Already the Vex were advancing, several hundred strong. All of them were Axis Vex, their bodies designed differently than the other divisions: sleeker, stronger, more deadly. Goblins walked in front, slap rifles pouring a hail of bullets upon the Guardians' location. Behind them walked the Minotaurs with their rocket launchers, and behind them lurked the monstrous form of the Martyr Mind.
Ambrose charged a grenade in both hands. Saint-14 chuckled at the sight and motioned him out of hiding. Ambrose drew on the Light to wrap himself in shadows, becoming well-nigh invisible. Then he bolted into the open and threw the grenades, one after the other.
The first one detonated on the right flank of the advancing goblins, destroying them and throwing them into one another. The second grenade flew over their heads and dropped into the ranks of the Minotaurs. Their shields flared to life in bright purple curtains, then failed. Two Minotaurs spasmed and died as their radiolaria cells ruptured.
Ambrose reached the cover of another boulder and had Peach transmat his auto rifle into his hands. He hosed down the Vex goblins at waist level, breaching their radiolaria cells en masse. The robots shrieked and died.
"You are amazing!" Saint-14 cheered, firing his shotgun from the hip and destroying a robot with each blast. "I have not seen you in years, friend, yet you are strong."
"It's only been a few days for me," said Ambrose, concentrating fire on a Minotaur to break its shield. "How long has it been for you?"
"Many years," Saint-14 replied. "You give me hope, Guardian. I return to Earth, join Pilgrim Guard. Bring people to Last City. I spend years building it. Meet Osiris. You never think he could be a good friend, yes? But he good friend."
"Isn't he rather strange?" Ambrose asked, switching to a fusion rifle and trying it on the Martyr Mind. Its shields deflected the shot.
"Strange? Yes," Saint replied, casually headbutting a gobin in the middle and punching the head off another. "But that is warlocks for you. All strange in their own ways. Does not make them bad people." The warmth of a smile entered his voice. "Hunters strange, also! But good people, yes?"
Ambrose laughed. "I could say the same for Titans." He slipped into the shadows again and darted toward the Martyr Mind, drawing his knives.
"Titans always good people," Saint replied, striding out of cover and blasting through a cluster of goblins to reach a lurking hobgoblin.
The Martyr Mind saw Ambrose coming. It disappeared and teleported to Saint-14's position. A cage of white lattice appeared around him, and Saint was lifted off the ground, held in place by invisible force. He grunted and strained, trying to break free.
The Martyr Mind moved this cage up the hill to where a node flashed a beam of bright energy into a receiver plate above it. This node fed energy into the cage, holding Saint prisoner.
"Are you all right?" Ambrose called.
"I am unharmed, my friend!" Saint called back. "But this blasted Martyr Mind has me trapped! Kill it for me!"
Ambrose had to dive for cover as a Minotaur pelted his position with rockets. "Peach," he thought, "what are the Mind's defenses?"
A wireframe model of the Mind's centipede body appeared in the corner of his HUD. "It appears to have the rotating shields typical of the Hydra-class Vex," Peach replied. "The weak points appear every forty-five degrees. This Mind appears to be charged with Light, so keep your distance. It could be very dangerous."
"Right," Ambrose thought. He swapped to his fusion rifle again, waited until the gap in the shields rotated into view, then fired through it at the Mind. The rifle burned a black streak up the robot's segments, boiling away the metal exterior in smoke and vapor. The Mind disappeared in a flash of white code symbols.
It reappeared five feet above Ambrose's head. He immediately sprang out from under it and ran, but a squadron of goblins appeared out of the simulation. He slid into their midst, keeping low to avoid their slap rifles. "Peach! Sword!"
His Ghost transmatted his Light-infused blade into his hand. Ambrose laughed as he jumped to his feet. He laid into the robots like a whirlwind.
Saint-14 laughed from his prison as Vex parts flew twenty feet into the air. "Save some Vex for me, friend! I'm trapped, not dead!"
"Just cleaning a few of them out," Ambrose called as he punched through the squadron, his cloak and armored vest smoking. "There's plenty left over!" He paused to wipe blood from the hilt of his sword, where a cut on his upper arm was making his grip slippery. Then he charged back into battle as his Ghost healed him. This time, his target was that Martyr Mind. He ducked between its shields and stabbed his sword into the wound he had already opened in its carapace.
The robot screamed and jerked away, ripping the sword out of his hand. The backside of the shield clipped Ambrose and knocked him down. The impact stunned him for a second. Before he could regain his senses, the Mind constructed a rapid lattice trap around him, too. Ambrose was lifted off the ground with the sensation of iron bands closing around his limbs and throat. He struggled, but there was nothing there. He was held immobile in the simulated reality, itself. Worse was a terrible cold sensation, like the nausea just before vomiting. The machine was stripping away his Light.
But the Mind had taken its attention off Saint-14. The Titan struggled and burst through the lattice around him. "Ha!" he exclaimed as he hit the ground. "It is draining your Light, but it forgot to drain mine!" He suddenly blazed with purple Void Light and a shield appeared on his arm. "Time to die!"
Saint-14 leaped into the air, using Light to propel himself in an arc like a missile. He came down on the Martyr Mind like a falling tank, shield-first. The robot exploded in a flash and boom, its dying wail like an alarm. The other Vex vanished. The cage disappeared and Ambrose dropped to the ground.
Saint walked up and shook Ambrose's hand, a swift, firm grasp. "Thank you, my friend."
"No, thank you," Ambrose replied, grinning. "I think we've just altered history. You were supposed to die at this point. In fact, you died before I was resurrected."
"Then Osiris has a lot to answer for," Saint replied. "It is a long walk back to the gate from here, but my Ghost knows the way. Shall we go together?"
"Osiris should recall me any minute," Ambrose said. "I'll open the gate for you."
"Yes, do that," Saint said. He lifted his shotgun and reloaded it from synth as more Vex materialized in the distance.
Peach said over their radios, "But it may take years to walk back to the gate, Saint?"
The Titan lifted his shotgun in salute. "What is a few more years of fighting Vex?"
He lifted his gun just as the tell-tale pressure dragged at Ambrose's body. He relaxed into it and let the Sundial recall him through time and space.