Falling, that is how my tale begins. A strong overcoming sense of gravity that pulls you deep into the core of whatever planet you're standing on, because it's all the same. Some places, the gravitational pull is stronger than others. The concept of gravity makes no sense to me. What goes up must come down. Why? Why are those who are on their highs must hit the ground with such a strong and powerful force that just doesn't seem to exist? Why must I have been on my high when it happened that I am sitting here in this uncomfortable stool listening to pounding music but nothing can make a dent in the whispers that slither throughout my brain and thoughts and fill me with strange ideas and names that bring back haunting memories which call for me to pull out a dispenser and shove a pill into my mouth before washing it down with a burning alcoholic beverage. I'm falling, but I'm sitting, but I'm falling from my high, but I've already hit the ground. Falling.
The sensation of falling is all I could feel.
They say when you're dead; you don't know you're dead, only the people around you do. I've cheated death plenty of times since being forged in the Light of the Traveler, being awoken from what felt like just a rest but in reality I was actually dead, says my Ghost. I don't remember dying, none of it. I thought I was just asleep. I knew something was different when I woke up on the cold ground of Old Russia, the suns light burning into my armor, barely making a dent in the cold snow gathered around me that seemed to chill my entire body. My muscles were stiff. "You've been dead for a long time."
The words came as a shock, but you can only be reborn by the Light once, like reincarnation but you're still in the same life. Sure, your Ghost can revive you, but once you go past the point of the Light fading from you, you're done. Game over. Light's out, so to speak.
That's what happened that lead to this situation, which leads to my sensation of free falling.
The six of us were gliding fast and freely, our helmets secure, those of us who were Hunters, out cloaks drifting in the wind caused by our Sparrows boost, hovering over the rocky-grassy terrain of Venus. The Titans had their marks that they developed a habit of sitting on so they wouldn't get caught in the exhaust jets behind them. The Warlocks skirts of their armor hung off the edges, as they didn't care if the cascades of fabric would get ripped and burned in their vehicles. I was leading this band of the best and the brightest "misfits" that the Tower had to offer; thanks to Cayde-6 I was given this title. My best friend road next to me, his purple cape covering the patterns of his armor I knew so well. The Gunslinger and myself, the Bladedancer, didn't originally get along, as our subclasses were rivals of who was better. It wasn't until Cayde-6 sent us on a solo mission together that we bonded, purposely leaving us stranded under the hot sun in the scorching desert wastelands of Mars for five Earth days.
However, that is a story for another time. This is the story of the present, of how I ended up in a bar drinking my miseries away with a half drank bottle of straight Russian vodka.
The Spire was already halfway formed by a team of Guardians when we arrived, only needing to stand outside the Vault for roughly five minutes before saying our thanks and heading down into the dark depths, unsure of what would await us when we finally arrived. Why I was doing this was someone from a long time ago, someone who was first in the Tower when I arrived there.
His name was Kabr, an Awoken Titan not to be crossed. He wasn't my friend, but I knew and respected him as a Guardian and good man as he was. He fought the Vex alone. This destroyed him. In the time before he vanished he said things that I always thought should be remembered. He would say things like this: "In the Vault, time frays and a needle moves through it. The needle is the will of Atheon. I do not know the name of the shape that comes after the needle.
No one can open the Vault alone. I opened the Vault. There was no one with me, but I was not alone.
You will meet the Templar in a place that is a time before or after stars. The stars will move around you and bath you and sing to you. They will decide if you are real. I drank of them. It tasted like the sea."
These are the last words of Kabr, the Legionless:
"I have destroyed myself to do this. They have taken my Ghost. They are in my blood and brain, but now, there is no hope. I have made a wound in the Vault. I have pierced it and let in the Light. Bathe in it, and be cleansed. Look to it, and understand: From my own Light and from the thinking flesh of the Vex I made a shield. The shield is your deliverance. It will break the unbreakable. It will change your fate. Bind yourself to the shield. Bind yourself to me. And if you abandon your purpose, let the Vault consume you, as it consumed me.
"Now it is done. If I speak again, I am not Kabr."
The Vault was a place that none of us had ever visited, and it wasn't a run through unlike most of our missions. They say there is a relic down there called The Aegis, and that it is forged from the same Light that once belonged to Kabr. Even though I had never been down here, I still lead the way, however, as a close friend of mine back in the Tower told me which paths to take in order to make it. We stumbled upon a loot crate and popped it open, each of us grabbing Ascendant Shards and Energy, passing around the leftovers some of us didn't need before continuing our descent downward, into what began to feel like the literal depths of hell itself.
Had I not been guiding the group or on high alert like I was, we all would have fallen straight into the 'Endless Pits' that was later given that name. My fire team was on full sprint, and the rock crumbled beneath me, I jumped straight into a black pit before reaching my hand out, gripping the air, tugging forward, and throwing myself through a wormhole with Blink and landing on another rock platform. My team was still on the higher one, looking down at me. Holding a hand up from them to wait, I sprinted over to the opposite edge, seeing where we were headed. There were more rocks such as the one I stood on, so I pressed my gloved fingers to a small button on my ear that connected to the others Ghosts and spoke. "The platforms are floating rocks. Go one after another in single file and watch where you're stepping."
Soon enough, after much jumping, we all ended on a final rock facing a large room with towering pillars. I could see in our Titan pair that they were bouncing on the balls of their feet in anticipation and excitement. The Warlocks checked their guns and did something with their gloves, probably involving their magic. I stood with my friend, the two of us holding our guns clutched against our chests, waiting for them to be ready. When the four finally turned and faced us, I cleared my throat. "Alright," I began, glancing at my fellow hunter. "This is how it's going to go. The next part here will be intense as we attempt our fight against the Templar. There's no guarantee we'll survive, but I promise you I will try to save each and every one of you. I may not succeed, but it's better to try.
"He's going to be right there," I point at a spot between two pillars in front of a large door. "See that central conflux?" They all glance at the white-glowing rock that is just a few feet bellow us in the room. "Vex are going to be coming out from around that disk on the ground near where the Templar will be. They're going to attempt to sacrifice themselves to the Conflux. Now, we have to split into three groups. I'm going to be on the left side," my arm sticks out and I point at where I'll be. "I need one more with me, three on the right side, and one in the middle guarding the Conflux and helping out either side if they need it."
We split ourselves into groups. I get the male Warlock Sunsinger, my partner is in the middle, and the two Titans and the Voidwalker are on the right. "Okay. The Templar will summon green-glowing Vex called Fanatics. Don't get close to them, kill them at a distance. They are very lethal. When you kill them, they'll release a blood like pool of green goo, don't step in it. If you accidentally get marked, notify us and run to the center disk where you'll be cleansed. The Templar will summon Axis Harpies that he calls his Legions. After them, Confluxes will spawn on the left and the right. Same deal. Repeat. After that, all three Confluxes will spawn. Repeat. Then, the Fanatics will go away and things called Oracles will begin spawning. Kill them as soon as you can. Watch out for Hobgoblins on pillars behind you. Regroup in the center when we're ready to pick up the Relic.
"You guys ready?" There was a collective cheers and I turn on my heels and sprint off the edge, Blinking through the air and landing on the left stairs.
But we weren't. We faced the Templar, destroyed the Oracles and kept the Vex away from the sacrificial Confluxes, but we were not ready. When the calm before the storm finally settled, we rushed to the center, where The Aegis Relic shield that Kabr himself had forged was floating in the middle of the disc. I walked towards it, its power gravitating and pulling me, demanding me to bind myself to it and destroy the things that lurk in this depth of pure time hell. I stopped myself, shaking the overcoming sense of whispers and light laughter beginning to float around my head. I am going insane, I thought, thinking about Kabr's words. The Vault is beginning to consume me.
I turned to my team, looking at the Gunslinger, mostly. "This relic was once Kabr, the Titan who faced the Vault alone. He forged his very own Light to make this, sacrificed himself for those who are brave enough to face the Vault and the machines that lurk inside it," I tell them as I glance back at the beautifully crafted work of the Travelers Light. "Legend says that this shield is the key to winning this whole battle, as these will appear when Atheon sends you to different parts of time."
My squad seems as interesting in these legends as I feel, bouncing on their heels and leaning forward slightly. Granted, I can't see their faces, nor can I confirm that it's just the relic pulling them, but for now, to feel better about this and myself, I hope that they are interested. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the last of many stories I told them. I hope they took it with them to the beyond, to whatever is beyond where the Light can reach.
Moments later, after debriefing the plan, completely unaware of what would happen next, I found myself slipping my arm into the shield. It latched itself with a metallic grip to me, filling me with a sparkling sense I had never dared to feel. Pleasure and pain and happiness and sadness all filled me at once, and my armor was covered in a glowing white light. I realized then, that this was Kabr I was feeling, that he and I were melding minds, and that he was now part of me. Power overwhelmed me once the emotions of the Titan subsided, and my crew overlooked where the Templar stood, grenades ready. I backed myself against a column, the shield seemingly inching it's way toward me when I heard a loud ringing in my ear. Pressing my free hand against my helmet is when he spoke.
"You are alone. I am the past and present and future. And you are alone. Yet, you are not."
None of the others seem to have heard it. It's the dammed shield, I thought as suddenly, my vision was plagued green. The Oracles. My crew gathered around me, and I pulled the shield in front of me, giving off a cool bubble of white that shielded us and cleansed us from the Oracles curse. They all moved after that, when the bubble vanished after I loosened up. I watched as they continued to use their grenades, our Voidwalker pushing him back with the Nova Bomb as the others added to the effect with the exploding grenades. The Gunslinger was using rockets and his Golden Gun, not making as much of a dent as the others. The Templar was almost off, you could feel the excitement racing within the group, as we were ready to move deeper into the Vault.
What happened next was so quick and unexpected; I might have missed it if I blinked.
The Oracles struck us with their marking. The thing about Oracle curses is that they lower your Light, disabling the abilities your Ghost can provide. At the time, we didn't know this, so we thought we were in the clear. But the Templar shot out his purple bombs, and it was all over.
They weren't near me, and thus, I only lived because I threw up my cleansing bubble. The Titans and Sunsinger were hit first. The bomb blew them dead in an instant. They said they didn't feel it, but I don't believe that. They felt it. Nothing is instant. The Gunslinger was hit it the back, and our screams blended. The Voidwalker, who was only hit with rock-shrapnel-debris, grabbed onto him and pulled him in the bubble. She turned to the Templar, fury filling her body, and screams as she leaps in the air and throws her Nova Bomb. He fell, but the Vex were still around us. "I'll cover you," she shouted at me as she ripped out her dual Hand Cannons and began firing. I rushed over to the Gunslinger, gripped his hand as he attempted to take in air, struggling at every little breath.
"You have to get out of here," he whispered as he reached up and ripped his helmet off, revealing his shaggy blonde hair and bright hazel eyes. His hand grazed my cheek before breaking the seal of the shield, which evaporated a moment later, Kabr leaving me as my head cleared, the buzzing in my brain and veins calmed and my thoughts became my own once again. He removed my helmet, and looked me in the eyes, my dyed red hair falling over my cheeks. "Promise me, Alex," he said as blood spilled on his hands and stained my white armor.
"You know I can't," I said, tears spilling over my eyes as I heard a scream pierce the air and the Voidwalker fell, her Ghost bursting out before being shot by the Vex and blown, the Light leaving her body as I see the visible cold.
He grabbed me and kissed me fast, quick and passionately. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and that's when the blood poured, and his eyes glazed over.
Emotions broiled over me, but I grabbed my helmet, hit it against the ground, and screamed. I screamed everything, because I knew the Vex were still there. I wanted them to see me. So I shouted. And finally, I found myself screaming his name.
"Kaden!"
They were dead, all of them. Kaden was gone; he had slipped from my grasp. I remember dreaming about this, and my heart would always skip a beat when he fell, but when I saw his Ghost, I would calm and rush towards him. Now there was nothing. I reached in the back of his armor, blood coating my palms, and grabbed his Ghost just as mine evaporated me and flew out of the Vault, me being the only survivor.
Once I was finally back in the Tower, my Ghost couldn't do anything to me, as I resisted all of the ways that it could have healed my bleeding wounds. I refused, screamed and kicked and attempted to run before Commander Zavala and Cayde-6 grabbed ahold of me, pinning my arms behind my back and giving me over to the medical staff we have on stand-by. They had no job, in my opinion. They were only there for when a Guardian still had the Light, but the Ghost couldn't do much. Such as Kaden. Had his Ghost not died, which was still in my palm at this point, he might be in their hands instead of me. They injected an old sedative in me, and I couldn't fight as the poison seeped in my blood and relaxed my muscles. It couldn't relax my brain however, but emotion overwhelmed as the adrenaline settled and I sobbed. Cayde, who was still nearby, took my helmet off and held it himself before carefully easing my cloak off my neck and folding it up. "Send this to the cleaning team," he had said to someone somewhere near him. "Tell them to expect more armor that looks the same."
The hospital wing I was stationed in was down in the City, as they didn't have a proper hospital up in the Guardian Tower. Well, we were still in the Tower, but in the lower levels of it, which was the City. The workers there, who rarely saw Guardians, treated me like some kind of royalty. I screamed at the doctors and nurses every time that they were nice to me that I didn't deserve their respect and kindness, that I was broken and a coward and cruel. I could have gone on with the names, but by then, I was sobbing Kaden's name and the names of the others so loudly and "heart-breaking" like, they had to sedate me once again, and I would slip into the violet tinted, gauzy world that had no corners, no place to hide. There would always be this strange doorway, like a Vex Time Gate, that would glow pure white, and Kaden would step out of it, walk towards me, and take my hand. "Come with me, Alex," he would whisper, as he would tug on my arm and pull me towards the gate. "We're all waiting for you, join us."
I wanted to so badly, to join them, wherever they were, and just be happy. But my feet were planted in this black, mud-like substance that gripped ahold of me and pulled me down. "Kaden, let go," I told him as I sunk into the thick void that I knew would lock me away from him. He would always scream about how he wouldn't leave me until finally, I had to take his knife off his thigh and cut my arm into two.
That's when the sedative would finally wear off and the arm that I cut—the one that I held Kabr's shield with—would be a bright red and burning color. Sometimes, when Cayde-6 comes to check on my health, I hear the doctors talking to him in the hallway, slip out of bed, a creep over to the door to listen. "She's in a mentally unstable position," they would tell him, almost all the time. "We're trying to make progress by separating what's real and what's fake in the sedatives, but she always ends doing the same thing, cutting her arm away from the boy in her dreams instead of pulling him with her or simply moving out of his hold. Those results would give us a way to help meld her brain back together."
"Well can't you just tell her what to do?" Cayde would ask. "And why is her brain that way? She's one of the strongest Hunters I've ever lead under my command."
"The shield," another doctor would chime in. "The one in the Vault of a Glass in the Ishtar Sink on Venus, that the Titan Kabr forged with his Light. Legends say he still lives in that shield, and that the only way to survive his driving power is to ensure that nothing that would drastically change your emotions in a few seconds could happen. When the Templar killed her team, and their Light went out is when her mood shifted, and Kabr tried to control her. From the few things we can extract from her Ghost about what happened, he predicted the future and she couldn't change that course. When the Gunslinger died in front of her, he had left her mind, but the crack from him was already implemented. Like a virus on a Ghost, the user had to access it or implement something that would make it go live. The "virus" Kabr "installed" on Alexandra, well, Mr. Booker's death helped it spread through her in an instant."
In other and simpler terms, I was broken beyond repair. I knew what I could do to help them help me, but when it came down to the situation and I was there, I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill Kaden in the void that I was falling it, but I also couldn't watch the emotion from when I let go and pried away from him. I knew this wasn't real, but god did it feel so real. I was broken. I was dying. I am alone. Alone. Kabr was right. Alone I am. But I'm not alone. But I am. My mind is split. I can't make rational choices. My thoughts aren't complete sentences, jumbled thoughts and stars I can't fathom into constellations as the bounce around and threaten me at every waking and every nightmare. I drag myself out of the frightening dreams and images to find that there's no relief in waking. I find myself during my dreams back in the Vault, face to face with Kabr—or at least how my mind remembers him—as he walks me through all the ways I could have saved my squad, stopping at Kadens death and speaking to me about how the boy will live with him forever, how he will watch over him in the Void the Light can't touch. I want to scream at him, to throw my fist at his damaged helmet and scarred face and tell him to just do something. I tell him if he can somehow pull his Light out of the Shield and push it into Kaden, but the answer is the same every time:
"The lives of the many outweigh the life of one, Alex. I could do that, but Kaden would be me, not the Kaden you know. You only see me because you've touched my shield, and you've broken your mind enough to let my consciousness and existence in during dreams such as this one that can easily be dismissed as an imaginative thought. If I was to give my Light to Kaden, the shields would be gone, and the Vault—including Atheon and the Templar—would be invincible. There would be no way of interrupting the Vex time without the shields. I'm sorry, but this is your fault. I tried to warn you, and now, since you ignored my warning, you've paid the price."
The hospital deemed me as unstable for a good, long two months until finally, I took the pain straight to the heart and twisted away from Kadens grip. Waking up in tears of his facial expressions, the doctors and nurses were in a full rush. When they finally scurried out of the room, I was greeted at that moment with two guests. Cayde-6 and my Ghost saunter in, Ghost resting above the edge of my bed as Cayde shuts the door. "I brought you a 'Get well gift,'" he said as he pulled a beat up Ghost out of his pocket. The orange and blues streaks going across the frame of the eye told me who's it was. I ripped it out of his hands and felt the vibrations of the working Ghost. "It doesn't work right anymore, but our technicians managed to recover the history that it recorded. In other words, you can relive every moment from the beginning of Kaden's awakening to the Templars explosion."
The Ghost looked at me, and I ran my finger along the streak I painted, the blue one. "Thank you," I whispered, barely audible. Cayde left, and my Ghost hovered for a few minutes, silent. I reached up at stuck my hand out, causing it to become locked up in the radiance of my Light that it also holds, like the North and South poles of a magnet meeting together. I tapped its eye, and it slept, hovering down into my palm. Laying it on the side of my bed, I projected open the memories of Kaden's Ghost. But as I scrolled through, I couldn't even open a memory before breaking down, which caused me to put away both Ghosts and hit a button on my bed, which dispensed pain medication into my veins.
Finally, after I was put on the medication that's supposed to help put me in a mentally stable state, I was released from the Hospital and I instantly went back up to the Tower, put on my armor, and placed Kaden's Ghost on my bedside table in my quarters. With my armor on and cloak fastened around my neck, I looked as if I belonged, and that nothing happened. I wanted no one to notice me, but sadly, they did. Teams ran up to me and spoke their sorrows and called me a warrior, but I wasn't. I ran away from the Tower and back into the City, where they wouldn't know my story.
That is my tale, that is what happened to me and to the others who have now become non-existent, who are now just a memory, and their existence is only determined by two pieces of paper the Tower offered—The day the Light possessed them, and the day it left. I'm broken. Things slither through my mind and grasp ahold of me. My thoughts are not coherent, but they're something.
I bear an old name. It cannot be killed. They were my brothers and sisters and their names were immortal too but Atheon and the Templar came and now those names live in me alone I think and think is what I do. I AM ALONE. At the end of things when the world goes dim and cold or hot and close or it all tears apart from the atom up I will shout those names defiant and past the end I will endure. I alone.
They made me to be stronger than them to beat the unvanquished and survive the unthinkable and look look lo behold I am here alone, survivor. Coward. They made me to learn. Everything and everyone died but I survived and I learned from it. From IT.
Consider IT the powerful Vault of Glass and the world-ender beasts that live within it and consider what IT means. I met IT at the gate to ITs decent and I recall IT smiled at me before before IT devoured the blossoms with black flames and white streaks of electricity and pinned their names across the sky. IT was stronger than everything. I fought IT with aurora knives and with the stolen un-fire of singularities made sharp and my sweat was earthquake and my breath was static but IT was stronger so how did I survive?
Because I fled like a coward, that's why. When IT ruthlessly took them away from me, my life was more important than me joining them and forever being lost in the dark corners of time.
I AM ALONE I survived alone. I fled alone. I cast off the shield and I shrugged my shoulders so that the billions fell off me down into the ash. They made me to be stronger than them and to learn and I learned well:
IT is alone and IT is strong and IT won. Even over the cleanser and he held power beyond me but the cleanser did not shrug and make himself alone. IT always wins.
I am made to win. They forged it into me. And now, with a squad of five Guardians with the ranks of 27 and up saunter over to me in this god forsaken bar and ask me to join them to take IT down once and for all, to vanquish Atheon and the Templar from IT and cleanse IT with the Light of the Traveler as Kabr himself once attempted before and made a good dent trying, I now see the way to win.
Thanks for reading this One-Shot of mine that I thought of one night after finishing the Vault of a Glass. Someone who beta read it for me thought it would be an interesting idea to turn it into a multi-chapter story that features reader-created OC's for the squad that greeted Alex, so let me know if you think that would be a good idea. Also, some of these things are not accurate, such as Kabr and the Oracles diminishing your Ghost, but I needed something that would tie in to Destiny and the Raid. One last thing, just so I can say this, Bungie owns all content, and if I don't make this a multi-chapter, I'm going to make another One-Shot about the next raid that's featured in The Dark Below DLC, which will be set after the team conquers the Vault of Glass. Thanks again for reading!