The Solar Terminus

1:4

The three of us had met up in my perch that overlooked the valley. Dyan had arrived just after our new titan friend, who I had come to find was named Hall. His ghost was a bright blue sphere with an uppity attitude named Mall. Apparently they enjoyed the name scheme. Spitter had a hard time not laughing whenever both of their names were said within the same sentence. Dyan introduced himself and his ghost named Lungs, Spitter promptly introduced us herself and called me Franky. I supposed there wasn't any harm in it. No one could really figure out that was my ACTUAL name, and not some made up name.

Dyan was surprised that Spitter had finally given me a legitimate name beyond 'Mr Grabby Hands', which had to be promptly explained to Hall and Mall, but after our introductions and a bit of laughter, I explained our situation to the two of them.

"Dyan here is the one that discovered this place, tipped it off to me to check out because he had other stuff to look at. Me and Spitter took a dive in there a couple days ago, found a pretty hefty collection of vex portals, likely used to access multiple simulations from the same location. Spitter scanned it, it's ancient. Pre-Golden Age. We believe it to be some kind of prototype to the infinite forest. Osiris has plenty of cover in that department, but this puppy is all ours. Shouldn't be too hard to infiltrate it, find the primary mind that controls it, and destroy it."

"Any knowledge of what the area of the network looks like on the inside?" Hall asked.

I shook my head. "No details on the inside, but Spitter can confirm the purpose from her scans."

"Yep, the architecture of the simulation is almost identical to the infinite forest. I have full confidence that it's a prototype... mostly full confidence."

"You can never know with the vex." I comment. The two other guardians nodded their heads in agreement. "Anyway, if there are no further questions, let's get this done."

We made our way down to the same hub of Vex gates that I had been to a few days before. The three of us had our weapons at the ready, me with my cannon, Hall with an automatic rifle, and Dyan with his marksman rifle. We each had something strapped to our back just in case. My Borealis rifle was slung gently over my back, while Hall wielded a shotgun. Dyan had a grenade rifle strapped to his back.

Spitter materialized over my shoulder and quickly hovered over to the hidden conflux in the center of the room, informing the group of the disguise it was hidden under. I tapped the false pillar, and watched as it materialized into small particles of pure white energy before disintegrating into the floor beneath us without a trace. What was left was the raw spike of the vex network known as a conflux. We'd seen it before. It was the same one that was here when Spitter and I first arrived, but this time Spitter began working on it immediately. "No time to waste!" she said. "Get ready, the vex are already on their way."

"Stay out of sight." I told her.

"Can't stay out of sight and scan at the same time, genius."

"Just don't get shot, smartass!" I screamed, eyeing a couple of vex gates towards the entrance. Hall watched a few more portals, as did Dyan. I readied a charge of solar light in my left hand, ready for the moment the vex materialized.

I threw it the instant I saw a goblin step through the portal. It bounced gently off the chassis of the goblin and made a gentle clink as it landed at the feet of the robotic creature. Three more goblins stepped through the portal before the solar energy erupted from it's solid state, shattering its casing and sending the energy and shrapnel into the vex surrounding it.

The gunfire from the rest of the fireteam sounded off as well and the fun officially began. I fired my hand cannon at the weakest point in the vex's milky core and watched as they exploded into pieces, leaving behind a splatter of that white radiolaria. Dyan and Hall held their own more than enough, and Spitter updated us periodically on her progress through the conflux.

"Almost there! Just a little longer!" she radioed in.

"They're getting more aggressive!" Dyan screamed. "They're sending out their Praetorians!"

"Noted!" Hall yelled, pulling his shotgun from his back and blowing the head off an oncoming minotaur. After firing, he balls up a charge of arc light in his fist, and slams it into an oncoming wave of vex, erasing them before they could even fire a shot at him. Hall proceeded to sprint around the terminus, slamming his charged body into just about everything he could find. I tried watching the portals I had designated to myself, but by the time another wave of goblins stepped through, Hall had already slammed into them.

"You're stealing my kills!" I joked.

"Be faster next time, hunter!" Hall screamed, his deep connection to the traveler finally ending as he ran back over to his side of the terminus to deal with another wave of vex.

"I think I can manage to cut off a few of these portals for you... let me just..." Spitter told us, rotating around the conflux and shutting off a few of the vex gates on the far side.

Dyan laughed from atop a perch he had found, jumping down and commenting on Spitter's work. "My portals are gone, looks like I'm floating."

"I could use some help with this minotaur over here." Hall called out, dodging a punch from the giant machine and countering it with a punch of his own.

Dyan leapt into action and assisted Hall, blowing the protective shield off the minotaur and plunging a throwing knife directly into its radiolarian core.

"Franky! Behind you!" Spitter screams, warning me of my own minotaur that had pushed up behind me.

I barely dodged out of the way, still feeling a decent amount of force from the torch hammer that it wielded as it charged. I adjusted my Borealis as I rolled, turning its hue a deep purple and firing a round into its fragile shield. The shield explodes and the minotaur reels from the impact. In its moment of weakness, I fired a few rounds from my hand cannon at it, and watched it shrug them off like they were nothing.

I cursed under my breath and prepared as it charged me again, firing the explosive weapon it held at its side. I didn't even have a chance to fire back since I was so focused on avoiding his shots.

"I've got you!" I hear Dyan scream, followed by the sound of his grenade rifle, and the explosion of the minotaur's shield. He quickly reloaded and fired again, landing the shot directly in its core and blowing the machine apart.

I spun on my heel and fired at a few goblins that had managed to get a bit too close to Spitter's conflux.

"Normal rounds are too small to damage those minotaurs, use your sniper!" Dyan tells me, helping me thin the herd that had managed to form on my side, before saluting me and running back to assist Hall.

"Just a little longer!" Spitter dictates. "Sorry this is taking so long. The vex are always so confusing. It's like they know I'm in the system. Let's see if I can at least shut down a few more gates..."

Just as she says this, all the gates except one over by Hall shut off. The three of us funneled over to the gate, ready for anything that makes its way through. I holstered my handcannon and double checked my Borealis to be aligned with the void and fully loaded. The three of us stepped back as a massive vex shape began emerging from the portal.

"Take your time. It looks like we've got company regardless."

A vex hydra forced its way through the portal firing wildly at us. Hall erected a barrier between us and the hydra, and Dyan and I fired at it, watching our shots bounce effortlessly off its holographic shield, not even my Borealis was piercing it.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Spitter cried. "This is just REALLY complicated. They are really not trying to let me in here!"

"Just keep going!" Dyan yelled, firing and wasting a shot from a flaming revolver. "Damn." Dyan watched in disgust as the shot was absorbed by the hydra's shield. "How the hell do we shoot this thing?!" He asked.

"I got it!" Spitter calls out. "I've aligned the portal! Get through before they recalibrate it!"

"Run!" I yelled, throwing a charge of void energy at our feet and coating us in shadow, making us vanish from sight. Spitter dematerialized from the conflux in the center of the room and the three of us made a mad dash for the single open portal.