James got up fairly early the morning after Sidriks left. He glanced to his right to see that Cameron wasn't there, she told him that she would be waking up incredibly early for a mission that the Vanguard assigned her, so he wasn't too worried. James slowly climbed out of bed and looked towards his clock. It was a little past eight, he didn't have a regular sleep schedule, so it didn't matter. The day was relatively bright, not a cloud in the sky as he looked toward the Traveler, seeing the sun glisten off of its white surface.
He walked out of his room to see that Nova was there waiting for him. "Morning Dad."
"Hey, what are you doing up so early?" He asked rubbing his eyes.
"Did you forget? Today is when you start your big mission for the Queen remember?"
"Yeah, but why are you up?"
"Because, Dad, you told me that you'd take me along with you."
"Oh yeah, that's right!" He said to her. "Do you want me to make you some breakfast or something before we go?"
"No, I'm good, let's get going." She replied determinedly. The House of Wolves was the organization that was responsible for the death of her mother. Since then she yearned for nothing more than revenge against them. They were the ones who ruined her life, in turn, she would do the same.
"Alright, put on your gear, and remember what I taught you."
"Right, I'll remember." She replied heading to her room. Nova threw open her closet, and there was her armor. Charon's armor for the except his helmet and his weapons were sent to the Heroes Museum at the center of the city. The Heroes Museum was a new addition to the city, as well as the memorial. This was where the heroes of both the Golden Age, Pre-Golden Age, and City Age were honored and remembered. James began the project a few weeks after the Black Garden Crisis was resolved. He started by going into the old evacuation ships in the Reef, raiding them for artifacts from the MDU's best operatives. A few of their weapons belonged to him and his friends when they found them, but the rest were given to the museum and its curators.
James wanted to make sure that the people never forgot who these people were. The museum was one of the most popular spots in the entire city to see; it seemed as if every week there would be a new display, or exhibit, or something like that. The people had an interest for these people, and James was glad to bring them back into the public eye once again.
Nova grabbed the armor that James had given her when she first met him. To this day she couldn't forget. She was blind until she met him and taught her how to utilize her void light to see the world around her. It was a moment that was so beautiful it brought her to tears. Then, he gave her a ghost she named Gem. In just a few minutes James gave her the impossible, the ability to see, and making her a guardian.
She placed the garments on her body glove, clipped her pistol to her belt, and ran down the stairs. "Dad, I'm ready!" She exclaimed.
"Glad to hear it, so am I." He replied placing the Paragon Shift on his back. The Paragon was James's primary weapon; it was a golden age carbine rifle that was used in the military forces protecting the evacuation ships during the collapse. Officially called the Alumnus 12-51 Carbine, it decimated foes on the battlefield by using a prototype round codenamed Paragon. The bullet itself would search for enemy signatures around a target once it was hit with a headshot then split into projectiles based on how many enemies were around it. James found it a few days after he was resurrected and has kept it on him ever since. This rifle had seen every adventure he had, and it never let him down.
The pair of father and daughter left the apartment and headed out to the hangar bay. James was already receiving a comms signal from the Reef as he stepped inside of his ship Fury. "James, are you there?"
"Reading you loud and clear Petra,"
"Excellent, I've been looking forward to working with you, even if it's just on the comms."
"Okay. So what's going on?"
"As you both know already, the House of Wolves made an attempt on the life of Queen Mara Sov. In doing so, they escaped the Reef, causing heavy casualties among both military and civilian populations. We've tracked Skolas, the mastermind behind the attack, for as long as we could, but they started jamming our signals. The last known location was the Ishtar Sink on Venus, considering that he calls himself the Kell of Kells, we deduced that he's going to attack the Kell of the House of Winter. Assuming that he can find him in the first place."
"Wait, find him in the first place, what makes you say that?" Nova asked stepping into the co-pilots chair of James's ship.
"Well, wait, who's this?" Petra asked James.
"This is my stepdaughter, Nova."
"Well, pleasure to meet you, Nova. Now, to answer your question, the reason we say that is because we can't find him. Ever since the last Kell was assassinated by one of the other guardians, the one who took his place has dropped off the map entirely. We think that rather than communicate by radio to their Kell's location they use messenger."
"So that the wolves can't track them using the radio. Okay, got it. So we head to the Ishtar Sink, locate Skolas, and bring him in right?" James asked.
"That's the ideal outcome."
"Ideal outcome?"
"Well, Skolas escaped the Prison of Elders once before. Queen Mara is debating as to whether or not we should authorize lethal force."
"You should start considering it a bit harder," Nova interjected.
"Nova," James stated to her. "My apologies Petra, she doesn't exactly have the best history with the House of Wolves."
"That's alright, I don't either," Petra remarked.
"What happened?" Nova asked her.
"The Wolves stabbed me in the abdomen recently. Second, they stabbed me in the eye before. What happened to you?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Nova said coldly.
"Understood, go kick some ass for me you two. I'll keep this channel monitored, keep me posted."
"Got it, talk to you in a few," James replied. James looked over to Nova with a disapproving look.
"I'm sorry about that Dad; you know how I get when Skolas is concerned."
"I know, I want you to keep your emotions in check if you can alright?"
"Why's that?"
"Because your emotions, if used incorrectly, will turn into motions. Swings that are too easy to predict, movements that are too sloppy. Your enemy will use your emotions to their advantage."
"Okay Dad, I'll keep that in mind," Nova replied glancing down at the handcannon on her hip.
"Your Dad would be proud of you, you know," James said to her as he took the ship into orbit.
"You think so?"
"No, I know so. You've made massive strides as both a guardian and as a human being. You still have a lot to learn, but that doesn't mean you aren't incredible." James replied with a smile.
"Wow, that was very kind of you to say, Dad."
"It's what I'm here for Nova," James said looking ahead. "Okay Captain," he stated to his ships on board AI. Then an orange figure clad in the garbs of a Naval Admiral appeared on the dashboard. "Yes, sir?" He asked politely.
"Set course for Ishtar Sink on Venus please."
"Yes, sir! I'll have the Fury's song on stand by."
"Dad, what's that?"
"That's just Captains nickname for the weapon systems. And Captain, patch me through to Cameron will you?"
"You got it, boss." He replied sending out a comms signal to Cameron.
"Hey James, how's it going?" She asked him from the other end of the comm link.
"I'm doing fine beautiful."
"Anyway, where are you going?" She asked him.
"I'm inbound to Venus; I'm taking Nova to nab Skolas hopefully."
"Sounds like fun, I'll hook up with you two when I'm done with this."
"By the way where are you right now?"
"Well, I'm just finishing up another mission for the Vanguard. They wanted me to check out a couple of resource caches in the reef for some kind of weapon blueprint."
"Any real description as to what it is?" James asked her.
"Well, it's kind of hard to describe, but, I've got it. It's a rocket launcher of some sort, but the thing is it's not like one I've ever seen."
"Well, I guess I'd have to take a look at it when I get the chance."
"We could both take a look at it together, say over dinner?"
"I'd like that, I'll see you in a bit."
"Okay, I love you."
"Love you too," James replied hanging up the comm. Nova then looked at him with a sort of dazed look, like she knew something he didn't want her to know. "What?" James asked with a slight laugh in his voice.
"Soooo, when are you gonna do it?"
"Do what?"
"Propose to her Dad, when are you gonna do that?"
"When the time's right, I will."
"Well, you've known each other for what, almost two hundred years?"
"Well, I knew her for one hundred and eighty-nine. But I've only known this version of her for six months."
"Well, this "version of her" loves you just as much as the previous. Not to mention they're the same person. Why are you waiting so long?"
"I, I just," James sighed. "I'm scared Nova,"
"What on Earth could you, the strongest, kindest, humblest, most respectful guardian in all of existence, possibly be afraid of?"
"I'm just worried I'm taking this too fast."
"Dad, how are you taking this too fast? You've taken it slowly for the entire time. You didn't ask her to marry you after you first got your memory back. You haven't even asked her to have sex with you since you first met six months ago. Usually, couples are all over that. But you, have a reluctance to do either of those two things. You haven't taken it slowly so far; you're moving at an appropriate pace."
"You say that like you speak from experience. Do you have anybody yet?" James asked her.
Nova swallowed heavily. "If I answer honestly, will your opinion of me change?" She murmured, she could feel a beat of sweat go down her face as he asked her this question. Fully knowing that there was no way that she could turn back now.
"Absolutely not, you're my daughter Nova, why would it?"
"Well, it's because, I, I have a girlfriend." She stuttered closing her eyes when she finished.
"Wait, you're gay?!" James exclaimed surprised.
"Yes, I am," Nova said to him softly. She began to feel incredibly nervous as to what his reaction would be. She could practically feel the tears and sweat pouring down her face.
"Why didn't you say anything before?" James asked her calmly.
"I thought you might be homophobic. I'm sorry, it's not exactly something that I talk about openly with people." Nova said still slightly trembling in her seat.
"Well, I'm glad to say that both Cameron and I aren't."
"Oh, thank God!" Nova exclaimed. "I kept that a secret for so long, I was so worried that you wouldn't accept me for who I really was." She said practically crying.
"Nova, I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could be more open with us."
"It took me forever to come out with my parents Dad; I'm the one who should be sorry."
"Nova, It's okay, I understand."
"You're way too nice to me you know that?"
"Why shouldn't I be? You're my daughter; I should care about you like a father should."
"Which is exactly why you should try to have a kid of your own Dad, you'd love them more than anything."
James let out a sigh. "I don't know if Cameron would want a kid."
"Dad, I'm sure if she were to have a kid she wouldn't want anybody to be the father other than you."
"You really think so?"
"Think? Dad, I know so."
"Alright, let's get moving," James remarked as the ship exited the jump tunnel. The ship emerged from the other side to the space around Venus. James remembered this planet for a lot of reasons, all of them either incredible or bad. This was where he learned how to create beams of void light that he could fire from his hands and where he could use different void and solar based light techniques. In doing so, he opened a gateway to infinite possibilities. His evolution as a guardian had taken many turns.
Six months ago he was just a stranger in a strange land, who didn't even know his own name. Now, it seemed as if the entire city knew who he was. The sad thing was that he didn't know the other half of himself. He only knew the half from his time with the MDU onward, even until the point of his death. But there was another half of his memories that he didn't have, from his conception until his time in the MDU. He knew that there was another half, because of a fragment of his memory that he had seen from when he had first awoken in the plains of Old Russia. That memory didn't fit into the timeline of events that he had in his head.
"Alright Petra, Venus is in view now. Anything of note that you want to address to us before we touch down?"
"Yes, the wolves have some artillery in the area, be careful where you fly."
"I'm usually careful where I fly after what happened when I first got here."
"Right, manticores," Petra replied.
"Dad, you've mentioned those things a couple of times to me, but you've never really explained what they are," Nova told him as the ship descended.
"Okay, have you read War of the Worlds Nova?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Think the tripod walker, but without it being weak to the planet."
"That sounds scary, have you fought them before?"
"Fought one? No. Seen one? Yes."
"Yeah, you've told me about that little incident more than once," Nova replied as they stepped out of the ship onto the Venusian surface.
"Yep, I still kinda liked that ship," James replied. "Okay Petra, we're on the surface now, where do we go from here?"
"Directly ahead of you is some of the walkers I was talking about earlier, take those out before they become a problem."
"Rodger that, we'll keep you updated," James replied pulling his rifle off of his back.
"Dad, why are you using your gun? You could just go Invictus and destroy everything in sight, so why don't you?" Nova asked pulling her hand cannon out of its clip on her belt.
"Nova, sometimes the strongest thing you can do with great power is not use it. Also, you don't want to take all the fun from you do yo?"
"Not really." She replied smiling under her helmet visor.
"Exactly, let's get moving now. The walkers should be just up ahead." James replied hopping on his sparrow. Nova followed suit and hopped on the back of his sparrow since she had yet to get one of her own. Nova wrapped one arm around her stepdad's torso as the two sped off towards the new battlefield. Excitement began to engulf her as they sped forward through the arid desert of Venus, this was the first time she had been on this planet, so everything was fresh and new.
"I feel so, overwhelmed Dad." She said looking all over the place.
"I'm sure you are. This your first time on Venus?"
"Yes. It's kind of pretty here."
"Funny, I thought so too when I first got here," James replied to her. It was true; he saw Venus as a naturally beautiful world. In spite of half of it being an arid desert and the other being a dense rain forest, there was a beauty to be found in all of it. He made regular trips all over the Sol System with Cameron; they would walk around the jungles of Venus for hours before deciding to go home. The temple that he found six months ago was a point of focus for the warlock orders and cryptarchs. The same temple where he met Cassandra-09, known by many as the Exo Stranger.
Since that time, James had tried to reach out to Cassandra, but he'd not heard from her since. He was the person who gave Cassandra her name. The Exo naming conventions were relatively odd by comparison to humans, while human children received their names from their parents, Exos were made in factories and given serial numbers on their forearms. Often when activated the scientists who constructed them they would give them their names based on the letter on their forearms. Exo serial numbers are a single letter followed by two four digit numbers.
"Alright Nova, get ready!" James exclaimed as the pair approached the grouping of fallen walkers. James leaped from the bike and Nova soon followed. The fallen walker took notice of them, and the guidance laser from the tank focused on the pair.
"Okay Nova, show me what you've learned!" James shouted over the gunfire. Nova quickly nodded and held her hands forward projecting a shield in front of both her and her stepfather. The tank fired a shell towards them with the round impacting the shield. Nova got pushed back a bit. "Did I do good?" She asked.
"Fantastic, now let's try something a little different. Use the Blitz Wave!" James shouted over his rifle fire. Nova placed a hand to her side, and an orb of light appeared in her palm. "Remember, keep your focus." Nova thought to herself charging the beam in her hand. The large purple blast shot out of her palm and towards the walker ahead of them. The wolves were noticing that their walkers were in trouble sent in several skiffs to stop the two guardians.
"Keep laying into that walker Nov!" James shouted to his stepdaughter. James put up a force field around her as she continued to fire at the walker.
"So, why don't we see what this new form can do?" Ghost asked him.
"Way ahead of you," James replied powering up. The purple aura and armor returned in a less violent way this time and practically instantaneously. "Okay, what should we try first?" James asked his robotic companion.
"Let's see how many nova shadows we can make." Ghost replied.
"Okay, let's try it!" James shouted. He threw one fist into his palm, and two copies of himself phased out of him to his left and his right. Then those clones duplicated into three, then those. The walker then combusted from Nova's focus on the vehicle. She glanced to the left and her mouth dropped inside of her helmet. Her stepfather cloned himself from one warlock to twenty-one.
"So, that's twenty-one, about seven more than you at base. Now, let's see what all of us can do." Ghost noted to James. James pulled his hands back and charged up a Blitz Wave of his own, and the clones followed suit. The fallen soldiers looked on in absolute awe at the twenty-one warlocks who stood before them. James then pushed his hand forward and decimated the fallen who stood in front of him and some of the rocks that they were hiding behind.
"Wow, that's destructive," James remarked lowering his hands. "Right Nova?" He asked glancing over to where his stepdaughter was before. "Nova?" He asked again. She wasn't there.
"Nova?!" He called again getting more panicked. Again his cries were met with the dead silence of the wilderness. James then saw a small blast of void energy coming from the inside of one of the caves. Without any hesitation, he took off for the caves sprinting as fast as his Exo legs could carry him. He knew what fallen did to women when they were captured, that would not happen to Nova, he would not allow it.
"James, what's wrong?! What are you thinking?!" Ghost exclaimed as they approached the large steel door to the caves.
"IF YOU EVEN LAY ONE HAND ON MY DAUGHTER I WILL TEAR YOUR LIMBS OFF AND FORCE FEED THEM TO YOU!" He exclaimed. Ghost then started to take notice of a change that was happening to his guardian. James's metal plating skin began to change from a white to a black, his fingertips began to sharpen and his eyes turning red. Ghost then went to see through his eyes, his entire operating system changed, from a typical blue hud that surrounded his eyes, it was red, and an odd image appeared on the right. It was a sort of matrix. A murder matrix. A list of criteria of targets inscribed to him.
"DO YOU HEAR ME! AND IF I FIND HER IN ANY WAY HURT I WILL HANG YOU ALL BY YOUR INTESTINES THAT I PULLED THROUGH YOUR ESOPHAGUS!" James shouted again.
"What on Earth is going on in here?" Ghost thought to himself examining James' internals. He noticed several things that he hadn't previously seen. Firstly, his sensory inputs were cranked up to levels that he previously thought were impossible; he could hear a pin drop in an entirely different hemisphere. His eyes could see through walls now, perceive heat signatures, detect heart beats. His durability, by comparison, went through the roof. He could survive anything that an enemy could throw at him.
"Who installed this program?" Ghost wondered. James sunk his sharpened fingers into the steel door and began tearing through it. The fallen on the other side began to grow nervous; a captain started to feel a bead of sweat go down his face underneath his helmet.
"S-Sir, w-what is that?" A dreg stuttered pointing his shock rifle at the door.
"What's that you ask?" The captain replied calmly. "The spirit of death, that's what it is." He replied aiming a heavy over the shoulder weapon at the door.
"T-the spirit of death?"
"Yes. It's an old legend; it comes to take the souls of the sinners to the Underworld." He said as James tore through the steel door.
"Now, one of two things are going to happen. One, my daughter is returned to me unharmed, and I will give you all a quick death. Or two, if she is at all injured, I will fulfill my promises that I made to you on the other side of the door. Both of them." He stated to them coldly. A dreg then fired his rifle at James with the bullet impacting his jaw, turning his head to the left. "Okay, who did that?" He asked the entire group of fallen who looked at him. The entire cavern was coated in fallen warriors all of them nervously looking at each other. "Come on, don't be shy, I just want to talk to you for a second." He said to them. James then noticed the heart rate of one dreg accelerate. "Oh, there you are!" He exclaimed.
James leaped into the air and landed in front of the dreg. The distinct look of fear on his face gave James all the clues he needed. "Now, what should I do to you?" James asked himself. "Oh, I know!" He exclaimed then cleaving into the dreg's left arm causing it to fall to the ground. "So, now that I've given all of you an idea as to what lays ahead for all of you. Where. Is. My. Daughter?"
A dreg with his arm shaking pointed to a lower entrance to the cave systems beneath. James bolted toward the entrance hoping to whatever deity lay above that he wasn't too late. His heart raced, and his mind played the false memory that Upgrade gave him only a few hours ago. He ran as fast as he possibly could reaching a chamber.
"D-dad?" She cooed.
"NOVA!" He cried running over to her. He turned her over; it was just as he feared. Her armor was torn, broken, and he pulled her close to him. "Nononononononono!" He yelled.
"D-dad, y-you came," She whispered hugging him.
"I failed you, I failed your dad, I failed your mom, I-I-I. Upgrade was right; I'm a failure of a father!"
"D-dad, you haven't failed me, y-you rescued me. I-it could have been worse." She whispered.
"You were mutilated by a bunch of pirates and thieves! How could it possibly be any worse?!" He cried. Tears poured down his face as he held her tightly.
"I-I could have died, that's how i-it could have been worse." She replied. Her voice was weak her consciousness began to fade, "Nonononononono!" He called. Her pulse was still active, but she was unconscious. He could feel a greater hatred for the fallen than he had ever felt in his entire life.
"Captain, take her home," James said gritting his teeth,
"Yes sir, make 'em hurt," Captain replied grimly.
"Gladly," He replied as Nova faded up to his ship. James slowly rose up from the ground as a group of fallen soldiers arrived and trained their guns on him. "Tell me, have you in your thousand year lives ever expected to meet one of the four horsemen?" He asked them coldly turning around. He then reverted back to his old state. "Well, how about I introduce you to mistress death?" He asked with his sharpened claws gripping the neck of one of the captains.