Kalina may have been a Hunter, but when she slept, she slept like the dead.

Minerva woke up just past two a.m. Tower Time, with Kalina still draped over her and passed out cold. Moving carefully, she managed to extricate herself from the other Guardian and get to her feet. Other than a bit of a sleepy murmur, Kalina didn't stir.

Lev appeared out of nowhere as he left her tag, realizing she was awake, and Min immediately put her finger to her lips, cautioning him to stay quiet. Pulling on her clothes, she rummaged around until she found a blanket, and carefully draped it over Kalina.

For a moment, she just stood there and looked down at her, before she quietly left the Den and headed toward the lifts.

"Send a message to Binky," she said as they stepped aboard one. "Have her tell Kalina when she wakes up that I went out for an early patrol."

"Is that what you're doing?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," she said. "What else would I be doing?"

"Sneaking off to the moon to take down Crota before Gen and Kalina know you're gone? You know, just like you're afraid she's going to think you did when she wakes up and you're not there?"

"I don't want her or Gen coming with me when I go," she said, a little more tersely than she meant to. "But I'm not going to sneak off, Lev. I just need to think for a little while. Clear my head."

"Sorry," he said. "If you want, while we were at the Archives I downloaded a copy of Toland's journal, and a couple of other books I was able to find regarding Crota that had anything to do with Sword Logic. I saw your face when it was mentioned."

"Thank you, Lev. I appreciate that. I'd like to at least know a little bit more about the creature that is going to kill me."

He darted in front of her, halting her with a stern look. "Don't say that," he told her. "Min, I refuse to believe that I looked so long for you, that somehow you can endure that Deathsong, just so some Hive Prince can kill you a few months in to being Lightborn. There's a reason behind all this and we're going to find it. Ok?"

"I don't want to die, Lev," she said. "I'm just being realistic. I'm human, like any other. I'm not so naïve as to think that I'm really some kind of 'Chosen One' or anything other than a Guardian just like all the rest. I'm certainly not better at being a Guardian than Tychon was, or Gen is, or Kalina, or anyone else here. It would be pure ego to assume that I alone can somehow succeed where others much more experienced have failed."

She started to walk again, heading to the hangar, and he trailed along after her. "I don't think it's ego," he said. "And I don't think it's ego to acknowledge that there's something special about you. I haven't had any more experience with other Guardians than you have, but something sets you apart. I guess I'm not as naïve as all that either, but I'm also aware that there's a lot more I'm ignorant of than not."

"I suppose," she said, and fell quiet. When she didn't give him a destination as they boarded the jump ship, he first brought them above the clouds, right on the verge of the stars. He knew how much she loved the view from up there, and truth be told he did as well. Then an idea struck him, and he recalculated his course.

Min said nothing, lost in her own thoughts, until they passed back through the ceiling and the clouds broke away from below them.

"Wait, where are we going?"

"I had an idea. If we've got to figure this monster out, might as well start at the beginning."

The fighter lowered out of the sky and came to a soft landing on rough grass. A pair of stubby thorn trees stood nearby, and the sky was just pearling with false dawn. As Min coalesced on the grass, the cool air made her shiver, and he swiftly encased her in her armor and helmet.

"Where are we?" she asked, stepping to the crest of the hill. Below was a ruined and broken river of ancient cars. In the distance, she could see a great looming shape in the dark.

"Outside the Cosmodrome," he said. "Just over there is where I found you."

He started away, his light shining in the dark as she followed him. Picking her way carefully down a hill she stepped onto the cracked and overgrown road and paused, looking around.

Noticing she'd stopped following, he returned to her side. "Remembering something?"

"No," she said after a moment. "Trying to, but nothing. I don't even really remember much about first waking up here."

They continued on their way, and by the time they reached the old military vehicles the dawn light had grown a little stronger. Everything looked made of silver, the colors only slowly seeping into the world.

Lev drew to a halt. "Here. This is where I found you," he said. She crouched, touching the spot on the rusted bumper that he was illuminating, before looking around.

"Those trucks there are definitely military," she said, straightening and walking over to one. "There are bullet holes here too. A firefight between the soldiers and fleeing civilians?"

"That's what I thought too," Lev said. "The way they're parked looks like they were trying to set up some kind of blockade, or checkpoint. Panic makes people do desperate things. It could be that-"

His voice trailed off into droning as Min looked back along the road, toward the civilian cars.

Something loomed on the horizon.

It was like a camera going off, just a flash, but it made her catch her breath. Hearing it, Lev stopped mid-sentence. "Min? You ok? Did you remember something?"

"I'm not entirely sure," she said. "It was so fast."

"You're not going to shoot yourself again are you?" he asked.

"Shoot herself?"

Both Minerva and Lev whipped around, a pistol materializing in Min's hand.

Someone was sitting on top of one of the military trucks. Most of its canvas roof had rotted away, but the metal struts that had supported it were still there. She sat on one of the struts, her feet braced on another. Her hood was up, hiding most of her features.

For a moment, Minerva thought it might have been Kalina, but the voice was wrong.

"Aren't you intriguing?" the stranger said. "Do you shoot yourself often?"

"Who are you?" Lev asked, as Min lowered the pistol. "Are you a Hunter?"

"No. I was not forged as Guardians were, little Light."

"So who are-"

The stranger turned her head away, lifting a hand to her ear momentarily. "Yes, I'm with her now. No, just her. I'll be there soon."

Lev and Min exchanged looks, but before either could speak again, the stranger swung down off the back of the truck. Her boots barely made a sound as she touched down on the broken concrete. As she straightened Minerva realized she was an Exo.

"This isn't the beginning," she said, dusting off her arms and giving her cloak a little shake.

"I'm sorry?" Minerva asked.

"You have no reason to be," the Exo told her, seeming slightly amused.

"Is it the cloaks?" Lev asked in exasperation. "Do cloaks do something to people's heads and make them silly? Who are you?"

"I'm far from silly, little Light," the stranger told him, then looked at Minerva.

"This isn't the beginning, and you know it. I'll see you again, when I have more time.

"What does that…? Aaand there she goes." Lev let out a frustrated huff as the stranger suddenly vanished in a glitter of transmat energy. "Is life this strange for everyone else? Is it just me?"

"I have no idea," Minerva said, then frowned in thought. "She said this wasn't the beginning."

"I'd say she overheard us talking about going back to the beginning, but we were still on the jump ship then," he said, and drew a little closer to her, looking around. "Do you think she could have tapped into the cockpit?"

"Is that even possible?"

"I don't know, but if I had a spine more than a few shivers would be going down it."

Min looked thoughtfully back at the military trucks again. The first gold and pink rays of the rising sun were starting to outline the great wall of the cosmodrome.

"She's right though," she said, almost to herself. "This isn't the beginning. This is the end."

"Min?"

"This is where I died, Lev. I don't remember it, but I don't doubt it either. This was the beginning of my life Lightborn, but it was the end of that other life. The one that has the answers to all this weirdness."

"You want to go to St. Petersburg, don't you?"

She looked at him and shrugged. "I don't know that's the beginning either, but being in that pub is the only really concrete memory I have from back then, and even that's kind of growing fuzzy around the edges. Like it's only something I saw in one of Kalina's PT vids. If we can find it, or where it was, maybe that'll jog something?"

"I don't know," he said warily, then sighed. "But since I don't have any other ideas on what to do, might as well go."

She nodded, then gave him an affectionate smile. "I appreciate you helping me, Lev. You're a good friend."

He seemed pleased at this, then put on an old PT accent. "Shucks ma'am, only doing my job."

She grinned. "Clearly, it's not the cloaks."

"What?" he asked, then his oculus blinked. "Damn, you're right. I was being silly- you don't think it's catching, do you?"

He transmatted them back to the fighter, and only a few minutes later they were dropping back down through the clouds towards what used to be St. Petersburg.

The river and the harbor shone like molten gold in the dawn light, flashing brightly up at the jump ship. She looked down, and for a moment she thought there was literally nothing of the city left. All she could see was a carpet of trees. Then, abruptly, the trees fell away into an overgrown mapwork of tumble-down buildings and roads.

Lev brought the jump ship to a hover about four hundred feet above the harbor, and turned to her. "So, whereabouts do you think this pub might be?"

"I have no idea," she said. "If anything is familiar it's impossible to tell from up here. Might as well put us out just over there. We'll take a walk, see if anything pops up."

"If it does, are you going to-"

"If it does, and lasts any longer than a flash, I will," she said, and looked at him. He let out a sigh.

"All right, but don't use your shotgun. At least out here I won't have to mop up your brain but I'd rather just fix a hole in your skull than growing the whole damned thing back again. And it'll be easier on you too. The less I have to fix, the less toll it takes."

"That's a good point," she said. "No shotgun."

The air was crisp and cool, still tinged with morning frost, as she appeared on an old gravel path that may once have been a sidewalk. It was well into spring now for Russia, and the air did not hold that sharp chill it had in her memories. She looked around carefully, but saw nothing in the shapes of the buildings that brought out any memory. Deciding they had little course left to them than to just wander until something seemed familiar, she picked a direction and went. After going a few minutes in silence, she said, "Might as well read to me while we're killing time," she said. "You said you'd downloaded some books?"

Lev accessed the books in his memory stores and digitally flipped through one, then started to recite it to her. As he did, they worked their way in a looping, weaving course from the heart of the city toward the harbor, and then back again.

The Sword Logic, as near as Min could tell from what Lev was reciting, was a type of religious thought among the Hive. Its dictates seemed to be simple enough; existence was defined by the very struggle to exist. It embraced the idea that strength was gained by defeating and consuming others- not necessarily in the sense you ate those you defeated (although it seemed the Hive did do this fairly often) but that by their defeat you consumed their strength and thus became stronger. The more enemies you defeated, the stronger you were.

Toland's journal spoke the most on the Sword Logic, suggesting that in the Ascendent realm itself it became less philosophy and more part of the actual physics of the place, but even what he had was thin. He did mention, far too briefly to satisfy Min's curiosity, something else called Bomb Logic.

Sword Logic (or so Toland seemed to believe) stemmed from the Dark and could be summed up in the very old saying- 'survival of the fittest.'

Bomb Logic, however, he claimed to be more of the Light, and it's dictate seemed just as simple if completely counter to Sword Logic; strength is gained not by defeating the weak, but by protecting them.

If one gained strength by sacrificing others for yourself (the idea being you sacrificed your enemies so that you gained their strength and power) by Sword Logic, the opposite was true for Bomb Logic. You gained strength by sacrificing yourself for others.

The latter seemed almost logically backward- how could one gain strength by giving one's strength away for others?

"I don't think you can always look at things logically," Lev said, when she noted this point. "I mean, it's good to use your head, but hearts don't really work the same way, do they? There are many old religions that follow that tenant- give unto others, treat others as you want to be treated, you get back more of the love you give out into the world, that kind of thing. I-what? What is it?"

He'd been following her as they chatted and she had just come up a set of old stairs into a wide square near the river, and had stopped so suddenly he'd nearly smacked right into the back of her helmet.

"I think this is it," she said, and he drifted out of the stairwell a bit more, looking around the square.

"Are you getting a memory?"

"Not really, it just…I recognize it. It feels familiar."

As he started to scan some of the buildings she stepped slowly out into the square, looking around. It was still fairly early in the morning but the sun was well above the horizon now, the golds and pinks gone out of the sky. Her eyes found it just as Lev started to turn the other way, continuing his scan. Her hand snatched out and grabbed him, turning him to face the same way she was looking.

"That's it, isn't it?" he said in a low voice. She released him, started across the square.

The pub stood on the corner, just across the road from the river. It's stone and brick was more or less intact, though thick with lichen. The wood window frames were gone, but some bent bits of iron still jutted out of the gaping holes where glass had once fit.

As she neared the steps where the door had also long since rotted away, she felt a shiver of déjà vu creep down her back. The sign was gone, as was the wrought metal arm that had held it in place all those years ago, but as she looked up at the empty space where it had been, she abruptly remembered something.

"New Grad Petrov," she said. Lev looked at her.

"Pardon?"

"The name of the pub. The New Grad Petrov," she said. "It served German food, but the vodka was all Russian. The original pub was caught at the edge of the Great St. Petersburg Fire. Almost a quarter of the whole city went up. The pub was badly damaged and they rebuilt it, renamed it."

"Did you grow up here?"

"No, no, I don't think so. I'm…"

She trailed off, stepping through the door. It was so strange, seeing the worn-down old ruin with the memory of how it looked centuries ago still fresh in her mind. The arched brick ceilings had mostly fallen in, the beautiful wood bar long since turned to rot and dust. Removing her helmet, she could smell the old must of decay and the fresh air blowing in off the river, and at the same time the yeasty smell of beer and cooking meat.

She closed her eyes, picturing the faces, the people who had been there. The redhead, she'd been sitting right over-

"Min!"

Lev's voice was both startled and alarmed. Min whipped around, her pistol lifting in a snap and aiming.

A Guardian stood in the hollow of the doorway, in dark and somehow oily looking armor. She, too, was not wearing her helmet, and the smile on her face and in her eyes seemed heated, electric. In her hand she held Lev in a vice grip, holding him up where Min could see.

His oculus was darting left and right, but the way she held him he couldn't hit her with any kind of beam as he'd done before. Min was just far enough away on the other side of the pub floor, that he also couldn't just vanish into her tag.

"Morning," Nara said, the maniac grin behind that skull tattoo stretching a little wider. Her leather gloves creaked as she gave Lev a little bit of a squeeze. "Looks to be a glorious day, doesn't it?"