The day started as normal as a day could for a vanguard member. Arden was a human titan. All he wanted to do was destroy the dark side. This was the mission of everyone in the vanguard.
"Hey, you goin to practice today?" his friend lukas asked. Lukas was an exo archer.
"Uh, yeah! Why is that a question?" he replied
"Heh, I just thought you would be hangin around Laila's place" he said slyly
"Ugh, why did I tell you?"
"Hey, c'mon admit it, that was funny" he said laughing
"Whatever just know-" he was cut off by the buzzing of their communicators
"SWEET! Hey we got a new mission on the Moon!" Lukas exclaimed excitedly
"Oh yeah you love the Moon," Arden said, he had almost forgotten
"C'mon let's go!"
"Ugh fine" he said with a tone of complaint in his voice
On the starship transport they laughed about each other. Of course Lukas was a bit nervous, he never went to trainings. All he knew was from Arden when they went on missions. Lukas loved the Moon but hated the fallen. That's why they go to clear out the moon any chance they get.
"Deploy your ghosts in 10 seconds," a voice called over the entercom
"Ready?" Arden asked him
"As I'll ever be," he said with a hint of moxie
As they deployed they jumped around in zero gravity, bullets whizzing through the air. they took out them all but they still had an enemy showing up on our scanners in their helmets, and they never lie. Then Arden saw it, a health bar
"Over there behind the rocks!" he shouted as a noticed it and it noticed them
"I'm goin in!" Lukas shouted
He ran behind the rocks and took a bit of damage when he shouted
"CEASE FIRE!"
"Lukas what are you doing?" he asked angrily
"It's just an awoken!" he called, Arden had see this
"See!"
The awoken was sitting there crouched in a fighting stance ready to swing the staff in her arms.
It was held behind her back by her arm as it ran and was dug into the ground. She started speaking in some language they didn't understand, but their helmets translated.
"Who are you?" she spoke quickly and sharply
"We are with the vanguard, don't you know us?" they asked and their helmets once again translated.
"You are vanguard?"
"Yes!" Lukas said excitedly
"Then you will die," she said unexpectedly. she swung the staff at them as they were knocked down. She didn't kill them though, just left them with a lot of pain
"WHO ARE YOU?" Arden yelled
"What side do you think you are fighting for?" she asked
"The light side, duh" Lukas responded
"You are not the light side," She scoffed
"Well then what are we?" Arden asked
"You are dead thing, made by a dead power, in the shape of the dead, and all you will ever do is kill" she said as she boarded a vex ship
she said something they couldn't hear, she was out of reach of their communicators
They back on the starship and went home
"What do you think that was?"
"I don't know, she was showing up as vex, but looked awoken. She seemed to have some strange power, but what?" Lukas started rambling to himself confused
"Well what did you think of her?"
Lukas didn't reply
"You liked her," He said smugly
"big time"
"You know what the council will say," arden teased
"Well they don't need to find out!" he replied flustered
"Relax i was kidding," He said," Hold up… is that her?"
He pointed to an awoken female with light lilac skin and light purple hair, walking with a staff wearing a black robe.
"We should go talk to her!" Lukas said excitedly
"OK lover boy"
They ran up to her
"Hey, are you that girl from the mission on the moon?" Arden asked
"Uh...uh...mm," she looked flustered as if she was trying to speak in a different language," I don't know what your talking about, I just came from the moon after black garden," she said with an obviously fake smile on her face
"You've been to the black garden?" Arden shouted in disbelief
"Be quiet!" she silenced him
"Well, what's your name?" Lukas asked
"Uh...it's….Deidre! Yeah, deidre," She said the name slowly to herself
"Well I'm Arden, and this is my buddy Lukas!" he said
"Hey…...uh...um...BYE!" he screamed running away
"What is problem?" Deidre asked
"He has a crush on you," Arden said once Lukas was out of earshot
"Well, he isn't so bad for a vanguard," she replied
'You are that girl from the moon!" Arden spoke loudly, after processing what she had said
"Shush! Someone will hear you!"
"No! What are you doing here?"
"Ugh! Why did I come back!" she raced to the sparrows pulled out a strange...deformed looking ghost, and sped off down the path leading to the starships
"HEY WAIT!"
"NO! YOU VANGUARD ARE TOO MUCH TROUBLE!" she hopped into a starship and flew off heading towards the planet Mars
"Lukas," he called over the communicators
"What?"
"She's heading towards Mars, any clue why?" he asked
"Well, the black garden is there so that makes sense I guess," Lukas said thinking back to their conversation
"This can't be good," Arden said as they took off in his starship
"This is against protocol," Lukas' ghost called into their ears.
"I don't care you stupid ghost," Lukas called steering the ship
"Please don't sir,"
"How Come you can pilot a ship and I can't?" Arden complained
He knocked on his head as it made a hollow clunking sound
"Oh, right,
"NO! I feel the core of the ship, it's like it's telling me what to do,"
"Oh, because you're basically a robot,"
"No..Just...ARG! We don't have time for this," He said annoyed as they hit turbulence
"WE'RE GOIN DOWN!" Arden screamed
"The engine has been compromised," Lukas' ghost called out
"YEAH WE GOT THAT!" Lukas shouted as he started mashing buttons in an order that Arden couldn't figure out.
Lights were flashing, alarms blaring, almost everything was happening at once. "How could he keep his focus?" Arden thought as he watched Lukas slam his fingers as if in a delicate dance with the keys, his face one of pure determination.
"I CAN'T KEEP US IN THE AIR FOR MUCH LONGER" Lukas screamed over the blaring sounds
"OK I'LL BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
"WELL DUH!"
"SHUT UP!"
As sounds were going off, they had reached low altitudes. There was a huge crash
"Well that was a good landing," Arden said
"How was that good?"
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing,"
"Great the core of this thing is totally destroyed!" Lukas exclaimed
"Well maybe you should try and salvage it,"
"Sure," as Lukas deployed his ghost to scan the wreckage Arden wandered the area they had landed. He decided to scale a cliff edge near the wreck. As he climbed up it he felt a strange presence.
"Hello vanguard," Deidre said as he reached the top, it appeared that she had been meditating
"Wha-" he was cut off by her moving swiftly, the next he knew he was being held over the edge of the cliff by the collar of his robes
"You do not belong here!" she said with a grip loosening with every word
"Please! D-don't drop me!" Arden begged
"It wasn't that hard for your people to drop my mother!" she said with anger
"Please! Can't we just talk?"
"When has that ever helped in a war? How can I trust you?"
"Our ship has crashed so it's not like we can leave! Please put me back on solid ground!"
"Fine," she flung him back on the ledge.
"Thanks,"
"Go get your friend, then meet back here," she said and went back to meditating.
As Arden walked away, he noticed the staff having a slight glow to it as she caressed her hands over it. When he made it down the mountain he met Lukas at the crash
"Hey, where'd you go?"
"Up that mountain, speaking of which follow me,"
"Why?"
"Just trust me," Lukas did.
They scaled the side of the cliff as Arden was explaining things.
"So you're telling me this girl, that hates our guts, just invited us to meet her at a supposedly sacred spot?" Lukas asked while sitting on an edge
"Apparently,"
"Well, you came," She said. She was waiting for them
"Not creepy at all…" Arden mumbled
"Hey," Lukas said, and quickly looked down.
"Follow me, and if you cause any problems I won't hesitate," she rubbed down her staff
"We won't, that we can assure you," Lukas responded.
It was a long walk. Arden made several attempts to lighten the mood, but that didn't work.
"So… why do you hate the vanguard?" Arden finally asked
"There are stories, stories about you. I knew a fallen, she had loved a warlock. That was her biggest mistake. A child was born, and a few years later the awoken was back, and killed the fallen. That's why I hate you people," She responded sourly," Anyway, we're here," She pointed at an empty field.
"Where is here?" Lukas asked confused
"I forget how dim you are, here," she pulls out her ghost and it starts to scan the field.,"Deactivating cloaking device," the ghost called out. All of the sudden a huge wrecked starship was there.
"Woah," Lukas exclaimed
"How old is this?" Arden questioned
"Almost as old as me," she said as she was typing a code into the bay doors. The doors swung open as they walked inside. They saw all sorts of plants, and some glowing moss keeping the room lit. On the far left wall there was a small waterfall that pooled into a small pond with one large rock in the center. "Welcome to my home, touch anything you are not meant to you're dead, you my stay in the cargo room, there are some boxes that can be made into beds. If you go into the holding bay, you will be destroyed on the spot," she said as they sat in old pilot chairs.
"Why are you letting us here?" Lukas asked
"You seem different from others, but if you slip up-"
"Yeah we get the point. Is your name really Deidre, and why mars?" Arden asked impatiently
"I was born here, I live here end of story. My name… it's really Lotus,"
"I like Lotus," Lukas said absentmindedly
"Ha! of course you do," Arden teased
"Dude, shut up,"
"That was quite funny," Lotus said