Three ships flew through threw the smoke and explosions caused by the battle. While their path seemed uneven to

the eyes of any of the participants of the battle, they were slowly but surely making their way to the largest ship

hovering over the decimated city. Unfortunately, as soon as the ships got into range, the largest ship as well as its

escorts opened fire with both their point defence systems as well as conventional anti-aircraft guns. The two farthest

were lucky and skilled enough pilots to avoid most of the incoming fire, but the closest one wasn't. The ship exploded

into flames and the pilot seemingly lost. The two remaining ships turned tail and ran, mabie scared by their comrades

deaths? That's what the Blood Guard in charge of security thought, until he was called over by a psion at least.

Ten minutes earlier

"God dammit, got another one on me!" the guardian shouted over the com channel, his ship swerving in as many

different directions while going as fast as it possibly could. The floating starfish that was his ghost was open and

glowing in concentration as it tried to hit the ship on their tail.

{just keep swerving, actually no, serpentine! If it works with crocodiles it might work with spaceships right?} the pilot

started a tiny bit as his concentration was shaken by the slightly garbled voice of his fellow guardian. He also silently

laughed at the stupid comment, as well as the fact that he had his own ghost outwit the Red Legion's signal jammer

just to make that statement. He also decidedly ignored the stressed undertone of his voice.

{for the love of the traveler shut the fuck up! Your tail's clear by the way, thank me later} The voice was his other

teammate and its decidedly feminine tones were filled with joy and a kind of mad excitement, she sounded as if she

was in her element. The message itself came through the channel just as the ship pursuing him redirected into

another red legion ship and exploded, sending the two ships' combined debris into the ruined city below. He decided

that now was the time to have his teammates go over the plan in hopes of the situation not going FUBAR.

"Lets go over the plan again, okay?"

{take thirty is a go!}

{sure} came the replies

"Alright, we go in there, and do what?"

{grab the speaker and get out alive.} said the female pilot

{you forgot something, we also have to make sure that ghaul's little chats with the speaker are destroyed.}

"Okay, I did not hear the details of the plan, so imma review them again. We transmat onto the flagship, find a hole in

the ship, either one we made or a door, and find the interrogation/detention room is, we fight our way there, but first

we destroy the ship's computer systems to get rid of the speaker's interrogation recordings, then when we rescue the

speaker, Dariusz (pronounced dar-i-ush) will torch the place and destroy the last of the evidence. Got that?"

{loud and clear}

{yeah}

"Okay people, we're nearing the ship, get ready for evasive maneuvers." right as he said that, the anti-air network lit

up and shot his ship to pieces. Assembly-23 lost consciousness just as the blue transmat light took hold of his body

and delivered him from the burning cockpit.

"Come on big man, you can't die on us. Shit! Natasha, on your left!"

"I see it!"

Assembly-23 regained consciousness sprawled on the hard deak of the ship, he started to get up, but was

immediately pulled down again by the warlock.

"Are you trying to get killed? Vein, give him his guns back you psycho!" yelled the hunter to his right, trying to keep

the advancing wall of phalanxes back. The titan felt the familiar weight of his auto rifle materialise in his hands and

immediately propped it up on the barricade he and his companions were hiding behind. He got into a well-rehearsed

pattern with his teammates, he would shoot the weak point on a shield and then move on, then Dariusz would shoot

their exposed heads while natasha poured out fire by switching between her almost ridiculously oversized and gaudy

handcannon and a sleek little pistol. Their ghosts, called Vein, Zero, and goop respectively, discreetly flew out and

scavenged dead bodies for their ammunition, after all, what else could they do with their light gone? After what

seemed like hours (but was actually about three minutes) the phalanx line started to have gaps, then gaping holes,

the loss of coverage only added to the

domino affect and soon the entire line had collapsed and retreated into the belly of the ship.

"Goddamn those guys don't mess around" exclaimed Dariusz while examining a dent in his chest piece from a

particularly pissed psion.

"We gotta move, its only a matter of time before they try something that we won't be able to avoid, Im on point,

natasha, aim over my shoulder, Dariusz, make sure they don't shove a gun up our asses." ordered Assembly while he

took out his shotgun, the legend of acrius, and got into position in front of the other two. The ghosts quickly decided that they were not suited for this kind of combat and disappeared into their respective guardians helmets. The

fireteam slowly entered the ship through a different access hatch then the previous cabal had retreated down. They

carefully cleared every room they came across, painfully aware of their own mortality now that they couldn't be

brought back from death. Meanwhile, their ghosts were feverishly trying to decrypt the cabal's battlenet to find any

trace of where on the ship the speaker was being held. A couple of times they found pockets of resistance, but they

were easily dealt with on account of the skill of the guardians. Once, when they were walking through a hall, Dariusz

thought he heard the sound of a human child weeping, so he decided to investigate. He informed the others and

proceeded carefully into the room, towards the back, there appeared to be a pile of blankets that was breathing and

crying, so he approached it.

"Hey kid, you there?" he continued to move until he was close enough to poke it with his gun, the hunter was about

to pull off the blankets when he heard breathing that did not come from a human, he whipped around in time to block

the legionary's red-hot blade with his own knife, he was at a disadvantage in a fight of pure, brute strength, so he

decided to change the game. He pulled out a second knife, the blade locked with the legionary's coming very close to

his own neck due to loss of leverage. He slammed the second knife into the legionary's shoulder, it grunted in pain but

continued to push down upon the smaller guardian, sensing victory. Dariusz could feel the strength leaving his

muscles and had an Idea. he let his knees give out from under him and rolled away from the now off-balance and

falling alien. It let out a startled grunt and fell onto the blankets. Dariusz immediately tried to drag the 600 pound

alien off of the child, but the space rino had other ideas and rolled out of the way himself, letting the blankets fall off

the warbeast and allowing it to jump straight for the guardian's helmet, he instinctively threw up his arm to protect

his face, it worked, but not in the best way. The warbeast started to gnaw on his arm, causing him to give a strangled

scream of pain. He knew that this was his end, he could see the legendary recovering a slug rifle and understood that

there was no way that he could defend himself from both the warbeast and the imminent bullet. Out of pure

desperation he reached for the light that had been ripped from him, and was understandably amazed when a blazing

gun appeared in his fist. He gaped at it for half a second before pistol whipping the warbeast and pressing the barrel

of the gun to the amazed legionary's head, the barrel melting through the helmet a tiny bit. Then he pulled the

trigger, the legionary's head snapped back as its entire body began to burn up. Then it exploded, throwing Dariusz

into the opposite wall, the warbeast was on him in a second, but was not quick enough to stop him from activating

the grenade. Dariusz saw the warbeast burn to ash before he to was consummed, he felt immense pain, then nothing.

Before he died, he noticed that the crying noise was still audible, it was playing from a screen. The video was a

helmet cam type recording and showed a young girl sobbing over the dead corpse of her mother before she to was

killed by the red legion.

As soon as she felt her light return, Natasha burst into the room that Dariusz had gone into, just in time to see him die.

She panicked before remembering that they had their light back, and proceeded to where his ghost was hovering,

Dariusz reappeared in a flash of light and then immediately stumbled to the ground and looked up at natasha,

"I guess they succeeded, I owe them a drink, and a thank you, but mostly a drink."

"Yup, get me one to while your at it, you nearly scared me to death."

"But why?"

"Oh no mister vanguard sir, he just flew in front of me as I was shooting a nova bomb at a dreg, a shame he's dead

and can't speak for himself."

"Whaddaya want?"

"Vodka."

"Stereotype."

"Shut up and help me goddammit!" came the furious shout from Assembly as well as the muffled sounds of skyburner

slugs and the muted thump of a centurion's grenade launcher. The two guardians immediately ran out into the hallway

to find the titan hiding behind a wall of light, Dariusz grinned under his helmet and pulled out his knife.

"This is going to be fun!" he said with an insane smile on his face, he pulled out his submachine gun and began to

weave in and out of the incoming cabal. He emptied a clip into a cabal and dodged out of the way of a melee attack

that went right into its comrades chest, killing it. He turned around and flung the knife at the accidental teamkiller

and buried a knife in its eye. The hunter immediately brought out his knife again from thin air and stabbed it into the

gut of another legionary before pressing the muzzle of his submachine gun to its helmet and turning his face into

mush. Dariusz continued his pattern of shoot, dodge, throw, and stab and cut a swath through the completely

unprepared red legion.

Meanwhile, Natasha had been forced into what looked like a workshop full of cabal vehicles, unfortunately, they were

all out of order, but that didn't faze the warlock. She patted the twin holsters on her hips and got ready to fight. It

was only a couple of seconds before the door blasted into the room followed by a crowd of legionaries and warbeast.

She pulled out her twin pistols, sturm und drang, and started to blast the incoming forces to pieces. The cabal were

felled with either massive holes in their bodies or clusters of tiny ones. For some inexplicable reason, she reloaded

neither of them during the course of the fight. Whenever a legionary or warbeast decided it was particularly balsy, she

would just drop the drang and push her hand outward, throwing the unlucky alien back, they would also explode in a

deluge of void light, often causing chain reactions that would kill a couple more. All this is not to say that she was

unscathed however, she was bleeding from multiple bullet wounds as well as some particularly nasty bites on her

abdomen and limbs. Another skill the voidwalker used to her utmost advantage was her blink, the short-ranged

teleport able to get her out from under a legionary's stomp that would have crushed her skull. The warlock also left

parting gifts as she teleported, a vortex grenade. Remember that legionary from earlier? It no longer has that leg, or

the rest of its body, all that was left of it was quickly fading purple particles. Finally, the red tide became too much for

the warlock, she wasn't quite fast enough and a bullet tore through her leg and breaking her concentration. She gave

a gasp of pain and threw her hands out and a massive ball of void light went streaking into the amassed cabal and

exploded. It threw quickly dissolving corpses back into the hallway before they too exploded. The warlock then

collapsed to her knees under the weight of her injuries.

Assembly was having the time of his life. He had taken out his shotgun and was carveing a bloody path through the

tightly packed cabal ranks. The shotgun was almost completely painted black from the times he would slam the barrel

Into a torso or limb and pull the trigger. Blood and body parts spraying from the wounds. The second most deadly

weapon he had were his fists, they would slam into their designated target, ignoring armour and caving in helmets.

Adding to the blunt force trauma was the arc light sparking off his gauntlets. As it stood, the cabal had a fifty-fifty

chance of being either blugend or electrocuted, perhaps both. He was decemating the foot soldiers until the

aforementioned centurion called them back. He stepped forward and issued a challenge in the rumbles and growls of

the cabal language. Assembly launched himself forward into the waiting fists of the centurion. The massive alien

smashed his fist into the helmet of the charging titan while simultaneously side-stepping, effectively clotheslining the

exo. He stumbled into the outer ring of cabal who pushed him back into the waiting arms of the centurion, who picked

him up by the throat and choke slammed him into the hard metal floor of the hallway. The titan could feel some of his

parts braking and most others creaking in protest. The centurion turned his back to the writhing guardian and held his

arms up to his troops, like a gladiator asking for the approval of a crowd. Meanwhile, the titan had gotten to his feet

and started to glow and crackle with arc energy, he brought his hands shakily over his head and brought them down

onto the helmet of the unsuspecting alien. He fists kind of bounced off the cabal more then hurt it, but that wasn't the

part that was meant to hurt. That honor went to the massive discharge of arc energy into both the centurion and the

environment around him. The metal of the hallway was an impromptu lightshow.

"you all are fucked." he spoke in a conversational voice that stated fact, it actually sacred the horde of aliens waiting.

All in all, he cut a very maniacal image, his armour was cracked, dented, and sparking, his fists were covered in their

comrades blood, he himself was bleeding out of several burst tubes within him, the blood was dripping out of

numerous broken armour pieces, all the while sparking with barely constrained energy. That energy was released

without a second's hesitation. The battered titan became a whirlwind of death. He slammed into the swarm of cabal

like a battering ram. Fists were flying everywhere and accentuated by the occasional ground-pound or shoulder

charge. By the end of his rampage the hallway was filled with the twitching corpses of the cabal. The titan collapsed to

the ground in exhaustion. A bullet slammed into his skull, blowing his parts over the wall behind him, he respawned

pissed. He also was completely fine

"Goddamnit, give a guy a little warning next time. Prick."

"Sorry" said Natalia with a very big grin on her face.

The group continued on into the ship, occasionally getting into firefights with the defending cabal. They slowly crept

forwards, mindful of every place an enemy combatant could be hiding. Their time as lightless guardians having put an

unnoticed dampener on their recklessness and their ability to charge haphazardly into danger, it was also evident that

they were using the light more as a last resort as they almost didn't think that it was actually with them again. The

guardians finally made it to the centre of the ship's systems and shut down the defence turrets as well as proximity

alarms. The ghosts were also able to acquire plans of the ship on top of the location of the interrogation rooms and

the detainment cells. They stampeded through the halls, hoping against hope that the speaker hadn't already been

killed by either impatient interrogators or paranoid officers worried about the leader being rescued and returned to his

troops. The trio came to the entrance of a nondescript room guarded by a single bloodguard pacing back and forth in

front of the door. Assembly snuck up behind the lone cabal before jumping onto its back and wrapping his arm around

its neck in a chokehold, meanwhile Dariusz threw his knife out of the shadows he had been hiding in. it impacted with

the blood guard's helmet, producing a spray of blood, but no death. The alien reared up and charged the hunter, who

barely dodged out of the way, before it completely changed direction and slammed the titan into the unforgiving wall and crushing him. It roared in triumph before having parts of its body blown off from the sturm, this finally killed it.

Eventually, the fireteam got to the interrogation room, its walls were bloody, not all of it human. The floor was strewn

with implements of torture, some looking very futuristic with lazers, other looked to date before the golden age. The

trio crossed the room as quickly as possible to a nondescript door on the other side of the room. The guardians

entered to find various computer systems, the ghosts sprang to life without being told and started to pull everything

they could from the computers. Suddenly, Zero dropped erratically for a few seconds, as if in shock, before showing

the file to the other ghosts, they too reacted with shock.

"Hey guys? You need to see this." said goop in its weird warble.

"Goddammit goop, I told you not to play the pronoun game! It nearly got me killed last time." Dariusz turned to his

ghost with a good natured glare he knew the flying robot could not see underneath his helmet. The hunter was

genuinely surprised when the tiny machine flew into his armour, as if seeking comfort. "What is it buddy? Found some

space-rino school pictures, tell me, are they really that ugly?" the guardian started to get really concerned when the

AI flew into his helmet, almost like he was trying to hide from something. Vein sent a file to the HUDs of the

guardians.

"Prepare for everything to be turned upside-down."

(one final interrogation cutscene later because i'm lazy.)

"Tell me speaker. What more does the traveler want of me?"

"Ghaul… I speak for the traveler. I… never… said… it… spoke… to… me."

"Holy shit we are screwed. Were the vanguard in on this?" dariusz was sitting on the console, head in hands, causing

his voice to sound muffled.

"No idea, but anyway, we need to arrange a meeting with the vanguard, alone. Mabie only bring ash in on this, they

saved our collective asses, she deserves to know. After that, i'm leaving the guardians. You all are welcome to join if

you want." assembly-23 was pacing, evidently coming to a consensus with vein about their plan.

"I can't believe that bastard lied to us. We should spread the video, though your right in the 'not tell everybody now'

plan" natasha was taking her anger out on the various cabal control panels, with zero trying to calm her down before

she accidently hit a self destruct button. You never know…

"Fuck it, we'll go with you, i know the perfect place to go too, there's an old golden age colony outside of the solar

system, failsafe told me about it, it was their final destination before they crashed on Nessus." dariusz too started

pacing, thinking of plans to get the AI out of her ship and bring her with them, mabie help the semi-insane AI get

some closure?

"Well go, nothing left here anyways. If this colony still exists, we should be able to survive there, if not, who the hell

cares, well be long dead by the time anyone thinks to look there. But why not, she sounded like she would fit right in

with our little group of psycos." the titan couldn't help but make a jab at his teammates, even if they were dealing

with a plan that might kill them.

"I resent that, I am an adrenaline junky thank you very much." natasha could only deflect the question. The three

friends tried to keep up the joking attitude as they left the cabal ship, they were desperate to distract themselves

from the situation they were faced with. They set up a rendezvous with the vanguard, as well as the chosen guardian,

on nessus, east of the crash of the exodus black. They were on the surface of the planet minutes after leaving earth's

atmosphere, despite the short travel time, the meeting was several hours away.

"Yoohoo, Failsafe, I'm home!" shouted dariusz as he walked into the ai core

"Hello fist mate! Hello asshole." came the simultaneously enthused and unenthused replies of the AI's duo personalities.

"We were leaving and thought you might want to come with us, we're going to your original destination." the titan did

not waste any time in stating their intentions.

"I would love to, but I can't go without the permission of my captain. Yes, please take me with you! I want to get off

of this rock, screw the captain! Also, in case you haven't noticed, I a spaceship, how ya gonna work that out grumpy?"

"We have a ghost shell, think you can transfer?"

"I am not programed to do that. How the fuck should I know?" the cynical AI was unsure that it was a good Idea, and

that was both halves. Transfer itself into a floating, shiny, starfish, what good would that do? But on the other hand,

they could escape the hellhole that was the slowly decaying wires and AI core of the exodus black, on top of going to

a new place for the first time in exactly 7,931 years! With that thought both halves came to a conclusion. The whole

conversation had taken exactly three seconds, it was slower than the .251 milliseconds in normally would. "Actually

yes, I think this would be a great Idea! I agree with the dumbass." the guardians were honestly not surprised. After

all, a few thousand years would make anyone want to get outside, or insane, both were equally possible.

"Alright, let me just hook this cable up to here and viola! Transfer should be done in… about half an hour. Now,

failsafe, you may feel like your consciousness is being ripped apart at the seams, but something tells me you already

know what that feels like." Natasha plugged a cable into the small machine and the other end into the considerably

bigger AI core. They then waited for half an hour. At the forty minute mark, they started to get worried. Out of

nowhere, the AI core exploded and the ships lights began turning off one by one. The ghost just as quickly powered

on and flew into the ceiling of the room with a loud clang.

"Ow, that hurt, but I think we are just fine! Son of a bitch! Fucker! How could such a small thing possibly have enough

sensors to produce this amount of pain?" all of the guardians breathed a sigh of relief that their favorite AI with a split

personality disorder was still alive. They spent a few minutes trying to Acclimate Failsafe with their new body, the

ghosts even gave flying lessons.

"You can do it!" goop tried the nice way

"Left! LEFT! Your other left! Goddammit this is getting ridiculous." vein generally sucked at encouragement.

"You have a built in gyroscope, you can use that to trick your sensors so you are 'falling' toward where you want to

be." Zero was arguably the most helpful since his propulsion system was constantly acting up.

"You are not helping, please try to give better advice. I am surrounded by assholes! And, by

the way, TRY HARDER is not acceptable advice." Failsafe was having none of their bullshit. Eventually the time came

to meet the vanguard and the hero.

"Heyyyy guys! What's with the secrecy? You do know they have excellent bars in the new tower right? Even a ramen

shop? Not that i'm complaining either. This is the most amount of fallen i've killed in the past three years combined.

And even then these are just pathe-"

"Shut up Cade." all three of the vanguard looked haggard, Cade's cloak was torn, singed, and stained, it just barely

covered the scars on his armour. Zavalla was covered head to toe with the oily blood of the red legion. Ikora Rey was

the most damaged out of all of them, her armour was only a bit more scratched, but the guardians could see it in her

eyes. She was shaken, her confidence in her own abilities had waned. All three could not compare to the hero, their

armour was scratched in almost every possible place, parts were broken off. Assembly ran up to the hero and

supported them.

"So how was gaul? Better or worse than Oryx? Come on ash, give me details!" he was so glad to see Ash safe, after

all, that is what siblings do right?

"Calm down big brother, he was a pushover. So, what brings us to this lovely clearing in the middle of a vex infested

planet?" all present could feel the change in mood.

"Did you know about the speaker? About his lies?" Natasha was deadly serious. Zavala and Ikora Rey were silent,

apparently debating what to say. Ash just looked on in confusion. It was cayde who broke the silence.

"Yes, it's an operational secret that every vanguard knows and is sworn to secrecy. I was just as pissed as you are

when Andal told me. I actually tried to shoot him, old bastard was quicker though. What can we do? This kind of

secret is one best left that way, think, it would cause a civil war between guardians. With the factions filling the power

vacuum, a lot of guardians would die. It would leave the city weak and divided, a prefect welcome mat for the

darkness, especially after the devastation left by Gaul and the Red legion." it was at this point that Ash exploded, as

they didnt know what everybody was talking about.

"Stop, wait, timeout, etc. what the hell are you talking about?"

"The speaker is a liar, he never spoke to the traveler. Cayde, we know what the information would do, which is why we're giving you the interrogation video and no one else. Were keeping a copy for our own protection."

"Why would you need protection?" Ash was again left in the dark.

"I, the titan Assembly-23, resign from the guardians. May the light survive in my absence."

"I, the warlock Natasha Valikov, resign from the guardians, may the light survive in my absence."

"I, the hunter Dariusz Ostrowski, resign from the guardians, may the light survive in my absence." the Vanguard

were shocked. Ash was just disappointed.

"Why? Why would you do this? Your all my family. I couldn't do anything I've done without you."

"We both know that's not true, the Archeon, Skolas, crota, siva, Oryx, gaul, all of that was you and your fireteam. We

were only called in when you guys needed extra bodies. Face it Ash, you're a much better guardian then I am, you

don't need us. That is why we're going to one of the old golden age colonies. It helps all of us, we get away from this

and you guys can Finally change the speaker's designation from MIA to KIA." Assembly was grave, he didn't want to

leave anymore than ash did. All three rouge guardians put their helmets on and headed towards their ships. They

took off and warped out of the planets airspace. The hunter vanguard sighed,

"Good luck kids, you'll need it.

And it's done! The first chapter of this story is finished. Please give me reviews. Also send me things you want me to

put in the story, I only have one arc in my head and I want more. Also goodbye for now, I gotta work on the next

chapter.

Reference count: 1 (put what it's from originality in a review and I will add your name to the list of people I give an invisible cookie to.)