Lemons

Destiny: The Exclusion Zone

@Apollosarcher That would be cool. What console are you on?

I'm just sitting here fermenting in a pool of my own last-gen on the 360.

Seven Immortal Elements

I chuckle and turn around, throwing myself around Fire in a hug. "Come on, Fire, is that any way to greet your sister?" I'd forgotten how much fun Fire is to mess with. I mean, we're sorta siblings, right? Right? Yeah.

Breaking the hold, I look him up and down, sniffing the wine on his breath and seeing the slightly pained look in his eyes. A high laugh pours from my mouth.

"Whoops, forgot how much you like the drink. Sorry! If I'd remembered, I woulda brought some scotch down from up north. It's certainly better stuff than that glorified red water that you drink most of the time, know what I mean?" I punch him on the shoulder a little bit harder than I mean to. Whoops, hope he doesn't get too angry with me. You wouldn't like Fire when he's angry. He tends to hurt people when they irritate him.

My demeanor becomes slightly more serious as I toss my hand backwards over my shoulder, thumb pointing off towards the north. "Darkness called a meeting. Death got in touch with him in a dream, same as it did for me. We're meeting in Paris, I figured I'd have enough time to come grab you. As far as I know, everyone's going to be there. I know at least Force is. If any amount of us are meeting all at once, there's definitely something serious going on, y'know?" As I speak, I begin to rapidly tap my booted right foot against the floor, each impact leaving a faint glow for a brief moment before it vanishes, only to be replaced by another. "So!" I abruptly say quite loudly, borderline yell, after a long beat of silence, "that's the situation. I hope you're coming, this is something that we really need to figure out. If any more than two of us got this message, then things aren't going to go well. You never know, one of us might have found the offer hard to refuse and accepted it. Maybe Water; it's always the quiet ones, am I right?" Not to mention I never much liked her at all, I add to myself. Too much of the ocean never gets any light for me to appreciate water.

---

As usual, I get impatient quickly. Barely a second after I've asked the question, and I'm already getting antsy. "So, you're coming, right?" I add, just to make sure.

Seven Immortal Elements

Light

Kelly O'Connor

Appearance:

Kelly is a tall, lithe young woman, looking maybe twenty-five or so, with pale, freckled skin. She has extraordinarily light blonde hair, bordering on white, chopped to just beneath her shoulders, and piercing eyes of that rare golden-hazel tone. Her shoulders are small, surmounting a body as thin as a twig, and about as curvaceous. Her legs are unusually long, which, combined with her godly stamina, makes her into an exceedingly fast runner. Her thin eyebrows are in a state of perpetual up, and she's constantly twitching and tapping her small feet and thin fingers on whatever's available. She usually wears a light dress, coloured white and gold, paired with white leggings and toughened brown leather boots.

Personality:

Gottagofastalwaysgofastmustgofast. Kelly is extremely hyperactive and always moving around and twitching, mildly obsessed with moving as quickly as possible. Not surprising, considering she can move at light speed. Just imagine someone who's never had caffeine before chugged an energy drink. She has a quick, nervous laugh, and she's generally just a happy person. She doesn't really have an angry side, for the most part. She thinks of Sai as a sort of brother, and she's always happy to hear from or see him. Other than him, she prefers Fire above any of the other elemental avatars, simply because of how well they synergize.

Powers

Shimmer: Bends light around the user, causing them to become (mostly) invisible. However, it's not perfect. There's a faintly visible outline around them as they move, making it just slightly faulty. While standing still, however, it's an excellent disguise. Usable by humans.
Afterthoughts: A sort of extension of Shimmer, this power replaces the user with an illusion of themselves where they last were when they become invisible, as an added distraction to facilitate escape. Usable by humans, though with some difficulty.
Sun Shield: The user surrounds themselves with an impossibly bright sphere of pure light, intense enough to blind someone if they glance at it for more than a few seconds. The blinding power, combined with the incredible heat such bright light gives off, makes this a technique useful in both attack and defense, especially against any form of darkness. Humans can use it to an extent, but the light is much, much weaker, barely more powerful than a modern-day floodlight, and not even hot enough to burn skin.
Flash: The user fires a powerful laser from their palm, strong enough to sear through stone in mere milliseconds. Again, only barely usable by humans. It takes a human follower about a second to even make wood smoke.
Caliburn: The user creates a huge claymore out of hard light. The edge is impossibly keen, and the point is impossibly sharp. It can cut through almost anything and everything. This one, only Kelly can use, and only for so much time before she has to let it dissipate. It's simply too powerful to hold for long. Instead, her followers can only summon a tiny dagger, the blade only about two inches or so long, which she refers to as Arondight.
Perihelion: Exudes a force of sheer light, making it much more difficult for darkness or, to a lesser extent, cold to work any of their powers. On the other side, it makes fire significantly more powerful. Usable by humans.
Lightbringer: Lightbringer is the most powerful ability that Kelly can normally use. She collects a reservoir of light within her body and unleashes it in an enormous beam of light in front of her. It's at least three feet in diameter and can carve gaping holes through iron walls. She can focus it down to only six or so inches if she so desires, creating a beam that can slice a building in half. This, however, drains her more than anything else. She can barely keep it up for fifteen or sixteen seconds, and if she does, she'll quickly become exhausted and lose much of her power, so much so that she doesn't outclass a human follower by all that much.
Final Illumination: This is a purely hypothetical ability, one which Kelly has never used. To use it, she must kill herself. Building up all of the light in her body, she releases it in a massive wave, rupturing her skin and tearing herself apart. The resulting destructive blast would kill anything in quite a large radius, and would cause temporary but long-lasting blindness for a decent area after the killzone.

Human Persona Bio:

Kelly is a crofter's daughter, farming and hunting with the best. Her mother died when she was born, and her father, having no idea how to teach a daughter to be feminine, raised her more as a son. When the other girls were learning to cook, she was learning to hunt. When they were learning to entertain guests, she was learning how to feed the animals. This is essentially the current state of affairs for her. Nothing particular remarkable. Occasionally, though, she disappears for long periods of time. Her father trusts her; she's just off on another of her "hunting trips."

Equipment:

(Mostly part of your human persona) Kelly carries very little with her, generally. In lieu of Caliburn, Kelly generally carries a long dagger in her boot. While not special in any way, it's simply a very reliable knife made of steel. On occasion, she'll use a huge claymore, made of normal steel. If she's required to fight, though, she has the virtue of being able to blind someone instantaneously. Therefore, if she's alone with her attacker, she can simply blind them, lay down the law, and escape with nobody the wiser.

Temple Description:

(Where is it located, what are your monks/nuns like, what are your priests like, doctrine, description of the temple itself, etc.) Kelly's temple is a nondescript and decrepit ancient monastery in the mountains of the Scottish highlands. It's the perfect location for her, because at the point where it is (near the peak of a mountain, past the treeline), she has a near-uninterrupted view of the sun. Her monks and nuns are essentially typical medieval monks and nuns, except they're clothed entirely in white and gold. There's no real doctrine; the only real tenet for her followers is to, in Kelly's own words, "praise the Sun!" The priests carry around a special badge of office: a tattoo of a rising sun on their forehead, imbued with Kelly's power to glow slightly in dim light.

Local tech:

It's essentially medieval. The Highland way of life hasn't changed in a very, very long time. All sources of light are essentially either the sun, or fire.

Seven Immortal Elements

I jolt from my sleep into a sitting position, breathing heavily and holding a hand to my pounding chest. Light is beaming around me, reflecting around the room and illuminating it with a glowing radiance. I stare down at my trembling hands in a sort of half-conscious fascination. My skin is translucent, my entire body igniting in an incandescent blaze. I can hear my pulse in my ears, thumping through me in a panicked drumline. Tossing the thick quilt away from my body, I spring to my feet, sweat coating my face as the brilliance emanating from me fades away.

I'm alone, I realize, with detached tranquility that's quite unlike me. Oh, there are my monks; but they see me as a god. I can't interact with them, not truly. What would it be like to have the power that Death promised me? Oh, I won't lie. It's tempting. But I know better than that. I may be harebrained at times, but I'm not a fool.

Tossing one of my many identical dresses, (shut up, I like how it looks and feels) I slip my socked feet into my tough footwear. Grabbing my knife from my dresser, I shove it into my right boot before leaving the small house on my "father's" croft. At times like this, fresh air is one of the best solutions. He's not my actual father, of course; the elementals have none. He's the highest-ranking of my priests, who acts as my father to appease the curiosity of others.

Once outside, I take a few deep, shaking breaths, watching the sun slip down towards the horizon.

My ears perk up.

Darkness?

Yep, that's absolutely Darkness. He's contacting me through the sunset. "Paris, hmm? Alright, Darkness, I'll be there. I'll see if I can find Fire and bring him along, there's still a little while before the sun sets."

With that, I sever the brief connection and stare at the sun for a moment, eyes narrowed, before dematerializing and darting off to the south as a streak of light.

---

By the time I arrive at Mount Vesuvius, the sun is closing in on the horizon. The temple looms in front of me and, with a sound like thunder, I explode into the largest chamber, reforming myself in a brilliant flash. Striding forwards, I look around. So this is Fire's temple, hmm? Not sure I like the whole black stone aesthetic, but I have to admit that it looks pretty nice.

"Hey! Fire! You in here? Message for you, all the way from Scotland!"

Okay, so I've never been the best at stealth. That's more of Darkness' strong suit. Mostly, I just hate waiting.

Destiny: The Exclusion Zone

Having never really liked gambling all that much, I prefer to sit back and listen to Galen speak. My eyes widen ever so slightly. No better weapon than the Khvostov? Wow. Must be a new guardian. Man, what is the Speaker thinking? Well, might as well make the best of it.

"Alright, hang on. I'll go look around in the back, see if they've got something that I can scrounge up for you to take into the field."

Picking myself up, I move past the poker players, smiling at Galen and nodding as I walk by, and enter the back of the ship, where the bathroom and FADAM can be found. It's really quite nice for the back of a jump ship; My own old Arcadia, which I still use to this day, isn't even close to this. There are none of the cobwebs, dust and disorganization that characterize my own. Everything is clean, black and white. Though at first I find nothing of what I'm looking for, in the corner, I find a flickering screen lighting up the back of the room. Nudging it curiously, it bursts to life as something that I've never seen on a ship but, in retrospect, makes a lot of sense. Smiling, I tap the screen a few times and access my vault. A few more taps and I have what I need.

Making my way back into the main room, I toss a long, sleek auto rifle to Galen. "Here, use this. You might have seen a few guardians with it in the Tower. It's an old SUROS weapon called the Regime, went out of production a long time ago. It's one of the best auto rifles you'll ever find. Smart matter, too. Whenever you aim down sights, the bullets shift caliber. Fires slower, but hits a hell of a lot harder." A grin forms on my face, and I tap my mechanical hand on the weapon on my back, causing a slight clanking noise. "Of course, SUROS can't compare to Omolon. It should serve you well enough, though, so have fun with it."

With that, I sit down once again, content to watch the people playing poker. Kazik definitely surprises me; I never thought I'd see a Fallen playing cards. I wonder how many he can hold with all those hands, I muse, and smile at the image.

Destiny: The Exclusion Zone

I kick back in the couch, yawning slightly from the slight amount of sleepiness that still clings to my eyes.

"So, we'll be here for a few hours, huh? Might as well introduce ourselves."

As I speak, I idly remove my Hard Light from my back, checking all of the mechanisms and occasionally tightening a bolt, or wiping a surface down.

"I'm Aiden-12, Titan. Originally from Venus, as far as I can remember." Shifting my attention to one of the other Titans that I can see, I recognize the Spearhead Type 0 gear he's wearing. That's not the part that really surprises me, though. He's using a Khvostov? On a mission like this? I know there are purists who insist on only using old weapons like that, but I'm really surprised that he's bringing it to something this important.

"Hey...um..." It's at this point that I realize that I have no idea what his name is, but I press on nonetheless. "You sure you want to use a Khvostov here? I'm sure Nova has a better weapon stashed away somewhere on this ship." As if to emphasize this, I finish my weaponry maintenance and snap the magazine back into the receptacle, replacing the weapon on my back and removing the Vestian Dynasty from my hip for its own daily care. "After all, if these fallen are really enough trouble to warrant the Speaker sending a squad this large after them, there's definitely reason to be well-equipped." I pause for a moment to remember my first disastrous encounter with patrolling Wolves as a fairly new guardian. My Ghost had its hands full bringing me back to life that many times, that's for sure. Yeah, he's going to have a fireteam with him, but that's no reason to use a sub-par weapon. If anything, it might make it worse when we have to stop what we're doing to pick him up.

Still, there's one more Titan here, and he's looking much better equipped. With any luck, one of the two is a Defender. Ward of Dawn has never hurt, especially since we don't know what we're going up against.

Seven Immortal Elements

Name: Kelly O'Connor

Appearance: Kelly is a tall, lithe young woman, looking maybe twenty-five or so, with pale, freckled skin. She has extraordinarily light blonde hair, bordering on white, chopped to just beneath her shoulders, and piercing eyes of that rare golden-hazel tone. Her shoulders are small, surmounting a body as thin as a twig, and about as curvaceous. Her legs are unusually long, which, combined with her godly stamina, makes her into an exceedingly fast runner. Her thin eyebrows are in a state of perpetual up, and she's constantly twitching and tapping her small feet and thin fingers on whatever's available. She usually wears a light dress, coloured white and gold, paired with white leggings and toughened brown leather boots.

Personality: Gottagofastalwaysgofastmustgofast. Kelly is extremely hyperactive and always moving around and twitching, mildly obsessed with moving as quickly as possible. Not surprising, considering she can move at light speed. Just imagine someone who's never had caffeine before chugged an energy drink. She has a quick, nervous laugh, and she's generally just a happy person. She doesn't really have an angry side, for the most part. She thinks of Sai as a sort of brother, and she's always happy to hear from or see him. Other than him, she prefers Fire above any of the other elemental avatars, simply because of how well they synergize.

Powers: (besides the ones we all have):

Powers

Shimmer: Bends light around the user, causing them to become (mostly) invisible. However, it's not perfect. There's a faintly visible outline around them as they move, making it just slightly faulty. While standing still, however, it's an excellent disguise. Usable by humans.
Afterthoughts: A sort of extension of Shimmer, this power replaces the user with an illusion of themselves where they last were when they become invisible, as an added distraction to facilitate escape. Usable by humans, though with some difficulty.
Sun Shield: The user surrounds themselves with an impossibly bright sphere of pure light, intense enough to blind someone if they glance at it for more than a few seconds. The blinding power, combined with the incredible heat such bright light gives off, makes this a technique useful in both attack and defense, especially against any form of darkness. Humans can use it to an extent, but the light is much, much weaker, barely more powerful than a modern-day floodlight, and not even hot enough to burn skin.
Flash: The user fires a powerful laser from their palm, strong enough to sear through stone in mere milliseconds. Again, only barely usable by humans. It takes a human follower about a second to even make wood smoke.
Caliburn: The user creates a huge claymore out of hard light. The edge is impossibly keen, and the point is impossibly sharp. It can cut through almost anything and everything. This one, only Kelly can use, and only for so much time before she has to let it dissipate. It's simply too powerful to hold for long. Instead, her followers can only summon a tiny dagger, the blade only about two inches or so long, which she refers to as Arondight.
Perihelion: Exudes a force of sheer light, making it much more difficult for darkness or, to a lesser extent, cold to work any of their powers. On the other side, it makes fire significantly more powerful. Usable by humans.
Lightbringer: Lightbringer is the most powerful ability that Kelly can normally use. She collects a reservoir of light within her body and unleashes it in an enormous beam of light in front of her. It's at least three feet in diameter and can carve gaping holes through iron walls. She can focus it down to only six or so inches if she so desires, creating a beam that can slice a building in half. This, however, drains her more than anything else. She can barely keep it up for fifteen or sixteen seconds, and if she does, she'll quickly become exhausted and lose much of her power, so much so that she doesn't outclass a human follower by all that much.
Final Illumination: This is a purely hypothetical ability, one which Kelly has never used. To use it, she must kill herself. Building up all of the light in her body, she releases it in a massive wave, rupturing her skin and tearing herself apart. The resulting destructive blast would kill anything in quite a large radius, and would cause temporary but long-lasting blindness for a decent area after the killzone.

Human Persona bio: (What do the humans see you as) Kelly is a crofter's daughter, farming and hunting with the best. Her mother died when she was born, and her father, having no idea how to teach a daughter to be feminine, raised her more as a son. When the other girls were learning to cook, she was learning to hunt. When they were learning to entertain guests, she was learning how to feed the animals. This is essentially the current state of affairs for her. Nothing particular remarkable. Occasionally, though, she disappears for long periods of time. Her father trusts her; she's just off on another of her "hunting trips."

Equipment: (Mostly part of your human persona) Kelly carries very little with her, generally. In lieu of Caliburn, Kelly generally carries a long dagger in her boot. While not special in any way, it's simply a very reliable knife made of steel. On occasion, she'll use a huge claymore, made of normal steel. If she's required to fight, though, she has the virtue of being able to blind someone instantaneously. Therefore, if she's alone with her attacker, she can simply blind them, lay down the law, and escape with nobody the wiser.

Temple Description: (Where is it located, what are your monks/nuns like, what are your priests like, doctrine, description of the temple itself, etc.) Kelly's temple is a nondescript and decrepit ancient monastery in the mountains of the Scottish highlands. It's the perfect location for her, because at the point where it is (near the peak of a mountain, past the treeline), she has a near-uninterrupted view of the sun. Her monks and nuns are essentially typical medieval monks and nuns, except they're clothed entirely in white and gold. There's no real doctrine; the only real tenet for her followers is to, in Kelly's own words, "praise the Sun!" The priests carry around a special badge of office: a tattoo of a rising sun on their forehead, imbued with Kelly's power to glow slightly in dim light.

Local tech: (level and specialties of the people near your temple, even if it isn't a separate country) It's essentially medieval. The Highland way of life hasn't changed in a very, very long time. All sources of light are essentially either the sun, or fire.

Seven Immortal Elements

It cool if I jump in as Light?

Destiny: The Exclusion Zone

Aiden-12 awoke to the sound of his Ghost.

"Aiden! Aiden, I said get up! Seriously, you might want to know about this!"

Grumbling, Aiden shoved the little floating menace away, turning over and planting his face firmly in his pillow. His entire body was sore from his last mission. Grimacing, he muttered, "I hate Cabal..." under his breath a few times before his Ghost nudged him again.

"Aiden, be serious! There's something important happening in the Tower!"

Rolling over to look at his Ghost, Aiden blinked his eyes blearily a few times. "How important?"

Having finally gotten his Guardian's attention, the Ghost spoke rapidly. "One of the Hunters, Andromedai, I think her name was, is heading off on that really, really nice shuttle that's been hanging around the shipyard recently. I overheard her and the captain talking about some sort of mission, and it seems rather interesting. On top of that, she got a message from the Speaker only a few minutes before I got one." Its voice took on an accusatory tone for the next bit of speech as it continued: "You were still asleep. It's taken me nearly an hour to wake you! Seems like it's about the same one, and there's yet another Fallen house that we have to check out. We're supposed to report to the same shuttle that I saw her going to. That important enough for you?"

Aiden blinked a few more times, then sighed. It did seem interesting. Strapping on his armour and grabbing his weapons from the locker nearby (taking special care with his beloved Hard Light), he arrayed them upon his body in a fashion that didn't encumber him overly much before yawning once more and setting out for the shipyard. Upon reaching it, he picked out the large dropship with ease. Not too difficult, after all, with it looking so different from all the others. Slightly readjusting the armour strapped to his chest, he walked up to the cockpit, knocking on it to catch the attention of the captain inside, speaking loudly to be heard through the glass shielding.

"Aiden-12. This is the IPF-D77 shuttle, right? I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to report here."

Destiny: The Exclusion Zone

Name: Aiden-12

Sex: Male

Race: Exo

Main Class: Titan

Subclass: (Pick one) Sunbreaker

Weapons: (pick up to three)

Primary Weapon: Hard Light

Secondary Weapon: Vestian Dynasty

Heavy Weapon: Thunderlord

Armor: (Optional)

Helmet: Commando Type 0

Chestplate: The Armamentarium

Gauntlets: Commando Type 0

Boots: Commando Type 0

Mark: Mark of the Deep Stone Crypt

Appearance: (Picture is fine) When inside of his armour, Aiden-12 is essentially a wall of metal, inscrutable. Outside of his armour he's actually much the same, being the exo that he is. His "skin" is a deep, metallic burgundy, detailed with lines of white. His ocular sensors glow with a pale blue light. He has a tall, burly frame, clearly built for close, front-lines combat. He's very strong, as could be expected, and the pistons and servos present in his arms and legs are extremely durable and powerful. On each side of his head, a sort of antenna-esque structure is present, allowing for greater auditory receptivity. He has large, powerful hands and feet, and quite often, he crushes delicate things with his hands, completely by accident.

Ghost Name: It's a Ghost. It doesn't have a name. Aiden-12, in accordance with this fact, simply referring to him as "Ghost", or "my Ghost".

Personality: Contrary with his somewhat-imposing outwards appearance, Aiden-12 is actually a fairly amiable and jocular person. However, he can be rather stubborn at times when he needs to be. When he's off duty, he can often be found simply lounging around the tower having a good time. He does, however, have one major pitfall in his personality: he has a compulsive adoration of anything that goes boom. This is essentially the main reason he wears the Armamentarium: incendiary grenades for DAYS. He takes advantage of his, as he has dubbed it, "bomb-hammer" as much as possible. Occasionally, Guardians that he's worked with in the field have reported somewhat manic laughter upon hearing him activate his super. He also has a habit of exchanging constant banter with whatever fireteam he may happen to be with during firefights and space flight alike, often running afoul of people for this exact reason.

History: As an exo, Aiden-12 was obviously built for war. Given his name, his memory has been reset several times over the course of his life. His current set of data began just before the Collapse, only perhaps fifty or so minutes before his death. All that he remember from that time are building drenched in fire and oil, collapsing before his eyes as everybody that he'd ever known crumbled away completely. Looking up, one of these enormous Golden-Age structures fell on top of him. Then he was being woken up by his Ghost. In particular, he was working as a guard for the Ishtar Collective on Venus during the Collapse. A simple jumpship presented itself to him and his Ghost, something that the Collective had been working on and had been locked away for a very long time. It was half-finished and experimental. Really, it was nearly broken, but he was being hunted. He somehow managed to get it into space and pilot it to the Cosmodrome, where it crashed in foot-deep water in the Forgotten Shore.

It was by sheer luck that a party of Guardians came upon him there, lying in the ruins of a jumpship that was crushed like a crumpled soda can. They managed to keep him safe from any Fallen incursions until he awoke. His right arm was essentially unusable and had to be painstakingly reconstructed over a great deal of time. Finally, he was called out into the field, having been reforged and prepared for battle in the Light of the Traveler. That puts him where he is now.