[b]Characters[/b]: [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Community/Detail?itemId=215455523]Rue[/url], Socrates ([i]mentions of Osiris, Barom, the Speaker, Future War Cult[/i]) [b]Word Count[/b]: 1,237 [b]Summary[/b]: [i]Rue has finally earned passage to the Lighthouse, the end of her years of research finally within her grasp, but the answers she finds are far from anything she ever expected them to be.[/i] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/197415283?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]Catalogue of Art and Fics related to Fireteam Daybreak[/url] ———– “No… It can’t be…” Rue’s hands shook against the table violently as the color came back into her eyes and she snapped out of her trance, anger and agony surging through her in a way she had never felt. Mercury was supposed to be her answer, the end of her hunt after her years of research, but not like this. At most she had expected to find some indication of where Osiris had run off to so she could find him and compare notes- what she'd found had told her where he went and how to get there, but Rue had also uncovered something much more appalling. After noticing him adrift in the Infinite Forest, Osiris had used Barom as a lab rat- by manipulating the timegates, he directed him through simulation after simulation and gathered the data from his travels to complete a map of the simulation network and beyond. Only after he had begun to feel guilty about how Barom's travels were affecting him did he agree to send him back to the present timeline. And it only got worse from there. One of the simulations had exposed a coup de'tat against the Consensus which had been in the works for several years, arranged by Lysandre. After the dismantling of the Concordat and his exile, Lysandre had vowed to destroy the misguided leadership and eliminate the Speaker to command authority over the Vanguard and their operations, to refocus the efforts of all Guardians on pursuing and eliminating their enemies before they had the opportunity to strike them down. But Lysandre needed an army to achieve his end-goal, and to do that he needed allies. There were very few that shared the Concordat's disdain for the Speaker and the City's leadership, but those few were a powerful, driving force to behold. The Cult of Osiris became his accomplices and drew guardians to the Reef in droves to prove their worth to Osiris, and Lysandre had closely monitored each match, reached out to Guardians who may have had any wavering faith at all in the Consensus or the Speaker, and waited, bided his time until the stars aligned and provided him with his perfect opportunity. Using the unrest of the Owl Sector crisis, he had planned to use the cultists to intentionally escalate tensions between the Future War Cult and the City’s inhabitants, and create a scene so terrifying, the people would never be able to trust them again: a scenario in which the only way for the City to be safe again was to revolt against its leadership. Radiant eyes burned into the vision of the sun and she felt the sickness rising in her gut before she doubled over onto her knees and spilled it into the dust. “Rue…!” Socrates was immediately at her side, scanning her anxiously as her stomach heaved violently and expelled bile and acid in a way that made even him sick. “Mistress, what’s-” But before he could get the question out his focus shifted with a faraway look in his optic; his appendages twitched softly and he took on a defeated look as the message came through. She shivered all over as she wiped at her mouth with the bandages wrapped around her hand. “What is it?” she asked, a slight wavering in her tone. The ghost could tell she was already startled. In his centuries with her, there had only been a handful of times when she had been as disturbed enough to lose her composure as she was now. He hesitated, cast the face of his aubergine shell away from her; he didn’t want to have to tell her the news. “Socrates…?” There was worry in her voice and apprehension in her eyes as she felt the vibe pass from him through her light. Something had happened, something awful. “It’s a message from Ikora… it’s about Barom, he’s-” Fingers clenched the dirt beneath her other hand as tears welled up in her eyes, and streamed down her cheeks as she held back her cries. He didn’t have to finish the thought to know what he was about to say. “…How? … When? Why?” “From the sound of it, the Future War Cult had been holding a rally in the city to recruit new supporters a few hours ago, and during his speech he-” Socrates stopped mid-sentence and chirped in pained response. “… he was assassinated.” Rue’s jaw clenched tight at the knot in her chest at having to lose him a second time. Barom had been lost to her since he'd returned, his mind adrift across alternate timestreams and haunted by things that hadn’t been but could have, futures he couldn’t prevent… but he had been alive. At least he'd been spared the horrible fate of being forever lost to the tides of time. But now, she realized, it may have been more humane to have just left him where he was. At least there he wouldn’t have had to live with the guilt of being so emotionally withdrawn from his friends and from her, at least there he would have gone down fighting and not this shell of a Guardian so ready and willing to give up his Ghost and abandon all hope. But she didn’t have time to mourn. “There are civilians rioting in the streets, calling for an uprising against the Speaker, against the Vanguard… this is a real problem, they’re deploying Guardians to the city to pacify the protesters, but the show of power is getting them even more riled up.” The sadness left her immediately, sucked away by the call to action. She was the only one who knew what was coming, and she needed to move. One hand propped herself up on her knee and pushed her off the ground until she stood tall, ready to weather the storm. “Then there isn’t much time,” she said sternly as she made her way out of the Osiris cults’ shrine, toward the conflux-wall at the heart of the lighthouse. “Rue, we need to get back to the Tower,” her ghost reminded dutifully as he followed after her, unsure of where she was going. “No, there’s something much more important at stake,” she explained as she stopped at the wall of cubed light and held out her hand. “Then… shall I alert the rest of Daybreak?” “No, they have their hands full enough with SIVA and the Devil Splicers,” she replied on instinct as she closed her eyes and placed both palms flat against the light wall blocking a corridor leading away from the shrine's inner sanctum. “Then where are we…?” His voice trailed off as she took in a sharp, incredulous breath, and the wall was swallowed whole by a pulse of blinding void light, leaving an open hallway leading back and away from the room full of cargo and one derelict starship. After several silent moments in awe, she turned back to her ghost with a fire in her eyes she rarely showed- it was the fire of her Void, of a warrior’s resolve, something he had always felt fit her beautifully, even if she never felt at home in the heart of battle. He would have followed her -his goddess- to the end of the universe. “We’re going to find Lysandre, and save the Speaker,” she stated without a hint of hesitation in her. “He must be stopped, for the good of the City.”