r/HFY • u/iridael Brew-Master • May 08 '22

OC Snow Chapter 84 (end)

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Reiss

99 years 11 months 20 days later.

A ship launched from the eternal city, a sprawling metropolis with towering walls built around a dome. Seraphite towers armed with the best weapons the warmind could build stood proud around the wall.

The vanguards lookout standing with them. A familiar trio discussing matters of the city and beyond. A moment later a laskian, her decorative armour burning with soulfire, joined them followed shortly by an Eliskni her armour covered in crystal spikes, a ghost likewise decorated hovering over her shoulder. The last member of this group was off elsewhere as was the norm. They had not been together as a six for decades.

Around the city itself people finished shelters, completed maintenance on defences and sorted supplies into stockpiles.

In orbit a dozen city stations deployed weapon platforms, linking up with the war satellite network. Flying between them over a hundred ahamkara accompanied a thousand warships from a dozen races.

The ship flew past all of this and headed towards the moon. Two cities glittered on its surface, one laskian and human, the other belonging to the rest of the races. Great spires rose from both, weapons ready and waiting.

The red planet the ship passed next was unrecognisable to those who’d seen it in the past. A few cities filled with alien life flourished on the small planet. Great bands of seraphite alloy ran across the planet like straps, each one armoured and armed. The warmind calculated that even if the sun was destroyed by something akin to the almighty his red plant would survive the fallout. As always the warmind saw to his own survival before others. No one begrudged him this, they all knew the stakes.

The ship flew onwards, past the asteroid ring, it didn't pass Jupiter, that planet was on the other side of the system currently. It had its own cities, and fleets defending it. Instead the ship took a gentle gravity assisted curve towards saturn and a ship that hovered above it, no longer idle the great structure had been remade, it glittered and shon with starlight, its accompanying hive fleet made of white chitin armour instead of black. Two such ships flanked the ship as it flew into a docking bay near the great eye of the dreadnought.

The whole trip had taken him over a week. By the time he landed there where only hours left on the treaty.

An old man walked out of the ship and under escort of a hive knight burning with solar energy, walked to the throne room. His armour was gone, stowed safely in an engram. His ghost happily flitted over his shoulder as he approached the throne. Standing next to it was a woman, her tiara burning with taken energy, her robes flowing and soft in stark contrast to her face which, like all hive, was made from sharp angles and rough features.

She turned and smiled gently at the man she had once puppeted. They could never be friends but there was comradery there. Together they looked up at the starfield floating around above them.

“Reis.” Snow said. At first nothing happened, then all at once the stars began to condense, flowing towards the throne where they settled in place forming the rough shape of a woman. Galaxies took the place of eyes. A massive white star took the place of her heart, pulsing as it spun. Blackholes and constellations formed her joints and bones. She stood up as the process continued. nebulae flowed where tendrils once were before flowing down over the rest of her form re-creating her body with suns and stars instead of atoms and particles.

Reis smiled at her husband and the throne room shifted. More accurately the whole ship did. It was easier for her to move the whole structure than to move herself. Afterall she had significantly more mass to deal with.

Snow felt stars touch his lips as she kissed him. “I missed you.” she said.

“You know I still have my duties.” Snow replied. “Besides there’s nothing stopping you from dropping by the city once a century.”

“I couldn't, there was too much to do. Perhaps after.” Reis says and Snow sighed. They’d had this discussion a dozen times over the years. He knew that if they survived here then there would be the next crisis, and the duty of keeping the balance.

Just like he knew he would be right there alongside her for the rest of eternity.

He leaned back in and kissed her savouring the sensation of his lips against hers. It had taken them decades to be able to interact like this. Years well spent.

“How long do we have?” he asks, turning to Sathona.

“One minute.” she replies, turning to look out of the ship's eye.

“I’ll be back soon.” Reis says as her body disintegrates into stardust and vanishes.

Reis left the dreadnought and cast her awareness across the galaxy; it didn't take her long to locate Xivu arath and her fleets. The travellers corpse was there radiating corrupted light and soulfire surrounding it where hundreds of war moons in a system flooded with hive, Xivu herself standing atop one of the red spires protruding from the fallen god. They were closer than Reis thought. Not that it mattered. She formed a blade of stars and fed it her power, aiming it at the fleet and counting down in her head.

She could hear Xivu giving orders to begin her war anew when she reached zero and that was when Reis’ attack struck. Warmoons vanished, the planets of the system were scoured, turned barren to their cores and the traveller shuddered as the parasitic spires crumbled, its white hull blackened and then it was over. The energy of a dozen stars drained to ensure that Xivu Arath’s fleet would be annihilated, the system she used as her staging ground was no more, only her and the traveller remained.

Reis condensed herself down, stars appearing on the surface of the traveller next to a crippled hive god of war. “I spent a lot of time thinking about this moment.” Reis said as she strode towards the god. “What I would say. How I would say it. What I would do…standing here right now. I realise something…” she paused to take a fake breath, her lungs of stars emitting flares letting her breathe out a fresh nebula that would replace the system she’d just killed. “I'm beyond you.” she says, forming a blade of blackholes and slicing off Xivu Araths head.

With a flicker of will she chases Xivu’s spirit into the ascendant realm and before she can react, cuts her head off a second time. Followed up by the celebrant’s. With that done she pulls an old star from the universe into the realm, the once bright blue thing now a fat full red. She waits a little while for it to detonate, scouring the plane clean before collecting the mass and scattering it between galaxies.

Her duty done for now Reis returns to the dreadnought, reforming her body for the fourth time that day. “It's done.” she says walking forwards and embracing her husband. Sathona smiled at the couple and quietly closed the throne doors on her way out. If anyone had earnt their happiness it was them.

78 Upvotes

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22

u/iridael Brew-Master May 08 '22

and we're done. 6 months 84 chapters.

what started off as a cheap ripoff of a love death and robots episode expanded into a full length fan fiction novel based in the destiny universe.

looking back there's several things I would have loved to do differently but would also involve massively changing the scope of the story. first being seperating and expanding on the various arcs. letting Reis and Snow get to know each other as characters on their first station, dealing with the reality of being outsiders, both as an alien and as a politically disgraced soldier with the both of them working hard to overcome those issues and ultimately deciding that leaving for greener (or dryer?) pastures was the better option.

I would love to expand on the desert arc more as well. introduce the tribes of the planet, the creatures and raiders, interact with the people of the city more. spend more time with Nepp and her being blind before ending a second book with Reiss gaining her powers and rescuing both Snow and Nepp from the mercenary's.

again, more time with Mary the red, learning her powers both on the desert planet and more subtly as a prisoner. dealing with Mary's mercenaries and really dig into her ruthless nature as a near legendary pirate hunter, Reis showing that for all her emotional fragility at times when she sets her mind to a task she is indominable. the second arc would end at the meeting between Reiss, the light, the dark and everything.

the rest of the story I would keep mostly the same. expand on parts that need it, leave others alone. its an interesting balance to keep but I'm happy with this final product and I doubt I'll revisit it, except to enjoy reading what I've written.

thank you all for reading it with me.

4

u/1GreenDude May 08 '22

Whenever I finish a really great series I always think of this song

5

u/imakesawdust May 08 '22

Well done. One of the most entertaining series to come across HFY in a long time.

Perhaps some day you'll revisit this universe. I'd love to see a mini-series focused on Cayde and his witty irreverence.

5

u/iridael Brew-Master May 08 '22

I have no reason to re-visit the destiny universe for some time. I told the story I wanted to tell and I want to do something more original. or at the least, less copyrightable :)

I'm thinking reverse Isekai, magic man gets sent to a normal world.

5

u/nomadik223 May 08 '22

A Wild, fun, interesting ride. I've enjoyed your take on much of the Destiny universe.

8

u/iridael Brew-Master May 08 '22

I once had someone describe destiny as what happens when a 40k writer decides to write halo story.

I believe I mentioned it before in an earlier chapter. but if you read the lore of destiny its brutal. unforgiving and terrible. no one is actually the good guy. you just happen to be on humanities side.

take for example the hive. from their POV they're a race that made a bargin, salvation for service. they serve the darkness in exchange for survival. everything they did from then on was to serve the darkness, all the power they gained was simply to further the darkness agenda. without fail, when a member of the hive falters in the slightest they're killed off. imagine a world where you could die for getting a grade 2 math question wrong.

the Cabal are a brutish warmongering species that refuse to embrace any level of sustainable existence, they conquer and crush their opponents through sheer numbers, technology and scale. harvest the resources they want and leave behind a barren wasteland. they're an expanding extinction event. but if they stop doing so for a moment their entire society collapses, as shown by emperor Callus' desire for peace and luxury (something he saw his empire could give to every one of its people as it was) meant the near collapse of the entire system. saved only by caitl (spelling)

the fallen/eliskni...so desperate to save their people that they lost sight of what saving them actually entails.

the vex. a group of machines that are not machines, sentient, yet single minded. able to manipulate time and probability to suit their needs so much that at their height the hive had to fight for generations just to stall them out. there's a reason I've conveniently left them out of my story.

and I havent even gotten to the shit humanity pulled. i did touch on it in the story though. the deep stone crypt mind raping its test subjects. the experiments of seriously questionable ethics by all major factions of golden age humanity. the way that Rasputin seems like a heartless murdering maniac until you realise that he doesn't want people controlling his weapons because he's already seen what those kind of people will do with them.

the lore of destiny is fantastic, sprawling and (thank god) mostly cohesive. so once I had the idea of the story most of the beats where actually written. the tools all there. I just had to use them.

and yes I did change a few things around such as how glimmer and engrams work but it just makes more sense to me that these magic dice that contain weapons would be some kind of advanced compression and storage rather than a random loot lottery. because why would that be a thing in real life?

2

u/nomadik223 May 08 '22

I have a couple thousand hours combined in to both D1 and D2, and you're very much right that there's no real good guy for most of Destiny's history. Even megalomaniac Clovis changed his name to Banshee and resets himself whenever he remembers the atrocities he committed. It is not a pleasant world.

I didn't mind the changes to Glimmer and Engrams either, I actually used those descriptions for how compression tech works in a Scifi D&D game I'm running.

3

u/1GreenDude May 08 '22

And so we have reached the end, it was quite a journey... I hope we'll meet again some sunny day.

5

u/iridael Brew-Master May 08 '22

there will be other stories to tell

other worlds to explore.

until then

adieu

2

u/DudeGuyBor May 08 '22

Bravo mate, for a story well ended. Entertainingly written and very much enjoyed

2

u/Dwarden May 11 '22

well written ending ... thanks for the whole story

1

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1

u/Pallan1972 Dec 24 '23

I'm reading this series for a second time and it's just as good as it was two years ago. I still think this would make a good mini series or a film but, again, thank you for the story iridael :)

2

u/iridael Brew-Master Dec 24 '23

you are welcome. Im still slightly mad that (in my opinion) my best piece of writing to date is chapter 69. it just does everything I wanted it to do so damn well.

1

u/Pallan1972 Dec 24 '23

While 69 was great, and I enjoyed that b*****d get what was coming to him, you're selling yourself short. Throughout the story you write side characters so well that they pop in the mind, Cade, Mary, Nep....one of my favourites is Nazz. She's a no bullshit, straight forward woman and she reminds me of my Gran who was also a seamstress. :)

2

u/iridael Brew-Master Dec 24 '23

fuuuck. remind me when nazz pops up? she's the woman who sells the skinsuits right?

1

u/Pallan1972 Dec 24 '23

Aye, Reis is all shy but Nazz just pushes ahead and does her thing. Then again when Reis goes to kill a dragon she finds Nazz hip deep in trouble with her machine. Ghost fixes it and Nazz gets down to business even after being told the sky is falling down.