Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You know what’s more pathetic than a cult of personality?” Skaia asked kicking a pebble down a sand dune irritably.

Prospit sighed, "No, but I'm sure you'll tell me."

"A cult of personality whose personality doesn't even want it. Like say what you want, at least the cult that formed around, I don't know, for example the Speaker was, if not encouraged then at least tolerated by its focus."

"You sure got the 'don't speak ill of the dead' thing down pat." Prospit commented dryly.

Skaia rolled her eyes. "That's more of an ethics thing not a moral thing, therefore unnecessary between the two of us. But anyway!"

She jumped up onto a stone obelisk and looked around before floating down and continuing her meandering circuit of Mercury patrol zone. "As I was saying: At least the likes of Speaker, Hideo, and Lakshmi encourage their followers. The people who follow Osiris? They chase the guy down across the Solar system, and then whey they find him, he tells them: 'go back to the City for fucks sake.'"

"I seriously doubt he swears at them."

"Twenty glimmer he swore at them at least once."

"One: that's a sucker's bet, second: we share glimmer account."

"Either way!" Skaia waved the tangent aside, "He tells them to go back to the city and what do they do? Do they listen to the guy they worship, common sense, and literally 90% of human population and go back to the one place in the entire Solar system where their chances of survival are higher than Kinderguardian in Trials? No!" Skaia snapped her pulse rifle up and and fired off a burst into a Cabal legionary's head.

"They decide to camp on out here, in the most Vex infested planet of the system and then we have to go around cleaning their porch of Vex and these fucking guys." She fired off another two bursts both striking their targets and then threw a grenade at a colossus while pulling out her shotgun before deciding, fuck it, and just trowing nova bomb at the guy.

If you couldn't go with overkill on patrols when could you?

"Man you'd think the Red Legion would be able to read the writing on the wall," she complained dusting off her hands. " I mean its been how long since Ghaul got his ass kicked?”

"Like two months," Prospit deadpanned.

"Yeah! You'd think they be working on you know, 'tactically retreating' not bleeding their reserves dry on a piece of rock with nothing on it, but some Vex and a group of crazy cultists with no strategic value," Skaia said. “Didn’t they see how the traveler evaporated Ghaul?”

“The loss of one commander will hardly make the whole Red Legion turn tail and run.” Skaia could feel Prospit’s eye-roll. “I’m sure there are dozens of commanders vying for the position Ghaul left behind. Which you would know if you knew anything at all about Cabal,” he said peevishly.

“Listen-” Skaia threw her arms to the sides lobbing a grenade into a Vex goblin cresting a sand dune in front of her in the same motion, “I am an expert on lore of literally every other race in this system, I can afford to have one race I just don’t give a shit about. And that race-”

She froze in her tracks as more Vex followed the one disintegrated by her grenade. And then more Vex followed those. “...are Cabal. Shit!”

The Vex opened fire as Skaia threw herself behind cover.

Minute later she was standing over the corpse of a Hydra that was accompanying the Vex squadron that foolishly decided to pick a fight with her.

“What the fuck?” she asked to no-one in particular, “Why the fuck are there suddenly so many Vex here?”

“Good question,” Prospit said materializing next to his Guardian and floating down to run scanner beam over the Vex remains.

Skaia panned sights of her rifle over the horizons, watchful of any further threats. No more enemies showed up and eventually Prospit finished his investigations.

“Nothing weird about these Vex in particular, but I queried Ghostnet in the meantime and there definitely seems to be an upward trend in Vex activity in the area.

Skaia frowned. “Why haven’t we heard about this?”

“It wasn’t pronounced enough to make it into official record,” Prospit explained, looking around and flitting over to flat stone nearby. "But patrol of this size definitely is." He aimed a laser at the stone and carved a sigil into it. "Give me a boost will you?"

Skaia sighed and walked over to him. She pulled out a knife from her boot and extended her hand towards Prospit, letting him dematerialize her glove, before slashing her palm open and slapping her hand down onto the sigil.

The sigil absorbed the blood like a sponge and a wisps of energy rose up from it curling around Prospit who relaxed his shell letting his core absorb them before releasing a pulse of Light.

The pulse faded out and Prospit hung in the air processing the information he was receiving before perking up.

"I have some weird energy signature to the north. Let's go," he said sweeping more lasers over the sigil quickly making it unrecognizable as anything else as random damage to the stone before materializing back into his Guardian's armor.

Skaia frowned. "Weird how?"

"Vex teleportation signature, but mixed with Light, of all things."

Skaia grimaced. "Please don't tell me Vex are gonna get into ‘trying to use the Light’ business as well."

"Well we'll just have to go over there and see, won't we?" Prospit said placing a marker on Skaia's HUD.

Skaia sighed and hopped onto her sparrow.

The marker brought them near one of the gateways into the Infinite forest, Skaia glancing suspiciously at the shifting patterns of the triangular entry portal before focusing once more on her Ghost.

"Yeah there's definitely something here." Prospit said materializing once again and flying forward, Skaia following, scanning for any threats around.

None materialized, and she put her gun down and came closer to see what her Ghost pulled out of ever-shifting sands of mercury. 

"A dead Ghost?"

"Not dead." Prospit corrected depositing the Ghost into Skaia's hands and sweeping his scanner beam over its shell. "Although heavily damaged. By Vex rifles no less. It's the source of the weird readings, but- hmmm." He frowned down onto the Ghost. "This light signature seems familiar... Sagira?!"

Skaia blinked down at the ghost for a couple seconds before the name clicked within her mind, and then her eyebrows shot up to her hair line. "You mean Osiris's Sagira? No way!"

"Yes way. What is she doing here?"

"And where is Osiris?" Skaia looked around, half to reaffirm that there were no threats sneaking up on them and half to scan the scenery around for any traces of the legendary Warlock. 

Neither enemies nor Osiris materialized and she frowned down onto the Ghost in her arms. "Do you... do you think he's dead?" she asked Prospit.

Prospit spun his shell around nervously. "I don't... you'd think the death of someone like Osiris would be pretty noticeable you y’know? Like 'fight with his final opponent shaking the skies and the earth' type of deal."

"Yeah but..." Skaia bit her lip. "Plenty of legendary guardians died unremarkably... Saint 14 for example."

"He might still be alive." Prospit said half jokingly.

Skaia gave a half-hearted laugh but her attention was still focused on the still body of Ghost in her hands. "Without a Ghost all it takes is one misstep," she murmured.

"Yeah but why would they split in the first place?" Prospit ran another scan over Sagira as if enough scans might yield the secrets of the situation to him.

Skaia gazed at Sagira for another moment before shaking her head and extending her arms for Prospit to engram her. "Whatever the reason it cannot spell anything good for us. We need to tell Ikora."

"Skaia," Ikora greeted warmly as she approached her. "What news do you bring?"

"Bad ones I'm afraid," Skaia answered and motioned for Prospit who materialized Sagira on a stack of Ikora's books.

"This is... Sagira?" Ikora's eyes widened slightly as she took in the motionless Ghost.

"Yes." Prospit confirmed. "She's not dead yet, but she's heavily damaged to the point where it might not matter much. We have found her on Mercury along with significantly higher Vex activity in the area."

"Hm." Ikora tapped her fingers on the table as she thought," This is troubling..." she looked back towards Skaia, "Thank you for bringing this to my attention Guardian. You may go now, I will address this situation."

Skaia crossed her arms cocking her head to the side. "You mean you'll get Dos involved.”

Ikora raised an eyebrow at Skaia’s proclamation "And what brings you to that conclusion?"

Skaia shrugged. "Its not a big leap to make. Something that can separate Osiris of all people from his Ghost could very well end up being an extinction level threat, and in the past couple years there is only one Guardian you send to deal with that type of thing."

Ikora inclined her head in acknowledgment smiling slightly. "Any particular reason you would bring this up?" she asked.

Skaia exchanged a look with her Ghost who nodded determinedly before she faced Ikora once more. "You don't need to concern Dos with this. I can investigate further myself."

Ikora frowned slightly. "Are you certain?"

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm a certified bad-ass too!" Skaia exclaimed in mock outrage before she turned to look out towards the city, expression turning serious again.

"I think it would be best if we gave her some time. The Red War..." she looked up at where the half shattered Traveler hung in the sky. "It took a lot out of all us, but her especially. We should give her a break as much as we can. Well," she gave a wry smile, "as much of a break as you can give to a workaholic like Dos."

"Perhaps you're right..." Ikora turned and ran her finger across Sagira's shell thoughtfully before nodding, "Very well. But Skaia-" she gave Skaia an intense look which would probably be more effective if Skaia would meet her eyes. "I expect you to call for help if this matter proves beyond your capabilities."

Skaia bristled wondering if it was worth pointing out that Ikora would never tell such thing to Dos, but in the end dismissed the impulse.

"I have not gotten this far by being foolish," she said instead letting her annoyance color her tone.

Ikora gave an acknowledging nod, accepting the implicit rebuke.

"As Osiris is exiled technically it is forbidden for him to receive assistance from the City." she explained switching to a business-like tone. "However we cannot let a possible threat of this scale uninvestigated."

"So we're keeping this on the down low I gotcha." Skaia leaned against Ikora's table smirking. "You'd think that with recent happenings the Consensus would start to rethink their decision to exile our brightest from the City."

Ikora gave Skaia a warning look. "There are a lot of changes happening in the Consensus currently, but things like these take time, and the decision to exile Osiris was not made lightly."

"Doesn't mean it was correct," Skaia muttered under her breath, but waved the tangent aside before Ikora could respond. "Either way, keeping this on the down low, got it. Any leads you might have?"

Ikora shook her head. "I have not been in contact with Osiris since his exile. But there are those that were."

Skaia grimaced, "The Followers."

Ikora nodded, "For all their fanaticism they are our best lead to know what Osiris has been doing lately, and that might provide a clue to the nature of the threat we are facing.”

Skaia gave a heavy sigh and headed into the hangar, Prospit snatching up Sagira’s body and following behind.

"I didn't throw it." Skaia murmured, and quickly weighted pros and cons of presenting grumpy facade to sell her "antisocial weirdo" before deciding it would not hold up to scrutiny and letting herself huff out a laugh before throwing a grin at Sagira and saying, "It's Skaia."

"Skaia..." Sagira echoed. "Hmm that sounds familiar. Have we met before?"

Skaia merely gave her a slow blink, well aware that Ghosts memory was much better than humans and questions like those were a simple stalling tactics as they consulted their deeper memory banks.

True to form a couple seconds later Sagira perked up. "Right! Io! That was you wasn't it?"

Skaia nodded.

"Man you're pretty old."

"You didn't think they would give this kind of mission to a three year old, right?" Skaia asked her grinning to herself.

"Of course not!" Sagira scoffed, not getting Skaia's joke. "Still its nice to know that there are others who managed to survive this long besides Osiris. You know most of people who live this long manage to make a name for themselves at some point."

"Keeping low is how I was able to survive for this long." Skaia shot back.

"Fair enough," Sagira acquiesced. "Sorry about Osiris being kind of a jerk to you back then, by the way," she added.

It's fine." Skaia leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes forestalling any further conversation.

Being in a foreign shell was weird. Firstly it was too quiet, her neural symbiosis with Osiris mute either with distance or with her being in someone else's shell, it didn't matter. For the first time in a very long time she was alone in her head. There was the connection towards Skaia buried somewhere in this shell, but she would have to tread beyond the space the Vex machine made of her in the other Ghost’s head and onto his consciousness, and Sagira wasn't rude enough to root through someone's brain without their permission.

Not to mention based on how Skaia reacted to having Sagira in her ship she would probably shoot her if she tried to establish a link with her mind.

There were of course all the petty niggles that came with being in a new shell that Sagira didn't have to deal with since she and Osiris forged her old one. Different size, aerodynamics all the fun stuff.

This one also itched. Sagira didn't know shells could do that.

All in all when they finally emerged from FTL in Mercury's orbit it was a welcome distraction.

Skaia looked out at the golden fields of Mercury's past spotted with patches of pink flowers against the backdrop of gentle purple-white sky. She has seen this place before. Not with her own eyes, but close enough. She had seen how this place came about, from hostile desert to the beauty that now stretched before her. And then the Vex...

Skaia’s hands tightened on her gun as she watched the first Vex structures descend onto Mercury. She has never spared much hate towards the Vex before. It seemed unproductive, like hating a hurricane or the tides. The Vex were simply too indifferent towards the suffering they caused for her to work up any real emotion towards them.

But now as Skaia watched dragonflies fluttering in the air around her, unaware of the calamity that will, that has already descended upon them, she felt something in her chest go cold.

"They took so much from us," she said.

"There is no time to lose guardian. There is still more to see." The reflection of Osiris that has brought her here urged her.

Skaia gave him a nod and looked over the Mercury's past one last time, sparing a brief moment to wish she had time to see if the air here was as sweet as it was in full immersion recordings.... before she stepped through the portal.

"Did you spend a lot of time of Mercury? You know, before Vex turned it into a desert?" Sagira asked.

Skaia has been acting weird since the reflection showed them Mercury's past. Frankly she had been acting weird from the start, but hey, Sagira was wearing a shell of her Ghost, and Risen were quirky at the best of times, so Sagira was willing to overlook it.

But then the vision of Mercury's past...

Sagira could not begin to guess what ran thought Skaia's head at that moment, but she would have to be blind not to notice the increased fervor with which Skaia tore into three enemies afterwards. A fervor that spoke of precisely controlled rage.

"You know Saint-14 has tried to establish a colony here. Were you helping with that?" she prodded further as Skaia didn't answer her first question.

Skaia remained silent.

Sagira huffed out a frustrated sigh. She had to admit at least to herself that Skaia was starting to rub her the wrong way. Why couldn't she answer some simple questions?

As the Reflection showed them the future they were trying to prevent and then sacrificed itself to let them escape Panoptes she had to give Skaia one thing. Anybody who's first response to giant vex mind showing up was to throw a Nova bomb in its face, had to have some serious balls.

"This is bad. Really really bad," she said as Skaia sprinted down corridor of Infinite forest back into the real world. "We need to work together all of us. You, me Osiris, Ikora. And-"

She stressed the last word and Skaia stopped just before the exit of the Forest and tilted her head to the side showing she was listening. "We need to be able to trust each other," Sagira finished.

Skaia considered her words for a moment. "But I do trust you," she said eventually sounding somewhat confused.

"I'm talking about me trusting you," Sagira said. When Skaia gave no response she continued: "You've been acting mighty shifty since the beginning."

"I..." Skaia gave a half confused half unbelieving sound, "Shifty? When?!"

"When we first arrived at your ship for example." Sagira said "When you were super fast about getting rid of all the things from your cockpit before I could get a look on them. And now in the Forest too, you've been acting different since the Reflection showed us Mercury's past."

"I've been acting..." Skaia rubbed her palm over her helmet, "Ok, listen, I'm not sure what do you mean about me acting differently in the Forest, the only thing I've done since we came here was shoot through hordes of Vex simulacrum, I was not aware there was a way to do that 'shiftily'," she said somewhat peevishly.

"And about our fist meeting-" she sighed. "Listen I'm sorry about threatening you, but I'm just... really testy about my Ghost alright? He means a lot to me and I've... I've almost lost him before and... I don't wanna go through that again,” she looked to the side fingers flexing on her gun and Sagira felt a pang of sympathy. She knew far too well how important Guardian and a Ghost could be to each other.

“And the ship thing like...” Skaia sighed, “I know it's sus but I really am just a private person alright? Those things are not something I planned on showing anybody but Prospit and with you wearing his shell I... I just didn't want you to see them alright?"

Sagira spun her shell uncertainly. Was she really just overreacting? "But you see where I'm coming from right?" she asked.

“Frankly? No.” Skaia answered. “I understand that I haven’t been... the easiest person to deal with, but I don’t see how that translates to not being able to trust me to fight an extinction level threat.”

She extended her hand and after a moment of hesitation Sagira materialized above it.

"Know this." Skaia said raising Sagira to her eye level, "I would never keep a secret that would risk a mission like this, no matter how precious it was to me. This I swear to you."

Sagira looked into the blank helmet for a moment before eventually nodding.

They stepped out of the Infinite forest together.

Explaining the situation to Ikora didn't take long at all and after a brief discussion on how to proceed they had their next destination: Io.

"That's where me and Osiris found you." Sagira noted as they slipped into FTL.

"Yep."

"What were you doing out there anyway?" Sagira couldn't help but asking.

Skaia sighed throwing Sagira an annoyed look wondering if saying: 'I thought you trusted me now.' would improve the situation.

"Idle curiosity, nothing more I assure you," she said instead spreading her arms disarmingly.

"You don't tour solar system in ship that ends up falling apart during reentry for 'Idle curiosity'." Sangria retorted.

Skaia rolled her eyes. "Well it's not like we knew it was going to fall apart."

Sagira kept giving her an unimpressed look and eventually Skaia gave an annoyed huff and said: "Fine. I wanted to avoid all the Warlord drama that was going down on Earth, so I took the first ship that could be considered space worthy and left. After that it truly was not having anything better to do than to travel around the system exploring all the wonders our absent parent has left us with."

Sagira gave her a long look, not being able to find anything wrong with the explanation but still apparently unwilling to take Skaia at her word.

Skaia gave another sigh not bothering to hider her aggravation from Sagira. If she was going to treat her with same suspicion when telling the truth as when she was lying then what was the point of talking at all?

The ride to Io was even tenser than their ride to Mercury.

Sagira had to admit she may have gotten a little cocky after her success with the conflux at Pyramidion's entrance. This was especially infuriating because she was so sure she had configured that portal correctly to drop them right where they need to go. Nevertheless, now they were in a completely unfamiliar part of the Pyramidion and Sagira knew that the last place you wanted to be lost in it would be Vex structure. (Hive tunnels being close second.)

Skaia didn't seemed nearly as concerned as Sagira felt, which was probably for the best. Or maybe she was just really good at hiding it. She was studying the wall to her right really intensely, but before Sagira could ask her what she was doing she sighed and said: "Well it seems its time to put my money where my mouth is," and started clambering up the wall.

"What are you doing?" Sagira asked.

"With me, you get the shortcut." Skaia echoed what Sagira said to her at the Pyramidion's entrance as they reached the top of the wall, where Sagira was surprised to discover a small hole between it and the ceiling. It looked for all things like an accident but Sagira knew Vex didn't do accidents.

As Skaia wiggled into the opening and started crawling through duct beyond Sangria asked: "How did you know this was here?"

"Well I did spend some quality time on this planet if you remember." Skaia said. "And that included a lot of time to learn all kinds of Pyramidion's tricks."

"You told us you didn't learn anything in here," Sagira said accusing.

"We did no such thing." Skaia threw an annoyed look into middle distance in lieu of going through trouble of having Sagira materialize. "Osiris asked me if I found anything worthwhile on the planet, I looked embarrassed and demurred. You two drew your own conclusions."

The irritating thing about that was that she was right. Sagira didn't have a luxury of imperfect memories to let her pretend otherwise. "So is this supposed to be some lesson about mine and Osiris’ arrogance?" she asked peevishly.

“If you wanna take it that way.” Skaia shrugged twisting her body around a corner in an impressive display of flexibility revealing a small Vex gate at the end of the duct.

Sagira was silent for a couple of seconds before she spoke again, “I don’t understand. Why would you keep this a secret from us?”

“I’m a Voidwalker it’s what I do.”

“That’s it?” Sagira exclaimed incredulously. “You use void, so not going to share in what you learn?”

“I do share!” Skaia snapped, as she reached the Vex gate. She extended her hand to touch it and there was a brief moment of disorientation before they were suddenly hanging above a bottomless pit, Skaia’s hand wrapped around a piece of protruding geometry only thing preventing them from plummeting to their doom.

“Just not everything. And it’s not as if Osiris’ inability to keep his opinions to himself was any less typical of Dawnblade that secrets keeping is for Voidwalker, so if you want to criticize me for being stereotypical you have no leg to stand on." Skaia continued completely unbothered by their precarious position.

“What you’re saying Osiris should be less honest?” Sagira retorted unwilling to let the conversation go but grudgingly impressed by the fact that Skaia managed to grab onto something while she was teleporting.

“I’m saying,” Skaia swung her body forward and let go and then to Sagira’s surprise instead of trying to float upwards she flicked her legs downwards and managed to reach the ledge of the platform she had been hanging off of, using what was unmistakably a Hunter jump. “That sometimes discretion is a better part of the valor.”

There was a welcoming party of the Vex up on the platform. Skaia shot one of them, threw a grenade that ripped apart other 3 and finished emptying her clip into the last two.

"You know this is not making you look any less suspicious." Sagira told Skaia as she scanned the area for any more threats.

"Is it not?" Skaia mused as she shot a Vex cube prompting a conflux to materialize. "Has this not proven that I am wiling to expose my secrets in order get us to our goal quicker?"

"You know ‘trustworthy’ usually means someone who isn't keeping secrets in the first place." Sagira snipped back.

Skaia gave a derisive scoff, "Everybody keeps secrets Sagira, don't act like you don't know this."

"Listen," she interrupted as Sagira primed her retort, "we can either spend the next hour here arguing morality and trustworthiness, or you accept that it is in my best interest not to let a huge Vex mind extinguish the sun and wipe out humanity, and consider me trustworthy until we can get Osiris back and put Panoptes int he dirt and then we can go our separate ways."

She extended her arm palm up and as Sagira materialized she raised it to her eye level. "Or we can keep antagonizing each other and both end up dead in a ditch somewhere because we couldn't trust each other in the crucial moment, with Osiris and the rest of humanity soon to follow. So which it'll be?"

Sagira bit back a automatic response and instead took a deep breath. Skaia was right, they both need to focus on the bigger threat.

Still that didn't mean it didn't sting.

"And you?" she challenged.

"Skaia looked at her evenly, "I trust you to do your job." she answered. "Do you trust me to do mine?"

Sagira looked at her for a long moment. "I do." she said and was surprised to find out she meant it.

Skaia inclined her head and gestured at the conflux.

Sagira nodded back and flew over to the conflux to dig through the data contained within, opening comm channel to Ikora in the meantime.

However digging though the data index there was nothing like what she was searching for. "The map's not here. I don't understand," she said.

"Keep looking." Ikora and Skaia answered in almost perfect synch.

Sagira threw an amused look at Skaia. "Let me guess, you studied under Ikora?"

Skaia gave an exaggerated eye roll, "I learned a thing or two. Now tell me that you've got something."

Sagira swept the index once again, broadening her search parameters. "Well as it happens I actually do." She threw out a hologram of what she found, "Coordinates for a node in an infinite forest. That's where our map is."

Skaia sighed. "Why does it feel like we're just swinging between mercury and other Vex inhabited planets without making any progress?"

"But we are making progress," Sagira said encouragingly. "Once we find the map we can go straight to Panoptes."

"And do what exactly?" Skaia asked tiredly. "Get deleted from existence? I don't need to remind you how our last meeting went."

"Last time he got the drop on us. This time it will be the other way around. And with any luck we can get message to Osiris and he'll meet us there. Together Panoptes won't stand a chance."

Skaia gave a another long suffering sigh and clapped her hands together. "Alright, back to Mercury it is. Hmm..."

She tilted her head to the side, and gestured for Sagira to cut coms before asking: "Aren't all Vex structures connected in some way?"

Sagira gave her a raised eyebrow. "Even Osiris never managed to travel between various Vex structures on purpose. You think you can get from Pyramidion to Infinite forest faster that it would take us to fly to Mercury?"

For anybody else she would mean that question rhetorically, but considering the knack Skaia had with traversing Pyramidion already she found herself asking that question seriously.

Skaia too seemed to consider it for a second before she shook her head and Sagira was fairly surprised to find herself legitimately disappointed.

"Let's go to Mercury then." she said. "and I swear to god I'm not leaving until Panoptes is dead this time."

As it turned out the map to Panoptes was located in a middle of Cabal combat simulation. Fun.

"You know, Cabal are my fucking second least favorite enemies." Skaia complained. as she tore thought a group of them with Nova bomb.

"Oh really? Who's your least favorite?" Sagira asked.

"Vex." Skaia bit out.

"Oh," Sagira chuckled, "so you're not a fan of this place."

Skaia actually hissed underneath her helmet.

"You know, I lied." She said after a bit. "I actually like fighting cabal, precisely because they are my least favorite, morality wise."

Sagira raised her eyebrow internally. "So you don't mind Vex morality?"

"Vex at least have the decency to be fucking ineffable in their blue and orange morality. Cabal are just your run of the mill imperialists." Skaia said. "Also they're slavers to boot so like... fuck them."

"And!" she added as she threw another Nova, finishing off the Cabal commander they were pursuing. "They took our light. So double fuck them. How did you and Osiris handle that by the way?"

"We pretty much just rewound time to where the light was back with us." Sagira admitted.

"Wow." Skaia deadpanned unimpressed.

"I know." Sagira winced. "Osiris wanted to go and help, but I argued with him that he'd just get himself killed. He's not that great of a shot," she admitted. "Most of his power comes from his light, and mastery over the Infinite Forest. Facing down Ghaul he would have neither."

Skaia sighed and shook her head. "Well I can hardly judge you." After a second consideration she elaborated: "I also wasn't part of the assault on the city."

She looked down at her hand and clenched it into fist. "I suppose we had both proven ourselves cowards that day."

"Or people who knew where their strengths and their weaknesses are." Sagira suggested.

Skaia smiled wryly beneath her helmet. "Or that."

"C'mon." Sagira said. "Let's get that map."

As it turned out finding the map was only half the trick.

"I can't find Panoptes." Sagira admited. "The map's too big, and it keeps changing."

"Oh my god." Skaia groaned pressing her palms to her helmet and then apparently feeling like that wasn't getting her feelings across properly she took of her helmet so she could press the base of her palms to her eyes. "Are you serious?"

"Hey I'm not very pleased with this situation either." Sagira snapped back.

"Well how do Vex search it then?" Skaia asked. "Why can't you emulate it?"

"Your run of the mill Vex don't have reason to search the map for anything." Sagira explained. "And Minds have much more processing power than I do. There might be some of them on Nessus that we could use-"

"Hold up." Skaia interrupted her. "Surely there are Vex minds in the Infinite Forest itself. Why the fuck would we hoof it all the way over to Nessus?"

"All the Vex in the infinite forest are a simulations. You can't strip simulations for parts. And there is nothing outside of the Forest that would necessitate Minds being on Mercury. Nessus is our best shot."

"No." Skaia shook her head baring her teeth. "I told you I would not leave Mercury this time until we defeat Panoptes. We've been facing nothing but roadblocks this whole time. For all we know once we get the Vex core we're gonna need to go all the way over to... I don't fucking know, Venus or something, to get it working, and then to Mars and so on and so on, and by the time we actually get to Panoptes the apocalypse is long over. We need to stop loosing time."

"Well what do you suggest we do then?" Sagira snapped.

"I'm working on that!" Skaia snapped back, starting to pace. After a couple of circuits she stopped and came over to the interface leaning over it like she could force it to give up the answers they needed by sheer force of will.

Sagira rolled her eye. What Skaia was hoping to accomplish, without being able to even interface with the map was beyond her.

"Just more processing power. That's all you need?" Skaia asked.

"Yes."

The silence between them stretched out for a long moment before Skaia asked: "Sagira. If I asked you to, could you keep a secret? Even from Osiris."

Sagira narrowed her eye, "If it anything that could threaten humanity..."

"It's not."

"Then..." Sagira considered it for a long second. She has never kept a secret from Osiris. Could she start now? "Is this going to help us save him?"

"If it works."

"...Then yes."

There was a long moment of Skaia staring into middle distance biting her lip, an inner conflict writ clear across her face. At last she took a deep breath and nodding to herself she turned back to Sagira, with determination in her eyes.

"Do you have access to files Prospit keeps in his databanks?" she asked.

"Technically yes," Sagira answered wondering where this was going. "But I wasn't planning on looking at them."

"Ok, I'm going to need you to pull up one of the files." Skaia said and then recited a file path that brought Sagira to-

"This is a picture," Sagira said.

More specifically it was a vector graphic, all geometric shapes, with various, what Sagira could only describe as runes, inlaid within.

"Yes, project it so I can make some changes." Skaia requested.

Sagira did so, slightly baffled, but willing to see where this thing would lead.

Skaia looked over the projected image with a critical eye for a moment before removing some of the runes and replacing them with different ones, as well as removing and adding some shapes. The modifications would look random at first glance, but as Sagira kept watching, she could almost see the intent behind them.

"Ok," Skaia said at last. "If you could just carve this," she gestured at the image, "anywhere on the ground? It doesn't have to be very deep, just enough not to get disrupted by any other imperfections in the ground."

"What exactly are you doing?" Sagira couldn't help but ask as she followed Skaia's instructions.

Skaia dragged her palm over her face. "Please don't ask." she grimaced. "This is already hard enough for me."

That didn't help Sagira's burning curiosity any, but she refrained for asking any more questions.

Eventually the sigil was done and as Sagira floated backwards from her handiwork Skaia removed one of her gloves and fished out a knife from... somewhere on her person.

She turned towards Sagira and took a deep breath before asking: "Did you ever siphon energy from an outside source?"

"I... yes? I used myself as a conduit a couple times to transfer energy between incompatible systems."

"Ok so this is going to be the same except you are going to use the energy."

"What are talking about? What energy?"

"Just... " Skaia waved her over. "Come here. And don't ask. Please."

Slowly Sagira floated to where Skaia gestured above the middle of the sigil, and once she was in position Skaia took the knife in her hand and cut open her wrist lengthwise.

Sagira's shell flared in alarm as she did that and then once more as the blood that poured from the wound was soaked up by the sigil which started emitting whips of energy.

“What the hell?”

Skaia grinned at her humorlessly. “This energy. Use it!”

Sagira shot her shock aside and mentally reached out to the whips that seemed to react to her intentions and started gravitating towards her soaking into her shell. Sagira cycled the energy though her systems and...

"Whoa," she breathed. "That’s one hell of a rush!"

"Just get the Panoptes." Skaia gritted out.

"On it." Sagira said and reached once more into the map.

And this time... she could see. Everything.

“Oh yeah, I’ve got him. Overlaying onto the map. There!” If Sagira had a face she would be grinning. “Panoptes always ends up in the same coordinates. That’s how we kill him.”

Somewhere outside of the network she could perceive a reflection teleporting in and gazing over the map she was projecting.

“I’ve detected a change,” it said. “A new future. I will inform Osiris.”

With that it blinked away.

Sagira was about to disconnect from the Vex network when it suddenly... shifted.

“Wait...” Sagira paused, “There’s something... a defensive subroutine?”

A shadow fell over them as Panoptes materialized from the sky.

“No! No!” Sagira yelled. They were so close!

The energy coursing through her shell winked out as Skaia tore herself away from the sigil an arc of blood following her hand as she drew it back and threw a Nova bomb at Panoptes.

This time Panoptes flinched slightly as the bomb impacted but it didn’t draw its attention from Sagira.

It slammed its hands together and Sagira screamed as she felt Panoptes’ will clamp onto her.

“It’s got me!!!” she screamed as she was pulled inexorably towards Panoptes.

“NO!” Skaia screamed as she lunged forward crossing the distance with a Blink, her blood stained fingers clamping onto her Ghost’s shell.

But it wasn't the shell that interested Panoptes.

Last thing that Sagira perceived was Skaia’s voice screaming: “Prospit!”

Prospit came to and he immediately knew something was wrong. Being suddenly transported to a different planet that the one you remember being on, with no memory on how you got there would do that to you.

Before he could start to get his bearings he was distracted by Skaia's strangled shout. "Prospit!"

Prospit turned and his eyes widened at Skaia's state.

Her right hand was gushing blood from a cut along her wrist, barely stymied by her other hand clamped onto the wound and she was stumbling forward looking around wildly, looking ready to pass out.

"Skaia!" Prospit exclaimed.

Skaia whirled around to face him and the moment her eyes met his all tension melted from her frame.

"Oh thank god." she murmured before her knees buckled underneath her and she slammed into the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Prospit flew over to her grasping at thread between himself and his Guardian. It was still there unaffected by whatever happened to him and he sighed in relief, before quickly scanning the area around for any threats as Skaia finished bleeding out. Seeing nothing he turned back to his Guardian, and opened up his shell letting the light course through him.

Skaia came to with a gasp and she immediately focused on her Ghost.

"Prospit!" she said curving her hand around his shell and hugging him to her chest. "You have no idea how glad i am to see you.

She released him and dragged a hand over her helmet giving a humorless chuckle. "God that would have been such a stupid death..." she murmured to herself.

"Alright, can you tell me what the hell happened here?" Prospit asked.

Skaia looked up at him. "How much do you remember?"

"I..." Prospit paused for a moment to query his memory banks, "Wait..." There were memories there, but they were not his.

"Huh," he said as he quickly went through them all. "You've been busy." He turned back to Skaia and gave her an amused look. "So it was a world ending threat after all. Color me shocked."

"Hah." Skaia said getting up and brushing dust off her robes. "We've got to get back there," she said turning towards the entrance to the Infinite forest fully serious now.

However when she approached, rather than opening before her like it did with Sagira, the gateway pushed her back, like the first time she tried to enter.

"Damn it!" Skaia snapped.

"Do you know what Sagira did to open this thing?" she asked Prospit.

Prospit reviewed Sagira's memories. "No," he admitted with a wince. "Whatever she did it did not stay in the memory banks."

"Damn it." Skaia growled.

"What would you even do if we were able to access it?" Prospit asked "Get yourself killed by Panoptes?"

Skaia glared at her Ghost. "I would kill Panoptes," she corrected

"And how are you planing on doing that?"

"I'd shoot him." Skaia deadpanned running her hand over the barrier separating her from the Forest hand bathed in void light.

"You already tired that." Prospit pointed out testily. "Why would it suddenly be vulnerable to your bullets?"

"Narrative convenience."

Prospit looked at Skaia incredulously. "That's not a thing! We've been over this!"

"And we've been over the fact that it’s the only way to explain the biggest threats in the system getting taken down by 4 year old."

Prospit shook his head, "Wouldn't that be even more of a reason to call Dos to help?" he implored.

Skaia considered it for a moment.

"Send message to Ikora," she said eventually. "Tell her that if we're not back in-" she made a watch checking gesture Prospit automatically projecting time to her HUD as she did so, "-ten minutes that she needs to send Dos in. Give her the coordinates to Panoptes too."

"Skaia no!" Prospit shouted. "This is insanity you're smarter that this. Unless..."

He trailed off and Skaia turned to him, the blank faceplate of her helmet unreadable but through their connection there was a feeling like... hope.

"Unless you have a plan." Prospit finished.

Skaia gave a slow nod. "Do you trust me?" she asked.

"Of course," Prospit said without hesitation.

Skaia ran her fingers over his shell. "Let's go then."

Prospit materialized back into her armor and Skaia coated her arm in void flames and rammed it straight through the barrier surrounding gateway.

They both disappeared into the forest.

"Phew." Skaia sighed in relief as they watched Osiris digging into Panoptes’ corpse in search of his Ghost. "Didn't even need to use my plan after all."

"Do I want to know?" Prospit asked.

"Probably not. It was very stupid."

Prospit gave a long suffering sigh. "Tell me anyway."

“You noticed how Panoptes flinched for the second time I threw Nova bomb at it?

Prospit replayed the footage. "Yes?"

"The only thing different between that time and the first was the fact that I was in a middle of a blood sacrifice. So..."

Prospit stayed silent for a moment as he considered that.

"You remember how I told you you should experiment with mixing you magic and Light?" he asked eventually.

"Yes." Skaia answered.

"And remember what you told me?"

Skaia sighed. "'There's no way that'll ever be useful, Light is so much more powerful for this to ever make a difference.'" She recited.

Prospit glanced at her somewhat surprised. "I didn't expect you to actually remember."

"Every time something I say turns out to be cringe the memory of it gets seared into my brain for eternity." Skaia deadpanned.