, though this is perhaps not the time to appreciate that. She scrambles as quickly as she can from handhold to handhold, wriggling as she goes to make herself a somewhat more difficult target. Blaze's advice is taken with a quick bark of thanks and an effort in that direction.*

*Samus is also looking for a chance to catch hold of its head with her grapple beam--not, this time, to pull it off balance, but to pull herself in close. The barrel of her arm cannon is going to be smashing right into those delicate optics, the impact punctuated with a point-blank missile. Wrapping her arm and legs around the head and neck as best she can, she pours plasma into the damage, firing as quickly as she can.*

From:

rekindledtitan

Blaze knows exactly when Samus reaches her target. At the first shot the hydra goes into a heightened frenzy, thrashing hard enough to yank her off the ground and slam her to her knees. Blaze tries to get a foothold again. The cannons can't target Samus as long as she's wrapped close enough to the head, but if she falls...

Can the Vex feel fear? Or pain? They must feel something. She can certainly feel the Darkness surge as her comrade fills its pet Mind with fire. Blaze can't help it. It's dying, and she's laughing.

At least until a particularly furious spasm throws the Guardian bodily into the stone blocks on the bridge - and the regrouping Vex. By the time she pulls herself to her feet, two of the hovering drones open a hail of fire on her. Her trackers show nothing but red, so Blaze slams her fists down and lets the Light loose in a thunderous impact and a surge of electrical energy. She almost misses the hydra starting to fall apart, its power core destabilizing violently in a last burst of spite.

From:

onemorebounty

*Samus clings doggedly, feeling the hydra start to break up under her. Once Blaze has been flung clear, though, and the big Vex's breakdown seems irreversible, Samus lets go as well. Her shields are close enough to critical, she'd rather not push them further than she has to--and there's a courtyard full of other Vex who need to be told.*

NO ONE ESCAPES!

*Those airbone drones will be her first targets.*

From:

rekindledtitan

Samus' fury is punctuated by the hydra's remains exploding behind her. Bits of wreckage crash through the Vex remains and orbs of Light drifting in Blaze's wake, and her circuits surge in answer. Their formation's broken, and the field is clear for some wholesale carnage.

She vaults over the stone to get to the targets beyond, slinging another floating harpy up to join the one Samus is wrecking. The little infantry units can still pack a punch up close, but now they're scattered and leaderless, knocking them apart is just fun. She won't bother drawing her guns again until the bridge is clear. Those snipers are still active, though...

From:

onemorebounty

((Thank you for that lovely backlighting.))

*With the air support down, and Blaze making beautiful inroads on the ground troops, Samus makes the snipers her next target. Leap after leap after leap, kicking off of the thrust of her jump-jets, carries the Hunter on a bobbing, erratic path up to the first. Like Blaze, she'll be working with her hands while her reserves are low, although she's not above commandeering a sniper's weapon if she can, to take shots at some of the others.*

From:

rekindledtitan

(( Any time. ))

Just like their predecessors, the snipers are quick to hunker down in their stasis fields as soon as they're hit too hard. At close range, it turns out the stasis fields are both impenetrable and mildly damaging to anything in punching distance. More dangerously, the other snipers are quick to shoot at Samus while their comrade shields itself. But the stasis is still only temporary, and it works just as well to cover her from any snipers behind it.

As for their line rifles, the weapons are remarkably light: they don't contain their own power source, and they're not used for melee fighting. Like the other small infantry, the cornered sniper units prefer to deliver a slap of projected energy from their raised left palm. Each gun obeys a strange hand for two or three shots before shutting down. Apparently the Vex have a three-strike rule on friendly fire.

From:

onemorebounty

*If the sniper in arm's reach wants to offer Samus cover while she fires back at its comrades, that'll do. At the very least, it's heat that she can keep off of Blaze. She's fighting more cautiously now, though, as her shields are running low and she hasn't yet had time to--oh, wait, she chides herself as she remembers, then slings her grapple beam at the next-nearest sniper. Sometimes, she can drain enemies' power supplies and personal shields to replenish her own, and this would be an ideal time for it. She just hopes she'll get lucky with regard to these stasis fields.*

From:

rekindledtitan

Just like the minotaurs, the sniper has a very limited local power supply - but crack it open and it starts pulling in a lot more from somewhere, trying to draw enough to wrap itself in stasis. Perhaps it can even lock its enemy down with it. If Samus is quick to steal it, though, there's an all-you-can-drain connection in there.

Freed from worrying about the snipers or those pesky drones, Blaze has an easy time clearing the bridge. She takes a moment to sight on her friend, then tosses another grenade down at the stragglers below.

//How're those snipers?//

From:

onemorebounty

Distracted. And delicious.

*Samus has gleefully plundered that deep well of power, and the seams of her armor are aglow with the excess. She's having fun, lassoing snipers and throwing them at each other, letting their own stasis shields hurt one another.*

Having fun down there?

From:

rekindledtitan

//Delicious? What're you doing with them?//

Blaze has finally drawn her pulse rifle, and the rapid three-round bursts sound out as she picks off the Vex from the high ground. What's left of them. Her grenades might emphasize the flash and bang, but the explosive component is pretty strong too.

//Just some target practice. Going to run out pretty soon. But that conduit's staying down: looks like we'll have time for a clear run at the door.//

From:

onemorebounty

Pulling power from their systems. And wherever they're getting it, apparently plenty to share.

*A flick of the grapple line flings a sniper down into the courtyard; if the fall doesn't kill it, Blaze surely will.*

I'm back to a full charge, up here.

*There's something to be said for the simple pleasures in life, like mopping up a thoroughly-won fight.*

From:

rekindledtitan

Blaze makes an understanding noise and puts a burst into the twitching sniper, just to make sure. //We just salvage the materials. Haven't dug into the ammunition much yet, but my Ghost can pull some programmable matter out of them.//

From:

onemorebounty

Not sure if you'll want the ammo--these guns lock up on me after just a few shots.

*Samus catches the last sniper with her grapple line, draining them as quickly as she can while sending a missile their way--the energy stolen replenishes what the missile cost her, and hopefully her draining keeps it from putting up a stasis shield in time.*

Then this isn't just a fact-finding mission, it's a shopping trip. Excellent! Is there anything left of the hydra's head? Those beams it had were interesting.

From:

rekindledtitan

//Not theirs - we take the material and a Ghost can synthesize our own supplies.//

With the last sniper getting torn apart above her, Blaze hops onto her cover to take a look at the the hydra's remains.

//Well, you're in luck! Its internals are good and slagged, but looks like the beam mounts are safe.//

From:

onemorebounty

In that case...

*She heaves the sniper's remains down into the courtyard, before going back to do the same for the rest.*

...eat up, while I have a look at that hydra.

*She follows, her landing light as a cat's, and prowls over to the hydra. She plans to dismantle the beams with care, in the hope of finding some parts she can integrate into her own weapons. She'd very much enjoy being able to fire the Vex's own weapons back at them. The catch will be finding parts that give her what she wants without giving the Vex access to her suit.*

From:

rekindledtitan

//Heh, thanks.//

Blaze thumps onto the courtyard floor to check everyone's dead. Her Ghost materializes when reasonably sure it's safe, though it still uses her for cover as it zips between dead Vex. Blaze cracks open a few and their weapons, just to get a better look.

Back with the hydra, the twin beams carry neither ammunition nor a link to the Vex's main power source. In themselves, they're terminals, drawing particle or energy beams from some other point in space-time. The weapon itself houses systems for aiming and modulating the output, mainly using distortions of space-time and some unusual energy fields. They're complex and very flexible; though their last setting channels them to fire those great bolts of exotic matter (what Guardians call void fire) it looks like that's only one of many configurations.

The easiest way to find out what they are would be to take some of the data cached in the mounts, but even that means some contact with the Vex software...

From:

onemorebounty

*It's interesting, and tempting. But also dangerous--Samus remembers last time. So she'll take some precautions. Fresh attack barriers for her interface ports, and a favor asked of Blaze.*

Blaze, could you keep an eye on me? I'm about to try interfacing with this thing. If I ask for it, or do something weird, could you hit me with an EMP?

From:

rekindledtitan

//Hmm?//

Ghost rejoining her, she stows the gun and heads back up toward the bridge. She's flexing her shoulders as she rejoins Samus, as if to test how much power is waiting.

"Emergency shutdown?" She looks around, estimating where she'd want to hit to catch Samus in the EMP effect without inflicting too much damage. Then nods. "I can do that. How weird are we talking?"

From:

onemorebounty

*She nods.*

Moving jerkily, shooting at you, anything that makes it seem like I've been subverted. I don't want the Vex getting in here with me.

*Since Blaze looks ready, and Samus' defenses are as prepared as they can be, she makes contact with the downed Hydra.*

From:

rekindledtitan

"Got it." Blaze settles down to watch, one optic on her HUD's trackers.

There's much less of the hydra left than the minotaur; instead of a full mind there are only the remnants tasked to handle the beams' operation. None of the aggressive probing from before: the subroutines here are much subtler, willing to share information once their security protocols have been dealt with. There are models for thousands of different configurations, many with uses that Samus might guess: an infantry weapon becomes a signal transmitter becomes an excavation tool becomes any kind of network relay.

The problem is, every data packet on how the weapon (instrument?) handles those configurations - and all records of their previous use - are themselves Vex data. They look harmless, but trying to take one is just inviting it to quietly multiply in your own system.

From:

onemorebounty

*Samus recognizes the problem, and after scrutinizing the subroutines decides not to risk copying any of them over. That doesn't mean, however, that she doesn't have plans for salvage. She finds the configuration file for the nasty beam the hydra had used on her. Rather than transcribing the perilous files, she reads the configuration settings relevant for the setting she wants and the parts she'll be taking, copying those into a new configuration for her suit's systems. She can supply her own exotic matter.*

From:

rekindledtitan

That should work fine, though Samus had best be careful to check each component she's taking for local circuitry and scrub out any last bits of Vex data.

Behind her, Blaze is keeping up watch, though all seems to be going well. An idle scan of the heights catches a hint of shimmer against the sky, and she gives it a hard look for a minute. "Hmm."

From:

onemorebounty

*Samus is being quite careful in that regard--each component she takes is sterilized, both digitally and literally. Blaze's vocalization does catch a bit of her attention, however.*

What is it?

From:

rekindledtitan

"Not sure. Thought we might have a cloaked Fallen. Could be distortion from the Citadel's fields, but I don't see it now." She peers around the rocks and half-buried structures. Come out, come out, little scouts. "Maybe they want to know where their bikes went."