#vanir 3

Vanir’s face feels hot as her lights brighten with blush, and she glances away from Yùtù’s eyes, staring at the pillow beside her head.

Vanir places her hand on top of Yùtù’s, curling fingers around hers. “What else?” Vanir asks, unable to hide a small grin.

Yùtù makes a soft sound, a tiny sniff of amusement. “That eagerness,” she says, “it always pops up once in a while. You are cheerful, hopeful, full of life and love and bravery…”

The lights of Vanir’s mouth and eyes cast a slight illumination on heir hands as Vanir presses Yùtù’s fingers to her lips for a kiss, a warm orange glow from her blush.

“The hair will take a little getting used to,” Yùtù says, a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth as she tucks a strand behind Vanir’s left ear.

Vanir leans down and kisses Yùtù. Her lips wrap around Yùtù’s lower lip, soft and slightly damp against her metallic mouth. Tiny sparks slip silently between their mouths, and Vanir hums as she feels the hints of Yùtù’s emotions tingling on her lips.

Yùtù gives a soft snicker of amusement as Vanir sits back slightly, her arms still supporting her as she lies on top of Yùtù. “The lips will take a little getting used to as well,” she giggles.

Vanir immediately leans in again, kissing her firm and quick. Yùtù’s shoulders shiver slightly with laughter, and Vanir feels the warm glow of her mouth against her bottom lip and she speaks. “I like them though,” she mumbles quietly between kisses.

“Mmm,” Vanir hums. She kisses Yùtù’s nose-plate, then the sharp line of her cheek, and mumbles in her ear. “They like you too,” Vanir teases. Yùtù laughs as Vanir continues kissing her, pressing her lips to the underside of her jaw and then to her throat, where she can feel the vibrations of Yùtù’s laughter directly.

“You are ridiculous sometimes, my love,” Yùtù says, one hand running gently over her hair as Vanir kisses her neck.

Vanir lifts one hand, and softly pulls at the neck of the borrowed shirt Yùtù wears – it is actually one of Anya’s, though neither Yùtù nor Anya seemed aware of that fact – so that she may kiss at Yùtù’s collar. Vanir undoes the top button of the shirt, and folds it slightly open.

“What are you doing Corbeau?” Yùtù asks as Vanir places her lips on her bare chest and kisses along the line of her shirt.

“Exploring,” Vanir mumbles, fumbling with the next button on her shirt.

Yùtù laughs. “Shouldn’t I be the one exploring?” she teases, “you are the one with the new body, after all.”

Vanir pauses, her lips on the edge of Yùtù’s bra. She didn’t often wear them – Exo don’t need the support – except when she wanted to be a little special for Vanir.

“I guess you’re right,” Vanir says, sitting back over her girlfriend and grinning mischievously. She shuffles, rolling onto her back in the bed and tugging at Yùtù to get her to lie on top of her. The covers shift with her slightly, and she shuffles them around as Yùtù slips one leg over Vanir’s hips.

Vanir pulls the covers up so they reach the middle of Yùtù’s back, though they slide down slightly as soon as she lets go of them. Yùtù smiles down at her, her hands resting on Vanir’s chest just above her hips, and Vanir can’t help her lights glowing a little brighter.

Yùtù leans down, and as she does, Vanir catches a glance down the front of the loose shirt. She feels Yùtù’s fingers at her chin, coaxing her head to look up. Vanir complies, tilting her head and looking at the ceiling.

She sighs deeply as she feels the soft cool of Yùtù’s mouth against her throat. She kisses long and slow, and Vanir almost feels like her throat is in the jaws of a hunting lioness for a moment as the sensation grows warm and spreads across her skin.

Yùtù’s kisses are like ice. Her lips are sharp and clear and almost a shock at first, then melt into homely warmth as signals tingle from her kiss. Vanir’s synthesised breath catches in her throat as Yùtù kisses her neck, as though she captured the breath in her mouth, and Vanir smiles as she feels a cool finger hook into the collar of her shirt.

Elastic stretches and Vanir doesn’t mind a bit as Yùtù pulls the edge of her shirt down with her finger and lays a gentle trail of kisses across her collarbone, pressing gentle, cool lips over the cybernetic connections and markings between sections of her skin. Yùtù tugs the stretched collar of the shirt to the side and bares Vanir’s shoulder. A signal from a kiss trips on a small conductor of her new body and sends a jolt down Vanir’s chest like ice brushed across her breast and she gasps.

Fingers shift over her body and lift the hem of her shirt to play across her hips, almost tickling, before Yùtù softly lifts her shirt up, still pressing loving kisses to Vanir’s shoulders.

Excitement gets the better of Vanir, and she shuffles up and helps pull the shirt off over her head. She and Yùtù both laugh as she brushes the mess of hair from her face, and her hands find Yùtù’s cheeks a moment later. She runs a thumb across Yùtù’s lip, and leans in for a kiss.

Vanir sniggers against Yùtù’s mouth, and Yùtù pushes her gently to lie back down. She runs her hands across the lines of Vanir’s ribs, her hands tickling ever so slightly, and straying of the small markings and cybernetics on the surface.

The grooves and gaps between segmenting plates guide Yùtù’s hands across her chest and stomach, following the same flow as her old Exo form bore, now lined with more synthetic muscle, softer and malleable between the exoskeletal layers of protection. The lines are still dark and obvious against her golden-brown plating and muscle, defined pieces and fine, minute detail of cybernetics.

Arching her arms overhead, Vanir smiles softly and watches Yùtù’s hand drifting slowly across her chest. Her hand brushes across the angular segments in the side of her torso, and Vanir tenses slightly beneath her touch, moving the muscle as a soft giggle escapes her.

Icy eyes flick up to meet Vanir’s, and it is Yùtù whose lights grow a fraction brighter. She runs her hands up, fingers dancing along Vanir’s underarms and her mouth glows with cool glacial light as she learns every inch of Vanir’s skin again.

One finger plays along the underside of her breast, following the floral pattern through her bra and then fiddling absently with the lace edge.

Vanir moves her arms down, and brushes them over Yùtù’s legs. She lifts the hem of Anya’s shirt and gently runs her hands across the smooth surface of her hip plates.

The straps of Vanir’s bra slip down over her shoulders easily, and Yùtù takes her time running her fingers across the surface of her plates and the joins of her arms. “She certainly knew what she was doing,” Yùtù says absently, tracing the complex cybernetic detailing beside her right shoulder.

Vanir made a simulated swallowing, glancing at Yùtù’s arm and the smooth silvery plating across her forearm.

“Just as beautiful as ever.” Vanir’s cheeks glow even as she clamps her eyes shut at the compliment, and she rises quickly to kiss Yùtù. Their foreheads hit rather roughly as Vanir tries to kiss her, making a metallic ‘thonk’ as they hit. Vanir gives up on the kiss and rests her forehead against Yùtù’s as they both descend into a bout of laughter.

She presses a kiss to Yùtù’s cheek and rests her chin on her shoulder as she leans forward; her hands moving to the middle of her back to slip open the clasp of her bra. She slides it down her arms, tossing it to the side of the bed before laying back, smiling up at her girlfriend.

Orange light reflects on the inside of Yùtù’s palm as she caresses Vanir’s cheek, before leaning down to press their lips together.

Vanir feels the flow through her like Light; it is sweet, both warm and cool, like the breeze on a beach and the wafting waves of a campfire. It is gentle and healing and familiar, and it makes her feel like home when Yùtù sighs and sparks a memory over their synapse.

Yùtù brushes her hair back as she rises up, and her fingers linger for a fraction of a second on the Everscar that slices through her right ear. She shifts slightly, and presses a gentle kiss to the scar. Vanir can’t really feel it – the senses there are dampened, part of the real damage from the Gorgon’s attack.

She appreciates the gesture nevertheless.

Yùtù shuffles lower and Vanir brushes a hand absently along her back as she kisses down across her shoulder and collar and down to her breasts. She hums, content as the subtle sparks of her lips journey across the plains and hills of her android body.

She kisses the smooth shape of her breast and down the angular oblique segments, tiny signals nipping through the softer synthetic muscle between plates. Her fingers trail slowly behind, lingering on her breast before tickling down over her stomach and to her hip.

Playful fingers push down the band of her pyjamas and pinch the lace lining of her panties. Yùtù pulls them down a centimetre and presses a quick, mischievous kiss to the dip beside her hipbone. Vanir gasps with the feeling as a small surge of heat rises within her.

Yùtù rises, sitting up, and pats Vanir’s side with one hand. “Roll over,” she whispers.

Vanir sidles over slightly and rolls onto her front, pushing her hips back for a moment so her bottom brushes against Yùtù’s pelvis teasingly. She shuffles until she feels comfortable, and rests her head on her hands over the soft pillow, her head turned slightly to the side so she can see Yùtù in the corner of her eye.

Her hands feel cool and sharp as she traces the tense, defined shapes of Vanir’s shoulder blades and trapezius muscle groups. The black lines and definitions between them are stressed by Vanir’s position; her raised arms making those muscles seem almost tense. Yùtù kisses them softly, and Vanir hums as she spares one quick peck for her cheek, and a slower kiss to her lips.

When she sits up over Vanir’s back, her fingers tickle down the line of Vanir’s exoskeletal spinal column, one of the few pieces completely unchanged by Naoko’s hands in the operation. It is painted with the same golden brown as her new body, so the skin matches smooth with colour, but Yùtù’s fingertips make a familiar metallic tapping as they run down the full length of her spine and send a tingling sensation all across Vanir’s body.

Vanir smiles. The purple bed sheets smell like lilac, fresh from being washed, and she closes her eyes and sighs with the warmth of Yùtù’s body against her back when she rests down on her. A button clacks quietly against her spine and Yùtù worms her fingers into Vanir’s hand.

She opens her eyes, running her thumb slowly over Yùtù’s silver fingers, and then brings them to her lips and kisses her knuckles softly. Yùtù gives a soft hum, barely audible even from right behind Vanir’s ear, then whispers to her. “You are so wonderful, Vanir.”

It is rare for Yùtù to use her name, and it tickles across Vanir’s unscarred ear, intimate and genuine; her pet names and teasing left to the side for a moment like her armour resting neatly in the corner of the room.

The pressure on Vanir’s back lightens and she closes her eyes again. Yùtù presses a kiss to the base of her neck, then to her back between her shoulders, travelling slowly further down and sending sparks of tingling sensations from each point on her spine. It feels like water inching down a slight slope, cool and gentle as the wind as she travels down the curve of her back.

Eventually, Yùtù releases Vanir’s hand as she moves down to the small of her back. Her fingers toy with the waistband on her pyjamas, tucking just under the edge.

Vanir arches slightly, almost involuntarily, in reaction to the spreading electrical impulses across her lower back. They spread through her system like bolts of static, and she arches her back, stifling a sound as the feeling spreads across her hips and below.

Her elbows support her and she tries to glance over her shoulder at Yùtù but she is out of sight.

The sounds of sheets shuffling and the feeling of excited fingers at her trousers are enough for Vanir to blush and she looks down at her pillow. Yùtù pulls the back of her pyjamas down over her bottom. Vanir hears Yùtù moving slightly, and feels the movement of her weight through the matress but feels nothing for a moment.

A kiss tingles up through Vanir and she lets out a small gasp as Yùtù kisses her butt through the fabric of her underwear. She giggles, and as Yùtù’s hands move, she lifts her hips from the bed so she can pull down her pyjamas.

Yùtù sneaks kisses along the backs of Vanir’s legs as she pulls the fabric down, marking each tiny reveal with a small spark of affection until they rest around her ankles.

Vanir kicks the pyjamas off and rolls over, sitting up to pull Yùtù close to her. She doesn’t kiss her, simply brings her into an iron embrace, her hands tightening in the fabric of her shirt as she hugs her. Yùtù’s hands are gentle and still as she holds her.

After a moment, Vanir pulls back slightly. She rests her forehead against Yùtù’s, her synthesised breathing slow and calm. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Yùtù smiles, dropping one hand to briefly squeeze Vanir’s hand. “For what?”

“For this,” Vanir mumbles. “For helping… for not… hating my new body.”

“Vanir.” Yùtù’s voice is firm, and she cups Vanir’s face in her hands, forcing her to look her in the eye. “I could never hate anything about you. Being an android is something you’ve wanted for a long time, isn’t it?”

Vanir nods.

“Then how could I possibly feel anything but love for it?” Vanir sniffs, glad for once that she cannot shed tears, and tries to pull Yùtù into another hug, but she resists, keeping their eyes locked. “Vanir,” she says, “I love you.”

“It’s just been hard, adjusting, you know?” Vanir says as the wave of overwhelming emotion begins to subside into a calm sea again. “Having a new body is…“ She cannot find the words, and glances to the side, trying to gather her thoughts and feelings about her new look.

“Does it make you happy?” Yùtù asks, her voice still firm and steady.

Vanir nods. Her word echoes in on itself with a small vocal glitch when she speaks. “Yes.”

“That’s what is important. Don’t let your worries cloud who you are – you are Vanir-3. Happy-go-lucky and full of hope.” Yùtù shifts to get more comfortable, and Vanir pulls her legs close so that they are sitting cross-legged before one another. “You’ve been through a hard time, almost dying… But you’re here now, you’re safe and you’re whole, and you’re happy.”

“Thanks to you.”

Yùtù shakes her head. “I didn’t do anyth-“

Vanir kisses her. Their heads hit together roughly but she doesn’t care. She lifts both hands and holds Yùtù’s cheeks, leaning into her as she lets memories and thoughts flow freely between their lips.

When she comes away, Vanir’s mouth feels slightly tingling from the flow of information, and Yùtù’s mouth glows with a soft, stunned icy blue.

Zatrix sat cross-legged like a monk at Rohan’s side, Red Death resting across his lap. His hood was still damp from the rain, but he left it pulled over his head. Naoko twisted her fingers together, trying not to look at his unreadable expression and the cold glow of his eye. Helina spoke up instead.

“We thought if we can sneak inside the city border undetected we could avoid any Fallen patrols all the way to the harbour. The entire mission could go without bloodshed.”

Naoko pursed her lips and examined the projected skyline of Singapore. “It’s not our original plan,” she said, looking up at Rohan.

Rohan nodded. “You’re right, it’s not. But we can pull it off with the five of us.”

“Vanir?” Naoko asked, turning to her fellow Titan. “You went to the Hong Kong bunker, what do you think?”

Vanir shrugged. “Hong Kong was different. The House of Kings was entrenched like termites there. Here it’s just a skeleton crew of Devils… it’s up to you.”

Naoko knelt softly before the hologram, joining the others on the floor. The cover they had taken – a half formed tent attached to the collapsed form of a crashed Skiff for cover from the elements – left them without any furniture or proper room.

“What about the Wolves?” she asked. “Skolas may be dead but the rest of the House has scattered. Are we sure there aren’t any that fled here and joined the Devils?”

“If they have,” Zatrix said, and Naoko almost jumped at the sudden grinding voice, “they wont be welcomed openly. If anything they would be distracting the Devils further.”

Naoko swallowed. “Okay then, lets go with your plan then, Rohan.”

Rohan nodded. “Naoko, you’ll lead the Exos through the City on the ground while I provide sniper cover from the rooftops. I’ll find pathways for you, and we’ll work our way to the harbour entrance. With luck, the Fallen wont even catch a whisper of us being there.”

Zatrix was the first to hit the ground, and he moved like a flowing river of shadow. Naoko couldn’t tell where his arc and shadow ended and his body began, but he slid to the ground in smoke and rolled back into form with a puff and an eerie hollow sound. He didn’t leave a trace.

Helina floated in just as softly, drifting on the contrails of Zatrix’s smoke, and the tendrils of dissipating Void she left behind brushed over Naoko’s shoulders when she launched down in a missile of Light.

Vanir had taught her the technique, before her… accident. They hit the ground together with full force that dissipated into the ground around them on a sheet of void.

It was a lot louder than Zatrix. The ground tore and cracked from the blast, and Naoko’s armour vented hot air from its silver plating as she stood in the small crater of their arrival.

“Subtle.” Helina tilted her helmet with a sly dig, checking her rifle’s safety quickly as they settled into formation.

“Start moving.” Rohan’s voice crackled through their radios. “The faster you get away from that landing the less chance there is of it giving you away.”

Naoko scanned the nearby rooftops. She could barely see in the darkness of the night and the rain, even as her night-vision filter gradually came into effect. Rohan’s cloaked ship hummed and shifted, coursing back across the black water and out of sight and sound. “Where are you?” Naoko asked.

“Eleven o’clock,” came Rohan’s reply. Naoko caught the red glint as the Hunter signalled to them. “Now get moving, I’ll be your eyes.”

Naoko nodded and focused, orienting herself within the city quickly. She motioned to the team to follow her, and set out quickly. They darted through the streets, their feet a quiet tapping beneath the sound of the rain as they rushed from cover to cover amidst wrecks of cars and slabs of shattered concrete from broken buildings.

At each intersection, Naoko paused and looked to the sky. Subtle flashes of purple marked Rohan tearing portals between rooftops each time and they waited with bated breath for the word of where to go.

“West,” Rohan whispered at the third intersection, changing their direction. Naoko waved Zatrix to lead, and he drifted through puffs of smoke around the corner and down the street.

“Hold position,” he hissed.

Rohan raised their voice slightly. “Patrol is closing in from the North, there’s no time to hold.”

“There’s something out there…”

“I’m not seeing anything,” Rohan said, and Naoko watched, mechanical heart hammering in her chest as Rohan scouted down the street with their rifle. Lightning flashed behind them, and the thunder crackled in a deep, long rumble. “Are you sure? West is the only clear way unless you retreat.”

“I’m telling you Rohan, there’s something out there!” Zatrix hissed again, and Naoko could swear there was fear in his voice.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, but we need to go north.”

“The Fallen are north!”

Naoko’s grip tightened on her rifle, steadying it on a concrete block and aiming to the northern road.

“Rohan… Tamara’s telling me we have to go north.” Zatrix’s voice was scarcely a whisper. Naoko looked at Vanir and Helina. She could not see their eyes, but in the tightness of their hands and the shrugging shoulders, Naoko could tell then were as tense and uncertain as she.

Lightning struck in the distance again, and the thunder rumbled deep, closer. It crackled twice, and Naoko felt it in the earth. “Rohan?” she whispered hurriedly as it subsided, “where are we going?”

There was a moment, and Naoko felt like her heart had stopped.

“North. I’ll cover you.”

Zatrix’s smoke billowed across the intersection as he moved, and Naoko dashed after him. Vanir’s footsteps pounded beside her, and she heard her cocking a shotgun, ready for combat.

Mushi’s voice came through her helmet. “Everything’s charged. I’m ready for a fight if you are.”

Naoko nodded and breathed deeply, following Zatrix’s smoke trail towards a small nook hidden from most of the street. Vanir slid in before her, and Helina paused at her side, grabbing her arm nervously.

“Who’s Tamara?” Helina asked. Naoko didn’t know.

But the whites of Fallen eyes glinted in the darkness. She grabbed Helina and pulled her down into the hollow. They practically fell on one another, and Naoko flushed bright red beneath her armour as Helina’s steadying hand touched her chest. She adjusted quickly, and they both prepared their weapons.

Fallen voices called in the darkness, their guttural language haunting in the rumbling of the building storm.

“They know you’re here,” Rohan said over the radio. “They’re combing the street.”

Vanir rose slightly at Naoko’s side, one fist crackling with lightning. “We can take them.”

“No!” Rohan whispered. “Stay there.”

Naoko obeyed, and pressed Vanir back with one hand. She heard the rippling tear of one of Rohan’s portals echo slightly. Fallen snarls grew louder, closer, and she heard the low whine of wire rifles heating up.

Then one fired. A wire rifle crackled through the air, and the white arc trail of its bolt lit the air as it fired the way the team had come.

A voice boomed in the sky, enhanced mechanically to be heard through the street. “Vash nar ruul! Sarga thuun!”

The Fallen echoed the yell to one another, rushing through the street. Naoko pushed back into the hollow, keeping the rest of her team behind her, as she felt was her responsibility, as the Fallen dashed by.

A Captain paused, sniffing at the air, but a second shot of superheated arc from the rooftop into the distance prompted him to move.

Naoko breathed again, and a sudden rippling cut through the air before them.

Rohan emerged from the void before Naoko’s eyes, purple fireflies dancing about their shoulders. They dropped the wire rifle at their feet and it clattered rough on the asphalt. “That wont fool them for long. We have to move.”

They spared not a second for the team to breathe, and sprinted down the street, heading for the harbour. Vanir was the first one after them, while Naoko shook the adrenaline from her system and stood from their corner.

Once Naoko started running, she didn’t stop to look back until they reached the harbour.

By then they knew the Fallen locals would be on alert, hunting for Guardians or Wolves or something hostile. But the Warmind bunker was supposedly undiscovered. Once they were inside, they could hide there as long as they needed.

Assuming they could get inside.

The coordinates they had pulled from Yuenu’s backup shelter in Hong Kong had been vague, and coordinates alone weren’t enough to locate something as well hidden as a Warmind bunker. It took them nearly two hours of searching before they found anything.

The storm had lifted to a light drizzle, though the dead of night still hung and the dark would last a few hours more.

Naoko stood on the edge of the harbour, staring out across the water. In the distance she could see the islands on the other side of the Singapore straight. She tugged her helmet off again, and Mushi took it as they had with her weapons. The rain was warmer than Naoko expected; the kind of lukewarm rains of a summer monsoon. They made her shiver, thinking back to a typhoon that she had weathered as a child, huddled in the dark of a basement with cold arms around her…

A gloved hand slipped into hers and squeezed. “Hey,” Helina whispered, resting her head on Naoko’s shoulder.

Naoko pressed her lips to Helina’s forehead. “Hey,” she mumbled.

They stood in silence for a time, resting their heads together. Naoko’s thumb brushed back and forth across Helina’s fingertips. The rain pattered against them, soft pats on Helina’s robes and tinkling on Naoko’s armour.

Naoko blinked, brushed a hair that had fallen from her bun away from her eye, and then stepped past her assistant into the operating theatre.

Several medical staff rushed around the room, checking monitors and preparing equipment and stations for use. One rushed in front of Naoko, a piece of shattered armour carried carefully in her hands, and laid it on another table in the corner of the room with the majority of a Titan suit.

A junior nurse carried a sheet, placing it over the operating table now that the armour had been removed. She obscured the table from Naoko’s view as she came in, but a man approached her immediately.

He was around the same height as her, and dressed in the same pale blue scrubs, though he looked to have been awake for a week. He bore a tidy black beard and tired eyes, and a Ghost hovered at his elbow. Three other Ghosts in red and white casings floated over the operating table behind him, their Light softly bathing the patient.

The patient. Naoko bit back a rising concern with the thought as she looked at the table. She had never seen an Exo in a condition like this, but still alive, and knowing Vanir personally didn’t make it easier for a second.

“You’re the Exo doctor?” the man asked. He clasped a datapad cluttered with analysis of all of Vanir’s signals and systems in his hand.

Naoko cocked an eyebrow. “Yes,” she said. “We call ourselves engineers.”

The man pursed his lips with grim amusement. His gaze flicked to the identity badge clipped to her chest. “Sorry,” he said, bowing his head slightly. He handed the datapad to her and led her to the side of the operating table. “We’ve been keeping her supplied with Light to keep her in a stasis until you arrived, Doctor Takahashi.

“All we’ve done is remove her armour and prepare her for surgery. But…” the man looked down at Vanir with a grim expression. “Her Ghost is drained of Light, and if something doesn’t change soon, well…”

Naoko nodded along, staring at the dozens of outputs on the datapad. She summoned Yomi in her hand with a specific gesture, and made sure they scanned it fully.

“You’re responsible for these healing Ghosts?” Naoko asked, gesturing to the three gliding Ghosts that wove soft lights across the patient…

Vanir. Vanir, she reminded herself. It’s not just ‘the patient’; it’s Vanir.

The man nodded. “I didn’t catch your name,” Naoko said without looking up. She handed the datapad to Valko and snapped her fingers away from the table, indicating with the sound for him to clear her space.

“Doctor Joubert,” he said. Naoko nodded, not bothering to waste time shaking hands.

She leaned over the table, her nerves steeled to inspect the damage. Even so, it was tough to look at.

Vanir’s abdomen had been ripped open by a great blow – a Scorch Cannon, by Rohan’s briefing as she was rushed to the hospital – and Naoko ran a gloved finger around the edges of the shattered metal cavity. Her armour and undersuit had both been stripped and placed aside, and the nurse had laid a sheet over her from the waist down for decency.

Embers danced from Vanir’s chest cavity, drifting up from soft fires of Solar Light. Her core glowed orange from the flames.

Naoko turned to the suspension field beside the table. Dozens of medical and electrical tools sat in a stasis field, held aloft by the gravity-defying cage like a curtain of Void Light.

She took a pair of instruments, and with them, carefully inspected deeper into Vanir’s wound.

Yomi hovered at Naoko’s side, scanning Vanir for three-dimensional imaging.

Naoko made mental notes of each of the major injuries – subsystems that had been ruptured, torn nerve networks and shatters in her structural skeleton, not to mention the gaping hole itself – and as she gently lifted pieces of broken metal out of the wound and placed them on trays Valko had prepared, she found the central issue.

Naoko found a small sphere in the centre of Vanir’s core. It burned with her flaming light, hovering gently, and its eye was closed. “Fuse…” Naoko muttered under her breath as she identified the Ghost’s core. She left it in place for the moment, investigating every aspect of the wound before making any moves beyond some shrapnel removal.

After several minutes of investigating, Naoko set her tools down softly on the tray at her side. She breathed heavily, quickly organising everything in her mind. Mushi hovered beside her left ear.

“Okay.” Naoko breathed, looking down at Vanir. She breathed in and out, looking at the wound, in through the nose, and softly out through her mouth.

She snatched up the datapad, swiping aside the signal analysis and making a series of quick preliminary notes.

“Yomi, can you bring up a projection of the patient?” she asked, stepping away from the table and into the more open space of the room. The surgical staff – minus the nurses that had been there only for preparation – gathered around her as Yomi projected a three-dimensional hologram from their eye.

“Her power core is ruptured.” Naoko stepped into the hologram, making a specific gesture for Yomi to enhance the size slightly. “The greatest risk currently is here, where she sustained the most damage. There is a rupture in her core’s containment cell and across the surrounding systems, which means that the containment cell needs to be replaced as soon as possible to stabilise her before we can begin any form of reconstruction.

“With Fuse drained of Light, he can’t bring her back, and the only thing keeping her going right now is the misfired Radiance’s Solar Light.” Naoko hovered her finger over Fuse’s nest in Vanir’s broken chest in the hologram. “Her Ghost needs to be recharged in the Traveller’s Light, but…” She paused, taking a soft breath through her nose and drawing her shoulders back. “We have to make her stable enough to survive without him before he can be removed.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t do more than remove her armour before I got here,” Naoko said to Doctor Joubert. “Removing Fuse might have stopped her Radiance.”

Naoko took slow, measured breaths, outlining the procedure’s details with a series of messy kanji on the datapad. She drummed her fingers on the side of it, running through everything in her mind quickly.

“Before we can exchange the core’s containment,” she said, turning to look back at Vanir. Embers and flickers of flame still rose softly from her chest, glowing orange and smokeless. “We need to remove all the shrapnel in her chest cavity from the damage from the Scorch Cannon. We will need to keep an eye out for any form of Vex presence – even so much as fragments of their stone – and remove them. Once that has all been cleared, Doctor Joubert is going to need to bring Vanir’s Ghost, Fuse, back online.

“Fuse’s assistance will be necessary in keeping Vanir’s core stable and intact while we replace its containment. Once that is complete, Vanir will be out of the worst of it.”

She looked at Valko and Doctor Joubert, who were listening to her briefing intently. “Even then, she’ll still be more than critical.”

Naoko sighed as the door clicked shut and she leaned against it. Her gloves made a snapping sound as she tore them off, and she ran her hands across her face. Her head drifted back and thumped softly against the door and she groaned into her fingertips.

She sighed a heavy, weary breath and pushed off the door, walking slowly from the observation room out into the hall.

Helina was waiting for her outside, and the sight of her girlfriend brought a soft smile to Naoko’s face.

She held out a take-out coffee cup. Naoko took it gratefully, chugging a massive gulp and ignoring the fact that it had gone almost stone cold waiting for her. She walked along the hall with Helina, simply pacing to keep herself active and alert.

Helina’s hand slipped into hers and she gave Naoko’s fingers a small squeeze. “I thought you’d be out a bit sooner, sorry the coffee’s gone cold… You’ve been in there for seven hours. How’s the operation going?”

Helina’s voice was soft and kind, and she moved her hand around Naoko’s waist – half as a gesture of affection and half to keep her on her feet. Naoko leaned against her girlfriend heavily, letting her cheek rest on Helina’s smooth forehead.

“Slow,” Naoko said through a sigh. “We’re not even close to finished. Vanir’s barely stable for now. We have to fix her main power core next…”

She stopped by the door to the operation’s observation room and went in. They sat down on a pair of chairs in the small room near the window. Naoko sipped her coffee again as Helina sat beside her. Her hand rested on top of Naoko’s.

“It’s the most dangerous part of the operation,” Naoko explained. “We’re essentially performing heart surgery – her core is what powers her and who she is – so I guess it’s brain surgery at the same time… It’s taking three Ghosts just to keep her pumping while we prepare.”

She leaned her head back and stared up at the ceiling. She took another long sip, ignoring the way the temperature made her coffee doubly bitter. “There’s no room for error,” she muttered, still staring at the ceiling. “And even after we have her core fixed and stable, we’re a long way from out of the woods. There’s still an incredible amount of structural damage to repair. We’re going to have to practically reconstruct half her structure and exoskeleton.”

Naoko sighed and leaned forward with her elbows on her thighs. “It’s going to take some changes to her,” Naoko sighed, staring through the window.

Helina squeezed her hand fondly.

“You’re doing everything you can for her,” Helina said, the light of her eyes soft and hopeful as ever. She leaned closer, and Naoko accepted the kiss with a subtle squeeze of her fingers. Helina’s free hand brushed her jaw, and the warmth of her spark flowed through Naoko, giving her a burst of wakefulness and helping to shake her tired thoughts back into shape. “You’re fighting hard,” Helina said, patting Naoko’s cheek.

Naoko bit her lip. “Not as hard as she is,” she said, turning to gaze through the window at Vanir. She seemed so peaceful, almost serene as she lay there with embers still floating slowly from her chest, her eyes closed in sleep. “Not nearly as hard as she’s going to need to fight…”

“Are you ready to do this, Fuse?” Naoko asked, watching the Ghost carefully. He rose and fell as if riding a rough sea; his eye’s light was barely a dim orange as he looked back at her.

He tried to speak and it came out as a series of grinding whizzes and distorted beeps. Naoko met his gaze, and his casing slid low over his eye like an angry glare. He floated low over Vanir, and pulled his casing in tight. It reminded Naoko of a hand clenching into a fist.

His voice came through laced with distortion and as a recording of another’s speech. “I’m ready to do this,” he said in his borrowed speech.

“You need to hold her core – everything she is – you need to hold it and keep it safe, while-“

“I said I am ready to do what needs to be done.” Fuse glared at her, switching between speakers for his sentences. Whoever it was he had chosen to use, it sounded like a heroic speech. “We are not here to waste time with idle words. We are here to do what must be done. Nothing more.”

Naoko nodded. Beside her, Valko stood ready to assist.

“I’m gonna pretend he didn’t sound like such an asshole,” he aid with his usual sly attitude.

“Pretending doesn’t change the way the world is,” Fuse said with a completely new voice, lowering to his position. His hovering was erratic and wavering, but once he floated before Vanir’s core, he stood perfectly still, solidified in his position.

Naoko gave Valko a subtle glance, a look that said ‘behave’, as she slid her gloves on. He just shrugged.

“Yomi, keep a constant monitor on all of Vanir’s readouts. Anything changes at all, you let us know. Mushi, you’re keeping Fuse supplied with Light, okay?”

The Ghosts acknowledged her commands, and glided into their places.

“Okay,” Naoko said, gathering her breath. She nodded softly for a moment, preparing herself. “Okay.” The word was solid as she steeled herself, and picked up her tools.

She leaned over Vanir’s chest – they had removed much of her plating even beyond the damaged areas, opening her up completely to make the operation as unimpeded as possible. Naoko’s hands were as steady as any Exo’s, unwavering as she moved in around Vanir’s core.

The cell glowed bright, still licking with unburning flames. The fires flicked around Naoko’s fingers as she worked, wafting over her hands. They were warm, but that was all, there was no aggression or searing touch to them, just soft, flickering warmth.

Naoko worked slowly and carefully, her movements delicate as she began the process of disengaging Vanir’s core containment cell.

Through Mushi, she could feel some degree of Fuse’s state, like a subconscious monitor of his Light, and he never wavered.

The room was ushered into pure silence. Naoko’s hands moved slow and precise segmenting the systemic attachments to Vanir’s core and shifting them one by one to the auxiliary power supplies Valko prepared. She passed him tools, whispering the names of what she needed and letting him keep them organised and switching fluidly from the stasis field at her side.

Naoko could feel her own heart beating, the mechanical thump and the pulse through the side of her throat. She could hear the smooth in and out of her breathing, keeping calm and controlled as she worked with absolute delicacy.

Her voice was a whisper when she spoke, as if raising her voice above a breath might disturb the operation. “Disengaging core containment now,” she whispered, gently unbolting the final fastenings on the containment cell. “Fuse. Do you have her?”

“I do.”

“Say the words please.”

Fuse’s voice was warm and concrete. “I have her,” he said solemnly, and Naoko curled her hand a little tighter.

She felt Mushi’s Light stir slightly. Naoko drew in a breath, and willed her heart to still for but a moment. Light gently kept her blood moving while she eliminated the chance for tremors in her hands, and, with agonising slowness, Naoko separated the cell that held Vanir’s core.

The core itself was bright and warm, like her fires. It almost hurt to look at, such a bright blue it was almost white, and Naoko could see the tiny shimmer of Fuse’s Light holding it in stasis.

Naoko took the cell and passed it to Valko, feeling her heart return to life and giving a sigh of breath with the feeling. Valko took the cell aside. Naoko’s breath felt like dropping a warhammer after the perfect stillness of removing the cell, but a tiny touch of Mushi’s Light returned her body’s focus in an instant.

“Vanir’s vitals are dropping. Cognitive processes slowing.” Yomi’s voice was soft and steady, but not alarmed. Naoko placed aside her sullied tools, dropping them into the small cleaning tub on Valko’s tray and retrieving sanitised versions. She brushed one lock of hair behind her head, and Valko held out the new containment cell for her.

“How fast?” Naoko asked, still calm and still as a stone.

“The speed of decline is not cause for alarm,” Yomi assured her, “but she is slipping deeper into unconsciousness.”

“Okay.”

Naoko breathed slowly, the way she once did to keep her core steady during her boxing training. It steeled her nerves and steadied her hands, and as she slipped her hands with the new containment cell into Vanir’s chest, she could feel the flow of Light from both Mushi and Fuse to the glow of the core.

She moved at a crawl, gently fitting the components of the cell into place.

“Vitals beginning to drop faster,” Yoni warned her.

Naoko exhaled a slow and steady breath, warm like the flickering fires in Vanir’s chest. They wrapped around the core with soft light, letting embers drift up towards the ceiling. “Keep her steady,” Naoko whispered, though she wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or to Fuse.

The fires were beginning to fade with Fuse’s focus away from helping them, but they would hold.

Naoko fitted the cell into place around Vanir’s core. “Okay,” she breathed, “over to you, Fuse. Establish the connection.”

The Ghost glowed bright, and the field around Vanir’s core shimmered with a flash of orange, fiery light. The cell lifted and the core slipped into place, glowing steadily.

Fuse beeped softly, just once. Naoko stilled her fingers, and secured the core containment cell fully into place.

As the final fastening stilled in place, and the core was restored, Naoko breathed. Fuse fell a centimetre, and Mushi’s Light caught him, guiding him beside Vanir’s head. He lay on the operating table, and slowly closed his eye in silence.

“Vitals still dropping, Naoko,” Yomi said. “We need to get her other systems connected.”

Naoko nodded. “Mushi, give Vanir’s core a boost, bump up her power.”

She felt Mushi follow her command, and held out a hand to her side, asking for new tools from Valko before she began reconnecting Vanir’s subsystems to her core.

She passed each spent auxiliary power cell to Valko as she disconnected them, and heard the blipping of Vanir’s monitors change with her signals strengthening.

“Main systems stabilising,” Yomi said as Naoko finished reconnecting Vanir’s systems. She stood back, breathing deeply and dropping her tools somewhat roughly onto Valko’s tray. She sighed.

Vanir’s core had been restored. The hardest part was over.

But there was still so much work to be done.

She patted Valko on the shoulder. “Fetch Doctor Joubert, he’ll need to monitor Vanir’s Light closely.”

“Um, thanks Valko, good job buddy,” Valko said, imitating Naoko in the least effective voice. “Gee no problem boss, hey could you fetch Doctor Whoblidoo for me please Valko dearest?”

Naoko glared at Valko.

“Yeah I’ll go get him,” he sighed, snapping his fingers just once to image the room with sound as he walked to the door.

Naoko sat down on the floor, leaning her head back against the wall and breathing slowly, in through the nose, and out through the mouth. She sat there for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of Vanir’s fires crackling and the glide of her own breath.

“Naoko.” Her eyes snapped open and she looked at Yomi, quickly climbing to her feet. “I’m detecting a large surge in neurological activity.”

Naoko looked up at Yomi, her eyebrows furrowing. “What is it?” she asked, walking over to Vanir. “Is she waking up?”

“No.” Naoko looked back over her shoulder, and stepped around the Yomi’s monitors. She watched the waves quickly scrawling across its surface.

“It would appear,” Yomi said at her shoulder, “that she is dreaming.”

Naoko stepped past the monitor and stood beside Vanir again. She looked down at her face, at the shattered plating across her cheeks that left her bare and with one eye exposed. Her eyes were closed, the tiny ring of orange light around her iris only a faint glow. She reached down, brushing her hand across Vanir’s forehead, as if pushing hair from her face. She felt warm.

“Hang in there Vanir,” Naoko whispered. “Hang in there…”

Vanir stumbled through a flash of white and fell to her knees. The world spun around her, ears ringing and bright echoes of lights burning at her eyes. The ground beneath her hands was metal, ridged for the grip of shoes, and Vanir ran her hand across it as the faint spots of light dissipated and her senses returned to normal.

Her hand was gloved in thin black material, like the undersuit of her armour. Her knuckles and forearm were capped with simple ceramic armour plating. As she climbed to her feet, Vanir looked down at the rest of her armour. She didn’t recognise it, but it felt familiar. The armour was black, sleek and simple, mostly padding across the chest, and a uniform-like suit underneath.

Vanir staggered as she stood up, and slumped against something large and solid. She regained her balance and looked at it. It was a server of some kind, rusted and faded and coated in thick browning vines.

She did not remember coming here.

A voice echoed beside her, and Vanir looked up. A Chinese woman stood beside her in a similar uniform, though unarmoured. Vanir felt like she knew her, but she found nothing – no name, no relation – to match the face. The woman didn’t seem to see her and stared blankly past her.

Vanir looked around the room – first where the woman was looking, to a closed blast door. She knew the room. Properly knew it too. It was a Seraphim Vault, like the one where she had helped defend Rasputin’s core from the assault of Crota’s forces over a year ago. But this one was different.

There was no seeping rust along the walls, no dust coating the consoles and servers around the vault. It was pristine and swelling with lights and the hum of activity. And there were people. Technicians in blue jumpsuits with goggles around their necks hurried around the vault, and a series of black-armoured soldiers shuffled through the guillotine-like blast doors.

Their armour was the same as what Vanir wore, the sleek black vests and uniforms…

And Vanir led them.

Vanir stared, her mouth again and glowing wordlessly as she watched herself walk through the vault door from memories she had lost. She saw herself, Vanir-2, unscarred by the Gorgon’s lash, with two antennae and a smooth white face untouched by orange paint. Vanir found one hand drifting to her cheek, tentatively touching where her paint lay. Her plating was shattered and cutting beneath her fingertip.

Vanir-2 walked with purpose, striding forward in the same sleek black armour and carrying a hauntingly familiar weapon. On one arm, where Vanir had her garden’s coordinates tattooed, Vanir-2’s sleeve held a single Chinese character to denote her rank.

The black painted lines on her arm suddenly felt heavy, and she raised a hand to touch the tattooed coordinates through her sleeve. It was the precise location where Fuse had found her, the first clue to who she was, burned into her memory and tattooed across her plating. Now, it was the location of her garden.

Vanir stepped towards her echoing memory, the ghost of her past self, and she saw the rust and ruin at her feet spread.

It seemed to follow her, the dying vines and decay retreating behind her and spreading before as she walked, as if she stepped through another time in the vault.

A technician moved by Vanir, and she held a hand out to touch them, but as Vanir grew close they vanished from existence.

“Good.” The word jolted Vanir’s senses and she turned sharply to the Chinese officer who had been standing beside her. The woman now addressed Vanir-2 and her following soldiers.

Vanir-2 stepped forward, Hard Light held carefully in her hands, and her soldiers stayed at the door. She looked to the woman, but said nothing.

“The Lady has been asking for you, Commander…” the woman said. “By name.”

No sooner had the words left her lips than the memory faded in a flash, and Vanir felt a throbbing pressure in her head. Her vision pulsed bright and her ears rang, until she collapsed into the nothingness between dreams.

“You look like shit.” Novella’s voice was warm but firm, almost motherly, though Naoko would never say that. She slumped back into the visitor’s chair while Novella stood, still fitted head-to-toe in armour.

Naoko ran her hand over her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yeah,” she said through a wry laugh, “eighteen hours of surgery will do that to you.”

Helina’s hand grasped one of hers as she spoke, giving her a soft squeeze of encouragement. Naoko looked up at Novella.

Her face had lost its usual sharp confidence. Her white razor teeth weren’t bared in a sly smirk with sarcasm rolling from her tongue. Her shoulders were slumped, her eyes soft and gazing at the curtained window through to Vanir’s room.

“How is she?” Novella asked softly, not looking away from the curtains.

“Stable,” Naoko said. Novella flicked her gaze to her and Naoko tried to give her a reassuring smile. “She’s made it through the worst of it, but she’s a long way from being out of the woods.”

Novella folded her arms and fidgeted, looking back at the window and tapping her foot as if she needed to pace. She lifted one hand and chewed the tip of her thumb. Helina stood up and placed a gentle hand on Novella’s shoulder.

Naoko could see the tiniest hint of purpling light warp around Helina’s fingers, suppressing Novella’s nerves ever so slightly.

“Can I… can I see her?” Novella asked.

Naoko stood beside Novella, feeling like an intruder as she looked at Vanir. Novella gently held Vanir’s hand, her thumb running slowly back and forth over the scorched knuckles.

Naoko folded her arms to keep her hands from fidgeting. Across the bed, Troy pressed his palms against tired eyes, and slid a datapad of monitoring information back into the slot on the side of the bed. “Vanir’s doing well since you fixed her core,” he said to Naoko, speaking softly so as not to disturb Novella. “Signals are stable, and there’s a Light-nurse on call just in case. I’m clocking out.” He set a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Naoko nodded, and Troy left the room. The door clicked shut behind him.

“Has anyone told Anya?” she asked.

Novella nodded slowly. “She’s not taking it well… She stays in bed all day, refuses to go out or talk to anyone, just stays at home with their dogs…” She sighed, laying Vanir’s hand down softly and turning to Naoko. “I’m going to check on her, make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.

“But I’m heading out tomorrow; we’re going after Skolas. I’ve been picked to be in the hunting party and someone else needs to keep an eye on Anya while I’m gone.”

“I could check in on her for you,” Helina offered. Novella pursed her lips.

She sighed again, shaking her head. “I don’t know if seeing an Exo would be the best thing for her right now… I’ll ask her family. I think a more human touch might help.”

Novella moved to go to the door, but paused at the nightstand of Vanir’s bed. There were flowers in a small glass vase, brought by the Speaker-to-be that morning, and Novella picked something up from beside it.

She held a small silver ring in her hand, tiny Chinese characters etched into the inside. “Who left this here?” Novell asked.

Naoko shrugged. “It was here when I arrived this morning,” she admitted. “I thought it was just one of Vanir’s belongings.”

Novella set the ring back and gave a wry smile as the turned to the door. “Well, at least she’s checking in on her,” she muttered.

She reached the door, pushed it open, and paused. “I’ll check in again before I go,” she said. Naoko nodded, and Novella left.

“Okay,” Naoko sighed, turning back to Vanir’s bed.

Helina’s hand curled into hers. “Hey,” Helina whispered, resting her head on Naoko’s shoulder. “I’m going to make sure Anya’s okay. You get some rest, don’t overdo yourself.”

Naoko smirked. “Don’t worry, I used to work thirty hour days back at Clovis sometimes,”

“Against the rules,” Helina glared knowingly. “Valko’s told me plenty of stories. Make sure you get rest when you need it.” She jabbed a finger at Naoko’s chest with the warning.

Naoko smiled. “I’ll be fine.”

Helina reached up on the tip of her toes and pressed her lips to Naoko’s. A spark danced across Naoko’s lower lip and she felt a flow of strength tingling through her. Helina rested her head on Naoko’s shoulder after the kiss. “I love you,” she said.

Naoko kissed Helina’s forehead. “My name is Naoko Takahashi,” she whispered.

Helina gave her a gentle slap on the shoulder and a glare that was ruined by the brightness of her blushing lights, then turned and headed after Novella.

Once the door clicked shut, Naoko stretched her hands overhead. She heard her back click in two places, and sighed.

“Yomi!” she called, waking the AI Ghost from their sleep. “I need you to dig up a file for me. One from a couple months back that Vanir and I worked on together, coded Android.

“Prepare it for me, and contact Valko. Get him to bring me something I can use to make minor modifications to it. We’ve got a lot of preparations to do before the morning.”

For the remainder of the night, Naoko poured over the designs for an android form. She had made them together with Vanir months ago; they had built her body, designed her face, taken weeks to perfect it, picked tones and shapes and mapped out the subtle shaping that would transform her body.

There was no other time for this. No other time when it could be done, done perfectly, and done completely.

Any other time, the nature of Vanir’s rebirth from Fuse would render an android transformation ineffectual. A single resurrection would reverse all their work.

But here… now… when Vanir awoke, she would be changed, rebuilt, no matter how, she would be different. This was the perfect time, the only time when Naoko could make the change.

Fuse waited beside Vanir. He refused to move despite his waning Light. This wasn’t a resurrection, it was different, and it gave Naoko her opportunity.

When morning came, Naoko was ready and rested.

Wind howled around Vanir, and then it was still.

She opened her eyes to a flaming sky, a burning orange sunset that carved hanzi through the clouds. She read the words and they hung over the jagged skyline of a broken city. She blinked, and the characters had changed; they were meaningless alone and together, keyphrases and random nouns, but some sent shivers down her spine and she did not know why.

Grass tickled her feet and Vanir looked down. She stood in Beijing amidst her garden home, and her golden skin was bathed in the light of the setting sun.

She grass shifted beneath her feet, but Vanir stared at her arm. Smooth, tan skin covered her where metallic plates had always been. She reached over and brushed the fingers of one hand across her other arm. It felt smooth and warm and both hard and soft at the same time.

With shaking fingers, Vanir lifted the sleeve of her left arm. The black lines of her coordinates still lay there; painted smooth and sharp by her own hands but now on golden skin. Small seams – the slightly darker lines of grooves – ran between joints in her skin along lines where her plating was.

Gently, nervously, Vanir ran her fingers across her face, feeling the shape of cheekbones and jaw, sharp eyes and smooth skin… a face she knew well, one she designed herself…

A rush of wind had Vanir turning her eyes to the sky, stepping back from the edge of the rooftop on which she stood. Her foot met the familiar warmth of polished wood floorboards.

The skyline burned with its orange hanzi in the clouds, cutting and jarring against the black silhouetted buildings. One building was different.

The Deep Stone Crypt rose from Beijing’s skyline as a black tower, jutting up through the blinding surface of the sun.

Vanir’s hands curled into fists.

Vanir had dreamed of the Deep Stone Crypt – that shared dream every Exo knew – only a half dozen times in her life.

The first time she had wandered the dream of the Deep Stone Crypt had been after they returned from the Vault of Glass. It took Vanir three days after coming home because she slept, whether it was the fear that kept her from it, or the exhaustion that finally made her succumb….

That first time, Vanir had fought an army of unfamiliar human faces. She had fought through the valley at sunset, as the stories of the dream had always gone. She had heard the tales from other Exos, how they came to the valley and walked to the tower in war or in peace, how most never made it to the tower in the dream. But it did nothing prepared her for the dream.

It took her a long time to tell anyone about it.

She told Anya after the second dream – when they returned from the Vault for the second time.

Since then, she had dreamed of the Deep Stone Crypt a few times, and every time it was the same – the black field in a black valley, fighting armed and armoured through an army of forgotten faces to a tower lit by the setting sun, until she fell and woke before she reached it.

The seventh time she walked in peace through the golden field. Vanir felt as if she was still there, as if she stood in the same flowing and changing dream. How long had she been dreaming…

She looked at the Deep Stone Crypt, and felt a burning in her chest.

As she glared at it in the distance, the sun flared behind it. It pulsed, wavering smaller for a second and then bursting with light and fury as it grew. It expanded across the skyline in a blaze of power like the bubbling Oversoul in Crota’s realm, and Vanir saw in the corners of her eye how it burned away the world before her.

Only she and the Deep Stone Crypt were left alone, unburned by the fury of Sol. But the star grew too bright for Vanir to look at. She closed her eyes tight, shielding herself with an arm as heat buffeted her like a great wind, until the world fell still again.

When she opened her eyes, Vanir stood on a nightmare landscape.

The world was nothing but Vex stone, swathed in fire from a too-large sun that hung eternal in the sky with rippling orange fires. The Deep Stone Crypt stood amidst the Vex towers across Mercury’s surface, barely distinguishable from their shifting forms.

Vanir took a step forward, and stone shifted around her. A wall parted, and she saw armour and weapons standing in lines, Golden Age weapons and armour untouched by time and calling to her with hazy memories. She looked towards the towers on the horizon.

Vanir saw the shadows of an army standing across the burning fields between her and the tower.

Their shapes were Vex, Human, and Exo. They stood in ranks and lines as regimented as a factory production, eyes staring up at her, and she watched as the shadows of men and women warped, white lights ripping through their torsos and their eyes turning a hateful red.

But she let her fists unfurl as a voice whispered by her cheek, and rather than march to war, she smiled softly. Vanir lowered, crossing her legs like a meditating monk, and sat upon the sun-warmed surface of the stone. She placed her hands in her lap and stared out across the unmoving army.

Words burned in the sky with jagged shapes, taunting her with trawling shapes of memories, and they seemed to scream at her.

A hand rested gently on Vanir’s shoulder.

She reached up without looking, and laid her hand on top of theirs. She felt a familiar warmth in those fingers, and Vanir let out a sigh as she heard Anya’s voice.

“Vane’ka…” she turned, looking back at Anya.

She stood in shadow – pure darkness – with tendrils curling around her body, and the room seemed to press down upon her. Her face was filthy, smeared with old makeup and dirt and two smeared channels ran down her cheeks. Her eyes were red and raw and rubbed dry.

The shadow cracked behind her with vicious hanzi, words flashing angrily behind her. Traitor. Murderer. Vanir ignored them, and stood slowly.

Anya held out her hands, her bottom lip trembling just slightly, as if she carried words she was too scared to say in her mouth.

Vanir reached out and took Anya’s hand…

Vanir’s hand curled slightly around hers.

Vanir’s chest rose beneath her robe and sheets as if with an indrawn breath, and when she released, a lick of fire drifted from her lips. A tiny flow of embers floated from her mouth, and for the first time in one hundred and forty two hours…

Vanir opened her eyes.

She blinked, her soft orange pupil flitting in and out without eyelids, and she turned her eyes slowly to her side. Vanir looked at her. Her lips moved, a single final ember floating out like a late firefly and drifting through the air to dance on current-less winds.

“Hey,” Yùtù whispered, brushing her thumb across Vanir’s fingers. She felt them squeeze just slightly in response.

“Hey you,” Vanir breathed with a smile. She blinked, her lips curling up in a smile and her mouth glowing with a warm orange. “Where’ve you been?” Vanir seemed half in a daze, her words whispers through a sleepy smile like a girl waking up from sedation.

“Here,” Yùtù whispered again. She felt as if speaking above a whisper might break the spell. “With you.”

Vanir hummed, closing her eyes for a moment and wriggling slightly. “Hospital,” she mumbled, half-question half-statement.

Yùtù nodded. “You’ve been here nearly a week. A lot changed…”

Vanir gave her a wide grin, and her hand slipped from Yùtù’s to brush her cheek. Vanir looked at her own fingers incredulously, and Yùtù reached up to curl her own around Vanir’s hand. She held her hand softly, and Vanir traced her other hand across her forearm, staring and smiling at her golden tan arm.

“You’re an android now,” Yùtù said with a sly smile as she watched Vanir grinning at her hands.

Vanir coughed just once. “Cool…” she mumbled. She looked up at Yùtù.

“I’m gonna pass out again now,” Vanir mumbled, “if that’s okay…”

A great tower rose ahead. It stood at the mouth of two meeting mountains, its otherworldly stone glittering in the light of the rising sun. The jagged mountains cast harsh black shapes across the horizon, cutting into a cloudless pink sky. The tower’s shape shifted, sections moving of their own accord and revealing small square gaps through which the light would flow at sunset. The tower stood stark against the soft colour of the sky. Vanir knew it instantly. Any Exo would.

Vanir turned, gazing all around her slowly. She took in all the jagged, blackened mountains, like the teeth of some gaping maw that rose in a cage around the valley of golden fields. There were no other figures in the valley; not a single shadow, not one familiar face. Vanir stood alone in the light of a rising sun.

She turned her gaze back to the Deep Stone Crypt.

She took a tentative step forward. Her hands whispered across the buds of the golden grain at her sides. It tickled her legs playfully, but her presence in the valley set her ill at ease.

Vanir had visited the fields in the valley of death before. That was what they were then: the fields of the dead, filled with the sullen, haunted faces of everyone she had ever known and could not remember, marching to stop her path.

The few times she had been here before, Vanir had arrived ready for war, armoured and armed in a dead field of blackened grass to fight her way through an army…

But Vanir saw no weapons, she bore no armour or even clothes, and the sun warmed her plates like the light of a golden summer.

Despite there being no army, she coiled her fists warily. She tried to snap Arc Light between her knuckles and charge her fist with crackling lightning, but none came at her command.

Vanir looked down at her hands. They were hers and not at once.

Blood dripped from her fingers and smeared across palms of torn tan flesh, split to reveal the metallic shapes of Vanir’s real exoskeleton.

She felt a tremor in her chest, and stared down at the bloody wound in smooth skin that lay across her torso. Blood seeped down across the dark skin bright and warm as the wind. It dripped down her legs and sullied the buds of the grain around her.

Then fire rose from her fingertips, burning brighter and warmer and stronger. It evaporated the blood like wisps of water, and the flesh burned away in an instant of ash to reveal her real body, the metal burning softly with lapping lickings of flame. It devoured the blood and flesh but left her plates and muscle warm and strong, untouched.

A grinding noise rose through the valley, deep and strong as an earthquake but steady. It reverberated through her legs and up her spine, and it felt like listening to the core of the Earth speak, or the mantle grinding its jaws. She curled her flaming fists and looked up.

The Deep Stone Crypt was shifting more. Its shape was fluid and changing as blocks and sections split and moved. Some pounded down to the ground and rose again as if on invisible strings. Their fall caused the heartbeat of the Earth that rumbled through to Vanir’s feet.

Vanir glanced back over her shoulder, out across the vast ocean of golden grain. The sun rose over the mountains, cresting their jagged peaks and baring down on Vanir’s eyes.

She tightened her fists, set her jaw tight, and walked towards the Deep Stone Crypt. Her eyes locked to the shifting pillars of stone around it as they swirled and reflected the light with their dull, dark stone. The grain scratched at her legs as she strode forward, and it snagged against her feet when she pushed through it.

Something changed.

Vanir felt a great weight upon her chest, like a giant viper coiling around her torso and squeezing, suffocating her. The pressure crushed her chest, ripping into her, and she fell to her knees, trying to cry out from the pain, but the pressure stole her voice and cut into her mind.

Her fingers curled in the soil. The wind picked up, swirling the grain angrily around her like the churning waves of the ocean in the storm. She gasped, and a spark ignited deep in her chest.

She watched the soil in her fingers turn to ash, watched the grain around her shoulder wither. The light dimmed, dark clouds covering the sky in an instant.

But the fire burst forth from her heart.

Fire roared into life across her body, burning away the smothering pressure that had built on her chest. It rose, igniting the field around her, and the flames quickly soared into a tower of swirling fury, burning brighter and brighter and burning right from Vanir herself.

The fires grew white with light, their sound drowning away, until all that surrounded Vanir was the white and the silence that fell away into unconsciousness…

Jem stepped into the Vault of Glass warily. The massive door still groaned above and behind him, echoing with strange clockwork mechanics. He had watched teams walk beyond this point before, but never like this, and he had never gone inside himself.

He knelt down, pressing Bad Juju’s barrel against a Fallen Captain. The corpse moved with the pressure, his broken face illuminated by the green flame on Jem’s gun. He was definitely dead. He eyed the Wolf banner from the Captain’s neck, and his hands tightened around Bad Juju.

“Captain.” Uaithne placed a hand on Jem’s shoulder. Jem nodded, standing up to his full height.

“Vanir,” Jem called over his shoulder, waving her forward.

She stepped through the ranks of Fireteam Apollo, clad in pure clean-cut black armour. Jem’s team gave her a moderate berth of space as she walked down the steps into the Vault towards their captain, her high tech assault rifle resting casually over her shoulder. Jem figured it was the helmet that unnerved them.

Baz was the only one shorter than her, but they all had a slight deference to her as she walked by.

Vanir stood at Jem’s side and looked up at him, but all Jem could see was the reflections of the cave around them in her golden visor, licked by the blue wisps of flaming light.

“You’ve been in the Vault twice,” Jem said, “we’re going to need some guidance in here from you.”

Vanir nodded. “Understood. We should get down there as fast as we can. Whatever Skolas is doing in the Vault…” Vanir stared down into the dark caves that led further in. She synthesised an inward breath, drawing her shoulders back and setting her gun’s stock into her shoulder. “It can’t be good.”

Jem swallowed and tightened his grip on Bad Juju.

“Listen up, Apollo!” he shouted up the stairs. With the mouth of the Vault showing the sky behind them, Fireteam Apollo stood as six silhouettes against the golden light of Venus’ churning skies. He saw the atmospheric storm rippling into life behind them, and tried to pay it no mind.

“Vanir’s our resident Vault expert; she’s in command from here on out. Understood?”

A resounding chorus of “Sir!” came back, and Fireteam Apollo prepped their weapons, falling into line behind them. Jem turned to Vanir, who was already marching down into the caves.

She waved a hand stiffly over her shoulder without looking back, indicating for them to follow.

The caves were dark and dull, lit by the odd stream of light that bled through cracks in the mountain of Venus. Tufts of vegetation pushed through the floor, and Jem paused at a section of stunning glittering crystals that coated the corner of one wall.

Water trickled down the walls of the caves in sections, dripping from the corners and feeding a few poisonous looking flowers.

Vanir marched with a steady pace, and the team followed her lead through into the Vault.

“This is the Trial of Kabr,” Blaine whispered over the team’s communications. “The cave system that leads into the Vault. They named it after Kabr, the Legionless; he was the one who cracked the Vault, and gave us a way to defeat the Vex inside.”

Jem stuck to Vanir’s side, wary eyes scanning the darkness and fog. His fingertips would be sweaty on Bad Juju’s grip were it not for the absorbent layer of his gloves keeping his grip crisp. He heard Baz’s voice quiet behind him.

“Why’d they call him ‘the Legionless’?” he asked.

“Because the rest of his team were wiped from existence,” Blaine said. “The Vex in here have absolute power over time. They made it so Kabr’s fireteam never existed.”

“Great,” Illara snorted. “Sounds like a cheery place.”

Vanir held up one hand again, and beckoned before breaking into a run. Jem kept right on her tail, with the rhythmic clumping of a dozen feet behind him. They emerged from the caves into a hollow of Vex stone, worn away into the black computational rock like the Citadel that hovered hauntingly through the Venutian sky.

But there was no time to look around.

A bolt of liquid lightning shot off at Vanir, skimming over her shoulder by a hair as she ducked the perfect amount to avoid it. Then she was on the Fallen, her glowing shotgun ripping into their scavenged armour easily.

Jem slid to a crouch and fired Bad Juju, clipping the skulls of two Dregs as Vanir decimated their Vandal leader.

The hollow fell into an echoing silence as smoke drifted from Vanir’s fists and she rose from the tackled body of the Vandal. “They’ll be at the Templar’s Well by now,” she said, looking up at Jem as he and his team quickly moved closer. She stood and pumped her shotgun. “We have to move quickly.”

She waved them through a gap in the Vex structure that Jem had missed beyond the Fallen. The passage was too narrow for them to move easily with two side-by-side, so they ran through in single file, hands tight and eyes wary.

“When we get to the Well, we need to split into three teams to cover the area,” Vanir explained over the radio. Her voice was crackling, distorted slightly by the influence of the Vex in the area, and she quickly switched it off in favour of them hearing her actual voice.

“Vadim, you designate teams, three groups of three. Each of the teams will take a side of the Well, and mine will carve through the centre.”

As Vanir explained, they emerged into a massive cave hollow. Eerie blue mists drifted through the air, masking the distance to wherever the eventual wall must lie. Jem swallowed dryly, leaning over the edge of the Vex stone platforms to peer down.

The cave walls descended deep into the abyss, fading through the fog into unknown depths.

Vanir took a step back, and leapt into the air with a glow of Light.

Jem’s heart leapt to his throat, and he nearly stepped over the edge as he watched her glide through the air and roll to break her impact on a floating Vex structure below.

Jem glanced at Uaithne, and then nodded.

He took several steps back, then sprinted and leapt after Vanir. They each made their way down, following Vanir through several further jumps, rounding the cliffside of the Vault’s giant cave and descending a cliff of square Vex stone to a vantage platform.

Jem separated the teams as they jumped, calling them out and making them sound off to confirm.

When they reached the platform, Vanir was waiting at the edge, her high-tech assault rifle ready in hand. She knelt at the edge, staring down at the strange arena-like area before them.

Golden light bathed the stage, split by pillars of towering black Vex computers, and the Fallen House of Wolves moved about, setting up pieces of tapping technology that Jem vaguely recognised from years gone by in the Reef. He knelt at Vanir’s side. “What are they doing?” he asked.

Vanir shook her head once. “I don’t know,” she said. “But we need to stop whatever it is.”

She checked the magazine of her rifle. Jem placed a hand on her shoulder, meeting the solemn gaze of her helmet. She nodded, then leapt into the air.

Arc rippled around her as she crested her jump, and she shot forth into the arena cased in a lightning bolt.

Jem leapt after her, Bai at his side. They hit the ground running, weapons lighting up the Fallen immediately in the beginning of their ambush. He heard the pounding of boots on stone and the crackling machine gun fire that marked the other teams on either side – Illara leading Baz and Zyduras to his left, and Uaithne leading Blaine and Shani to his right.

His radio flared with static the second he touched down, and Jem grit his teeth against the sound as he fought the Wolves down into the stone stairwell before them.

He passed a piece of their technology set up in the arena and dropped to use it for cover as he switched to a heavier weapon. Chips of stone and slivers of arc ripped through the air around him as Apollo tore into the Fallen defences with the fury of a full-blown Titan assault.

Just ahead of Jem, Vanir slammed her fist into the chest of a Wolf Captain, caving in his armour and bones like foil beneath a blinding blast of arc in her fist.

He fired at the Fallen around Vanir, suppressing them with supporting fire and keeping an open eye on the battlefield’s whole. In the corner of his eye, he saw both side teams pushing through the columns of dark stone and setting up what cover they could.

Lightning ripped across the gaps in the Templar’s Well between bullets and the explosions of grenades.

“Snipers! Platforms on the side!” Jem heard Illara yell, just as a bolt from a wire rifle glanced off the pillar beside him. He shouted the order to take cover to the rest of the team, and fired off a scattered series of bursts at the sniper on the right to force him into cover.

Bai and Vanir skidded into cover beside him, and his radio’s static hissed violently.

“-em? If you can hear-“ a voice broke through the heavy static, and Jem signalled for Bai to cover him while he adjusted the radio. “-ease respond!”

He summoned Circe in his right hand, and the Ghost fed a surge of Light into the equipment to steady its receiver, and the message became clear.

“This is Rohan Nuha attempting to contact Fireteam Apollo in the Vault of Glass. This is an emergency. Captain Vadim, if you can hear me, please respond. Repeat, Jem, if you can-“

“Rohan?” he asked, his voice straining over the blaring of gunfire. “Rohan, I hear you.” As he finished the message, Jem glanced over at the left side time just in time to see an ether supply beside their sniper explode and send his burning body flying into the abyssal depths of the Vault floor.

The Fallen were beginning to regroup and fight back with greater coordination. “Jem we’ve intercepted Fallen communications. Variks and I have been translating; apparently they’re trying to tap into-“

A melodic chime rang through the Vault, sinking the sounds of gunfire to a whisper in its wake. Jem’s breath vanished in his throat with the sound, and he found himself standing up despite the battle raging around them. The chime rang through him like a note of Circe’s Deathsong, harrowing yet beautiful.

Vanir whirled at the sound, turning wide-eyed and fearful to look at Anya. Her partner seemed oblivious, her shoulder pressed against a stump of an ancient column as she fired a cool, precise round into the core of a distant hobgoblin.

The bullet seemed to travel in slow motion, rippling through time-distorted air, and Vanir had the time to gather herself and, shakingly, stare in wonder around the arena of the Templar’s Well.

Tetra grappled with a headless Minotaur, her powerful arms rippling with purple void wisps as she tore the Vex’s cannon from its grip and forced it back, away from her injured partner. Zatrix, popping through a cloud of electricity and forming from thick black smoke, fired his sinister weapon into another hobgoblin, cracking it open.

Vanir watched, motionless, as the Hobgoblin’s core split open, and its contents laced through the air. She watched the light of its eye turn dead and the shells of its body crumple against the stone behind it, now painted glowing white.

Then the world rushed back into chaos. Sparks flew from Vanir’s shoulder as a narrowly-missed shot grazed her armour, and Anya instinctively snapped her sights to the culprit and tore them open with a precise round to their eye.

Vanir heard the melodic chime again – a slight pitch higher – and she felt a chill running through her spine as she turned around.

Something bright formed before her, lacing barbs of pure golden light rippling into existence a mere meter from her. They formed in a second, dozens of the bars of light that formed a structural scaffold. Then they burned with bright light. The cube shone with a blinding flash, and Vanir heard Novella yelling through her helmet’s comms, a warning about the ‘Oracles’.

But Vanir was frozen with fear, her eyes locked to the cube before her and her body shivering with its presence. Her gun dropped to the floor, and she felt Anya stealing to her side, swiping the sidearm from her hip and hammering rounds into the cube, her other hand gripping Vanir’s arm.

And all she could do was watch, her body locked and overwhelmed by fear.

Vanir’s screaming voice snapped Jem back to the present. “Oracles!” her cry rang through the Well, a splitting fear and anger in her voice.

Another musical chime rang out after her shout, and she started sprinting towards the left side of the Well. “The golden lights!” she yelled, pointing wildly with one hand and swiping the shotgun from her back with the other, “target the Oracles!”

Jem stared for a moment as a cube of golden light formed in the distance of the Well, and flared into life. He hesitated only for a split-second as he tried to make sense of what was happening, then he followed Vanir’s command without question.

Bad Juju cracked the core of the Oracle before him, and Jem shrugged off a Dreg’s attempted tackle with a fistful of Circe’s Light blaring out and evaporating him effortlessly.

“They’re attempting to use the Oracles to tap into the Vex network,” Rohan explained in his ear, as the Oracle buckled beneath their concentrated gunfire and imploded into a singularity of yellow light before dissipating. “You can’t let them succeed, you have to stop them Jem. Destroy those Oracles as quickly as possible!”

“Understood,” Jem said, dropping the magazine from his weapon. Circe materialised a new one in the air for him, and he slid it into place with a precise sweep of his hand. “Central Oracle is down,” he called to the team.

A third chime, one pitch higher, rang out, and Jem spied the Oracle materialising on the right side of the Well, far from his range.

Uaithne and Shani worked in a perfect tag team of explosive power, clearing a path through the now-reinforced Fallen lines for Blaine to destroy the Oracle quickly.

They fought on against the Fallen, pushing them back into the dark hallways of the Vault, and destroying more Oracles as they appeared. Seven Titans and a Hunter were more than a usual raid team for the Vault of Glass, and despite the bolstered numbers of the Wolves that seemed to pour endlessly from hallways and climb stealthily from the stony cliffs, they held the Darkness back.

With their third round of Oracles appearing, Jem felt the ground shudder, and heard the cry of the Vex.

“Jem,” Rohan’s voice filtered through his helmet as Circe filled his fist with too much light and he felled a Captain. His arm burned painfully as the Light dissipated, and he hissed through his teeth. “Petra is picking up a massive increase in Vex activity across the sink. Be prepared for them to join the battle.”

Jem nodded, then remembered Rohan couldn’t see him and acknowledged the information properly. “Apollo!” he shouted, and his voice boomed through the Well. “We’ve got Vex incoming, ready up!”

But it seemed the Wolves were prepared for their arrival as well.

As the red eyes of Vex units appeared in the dark tunnels of the far wall and the central pit of the Templar’s Well, the Fallen spurred into hurried motion. Spheres and crates of explosive munitions were dragged from a series of nets and quickly rolled and dropped to the doors. Jem recognised the tactic from long-pitted memories of another war.

As the Vex forces marched from their hallways, the Fallen overloaded their explosive deployments, and the resulting explosion rippled through the air with a deafening roar and a force of great wind.

Jem was lifted from his feet and thrown backwards against a pillar. He felt his armour slam brutally against the stone, and even with the protection of his helmet he lay dazed by the blow, watching the smoke dissipate into the ceiling of the cave.

A Captain loomed over Jem like a dark shadow, and he felt Circe pulse a burning beat of Light through his veins like adrenaline.

But Bai was there in a heartbeat. He kicked the shrapnel launcher from the Captain’s hands and smoothly ducked the countering lash of twin arms. Bai wove beneath the Captain’s attack, his arms coiled close to his chest like a boxer, and delivered two quick blows – one to the sternum and one to the then-exposed throat – that sent the Captain onto his back and opened him for a killing shot.

Bai helped his leader to his feet as, behind him, Vanir fought off a dozen Fallen at once. She moved with the grace and ferocity of a storm, lightning blaring from her knuckles and whirling with perfect awareness and form. Jem had seen Vanir fight many times before, but he had only heard of her capabilities when she ‘fused’ with her Ghost.

It was awe-inspiring.

He did not stop to admire it though, instead charging in to assist. They decimated the Fallen, and once more Jem heard the musical gong-like signal of the Oracles’ arrival.

He shared a glance with Vanir. Her golden helmet stared back with burning blue fire and she nodded. “Final round of Oracles,” he heard her say.

The Fallen were growing desperate; Jem could see it in their attacks, the wildness of their eyes and the ferocity of their charge against them as the Oracles blinked into existence over their carefully placed machinery. He spotted only three remaining Captains to lead their troops, and their numbers dwindled as Apollo destroyed the series of Oracles.

He heard the final chime, the seventh Oracle, and glimpsed the flare of golden light at the bottom of the stairs in the centre of the Well’s arena.

A bolt of arc from a stealth Vandal’s wire rifle cracked against Jem’s shoulder and he grunted as he fall back against a wall with the impact of it. Circe’s shielding held, and the Vandal was quickly slain by a fast eye and a faster trigger finger from Bai.

Vanir ran by them, sliding her assault rifle to the magnetic holster on her back and drawing in Light from an orb at the top of the staircase. “I’ve got the Oracle!” she yelled, leaping into the air.

Lightning crackled behind her like a static connection from the stone, and her body burst with Arc Light as she leapt. She coiled a fist back, and it became blindingly bright with the light of her super. Then Vanir fired forward like a comet.

She disappeared from view, but Jem heard the burst of her landing and saw the flashes across the dark stone all around from her Fist of Havoc. Jem breathed. The Oracles were gone.

Another sound echoed out from the Well, and it froze Jem’s breath in his throat. A massive explosive charge – one he recognised all too well – a Scorch Cannon.

He moved to rush to the Well, but before he could even stand, Vanir came flying out of the pit.

Her body was limp, wreathed in black smoke and burning. She flew out of the pit back towards them, bright embers flaking from her amidst the swirling smoke and trail of fire. Jem dropped Bad Juju as he watched, and Vanir’s body flew overhead to the right.

She slammed against the towering conflux of jagged black stone on the side of the Templar’s Well. He heard the crack of her impact, and then she fell, limp, to the stone floor.

Vanir lay in blackness, suspended. The void around her cradled her like a child and she lay soft and limp. She imagined this was what it felt like for humans to float on the surface of a lake, softly bobbing in the warmth of the water.

She could hear the ocean waves lapping all around her. The soft sound of waves rolling against a shore was soothing, calm and constant. She could not see a beach or a coast. All she saw was black, even as she turned her head about her; all was solid blackness, as if she had gone blind.

But she could smell the ocean and hear the heartbeat of its waves.

Vanir had been here many times before. Some called it Limbo – the place between lives, but that was not truly accurate. She lay in the nothing, letting it hold her like the ocean, and felt Fuse’s Light in her chest. This was the place Ghosts pulled them from, to bring them back to the Light from the brink.

But Fuse is here.

The thought was fleeting, but enravelled around Vanir clean and clear as the crashing of the waves. She felt fear boil in her throat, sparks coiling in her fingertips and her whole body shivered.

There was a deep, burning pain in her chest, and a pressure that threatened to crush her like a gargantuan vice.

Vanir whirled in the void, her fingers clawing at her chest but feeling nothing.

Above her, a point of light poked through the darkness. It was blinding, though it seemed scarcely a flicker in the darkness. It hummed and sang to her, growing and falling towards her like a slow-motion drop of rain from the unseen sky.

It was warm and orange, and as Vanir reached out she glimpsed the shadow of her fingers over it’s form. It swirled, taking shape in an orb of fire the size of a baseball, and it continued to sink towards her.

Vanir let it fall to her hands, and it floated just above her palms. It numbed the pain that threatened to tear her nerves apart, and she held it to her chest. Vanir let the fire tear through her body like a shot of adrenaline through blood, and every fibre of her being flared with her Light. She opened her mouth, tossed back her head as her body tensed with the feeling like being bathed in thermite…

and she screamed.

“Illara!” Jem yelled, sprinting over to Vanir. “Ward!”

Illara’s head snapped to look, and she tore across the battlefield in a flash, Baz and Zyduras carving through the Fallen at her side with ferocious arc blades and fists. They willed points of Light into focus with their supers as they went, charging Illara’s arms with glittering light.

She slid across the stone, kicking up pebbles and the dust left by their battle with her boots, then slammed her feet down.

Jem felt the soothing purple light of her Ward of Dawn form around him. It muffled the gunfire outside, washing over his hands with a subtle blessing glow. He lifted Vanir from the ground. Her weapon was smashed, Hard Light’s casing cracked and rent and the pieces clattered to the ground as he turned her over.

Vanir’s chest was smoking, and even through his gloves, Jem felt the smouldering heat from where she had been shot.

Her helmet’s blue flames flickered, and Jem tugged it free. As he waved the smoke free and placed her helmet aside, Jem’s heart leapt into his throat.

Her face was fractured; the plates across the left side of her face cracked and broken. Her eyes were shut, with only a faint ring of orange light against their black surface. Her plate across the side of her mouth and her jaw was shattered, the orange painted pieces scattered across her cheek.

But her chest was where the real damage lay.

Jem’s hands shook as he looked at the gaping, jagged hole in Vanir’s torso that left her core exposed. Soft lights pulsed inside of her, with the armour blown clean away.

“Shani!” Jem yelled without looking up, propping Vanir into a better position in the centre of the Ward while the rest of the team defended them against the remainder of the Fallen. “I need help!”

Shani slid to his side quickly, stowing his weapons and tugging his helmet off as the Ward wafted protective Light around him. He knelt at Vanir’s side.

His mouth glowed softly, but the words died in his mouth. “Where’s her Ghost…” he whispered, glancing at Jem with fearful eyes.

Then Vanir burned.

Her chest ignited with a great flame that spread across her body in an instant. Her chest convulsed and she arched her back from the stone, writhing for a moment as if taking a great breath after nearly drowning.

Jem and Shani shuffled back with surprise at the leaping flames, and Vanir burst with power like a Sunsinger willing themselves back from death with their Radiance. She pulsed off the ground for a moment, her flames leaping from her fingertips and rippling from her body like solar radiation.

She screamed, her voice splitting with agony for a moment and tearing into Jem’s ears like a knife.

Vanir fell to the stone again, her fire dying down, but still burning across her body with Light and strength and warmth. Her scream had lasted only a second, and as Jem scrambled back to her side, he saw her helmet and shattered gun dissipate with her Ghost’s Light.

But even as Fuse’s core appeared, shimmering with fire and a closed eye in the cavity of Vanir’s chest, her wound did not heal. The fire continued to lick across her entire body, fuelling her with life but not enough to heal her.

Shani’s hand on Jem’s wrist shook him back into thinking properly. His eyes met Jem’s sharply once he had his attention. “Vanir needs to get out of here,” he said, and Jem could tell he was trying not to panic at what was going on, “out of the Vault. She needs medical attention.”

Jem nodded, swallowing and grabbing his radio.

“Rohan?” he called, praying beneath his breath. “Rohan are you there?”

As he waited for a response, he turned to his team. Baz and Blaine had cut through the last of the Fallen, and Baz’s Arc Blade was imbedded in the throat of the Baron that had shot Vanir. The Scorch Cannon sat in Uaithne’s arms, burning with charge.

The fight was over, and all of them had turned with concern after Vanir’s scream.

The Ward of Dawn dropped as Rohan’s signal reached Jem. “I hear you Jem, are the Oracles destroyed?”

“Yes, but Rohan…” he glanced at Vanir’s burning, quiet form, and swallowed. “We need a ship right now. Vanir’s in trouble, we need to get her back to the City-“

Jem heard movement from Rohan’s end of the transmission. “Alright, I’m on it, I’ll divert a ship from the-“

“No, Rohan,” Jem interrupted them. He tried to keep the fear and concern from cracking his voice, but his hands were shaking with uncertainty. “We need to get her to the City now, we need your ship.”

Apollo’s eyes flicked from Jem to Vanir as the emergency cry went out, wary and uncertain of what to do. Some moved closer to Vanir, stowing weapons and kneeling, while others checked the area to ensure it was secure now.

“Understood. I’ll be at the Vault door as soon as possible, you just get Vanir out of there.”

Jem turned to the others as the transmission ended. He glanced at Vanir. She still burned, her fire rising and falling like breath around her body. Tiny Vex fireflies – little cubes that blipped through the air around them – were moving towards her.

He hurried to her side and gently, slowly, he picked Vanir up in his arms. “Illara,” he said, looking to her as Circe appeared at his shoulder. “Can you keep Vanir protected with a barrier?”

She nodded, pulsing Void Light across her hands as she approached.

Jem grunted beneath the weight of Vanir’s body, but he started walking back towards the platform far above that had led them down to the Templar’s Well. “Shani, Zy, I need you to boost me. We’re climbing out, double time.”

The fireteam hurried from the Vault with Vanir. She burned constantly as they climbed, her Solar Light flowing across her in waves and breaths that warmed Jem’s arms and chest as he carried her. Illara’s dampening Void made the flames a soft bluish colour, and it kept the Vex motes at bay – those tiny firefly-like nanomachines that flitted through the air after her, eager to corrupt her by slipping inside.

Their climb was hurried but careful, scaling the cliffs of square stones and leaping with Lift between the eerie floating platforms.

Shadows waited amidst the bleary light when they passed through the Trial of Kabr and ascended the stairs to the Vault’s great door.

Jem gasped as they made it through the door, his breath coming slightly short from the hurried run while carrying Vanir. But his posture relaxed, a flow of warmth like Vanir’s fires drifting through him as he saw Rohan’s jumpship hovering amidst the Waking Ruins.

Rohan was waiting on the central sync plate, the reinforcements from the Venutian Garrison standing around them, ready to enter the Vault and destroy the Fallen’s technology inside.

He jogged to Rohan’s side, and even they could not mask the uncertainty and concern on their face as they looked at Vanir’s limp Radiance-warmed body.

Illara’s hand brushed his shoulder as Rohan opened their ship to load Vanir aboard. “Go with them,” she said as Jem looked down at her. “They’ll need all the details of what happened.

“I’ll keep the boys in order.”

Vanir smells like clean metal, sanded wood, and storms. She smells warm and comforting, and full of life. She wears subtle perfume for New Monarchy balls.

Rohan smells like sawdust and nothingness. They smells like a gap in the air, and like the Earth. They don’t wear perfume or cologne.

Lo smells like sunlight, summer, fresh dirt, and hot steel. She borrows Selena’s perfume sometimes, but not often because she ends up using too much and smelling way too strongly.

Warning I am shit at music choices tbh so some of these might be kinda rubbish and not fit terrible well

Vanir: King and Lionheart by Of Monsters and Men // Get Out Alive by Mel Parsons (this video is a live version because the studio version you can only listen to on the actual album/there’s no video of)

King and Lionheart BECAUSE VANIR AND ANYA LOVE EACH OTHER THIS MUCH OKAY.

Get Out Alive just reminds me of Vanir’s incident from the Vault, but more so of Anya after Vanir saved her from being Taken!Anya so... listen it’s just a lot about Vanir being Anya’s little Guardian Angel.

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Rohan: Once We Were from the Dragon Age Tavern Songs // I Don’t Know What The Weather Will Be by Laura Mvula // BUT ALSO Walking With A Ghost by Tegan and Sara

Once We Were has just always worked perfectly for the Destiny Universe for me, and I feel like it sums up Rohan’s way of remembering the Golden Age while also looking to the future? It works for Rohan at any point in their life reall, I think.

I Don’t Know What The Weather Will Be I always imagined as a lullaby Rohan sings to Jem & Willow’s twins. It plays out a little bit like a conversation between one of the twins and Rohan, and I really really really love it? It doesn’t sum up their character that much but it definitely reminds me of them every time.

Bonus! Walking With A Ghost just makes me think of Rohan & Osiris a lot that’s p much it

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Lo: More Than A Feeling by Boston // Someday Never Comes by Billy Valentine and the Forest Rangers

More Than A Feeling is the first time Lo was like shit Selena is beautiful and I want to kiss her but like I REALLY WANT TO KISS HER AND KISS HER FOREVER??

Someday Never Comes is Lo when Selena is dying and she doesn’t think there’s any way to make her better, because she doesn’t understand why the world is such a shitty place.

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Alli: False Knight on the Road by Fleet Foxes // I honestly can’t think of another good one for Alli sorry

False Knight on the Road makes me think of Alli going after the Nine. (Think of the Child as Alli and the Knight as the Tower? idk it’s hard to explain)

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28.) If your character’s life was a genre, what would it be? 

VANIR WOULD BE A MAGICAL GIRL ANIME

Rohan would be a noire detective genre crossed with secret agent james bond/mission impossible type stuff

Lo would be... a romantic comedy??

Vanir’s two favourite outfits are:

Outfit One:

Cute white and blue striped panties with frilly lacy edges and a tiny bow on the front of the waistband (her favourite pair) and a matching bra

Black short shorts

White thigh high socks and sporty shoes or tall boots (knee-high or possibly thigh-high)

A simple, loose white and orange patterned shirt

A long-sleeved sweater that’s a little too long, so it comes halfway down her hands and she can fiddle with the ends of the sleeves (thick black and white striped with one vertical orange stripe down the left side)

Outfit Two:

Fancy black and semi-see-through lacy lingerie (her “I know Yútú is coming over tonight” pair) (thanks Nova ;D)

A pleated skirt of soft material

Work boots

Nice flannel dressy shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows

A little black scarf if it’s cold

Formal Outfit: (because I decided that their formal outfit would be fun to do too!)

Underwear varying on whether Yútú is there (simple white panties and plain bra if she isn’t, sexy lingerie if she is)

A custom-made/tailored knee-length Chinese qipao dress, the same orange colour as her eyes, with swirling black detailing

Neat, loose black trousers underneath

Neat but simple dancing shoes

Rohan’s two favourite outfits are:

Outfit one:

Black boxer shorts, matching sports bra

Skinny jeans

Tough work boots

Loose white shirt

Outfit two:

Black boxer shorts, matching sports bra

Plain black trousers

Tough work boots

White work/suit shirt

Formal Outfit:

Black boxer shorts

Sleek dark trousers

Neat, slender black shoes (slightly raised heel)

A hidden leather holster around their right thigh, concealing a sidearm

A short, white robe-like shirt/coat that falls down to their knees on one side, and mid thigh on the other, forming an angled skirt over their legs, with loose sleeves and a cutoff back

A smooth satin sash embroidered with the designs of the consensus

Lo’s two favourite outfits are:

Outfit one:

Plain white panties and a supportive sports bra

Loose, tough work pants

Practical boots (not too tough and restricting though)

A junior warlock’s robe, with the sleeves cut off, so it is more of a sleeveless short-skirted dress than a robe (beige)

Belt for tools, with pouches for little bits and pieces (and maybe a piece of candy)

A simple warlock bond

Tough work gloves (tucked into the back of her belt when not in use)

Goggles

Outfit two:

White cotton boxer shorts, sports bra

Denim shorts (or a similar, durable material)

Practical boots

Plain white T-shirt or tank top with the Häkke logo across the chest

A red flannel shirt that’s one size too big for her, with the sleeves rolled up, left unbuttoned

Black fingerless gloves (if she’s driving)

Goggles

Formal Outfit:

The brightest hot pink pair of panties Lo owns, and a push-up bra

A far too-nice tailored dress commissioned by Selena. Form-fitting, with pleated skirts and a slit along her left leg, a low hem that brushes her ankles on the right side, and goes halfway down her calf on the left. The same metallic blue colour as her hair

Simple but nice blue shoes

A simple pendant with a little blue stone in it (it looks kind of like a sapphire but it’s just a blue stone)

Blue eyeshadow and subtle lipstick (with Selena’s help)

Clip-on earrings, partly hidden by her hair

Alli’s two favourite outfits are:

Outfit one:

Plain white women’s panties

Tight black pants or skinny jeans

Tough work boots

Plain crop top

Outfit two:

A pair of Kels’ panties

That’s it, just Kels’ panties

Maybe a shirt

Formal Outfit:

A pair of plain women’s panties (once they’re in a relationship, he will borrow Kels’)

Smooth, pressed black trousers

Neat black dress shoes

A neat, plain white dress shirt

Deep purple (looks black in dark lighting) suit jacket (also slightly too big for him so he usually takes it off and rolls up his shirt sleeves)

Vanir’s hands are smooth metal over tough synthetic muscle. Her hands are extremely responsive and quite sensitive. Along her knuckles, the back of her hand, and around her fingers, she has clean white metal casing, scarred grey by arc-use along the knuckles. The pads of her fingers and thumb, and her palm, are all sensitive synthetic muscle, which is black in colour.

Her hands are smooth and sensitive, always clean, and gentle. But her fists are deadly.

Rohan’s hands are small and almost delicate. Their skin is dark and weathered, but their palms are light, and very soft. They have clean-cut nails that they never grow out. There are not many callouses on Rohan’s hands, but the skin is tough and weathered.

Lo’s hands are rough and dirty. Her nails are slightly jagged from biting their tips – she is trying to stop doing that, but it’s a hard habit to break. Her hands have many small burns and scars across them, and her palms are calloused and tough. She is missing two-thirds of her pinky finger and the end segment of her ring finger on her right hand, both of which have been replaced by small Exo-like prosthetics.

Her hands are almost always covered in dirt, grease, or metal flakes from working with mechanics and welding.

Alli’s hands are smooth and made of dense metal. Like Vanir’s hands, Allis are made up of synthetic muscle and mettal carapacing, but his have more metal and segments. Even across his palms there it is divided into small sections of carapacing that is semi-soft, like the pads of many animals’ paws. His hands, like the rest of his body, are designed so that their casing can all slot together seamlessly to lock them down with armour and make them impervious to their environment.

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26.) Second day of favorites! Favorite comfort food, favorite vice, favorite outfit, favorite hot drink, favorite time of year, and favorite holiday.

Note: I’m changing this one a little bit because I want to do a day of outfits, so I’m taking that bit out and making it the Day 27 question instead.

I’m also changing “favourite vice” to just their most present vice, because favourite doesn’t make sense to me there.

Vanir:

Exo’s don’t really have comfort foods since they don’t eat… but Vanir finds the act of baking stuff pretty comforting, usually chocolate brownies or cookies, that kind of thing.

I don’t know about favourite vice, but Vanir’s wrath is something to be reckoned with. She is incredibly difficult to anger, but when she is in a fury she can be incredibly destructive. Just ask that one hunter who called Anya a bitch.

Again, Exo’s don’t really have favourite drinks since they… don’t have drinks.

Vanir’s favourite time of year is autumn. She absolutely adores the colours of the landscape in autumn, loves watching the leaves fall from the trees in the tower and watching the valey beyond the City turn red and orange. She just really really loves how the season affects the landscape.

Vanir’s favourite holiday is the Chinese Lantern Festival. It lights up the City and she loves seeing how happy everyone is for the festival and how vibrant and alive the City can be. Plus she loves it as a piece of her cultural heritage.

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Rohan:

Rohan’s favourite comfort foods are savoury pastries and muffins.

Distrust and a lack of faith is probably Rohan’s most prominent vice. They struggle to trust and have faith in others, and even in the Traveller, which is seen to many to be a bad thing. Rohan doesn’t think it’s a bad thing at all, though.

Rohan’s favourite hot drink is herbal tea. It helps soothe and calm them and keeps their mind fresh and focused, and they love both the taste and the sort of ritual of tea drinking.

Rohan’s favourite time of year is summer. The summer temperature and climte reminds them most of their first life in Hawaii, and it has a special nostalgia for them.

Rohan’s favourite holiday, now that they have a family they found in Jem and Willow, is Christmas. They always spend it together as a family, and Rohan cherishes that dearly.

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Lo:

Lo’s favourite comfort food is cookies! She’s always a slut for chocolate chip cookies.

Lo’s greatest vice is definitely sloth. She could absolutely just say in the sun all day every day and do nothing whatsoever. She often needs quite a bit of encouragement to do work (even though she enjoys it when she is doing it) rather than to just lay around in bed or in a beam of sunlight all day.

Lo’s favourite hot drink is a milky coffee like a latte or a flate white. They’re not fussed, so long as it’s not too watery and not too bitter.

Lo’s favourite time of year is summer. Lo loves warmth and sunlight like crazy, so summer is absolutely her favourite time of year and the time when she is most active and excited.

Lo’s favourite holiday is Christmas. Because presents.

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Alli:

Alli’s an exo so he doesn’t have a favourite comfort food.

Alli has a few vices; he’s lustful for Kels, and he has pretty hurtful envy for the love she felt for Thalor. They’re both born out perversions of his love for her, and over time he has worked very hard to fight both and become a better person.

But his greatest vice is wrath. He still bares a deep and furious hatred for the Cabal, and harbours resentment for the Tower for abandoning him long ago. While he’s improved his character in terms of the first two, he’s still not great with his anger about these things.

Alli is an exo, so he doesn’t have a favourite hot drink.

Alli’s favourite time of year is winter. He likes it because he knows he can endure it incredibly well. He likes the harshness of the cold and loves seeing the snow and the ice, and he likes that it never reminds him of Mars, even the tinest bit.