Before I start on the main tale, I believe a brief introduction is in order. My name is, or rather, was Alexander Haelstrom. Now, I am the Exo known as Merlin-23 and a member of a clan of notorious madmen and SMX (Sparrow Motocross) professionals. The new name comes as a result of the initial memory block I suffered upon awakening to my third life and the refusal of my fellows in the clan Victory or Sovngarde to accept the possibility that I was once flesh and blood. I don't blame them; after all, it does seem preposterous that I would be the one Exo to remember the before times or being human. The details of my past lives are heavily fragmented and only come after periods of intense meditation, but what I do remember is that I was a revolutionary in terms of robotics and human-machine interfacing. The credit wasn't all mine, to be sure, as the Traveler improved my capabilities well beyond what normal men could manage. Then again, the same could be said about all people beneath the Traveler's light. My transition into my second life came late into my first, I was one of the people responsible for developing various advanced combat frames to help quell fanatics and more dangerous species that appeared on worlds teraformed by the Traveler and felt that I could do much more if I lived much longer. My greatest attempts at organic-machine interfacing during my life (as far as I can remember) came when I wished to perform the "magic trick" of moving my mind and soul into a mechanical form. It took 23 attempts using the prototypes that I dubbed "Merlin" to create a frame that didn't suffer cyber brain overload during the neural imprint process, the soul transfer was surprisingly, and necessarily, accomplished in the first go. I believe many others emulated me in the time after my initial triumph, though I cannot confirm this. I died my second death during the Collapse, as I helped refugees escape earth in the doomed exodus that resulted in the creation of the Reef and the Awoken. That brings us back pretty much to the present and covers as much of my past as I am willing to divulge to what may as well be perfect strangers.
...
"Hey, Nathaniel," Merlin-23, a dark grey bodied Exo Warlock with light blue eyes and crimson vocal illumination clad in golden robes and glowing Sunbreaker gauntlets called out over the corpse of a particularly large and ugly Hive Ogre, "We've got a message from Coop saying that Jack has reserved the lounge in the tower for an important meeting tomorrow. I say we take a break from trying to locate Crota's tomb and head back there."
Nathaniel, a Hunter of inhuman knife throwing talent dressed in black and gold and sporting a cape bearing a serpent, pulled a pair of said throwing knives out of the skull plate of one of the Hive's elite Knights and walked casually over to where Merlin-23 stood. "Why? The last time we went for an 'important meeting' in the lounge, Jack was hoping we could help him prank Master Rahool with a fake exotic engram that would turn into an explosion of confetti when the poor Cryptarch used his tools on it! Scared the man nearly to death and almost got us barred from receiving Cryptarch services," he sighed, agitated, "if he put half the effort he does damaging his ship in unique ways and pranking important members of the Tower council into actually uncovering intel on the enemy, like we do, the Darkness would be nearly gone already."
"Last time, Coop didn't ask us to come," Merlin said, emphasizing the name. Coop-43 had been a constant companion and ally since the three had met, shortly after their initial resurrections. Together, they had accomplished quite a bit and bonded into a nearly seamless fire team. In fact, the only reason Coop hadn't come along this time was because his arm had been damaged beyond what a ghost alone was capable of immediately repairing. Merlin supposed that was what he got for punching the Hive abomination Phogoth in the skull as a coup de gras, but the recording of it that Nathaniel's ghost captured made the event more than worth it in each of their eyes.
Nathaniel picked through a few more fallen Hive to find the rest of his knives as well as to see if they had dropped anything worth taking home. "You're right," he said after a little while, "Coop's word is gold in my book, and if he wants us there or halfway across the solar system we'll get there as fast as we can. Besides, I can't just leave Huckleberry in a potentially dangerous situation with a loose cannon like the Dear Leader in charge."
And so, the Warlock and the Hunter hopped into their jumpships and made haste for the tower. They got back to the Tower later that day and rested and prepped for what was to come. They woke up and left their Vanguard assigned apartments later than anticipated, the transition from the moon and Hellmouth to the Earth always seemed to drain them more than any other, perhaps due to the dark nature of the Hellmouth. En route to the meeting, they receive another transmission from Coop, this time, a live feed.
"Hello friends," Coop says affecting a pre-Golden Age Russian accent, "comrade Jack has debriefed us on plan to crack Vault of Glass."
Merlin and Nathaniel share a surprised and confused "huh" before asking Coop to continue.
"He didn't give much in the way of details," Coop went on, "and he is currently going through one of his notorious 'flashbacks' in the lounge, but fortunately he ran out of ammo a while back and is currently shooting nothing at nothing."
"He knows of a way to get in?" Merlin inquired, skeptical, "last I heard, he was running suicide assaults on the Cabal blockade. I don't really think that's a good way of gathering intel on the Vex."
"That's true," Coop admitted, "the ghosts are the ones who actually figured it out. They rummaged through all of Dr. Shin's data and compared it to what they learned from breaking into the Black Garden. Jack thinks that we can handle whatever is behind the gate, and I'm anxious to start punching things again, so I'll tag along."
"Well, Huckleberry, like I was telling Pinocchio the other day, we'll go where you go," Nathaniel grinned at Merlin, "is Glen, the Machine, going? I want to show him my newest knife throwing vid. Maybe get him to finally acknowledge their combat viability."
"Yes, he and Corey both are," Coop replied.
Merlin grumbled, "I'm telling you, I was human once, and I don't appreciate the nickname 'Pinocchio' or it's association with lying."
"Whatever you say, Pinocchio," Nathaniel laughed, "in any case, the Three Amigos will be reunited in less than ten minutes, so be ready for us when we get there Huckleberry."