The Fallen had hunted and destroyed the fleeing humans, tracking them to Mercury to slay them all. Only one remained to give them trouble-a single Guardian. He was wounded and barely able to keep his shield up. Even now, it had begun to flicker under the barrage of their attacks. His last stand would soon end, and there would be no one to remember his deeds among his puny race.
But something began to go wrong on the battlefield. A Dreg collapsed, its throat cut. A Vandal gasped out a warning as a knife blade emerged from its ribcage, stabbed from behind. The Fallen spun about, seeking their foe. There had to be another human. They could smell it. But where was it? It was everywhere and nowhere, moving among their ranks in silence, stabbing with deadly accuracy.
They signaled their walker, and it laid down suppression fire, blanketing the battleground in bullets and explosions. Another Guardian emerged from beneath its camouflage and sought shelter inside the other Guardian's shield. The Fallen snarled in hatred and promised him death. He and his Titan companion would bleed and die in the dust of Mercury, and their Ghosts would be crushed and spread to the four winds.
At least, that's what the Fallen promised. They could not always follow through on these promises.
"You are very strong," Saint-14 panted as Ambrose skidded into the shelter of the Ward of Dawn. "But what has that strength gotten you?"
Saint-14 was a run-of-the-mill Titan in armor that had been outdated a century ago. Of course, this was the past, so maybe it was the best available. Ambrose had read that Saint-14's armor had been covered in ribbons, but this version had none. He also had no weapons. A shotgun lay outside the Ward, its barrel bent, the butt splintered. Blood ran down the Titan's side, leaking from a stab wound under his breastplate. If his Ghost hadn't healed it, that meant it was either dead or too exhausted to help.
"Can you hold out?" Ambrose asked him, reloading his own shotgun. "There's a few more than I was expecting to encounter."
"I can hold," Saint replied. His voice was bitter. "But it means nothing. Everyone is dead. Wish you had come sooner."
Ambrose had no answer for that. He wrapped himself in void light again and slipped out of the bubble. He drove his knife into a Vandal that had crept too close to the shield, then used his shotgun on a cluster of shanks, exploding them into metal confetti. Then he dashed across the field to deal with a Servitor that was empowering a group of Dregs with ether. All the while, he kept an eye on that walker. A prime Servitor had flown up and was pouring ether into it, acting as a shield that would repel projectiles.
This would be a long, difficult fight.