Destiny: Legend Untold, Chpt 14 Pt 3

[u]Chapter Fourteen: Bread Crumbs[/u] Part Three The trail led straight down the middle of the wide path through the rocky terrain, purposefully moving onward. Maybe that was what had carried Guardian this far. Purpose. He had taken the paths open to him, even if no other Guardian would dare walk down them. [i]Do I have purpose?[/i] I asked myself, [i]I must, otherwise I would not be here now. Otherwise the Traveler wouldn't have chosen me. Then why do I feel so lost? ... Because I'm still trying to find out what my purpose is.[/i] "William, there are ruins up ahead," my thoughts were once again interrupted by my Ghost. "What?" My eyes snapped up, finding a few large buildings almost immediately in front of me. "They came into sight after just a couple turns," Rush explained, "You were feeling too depressed to notice." "Some privacy would be nice," I told Rush sternly. "Too bad you won't get any," my Ghost responded. With a sigh, I concentrated back on the buildings, finding that they were several stories tall and not terribly damaged by the wear of time, although the road that had clearly been here once was gone aside from some small chunks of cement and only a few neglected cars. What caught my eye, however, were the spots of white and blue dotting the space between the cars. The dead Fallen lay amongst scraps of destroyed Shanks, most of them missing their heads due to the release of ether through skull punctures. Our Guardian had been through here not long ago. "Almost makes me feel sorry for the little buggers," Rush appeared at my shoulder, "Looks like they barely had time to react before the last of them fell." "They're warriors, just like us. No reason why you can't feel sorry for beings so alike to us," I thought aloud. With a seemingly exasperated sigh, Rush floated onward, his shell whirling around his central orb. "There's a Sparrow link up ahead," he told me after a moment. Leaving the corpses behind me, I followed Rush around the corner of one of the buildings, noticing that they were all built almost pressed together as they should be in a large, bustling city. Unfortunately, the city that awaited me around the corner wasn't nearly as glamorous as I had pictured in my mind. A few hundred meters out, the ground fell off into a cliff overlooking a lake, or maybe even a sea, and on the other side the vast expanse of a once grand city rested. They were all damaged, some even seeming to be missing at least several stories off of their tops, and riddled with holes. Despite this, most seemed to be standing just fine on what remained of their bases. It was like back in the European Dead Zone, only these buildings had been built more solidly. But, looking at the opposite edge of the sea between me and the city, I noticed it dropped off in a cliff just like on my end. Some of the skyscrapers on that side were missing entire halves or more that had clearly fallen into the sea as the ground gave way. "The sulphuric acid seas of Venus," Rush looked on with me, "I didn't think that they would've devoured more of the civilization over the years than the Darkness did in the Collapse." "You can't stop nature," I said in awe. "Do you think that's what's happening?" Rush questioned, "I mean, nature running its course? Is this war just the universe's way of getting rid of anything that doesn't die off on its own?" I pondered that for a moment, looking at the devastation before us. "No," I answered, "I think that the Light and Darkness are like us, competing to get their way with nature. If all of this was just to speed up our extinction, why would the Traveler have stayed and protected us?" "There's my William," Rush's eye conveyed happiness. "Oh," he blinked after a moment, looking back out towards the acid sea, "And there's our link." I followed his eye to a small structure that sat just meters away from the cliff edge. It had an open roof and sides, the few parts making them up looping around a central wall in a small circuit. Wordlessly, I walked towards it through the mess of old cars that littered the fissured and unlevel ground. The structure was coated in vines, but other than that it seemed almost untouched by the years. "Computer on the far end of the central column, side closest to the sea," Rush described. Passing between the two pillars marking the entrance, I found the lifeless bodies of a few Dregs and a couple Vandals on the ground, marked with bullet holes. Quickly moving past, I let Rush get to work on the Sparrow link while I looked out across the sea again. "His Ghost was in this system, that's why they came this way, too," Rush informed me, "For someone without any directions, he sure is good at finding the most effective things to do." Nodding in acknowledgment, I thought back on what this planet must have looked like in the Golden Age. Bustling with humans, scientists nurturing gardens and the new life as they studied it amongst other sciences. Not that I could complain about how nice the uncontrolled plants were currently. [i]This is why we were brought back. To protect life and its right to progress. To defend something bigger than any individual being or species.[/i] "Even when I can't figure out exactly what you're thinking you sound cheesy," Rush brought me back to the present once again. "Will you stop that," I gave him a stern glare. "Even if I could I wouldn't," Rush chuckled deviously, "But it's always been like this, I'm not just now choosing to listen in on your thoughts." "I think I liked it better when I didn't know you were psychic," I chuckled. "Ignorance is bliss," Rush bobbed in a nod. "To some," I responded. The near-silence was suddenly broken by a loud and familiar boom, and my eyes snapped to the sky, where a Skiff had just slowed down to cruising speed above the acid sea. I snatched Rush out of the air and fell flat to my stomach, rolling over to press myself against the low wall surrounding the central column. The Skiff passed us, and we remained hidden from sight. "I can hide on my own, thank you!" Rush snapped at me quietly, then disappeared from my grasp. Peeking out over the wall by propping myself up on my elbows, I saw the Skiff slow to a stop in front of a building further down the path to my right, dropping off a crew that landed outside of my field of view. Moving smoothly, the Skiff turned and glided back the way it had come, suddenly picking up speed once it was a good distance away and leaving the shock of a sonic boom in its wake just as when it entered. "They must be seeing what happened to the crews out here," I noted, standing up. "Won't take them long to figure out," Rush snickered. Bounding upwards into the air, propelled by my Light, I landed on the upper ring surrounding the central column and once again laid flat to stay inconspicuous. With a thought, my scout rifle vanished from my hands and was instantly replaced by a sniper rifle. Following my preferred color scheme, it was blue and had a simple scope with a circular crosshair. Now able to see the Fallen, I looked down my scope to see what they were up to. There was a Captain standing front and center before a row of shallow stairs leading up to the old building, its back turned to me to display the banner of House Winter that it bore on its back. Around the Captain prowled several Dregs and Vandals, some checking the bodies of dead comrades and others watching their surroundings for threats. It could've just been me imagining things, but these Fallen actually seemed like they might be...nervous, or dare I say scared. They were clearly tense and expecting a fight. "Captain first, it's the one that can send a distress call to other crews," Rush suggested. "My thoughts exactly," I mumbled as I lined up the crosshair with the Captain's head. After a moment, its head turned a bit towards me as it watched its charges moving around it, and I took my chance to pull the trigger. Before the ring of the first round had died down my sights were moving to the next target. Ignoring my thoughts of ether spewing out of where their heads used to be, I quickly dispatched three Dregs and began to exchange my now empty clip or a full one. Blue streaks from Wire Rifles began to stream by over my head, but the distance and my position made it hard for my opponents to get any clear shots. "Why would you leave the ones who can shoot back at this rang?" Rush hissed as one shot narrowly missed my left arm. "Because they're the ones who are stupid enough to expose themselves at this range," I answered as my next clip snapped into place. Within moments I had fired off four more rounds, eliminating the only three Vandals and wounding a Dreg that had been diving for cover. Now all that remained was the wounded Dreg laying behind a car and one other Dreg that had hidden behind some signs in the middle of the stairway. Pushing another fresh clip into my sniper rifle before I switched it out for my scout rifle, I hopped down from my perch and began running over to the building. _____________________________ Link to Ch14 Pt2: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/229276291/0/0 Link to Ch14 Pt4: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/229276676/0/0 Link to ToC: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/212710816/0/0