THE VAULT OF GLASS
"How much you wanna bet this thing isn't gonna go down as easy as it did last time?" Josh asked the team. The combined fireteam force, fireteams Cobra and... well, Josh's unofficial team hadn't yet been named (but they were thinking "Condor") were assembled just ahead of Atheon's chamber. They knew the fight ahead would be difficult. The Titan turned to address his team again, sliding another shell into his shotgun. There was Taken goo everywhere, ruining the one thing the Vault used to have going for it - the views. The two fireteams had slugged their way through the familiar Vault, yet it felt so different throughout. The Taken had encroached on it before, but Atheon had been dead. And suddenly, he was alive and well again, causing an issue for the Vanguard.
"Nobody's got any cold feet, do they?" he joked.
"No, no, I just..." someone spoke up. It was the other male on the team. An Exo. Eta-10. He'd had a knack for getting himself into undesirable situations. He spoke up again, "It's just... this is it. We've actually made it to the endgame. It's pretty mind-blowing. Never thought we'd make it this far, to be honest."
"Hey," a blonde woman spoke in the back, "Don't get too hung up on anything, we've still got whatever's ahead of us to face. We have no idea what to expect through that door," another Guardian confirming her sentiment.
"Really?" the Exo replied, glancing to face her, "Come on, we've all seen it."
"Not really," A shorter Awoken woman spoke up in reply, "Sure, we've seen the chamber. We've seen Atheon. But... we don't really know what's in there." She fumbled a little bit, grumbling. But she stepped forward. "But if anyone's going to face it, it's going to be us. We've come this far! There's no way in hell I'm turning back now."
Josh nodded stepping ahead a bit to the one who hadn't spoken up yet. "Hey," he whispered, "I'm really glad you got back okay," he said as he lifted his finger to her chin, bringing it up to him and catching her gaze. "You good?" he asked, a little concern in his tone.
She smiled, "Yeah, I'm just still a little out of it but... I'll be fine. Let's get in there."
"Good," Josh replied, taking a grand step back to the Vault door. It was looming and imposing. But it was nothing.
"You still worried about Zavala?" she asked him, bringing him back around to focus.
"Yeah, I am, actually," he confirmed, "He wasn't too happy about us going to Venus once, but we've been back and forth and all over so much now I'm just..."
"It'll be okay," she assured, "Just hold on to that. If we make it back to Big Blue, it'll mean we've won. We'll have stopped something huge. Saved the City."
Her confident and assuring smile brought out a resolved smile in his own expression. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Thanks, Alisa." He turned back to the door, and with a newfound courage spoke to his team, "Let's do this."
