The Light

Cayde: "Ria huh... well its great to have ya! You might wanna, get back out there and get killing... your armor doesn't look like its doing too good. Oh before ya go, here are some bounties. Go make me proud guardian."

With a nod of affirmation, Ria walked out back into the courtyard. Before leaving, she decided to decrypt the engram she got on her travels.

Cryptarch: "It seems this engram, unfortunately, is nothing but a strange coin... they aren't of much use, but Xur loves these. You can give the to him for some weapons, but he isn't here for another 5 days."

Nodding back, Ria left back to the courtyard, where she looked at the Ghost to signal her desire to be brought back into the ship.

Ghost: "Got it, transmit in 3...2...1... Done"

With this, Ria found herself back in the ship. She decided it was a good idea to go back to the place she started at, so she could practice the light. And try things she wasn't able to before.

With the new warp drive, they were able to get there in a few seconds, and before she knew it, she was already back out on the fields. She first wanted to practice her golden gun yet again. She pulled out the gun she got from the cool looking guy and tried to summon the flames around it.

Ghost: "That wont work, the golden gun can only be used in-"

The Ghost was cut off by her gun erupting into flames, in a similar manner to the golden gun. Only this time the flames were a bit brighter, they weren't as dark orange as before, they were closer to yellow.

Ghost: "What is this? This shouldnt be possible... fire it! I need to see what happens!"

With this instruction, Ria fired her flaming gun at a wall. Different to her other golden gun, three projectiles came out at once. This didn't take away from the accuracy, however, as the three projectiles quickly spiraled into one larger bullet. This bullet hit the wall and continued forward to pierce through a total of three of them before stopping and exploding.

Ghost: "This is amazing! This shouldn't be possible, but you did it Ria!"

Ria nodded in satisfaction, before attempting her next idea. She wanted to infuse the light into herself similar to a golden gun. This proved to be way easier, as her body freely accepted the light. Her entire body glowed with flames, until the flames found their way to her fingertips, cloak, and feet. The flames shifted themselves to those three locations, they were the places they could be accessed the easiest. She thought her cloak would burn off, but to her surprise, it didn't. She also couldn't feel any consumption of light, meaning this could be active forever. It felt warm and comfortable, so why not?

This was a good start, but there were so many more things that Ria wanted to try out. Next on her list was movement. She felt slow when fighting so she wanted something to make up for it.

Ghost: "Movement? I have heard that guardians have abilities like these. Try jumping, see what happens"

Ria nodded, and jumped into the air. When she did this, she could feel the flames on her cloak desperate to push her in any direction. She chose up. Directing the flames to push her up, a pair of flaming wings materialized on her back, they flapped once and pushed her several meters into the air. However, this was not enough, as Ria could feel the flames wanting to continue pushing her. She chose forward. And again, the wings formed and pushed her forwards. This time however, she could feel the flames stronger, and she was pushed further. Almost as if her light got stronger with every use. This same effect happened when she stabbed the alien earlier. Testing this theory, she dashed a few more times. Up, right, left, but never down. That was for another test.

Each time she dashed she could feel the light strengthening, and the flames continued to get brighter and closer to yellow. By the time the Ghost informed her that her light level reached twenty-five percent, each dash was able to launch her about thirty meters max in a given direction. Though, the distance could easily be adjusted depending on her situation. She decided this was good enough to stop at and decided to dash downwards. When she did this, she slammed into the ground, and the remaining energy of her dash dispersed into the ground around her in a flaming shockwave that spanned for 5 meters. Before she ended her experiments, she wanted to try out the grenade made of light that the Ghost talked about. She was unsure on how to go about doing this however. So she just tried concentrating the light in the palm of her hand. Luckily for her, this seemed to be on the right track, as a ball of flames appeared inches above her hand. However, it seemed too calm. It was just sitting there doing nothing... that couldn't kill things. Ria decided to release some of the control she had over the ball. This caused the ball of flames to spin rapidly, she liked it a lot more this way, however she still thought it could be better. Regaining her control over the ball of flames, she started spinning the light in the same way it had spun when she didnt have control. She spun it faster, and faster. It spun so fast that she was able to see waves of solar light pulsating off of the ball.

She thought this was enough, and threw the grenade. She threw it as far as she could. It arced through the air and traveled a good fifty meters before hitting the ground. Once it hit however, it exploded into a huge ball of flames, incinerating everything within 10 meters, only leaving behind charred crisps. Of course some more resilient metals and rocks remained, but none else. She was sure its power would grow if she kept using it. However strong this ability was, she needed something a bit smaller. So she tried making a smaller version of the grenade on her finger tips. This was easier than the larger version. And when she threw it, its explosion was contained to only three meters, and didn't deal as much damage to the surrounding area. This could be used better than the larger one for now.

Deciding she had enough testing for now, she walked towards the nearest building dashed on top of it. She instructed the Ghost to scan for places with a lot of enemies that matched the bounties she got from Cayde.

Ghost: "I found a location... three of the four bounties can be completed here. Dregs, Vandals, and Captains. All can be defeated here. Marking the location..."

Ria didnt know what the names were, but she just assumed they were the ugly aliens. Grabbing her gun she started dashing towards the location. By the time she arrived, the flames she produced with her light turned into a bright yellow color. It was kind of ugly to look at, she hoped it would change soon.

Looking around she could see twenty-seven uglies total, and one mechanical spider.

Ghost: "A walker! Take it out."

Nodding, Ria activated her golden gun, the larger one, and fired a bullet at the head of the walker. The bullet pierced straight through, and out the other end, resulting in the walker exploding. Dashing in, she threw two small grenades, taking out six ugly aliens in the process. She shot her gun at another two, leaving nineteen left. They hid behind the walls where Ria couldn't see them. Dashing twice in a zig-zag pattern, she found herself next to three uglies. She shot two and grabbed the last one's head. With her flaming hands, she seeped her fingers into the chest of the alien, and grabbed its heart. She tightened her grasp on it, and, well, it didn't last much longer. The alien was definitely dead now. Only sixteen remaining aliens. With a few grenades, this number quickly dwindled down to four. The last four aliens were gathered behind a wall around 10 meters away from her.

Activating her golden gun again, she fired a shot at the wall. Eliminating the final four.

Ghost: "Thats three bounties down. The final one requires us to kill Sepiks Prime... I will mark his location on your map."

With a nod of her head, she started dashing towards the marked location. Several dashes later, she began to notice a blue tint to her flames. This was good for her, the ugly yellow was going away, and her dash distance was now somewhere closer to fifty meters. She wanted to hopefully get rid of the yellow completely before returning, she didn't want anyone seeing her like this.

Before long, she found herself in a clearing, with yet another mechanical spider in the middle of it.

Ghost: "Sepiks is in the nearby building, we need to eliminate this walker before moving on"

Ria thought this would be easy again, and like she thought, it was. One shot of her golden gun was enough to eliminate the walker. After this "battle", she mad her way to the door, and killed a few more uglies before moving on. She stabbed them a few times for quick upgrades to the flames, they were a solid green color now. They weren't as ugly as the yellow, but she thought they could look cooler. Style is everything you know.

Walking through the hallways, she came across a giant door. Pressing on it, the door slid open, revealing a giant black and purple mechanical orb in the middle.

Ghost: "That's Sepiks..."

Ria looked at Sepiks and it looked so... cool! The purple and black metallic look is exactly what she wished to go for! She needed to get her hands on the dead body of Sepiks. She couldn't use her golden gun, as that would just destroy Sepiks. She needed to take Sepkis apart piece by piece. Dashing towards Sepiks, she grabbed hold of one of the outer pieces and gripped as tightly as possible. Then she dashed backwards. When she did this, a large piece of metal fell off from its body. She looked towards the Ghost who shook in understanding, and stored the metal chunk as data. Ria repeated this process twice more until the complete outer layer of metal was removed and stored. She had ideas for cool armor already.

Looking back at Sepiks, its next layer was a combination of metal and purple energy. She repeated her dash and pull tactic once more. Dashing around the projectiles fired by Sepiks, she once again pulled off another chunk of metal from Sepiks. Upon doing so, Sepiks crashed to the ground, unnable to move. Using this advantage, she completely disassembled Sepiks until nothing remained left of him.

Ghost: "That was... an interesting way to kill him. When we get back to the tower, I can help you turn the metal into things you might enjoy"

With a nod, she instructed the Ghost to bring them back to the tower. And after a few minutes, they were back. Standing in the middle of the courtyard, she got stares at the bright green flames on her cloak, hands, and feet. Like it was unnatural to be on fire. She payed it no mind and made her way down the stairs towards Cayde.

Ghost: "Cayde..."

Cayde: "Oh, hey! Hows my favorite guardian? Whats with the green fire? How is the green fire? What even is that?"

Ghost: "Its the light... it should be the regular solar element, but her power and control over the light... its unheard of"

Cayde: "Oh wow, that's something. That's kinda cool, not that I'm jealous or anything. Update on those bounties?"

Ghost: "All complete"

Cayde: "Nice going hunter. Great to have you. You can turn those in up top, might get some good loot from those things"

Ghost: "Of course"

Ria waved a goodbye to Cayde, before running off to turn in her bounties. After turning in the last one, the bounty master gave her a card.

Bounty Master: "This is an exotic weapon quest... Do you want it?"

Ria nodded and took the card.

Bounty Master: "I dont know what the quest is for... master Cayde just told me to give it to you"

Ghost: "Well tell Cayde we thank him, and are sure to repay the favor"

Ria nodded in agreement, and reached into her bag and pulled the matte black pistol she got before.

Bounty Master: "I will be sure to give this to Cayde... Farewell guardian"

Ria nodded in satisfaction, and walked back to the courtyard.

Ghost: "Next we can go get your new armor"