originally posted in:The New Dojo
[b]Ko Rudo Mountains // Midnight // Meghan[/b]
Meghan’s car rolled along the long stretch of highway between Dojoville and a small village in the Ko-Rudo mountain range at midnight. Normally she didn’t like to drive anywhere at that time of the evening, although she was just getting back from a friend’s house outside the city and didn’t want to overstay her welcome too long. The road ahead was empty, so she trailed her bright orange eyes off of the road in front of her and started to look out the windows at the snowy countryside that surrounded her. Nothing back home was like it, with all of the slopes and hills that were covered with an elegant sheet of white that she could only dream of seeing when waking up every morning. She sighed with a want to just stare at it forever, to get lost in the mix of twinkling stars above and snow below, although she was quickly brought out of her wanting gaze when she heard a rather loud noise in front of her.
Several meters ahead of the woman was a roadblock. Six or seven cars were all lined up in two rows in front of her, with one blocking a small pathway offroad that had been cut out of the railing on the side of the road she had found herself on. Figures moved about in her headlights, each one dressed up in a bright blue jacket and with some form of rifle or pistol on their gloved hands and armour lining their forearms. One walked over to Meg’s car and scratched gently at the armoured ski mask on his face, staring her down with eyes hidden away behind a pair of orange ski goggles.
Meg wasn’t currently armed to the teeth - The blue-skinned woman was wearing a red dress that had ended just below her thigh, and the only form of weaponry that she kept in her car at the moment was her fists, which were already sparking with blue energy and her intention to fight her way out of this. The man approached and rapped on the window to her left lightly, which slid down as she dully looked out to him.
“What,” she asked him.
“Gotta pay a toll if you want to get past,” the man responded, his voice maintaining a tone of calmness, like this was routine for him.
“And if I don’t pay?” Meghan defiantly asked, although it was more of a statement than a question.
“Then my and my friends here will have to use the car as payment, while we pass you around,” the man aggressively responded. Meghan didn’t say anything to him though. She leaned forwards slightly and gave a quaint grin, then opened her door just enough for her to slip out. She had left her heels in the car and put her bare foot on the ground, which made her cringe slightly, though she kept the feeling suppressed. The man had lowered his gun and looked to her with a curious gaze.
Meghan moved beside him and whispered into his ear, though he would soon feel a cold barrel press against the back of his head. Meghan reached down into his sidearm holster and pulled out the pistol he held, although as his friends each raised their gun to her, Meg slid herself behind him. Now he was a bargaining chip, and Meg kept the gun extended, standing sideways for extra style points.
The soldiers looked confusedly to one another and asked each other what to do, though Meghan couldn’t quite hear them since she was fairly far off. Getting quite bored of the men, Meghan had slipped the rifle to the side of his head. She squeezed down on the trigger and a bullet zipped out of one end, flying through the cold air with a grace matched only by that of her form, which barely moved from recoil. The bullet found its mark in one of the cars used to block the road off, and it embedded itself into the gasoline tank, which started to spray liquids like a hose. Some of the others had been coated in it, and a second shot to the car would send a few sparks of hot metal into the gasoline. It, like three of the bandits, had been set alight before they could find a good spot to shoot without killing their friend.
Meg hit the back of the man’s head with her pistol and grabbed his gun as he collapsed, before she moved back to the spot behind her truck in all of the confusion and chaos. When the other five bullets of her pistol were expended taking on people that had tried to push up on her, she tossed it to the side and held the rifle in either hand. She checked the gun’s magazine - Fifteen rounds, it looked to be a marksman’s rifle from the make of it.
Someone rounded a corner to meet Meghan with a gun raised to her, although she kept herself low and shoved the stock of her gun into the bottom of his jaw and shot him in the shoulder twice. Someone came from behind her then, but she found herself putting a bullet into his lower chest. Three more came; Meg only aimed at one of them, but she was being stared down by all of the soldiers.
“You have three injured people, and about three people staring me down. Either you drop your guns and help your friends, or they get hypothermia and die,” Meghan stated, her confidence overwhelming. Truly she didn’t remember exactly how many people were there, but she had a guess and hoped she was right. The bandits looked to be mulling it over in their heads, but they soon found themselves looking to the guy in the middle.
“How do I know you won’t shoot me as soon as I lower my gun?” The bandit asked. He had the clear advantage and knew he could just shoot her now, but he knew that if he shot her, then Meg would clench her fist and both of them would go.
“I could ask the same thing. I’ll get in my truck, and one of your guys will move that car. Cross me, and I’ll run your friend over when I’m dead,” Meghan said with a grin as she looked to the man. Death wasn’t an important thing for her - She was a Guardian after all, and death was meaningless to her - but she wanted to get out of here without killing anyone. It took the bandits a moment of hesitation, but eventually they motioned to the car in the dirt road and had one of the three move it. Meg climbed into her car with a sly smirk and the rifle, which she put in the passenger seat next to a pistol from one of the men. When the car moved her muffler blew smoke onto the face of a soldier, and she was on her way out of the bandit roadblock.
((Open!))
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[i]"Ooh, I can't wait to see it then." [/i]
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"Don't worry," [i]Thebes would playfully kiss Meghan on the cheek then.[/i] "We should definitely find your friend, though, assuming that he hasn't moved out of this hole. Yet."
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[i]"Yeah, he's just outside the city." And so Meghan drove out of the city's perimeter, making her way down a series of hills and soon the two found themselves at a rather large cavern. The cave radiated darkness and energy; Hive, something that the two wouldn't expect from Tatakai of all places. [/i]
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"Hive shit.. seriously." [i]Thebes muttered, her fist tightening a little as she would step out of the car and stared at the cave in silence. It was as if she was reminiscing on something, from her years serving the Traveler. Now, she didn't know if she did or not.[/i]
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[i]"Yeah. Polaris has something of an obsession with them. He always said that when his service to the Traveler was done, he would truly find out what their connection to the Darkness was. And when Ghaul shitstomped him, he... Well, he'd probably tell you." Meghan took the first steps into the long dark of the caverns. The way down started off as if it was an expedition, with crates and lanterns lighting the way, but it digressed into just torches and scribbled papers tacked into the walls. They eventually made way to the campsite where Polaris rested his head, and it looked, surprisingly, quite human. Crates and tables littered the wide room, which appeared to have a few lights on each wall to illuminate it. A small orange tent was near the back of the room, situated beside a generator but not too close; There was a rustiling inside, and a small phrase coming from within. [b]"Damn you, Juju, where did I leave you...?" [/b][/i]
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"Obsession, huh.." [i]The Titan would murmur to herself, while her previously tensed form would resume a more relaxed shape, and even then it was hard to tell if she had calmed herself in the Hive-like tunnel. Though, the Warlock's encampment would settle her down, seeing that Polaris hadn't indulged into the Hive too far. For now, anyway. Thebes didn't necessarily find the thought of another Toland to be superb, even with his findings.[/i]
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[i][b]"Found you. Ghost, transmat the Bad Juju to the ship when we're outside." [/b] [u]"I will."[/u] The Warlock came out of the tent just then, as all the lights in the room seemed to shine on him. The blue-armoured Guardian looked to Meghan and Thebes with curiosity in his eyes, which flickered between colours, going from orange to blue and then to purple. His long, white hair flowed down to his shoulders, parted at the centre of his head to display his face for all. In his back were his main weapons, the Bad Juju and Khvostov, while his hip carried the revolver Hawkmoon. In his hands was a long blade, one of Hive make: It's power radiated from it, and all of the three in the room felt their Light dullen at the presence of it. [b]"Meghan,"[/b] Polaris said, greeting the Titans. "Polaris. I need your help." [b]"When don't you?"[/b] "Are you still pissed about that thing in the EDZ? Because if the Hunter could calm down, surely you could too." [b]"You asked him to provide overwatch on a sniper from a hill. I had to blow up a Cabal warship from within."[/b] "I was there!" [u]"Barely," [/u]Polaris' Ghost commented, sparking up beside him. [b]"You were outside taking on, like, six Cabal! You didn't even kill twenty before I took the thing down!"[/b] "And now you're a legend in the Cabal books. Anyways, just hear Thebes out on what she needs, okay?" [b]"Fine. Tell me, Thebes, what is you you want?"[/b][/i]
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"First off - morning, Polaris." [i]Thebes would take a wild guess at what the time was, seeing as it was roughly midnight when Meghan had encountered her fellow Awoken Titan out in the mountains. Thebes would allow a more relaxed posture to take control, seeing as she could get more out of Polaris that way. He was alright, to her: anyone that at least fought Cabal was.[/i] "Came out here to see if you could help with a few bodily enhancements, or point us in the right direction of a few. Augmentations to bolster my physical capacity."
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[i]"Why would you want augmentations? You have the Light, just make what you want and create a new type of it." [/i]
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"Yeah, and be rendered useless when another fuсkin' Ghaul comes along. I'm talking about packing a punch and mixing abilities with it. Punching through walls on a regular basis, and punching through Colossi whenever it comes to that. I want a new meaning behind Titans, Warlocks, and Hunters - not some damned space soldiers with magic powers: actual forces of nature, actual Guardians. You feel me?"
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[i]"You like power, don't you? I like you already," Polaris said. Each time he spoke it was with a certain aura about it. Not like how Meghan always spoke in a captivating manner, but it was more like he was making an announcement than a statement. "Well I can't get back to Asher Mir anytime soon, but perhaps you could seek out the roboticist in Dojoville. There's apparently a cowboy who can install augmentations, but I don't know how it will work with your Light and all - Maybe if you die, you won't revive with the new limbs." [/i]
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"The idea will be to not die, then. Though I could look into imbuing Light into a machine, as Exos seem to be infused with Light - quick note, I have no idea on how that works, nor how Exos work with the Light. Then it would just be a matter of dying - then seeing if I'm a fuсkin' war machine or a blue nugget." [i]Thebes had seemingly put some thought into it, going quiet before looking back at Polaris. [/i] "Thank you, though. And hey, you want a taste of power too.. come along for the ride. Let the rest of those asshole Guardians in Dojoville be powerless when the big floating orb blows up, though an army of amped-up Guardians.. would be nice."
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[spoiler]Meghan disapproves (-15)[/spoiler] [i]"Whoa whoa whoa, Polaris - You left for a reason. Do you think Davos would've wanted you to continue going with us?" Meghan interjected, giving Thebes a disapproving look. It wasn't her fault for not knowing of Meghan's distaste for Polaris, but she still didn't exactly love the idea of the Warlock coming with the two of them. [b]"Davos isn't around to argue, now is he? His stupidity and going alone was what put him in a coma. Besides, if there's a way for me to gain, I'll take it." [/b] Polaris grinned maliciously and glared at Meghan. There was something going through his head, he knew that this was a great opportunity to torture the Titan from his old Fireteam one last time. [b]"It's settled, I'll join you two." [/b][/i]
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"...You two must have a particularly interesting background. We'll.. talk about it, later, if y'all want." [i]Between Meghan's apparent disapproval and that scheming grin that had made way across Polaris' face, Thebes figured that the sooner that she had got moving, the better. She initially didn't approve of him. Hell, she disapproved of most Warlocks, but Polaris.. could be of use to her.[/i]
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[i][b]Polaris led the trio out of the cave, since he knew them the best undeniably. [/b][/i]
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"So.. how long have you two known each other?" [i]An awkward question, but Thebes needed to know these people.[/i]
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[i]"You remember the House of Wolves? We did a few jobs for them and I stuck to Polaris and our buddy, Davos." [/i]
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"Woah woah woah. The [i]actual[/i] House of Wolves? Or the Reef?"
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[i]"Both. The Wolves before they turned on the Reef and the Awoken - I knew them from a few things I did for Petra and the Queen before that whole thing." [/i]
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"Mm." [i]Thebes couldn't help herself but dwell on that fact for a bit. She only respected Petra in the Reef, but she hated the Wolves with a burning passion.[/i]
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[spoiler]End?[/spoiler]
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A Huntress would jump on the hood of the car. She wore her green cloak cloak, and her greyish white KD Bogatyr armor. The white stood out with in the dark. The Huntress would standing on the hood for a few seconds before falling off and getting run over. "F**K!" She yelled as she was being crushed by the car.
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[i]Meghan waited until the car had already ran her over before turning it around, drifting into a U maneuver as she got out. The Awoken woman sprinted over to the Hunter and crouched beside her, assessing the wounds. [/i]
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The armor was scratched up and bent. There was also blood dripping from a few spots, and her right leg was in a rather disturbing position.
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[i]Meg nearly vomited from the ostensibly horrific sight, but soldiered on and picked up the Hunter. She put her in the back of her truck and laid her out along the back seat, before getting in the front, where Meg started to drive to the nearest local hospital. [/i]