((AUTHOR'S NOTE: To those of you who actually took interest in this, be advised that I am working on the rest of the story. The following just a sample, a prelude, and the actual work is well under way (30 pages, actually). I wanted to know how many people would really be interested when I finally posted the whole thing, so do let me know in any way you choose (be it by favoriting it, reviewing what little is already here, or just by good old word-of-mouth advertising to your friends and upping the views. Or don't, to express your distaste.). When it's done, it'll be done, and I'll post it all here as a completed story. Don't think I've abandoned it, and don't delete it from your list if you had it on there to begin with. Keep your eyes open. Thank you so much for your patience and time (I'm so sorry for that).))

Prelude

We had inserted ourselves, camped out, and been organized in the Ishtar Cliffs. We cleared out an area of Vex units to occupy for ourselves, at least for the moment. The Hyperion's Watch, an army of elite soldiers accompanying a group of Guardians, had established a foothold around the perimeter of the Waking Ruins. We had one objective, and one target: the Vault of Glass.

Every night there were patrols, and I slept in my battle uniform next to a Hunter named Mari Qain, who slept in her armor as well. My best friend, Kate Archer, kept her pulse rifle close by. But I noticed something above the droning of the Watchmen and the other Guardians patrolling and waiting. Hyperion, the legendary Titan in command of the Watch, would always be there. He stood in each twilight's last gleaming, standing at the top of the hill our camp was stationed about. That Guardian was always staring right at the Vault. Waiting. Watching. Thinking. Planning.

He was more devoted than any of us. He was the reason we stayed on Venus with him; our loyalty was met with power. His power. Hyperion's Light was strong, and brutal. I've watched as he tore Vex Minotaurs limb from limb and ripped Hobgoblins' main line rifles off, using them as improvised blunt weapons for himself. He inspired me. He inspired us all.

Something scared me when I saw him there, though. It was off-putting. I didn't know if we'd all come this way to follow him to our deaths, or to appear triumphant in his shadow. I didn't know if he even had the intent of succeeding. But he had to; he was our commander. He was our Titan—our Hyperion. I was always afraid when I saw him up there, though. It was like he was afraid, too. Like under that helmet that leaked Light was a face like my own, haunted by the horrors of the Vault of Glass.

I tucked my scout rifle between my arms tighter each night I saw him, perched up on that hill with the view to the Vex fortress. This was hardly an invasion; the six Guardians that brought the thirty-some human and exo soldiers were not off to war. We were off to raid, and to loot valuable equipment, Glimmer caches, resources, and—of course—information; it's all in the engrams, the briefing drilled into our heads.

I should say that this raid was not actually planned out of foolishness or overwhelming pride. We were members of the Hyperion's Watch, the most elite force of non-Guardians fighting for the Tower, led by an unbelievably strong Titan, Hyperion, of course; a resourceful Hunter, Mari Qain; and an insightful Warlock, Aurora-9. Typically we are commissioned by the Vanguard to combat Fallen in Old Russia back on Earth, locked in a lengthy battle of wits with the House of Kings. But something changed in the Watch's commanders. They were determined to seek out a distant target, something that piqued the curiosity, fear, and avarice. The curiosity of the Warlocks to learn more about the Vex and their secrets, the Titans' fear of the threat of the reports of the Vex activity, and the avarice of the Hunters—"think of all the engrams! The loot!" I could hear Qain repeating herself in my dreams, resting restlessly in the tent below my rifle.

One night, I gazed off the end of the cliff and across the red lake, feasting my eyes upon Maat Mons. It was… an intriguing sight. I joined Aurora-9 for the view.

"Tell me, Warlock," I began to converse, "do you think the Vex feel?"

"Feel?" The exo barely turned her head to me, scanning me with what I could presume was concern. She didn't have any eyes, and I only guessed that her sight was powered by sensory receptors around the headpiece and other crucial body pieces.

"Aye," I said, "feel. Pain? Loneliness? Hate? Love?"

The Warlock shifted her gaze, watching the banks of vibrant blue molten, liquid cobalt at the base of the colossal volcano. "The machine juggernaut, though manifesting through millions of units, has one collective mind. Like a Warmind—but not in the way a Warmind is a Warmind. A collective without debate, and without internal conflict."

"Sterile." I snapped. "Stagnant."

"Amazing," Aurora-9 contradicted me. "Perhaps they do feel, but not the way we feel. The way a Warmind feels and thinks. Cold, pragmatic, calculating. The feeling comes after the logic. That's how I see it. I'm sure you'll get another answer with every person you ask, Watchman."

"My name is Grim." I corrected her matter-of-factly.

The exo nodded. "I apologize. Point—if you go and ask, for example, Qain, she might tell you that the Vex have to feel the blows of our campaign every time we take a stronghold from them. They have to feel it when an operating base is erected in the ruins of a timegate. They might even associate some sort of irkness with the setbacks.

"A Titan like Hyperion might say, 'if they don't now, they will soon.' Ask Pahanin, and perhaps he will shake his head and tell you what he told me: that at first, they will feel you, and then you'll feel them, and you'll wish you hadn't."

That chilling description wasn't exactly reassuring. "Do you?"

"Me? No," Aurora dismissed, "I don't do enough field work in the Ishtar Sink. I've spent a lot more time with Fireteam Ajay in the deeper Old Accra ruins and Old Chicago."

"You're a Fallen specialist? Like us?"

Aurora-9, a Warlock so conceited in herself and so collected to never have imagined working with a band of ordinary soldiers acting in tandem with full Guardians, paused for a few long seconds. "No. Hive."

I watched the sun descend below the cliffs in the distance, and then returned to my tent, undoing the chin strap and prying my helmet off. Guardians had so much better gear than us. They were what the entire Watch was counting on. We all knew we would suffer heavy losses. We all knew we would feel it.

That night I joined Hyperion at the top of the hill, and we watched the Vault's gate shine in the dark. It was the only light visible in the night, a lighthouse of terrors to come, a beacon, or a harbinger. The Titan sharpened the bayonet stuck to the pulse rifle he called Red Death. I re-calibrated the scope to my Häkke scout rifle.

Hyperion chose me to run point with the Guardian fireteam even though I wasn't touched by the Traveler's Light; I had, however, an inexplicable special talent for handling these kinds of weapons. I've earned strange looks from Guardians and even other Watchmen, but my ability to handle a rifle as efficiently as I did was the reason I was a Watchman myself.

"You intend to use that?" I asked, eyeing the blood-stained bayonet. "Against Vex?"

Hyperion nodded. "Yes."

"Will that work? I mean, they're not exactly Fallen and blood."

"Mm," he sighed. I wasn't sure if it was acknowledgement, or polite denial. He wasn't willing to distinguish. But he didn't dismiss me, nor order me to get some sleep. He must've known I couldn't; I was too antsy. I could tell that he was, too. For the past week he would sit up on this hill until he either fell asleep or the sun rose, whichever came first. Gazing at the ominous lamp in the distance that silently beckoned us, I began to see why.

I returned to checking my scout rifle's focus lense. Not another word was spoken that night. Not by me, nor Hyperion, nor Aurora, nor any Vex.

Maybe the Vex would feel it, after all.

The sun glowed orange in the distance. I was torn between watching it and the glow of the Vault's gate, but I decided to stare at the baked horizon as all of the orange-red skyline descended, burned out, died, and was finally overcome by night.

It was the last sunset I'd ever seen with my two eyes. Somehow, I knew that the moment I saw it. I slept dreamlessly under the starless night.