Her arms crossed and supporting her as she leaned against the railing, Ash stood in a grassy patch of the tower's large courtyard, gazing out at the city from the balcony-like ledge.
It had been nearly two weeks since her terrifying journey into the Hellmouth, along with Aria and Matt. New reports continued to pop up of Hive sightings all around the Cosmodrome and the City walls, leading to a record high of Guardian activity on Earth. It seemed that they were now ready to make their motives known to the public, and wasted no energy in establishing themselves on humanity's home turf. In that time, Ash and Aria had practiced harnessing the light to enter their own 'super' modes. Both had managed to successfully produce a Fist of Havoc and a Nova Bomb, respectively. Matt had continued to work at focusing his energy, and had now achieved summoning a Golden Gun as well, which engulfed his hand cannon in flames as well as his body, turning him into a walking sun.
But Ash wasn't thinking about any of that.
Ever since the operation at the Hellmouth, she'd come out every other morning or so, and stand against the guardrail that prevented anyone from falling off the tower. Her brushes with death in the Hive's disturbing home had given her a new appreciation for life. Despite having been literally raised from the dead, she found that she'd been taking the new life as a Guardian that she'd been gifted for granted. Not anymore. Every night, she saw herself hanging from that swinging rope, Matt and Aria's worried faces staring at her. She relived every petrifying second of her fall once she'd cut the line, with only Matt's resolve and strength saving her from the depths of the pit.
Once they'd been cornered in the Temple of Crota, it was again Matt's determination that kept them alive. Though he may have entered his Bladedancer's trance by accident, there was no arguing that it had saved all three of their lives, and for that she was eternally grateful. Her new outlook on life had given her a better scope of understanding just how precious of a miracle it could be, how incredible of an experience that life was. And without Matt, she wouldn't be able to thank him at all for enabling her to exist one more moment in its beauty.
In fact, she thought about Matt quite a lot lately. After each of the last few missions they'd gone on, small ones around the Cosmodrome, she found herself picturing his determined face in her mind's eye, and trying to remember how soft his embrace was-
"You're doing it again." Whip's exasperated tone snapped her out of her imaginative stupor, and she turned to him as he hovered closer to her face.
"Doing what again? Standing out here?" Her electric blue eyes narrowed at the Ghost, daring him to say what he had been about to. He wasn't intimidated. "No, thinking about the moon, about him. Every time your thoughts turn to him, you get this weird, dopey smile on your face. It doesn't fit in with your metallic features well." Embarrassed, she forced herself to adopt a look of seriousness, hoping nobody else had seen her face the way Whip had.
"Look, it's been two weeks, and you haven't even talked to the guy about any of this. Why not bring up a discussion?" She shook her head, annoyed at the Ghost's practical solution to the problem. "It's not that, it's… look, it doesn't matter. Can we just drop it, at least for a while?" Whip snorted. "Fine, but don't think you've escaped forever. Sooner or later, you're gonna need to work through this."
Whip was right, eventually she would need to process what she was feeling. But for now, she just wanted to enjoy the sunrise lighting up the horizon and bringing light to the City…
"Ash?" Startled, she turned to see Aria and Matt a few feet away. "Well speak of the devil…" muttered Whip.
Ash backhanded the Ghost and sent him flying away a few feet. "Hey! How long have you guys been standing there?" She pitted hope against hope that they hadn't overheard her conversation with Whip. "Not long, we know not to bother you when you're out here," said Aria, and Ash prayed a silent thank you to whoever was listening. "Okay, well what's up?"
"I don't know, 'young and eager' over here just dragged me out of my room too." Aria stared the Hunter down for the condescending term, and Matt held his hands up to show he meant no harm. She gave a small huff of annoyance. "Well as I told Matt, though it appears he wasn't listening, the Vanguards want to see us. Echo received a notification asking for us to meet with them, and I just wanted to let you know. You coming?"
"Yeah, I'm coming." Turning away from the dazzling sunrise, Ash joined her fireteam, and together they walked into the Hall of Guardians.
-X-
"A new lead? You're sure?" "Well of course we're sure, otherwise we wouldn't have called you in here, would we?"
Ash listened to Matt trade questions with the Vanguards, trying to get new information about the so-called lead. "Alright, I'm sorry. Could you please elaborate for us?"
The Warlock Vanguard gave him a withering stare for questioning their sources, but proceeded to explain; "We've had every available Ghost monitoring all known comm channels of the Fallen and Hive on Earth. At around 4:17 in the morning today, we picked up a signal transmission to the Hive in the Cosmodrome. Though we couldn't hear the conversation of course, we did manage to get a reading on the origin of the signal. It was transmitted from a distant location somewhere on Mercury." This just confused Ash even more. "Wait, Mercury? Why from there?"
"Well, we're not quite sure. But once I finish debriefing the info, you'll know why we're so on edge." Ikora's eyes indeed looked grave, as though every scrap of news they managed to pick up put them in a deeper and deeper hole. "You see, after that transmission ended, the same entity that contacted the Hive sent a transmission to a group of Fallen that we didn't even know existed, and it's quite by accident and some luck that we managed to receive any kind of signal from them." Zavala took over, giving Ikora a moment of respite.
"The Messenger," said Ash, and Zavala nodded. "That is our suspicion, though we could be wrong."
"Now, this is where things get complicated. You see, whomever sent those signals appears to be in league with both the Hive and the Fallen. The thought of just those two armies working together already makes us uneasy, but the transmission's location was on Mercury, a world that we lost to the Vex." Zavala didn't say 'vex' so much as he spat the word, expressing his hatred. "The Vex are a race of robotic organisms that transform planets into machines, killing all life wherever they find it, and stamping out whatever light they come across. They share a single mind across a billion units. If the Traveler hadn't stopped them with its sacrifice, we wouldn't be here today, and Earth would be no more than a massive machine of theirs to use against other life."
The three Guardians sat in stunned silence. "If they're such a big threat, why haven't we heard of them yet?" Zavala turned to look at Aria, who had voiced the question. "Well, luckily we don't encounter them often. They mostly stay on Venus according to most reports. I don't think we've had any kind of encounter with the Vex in nearly a decade." Zavala now faced all three of the Guardians, making sure they understood well what he was about to say next. "Now, if the Vex are somehow in league with both the Fallen and the Hive, it backs us into a very dark corner indeed. We haven't seen a gathering of the Darkness's armies this large since the collapse. We need more info, and for that we're sending you three off to investigate the new Fallen group we found, and if you can, stop them. Information is our priority here as with the Hellmouth mission, but if an entire section of the Fallen army suddenly was thrown into disarray, it could buy us a few weeks' time, maybe even months."
Ash locked her gaze onto her mentor and asked, "How do you propose we do that, exactly?" The Titan Vanguard nodded in approval of his apprentice's question, appreciating her drive to achieve all possible goals. "Fallen Houses often separate into groups, as we've seen here. The Fallen group in particular that we found appears to belong to the House of Devils. Each group has a Prime-Servitor, a machine God of their creation that gives them their energy through replenishing their ether, their life-substance. Take out the Servitor, and the group will slowly die out without Ether to sustain themselves."
"And where is this Fallen group?" Matt asked the next question with seemingly an air of nonchalance, but when Zavala answered, his reaction was quite noticeable; "In the middle of a lost city in the European dead zone. The name of the city has long since been forgotten, but we know one of its identifying landmarks is a large structure, the top long since destroyed. It stands above the rest of the city, near a river with a bridge that connects the general area to the opposite banks of the water." Ash saw Matt stiffen immediately, his face giving away the powerful emotions he must have been feeling inside.
"Got something to tell us?" asked Cayde, curious as to why the young Hunter gave such a drastic reaction. Matt inhaled deeply, using his calming technique, and explained.
"That structure's name was Big Ben, and it used to be a clock tower. The name actually refers to the bell, not the clock, that hung inside. And the surrounding area is Winchester, London." Ash could see everyone else's shocked face at Matt's new information. "And how do you know this?" asked Ikora in awe.
Matt stared at Ash for the briefest of moments, pain apparent in his face, and then turned back to the Vanguards.
"Because I used to live there."
-X-
The Javelin flew towards their destination quickly, the minutes passing in silence. After Matt had dropped his bombshell of a reveal, they'd been sent off on their mission to retrieve any info they could on the Messenger from the new group of Fallen's databases, and possibly destroy their Servitor. Ash piloted the craft with ease, glancing over every so often to look at Matt in the co-pilot's seat, saying nothing but giving a blank stare forward as they continued on towards the ruins of his past home. She tried to think of words to say, to show him that he had support. Though her mind fumbled with different openings, Matt broke the silence first.
"You know, I wasn't born here in Europe. I actually grew up in the US, but once my dad died, my mother couldn't really stick around. I guess she needed a big change in her life, to take her mind off things or whatever. In any case, I moved to London when I was just beginning High School." Ash listened, trying to keep up with the story, but he kept saying too many foreign terms to her. The US? High School? What the hell were those? Ignoring her mind's ramblings, she listened to hear him say, "Life was good there, I'll admit. I made friends, I tried to keep the twins out of trouble." He gave a genuine sounding laugh as he remarked on past memories. "Oh man, the twins. They were fraternal of course, a sister and a brother of mine. They always liked to be mischievous, and play pranks on just about anyone they could. Authority didn't intimidate them in the slightest." His smile faded. "I don't even know what happened to them." He looked at Ash who was staring at him with real empathy on her face, and he faced forward again avoiding her gaze.
"Anyway, life continued on. I joined up with the British Armed Forces once I hit eighteen, and stuck with them for a few years. There was really nothing to do I thought, since the Traveler had pretty much unified most countries and created peace." He laughed. "I'd loved film-making and had thought I'd go to college for that, but apparently life had other plans for me. I'd thought it'd given me a second chance when I got discharged." He turned in his seat to look at both Ash and Aria as well, who had been listening to his story with interest. Both seemed surprised at the mention of him having been discharged. "See, there was this incident. A bunch of the guys got drunk at some gathering, and things got a little wild. I was there as well, but I didn't have anything to do with what happened next. They started teasing the girls with us a bit, and suddenly everything went to hell when a couple of them started crying 'rape'." He shook his head.
"I guess the alcohol clouded their judgement or something, but all I know is that in a split second, a bunch of the drunk guys are grabbing these girls, forcing them to- well, I won't go into it. Anyway, I freaked out a bit, and tried to stop what was going on. Got knocked out by one of the drunk guys who thought I was trying to take his prize or some shit. Woke up in an infirmary, and without waiting to hear my side of the story, I got kicked out of the Forces along with the rest of the assholes who'd gone and tried to assault the girls. People thought I'd gotten smacked from one of the girls defending themselves or something, and since none of them really knew us too well, they couldn't say for certain that I hadn't attacked them, and there went my defense."
"I moved back home for about a year, before agreeing to go trekking with one of my buddy's across Russia, maybe get a nice change of landscape, appreciate nature, that kind of stuff. On my way there, I got mugged by a couple of car-jackers, and next thing I know, I've got Seraph hovering over me telling me I'm a Guardian." He threw his hands up in a done sort of fashion. "And that, ladies, is the story of my life."
Ash didn't know what to say. She didn't know whether to ask him about his unfair trial, about his siblings, or his friend. In the end, she settled to ask, "Did you enjoy your life more than this one?"
He pondered for a moment, and then replied, "Well I definitely appreciated the fact that most of humanity wasn't brutally brought to the edge of extinction yet, but would I go back? No. My life is now with you guys." Ash felt a small burst of elation at his answer, and it gave her enough courage to ask a different question; "Did you find love?"
His gaze snapped to her, his face questioning. She quickly tried to backpedal. "I mean, did you? At least you've got your memories, I still don't know who I am or what my past life had for me. I'm wondering what you had in yours at least." She gave a straight face, hoping he'd take the bait. He continued to look at her with that stare, and simply said, "Once." He turned away, and refused to elaborate, much to the chagrin of Ash.
"Alright Guardians, get ready. We're coming up on our destination." Whip's voice echoed throughout the interior of the ship, and Ash once again stared out the viewport with her hands at the controls, eager to focus on anything else but the previous conversation. "Where?" A small icon on the ship's navigational map popped up, and she guided the Javelin over to it.
As the Vanguards had said, there was a river that ran along the side of the ruined city. A bridge cut through it, connecting the city to the other side of the canal. "Winchester bridge," she hear Matt say, "I can't believe it's still intact." Indeed, only a few small chunks of the bridge and several support beams were missing. The rest of it was still very much usable. Turning her attention to the landing zone, Ash lowered the Javelin until it hovered around thirty feet above the ground. Seraph materialized, prepared to go with them on their journey. She released the controls, allowing Whip to repossess the ship. "Alright, transmitting in 3…2…good luck Guardians. Before Ash could tell him that they wouldn't need it, she felt her boots hitting solid ground, and watched as the Javelin flew off as to not attract attention.
"Alright, where to?" asked Aria. "It's down that street over there. We follow that to about a mile from here. I can detect fallen comm signals from even this distance." The three Guardians followed the path until they reached the eroded street. Suddenly, Matt veered off towards a heavily damaged building on the other side of the road.
"Where are you going?" Aria called out. He turned back to face them. "Look, there's just something I gotta see really quick." Without any more explanation, he faced forward again, and walked up a small set of stairs to the front door of the building. Aria turned to Ash, as did Seraph. She just shrugged, and followed Matt, the other two deciding to follow as well.
Matt was jiggling the door knob when she arrived. "This thing is locked, but it's quite old, and with a little force-" he stopped talking as he managed to break the centuries-old mechanism, and the door swung open. He immediately entered, and Ash trailed behind, wondering what he could possibly be doing. As if he could read her mind, he began to ascend a flight of stairs and said, "This place used to be an apartment complex. The room we're looking for is here on the second floor."
Indeed, once Matt reached the top of the stairs, he made a beeline for a room on the right of the hallway, it's identifying plaque long since faded. Matt wasted no time to break the doorknob this time, and instead kicked the door open. It swung into the room with a loud bang as some of the wood splintered as well. The three Guardians and Ghost went in.
The room was bare, nothing to show for the journey. "I guess whoever lived here last must have packed up, and left. Probably sometime around the collapse's start." Matt talked both to himself and to the other Guardians. He walked over to a section of the blank wall, and Ash began to worry. "Matt, are you alright?" He gave no answer, and instead attempted to grasp the smooth surface of the wall.
Suddenly, his fingers caught on something, and to Ash's surprise, he lifted away a small chunk of the wall, revealing a small open space inside. Reaching his hands in, he grabbed something and pulled it out. It was a small metal box, complete with a metal lock to seal off any chance of it being opened. "Dammit, don't have the key anymore. Oh well." Unsheathing his knife, he hit the arc of the lock, causing it to shatter and fall off. Once the lock had been removed, he opened the box.
Looking over his shoulder, Ash saw that the box was full of pictures, photographs containing various people and places. Matt chose one at random, and she could see that in it was-
"Is that you?" Matt nodded. Though it definitely looked like Matt, she could see that it was a younger incarnation of him, still likely in his teenage years. He had his arm around two other teenagers, one a boy and one a girl. Ash looked at the current Matt, staring at the pictures. "Those were my best friends," he elaborated. "The guy there is Lucas, an amazing and outgoing person. I was supposed to be meeting with him for the Russia trip." He pointed at the girl with a single finger. "That's Sara, my best friend for as long as I could remember." He didn't say anything else, and Ash took the opportunity to ask, "Was this your room?"
He nodded. "I lived here once I got discharged. I kept this chest in here full of my favorite and most precious pictures. My mom would have kept them in a scrap-book, but I always had this weird worry, like if I didn't keep them safe, that they'd be lost. Maybe by a house fire, or a storm, I don't know." He looked at Ash and gave a small chuckle, thought it was mirthless. "I guess my instincts were right, weren't they?"
Ash couldn't see his face through his helmet, but she had a feeling that his face was full of pain at this moment. He turned back to the photographs, and picked out another one. This one was just of him and Sara, out at some amusement park. It was years later, and the progression of age was apparent in their faces; Matt had almost matured into the young man he was now, and Sara no longer looked like a teenager; they each gave the camera held up by Matt's hand a wide smile, both ones of genuine enjoyment. Ash looked from the photo to Matt.
"Did you love her?" Matt hesitated a few moments. Then, he spoke, and Ash understood why Matt had shied away from the topic before.
"I did. She died a few months later after we took this photo. See, we began to date towards the end of High School, but she was diagnosed with some kind of genetic disease that had plagued her family's generations for quite a long time." His voice grew heavy, and he sounded like he was struggling to push past a lump in his throat. "The Traveler nearly cured all possible diseased, even cancer, but we tried everything. Nothing worked. The problem wasn't with some foreign bacteria or strain, it was a fault in her DNA, her own genetic coding. So she was stuck with a degenerative disease that slowly killed her over the next few months, until she was finally committed to a hospital. I remember staying up late with her, just keeping her company through the dark times."
Matt reached up and pulled off his helmet. Running down his face were tears, as he recalled the saddening memories. "I remember her dying in my arms during the night. She didn't say anything, just looked at me, smiled, and…she was gone." Matt lifted his gloved hand up, and wiped away the drops of water that fell from his eyes. "If there was any kind of reason to make me want to go back to my old life, it'd be to see her just one more time." He looked over at Ash, and he smiled. It was such an odd sight, to see the leader and friend she'd depended on for the last few weeks smiling in the memory of his dead friend.
Ash didn't know how to respond in the face of her silently crying friend. She felt helpless, words of encouragement were not her strong suit. Aria and Seraph just looked on passively, also unsure of how to proceed. But Matt once again started the conversation she couldn't.
"That doesn't mean I'd want to go back, though. We had our time, and my life back then is in the past. The only thing that matters is now, and the future. All I can hope, is that both of you continue to be apart of it." Matt held open his arms, and Ash finally took an opportunity she understood. Aria also walked over, and the three embraced for a few precious moments.
Once they let go, Matt placed his helmet back on. "Seraph, can you please store this somewhere?" She hovered over, and dematerialized the box in a flash of blue. Matt turned back to Ash and Aria. "Alright, now we've got some information to steal.
-X-
Ash walked down the ruined street along with her two fireteam members. They had nearly reached the location where the Vanguards had detected the radio signal. Seraph stopped moving for a moment, and said, "There."
An abandoned and run down church stood approximately twenty meters in front of them. Upon first glance, she couldn't see how this was some sort of Fallen HQ, but once she gave the area a more focused look around, she spied Fallen crates and storage containers littered around the building. They were in the right place alright. She unslung her JIGOKU from her back, and saw Matt and Aria follow her example, each pulling out their respective weapons. With his hand cannon at the ready, Matt gestured to Ash that she needed to open the door. Grinning, she ran towards the entrance of the church and slammed into the doors at full force.
The large doors immediately crumpled under the pressure, and Ash braced her feet to slow her momentum. She heard a growl, and looked up to see that she has startled a single Fallen Vandal. It yelled in its foreign tongue at her, until she'd charged forward and tackled the creature to the ground. Matt and Aria came running in as she kept the Vandal on the ground by aiming her scout rifle directly at the center of his head, quite the motivation to remain still. Though it complied, it still uttered the strange language of the Fallen, likely cursing them in its native speech.
"This is actually a pretty good opportunity," said Matt from behind her, and he stepped forward to the Vandal, Seraph at his side. "Seraph, can you translate?" "Well, yes, but why?" Ash kept her aim trained on the Vandal in case it tried to pull any sort of trick. "Well, I'd rather just see if we can find out what we need from this guy, rather than searching all day for a database that may or may not even be here. Look at the state of the place these guys are staying in. I'm pretty sure this isn't a large group, considering they're hiding out in a broken down, easily entered church instead of some kind of fortified base." Seraph didn't respond, perhaps admitting to herself internally that he was right.
"Ask him about the Fallen's invasion plan." Seraph emitted a synthetic sounding chain of growls and grunts. The Vandal tossed its head back and made a huffing sound, presumably laughing at them. "That's fine, I didn't expect any luck there anyway. Ask him about the Messenger." The Vandal showed no sign of recognition after Seraph's translation, only confusion. "Clarify it, call them 'the one who speaks with the darkness'." Finally, the Vandal seemed to tense up, and was silent. It looked like they'd hit the mark. "Ash, give him a little incentive to talk." Happy to oblige, she fired a warning shot off next to his head. Chips of brick flew in all directions, and again the Fallen swore at them. After it had finished yelling obscenities, however, it began to talk in a hurried fashion.
"It says; 'You seek the Diplomat. Your search will not be continued through my treachery. The Darkness's emissary will bring shadow and death upon your world, and my kind will pick clean the bones'." Again, the Vandal made its huffing noise, and Matt could see that they weren't going to get any more information out of it. But he wasn't going to brutally kill an unarmed prisoner. "Alright, tell him he has about thirty seconds to run before I place a bullet between his eyes." Seraph made the translation, but to their surprise the Vandal responded.
" 'I won't be the one who needs to flee.' What is that supposed to mean?" Seraph asked, confused. Ash was about to ask the same thing when she heard an electrified humming from behind them, and she spun to face the new threat.
Descending from the rafters above was a massive Servitor, its body literally radiating either. "There's the Servitor!" she yelled, though Matt and Aria had already turned to meet it as well. It glared at them with its purple eye, and emitted a series of electronic hums and vibrations, probably something along the lines of, "I will destroy you now, puny Guardians."
The Vandal on the ground rose quickly to its feet, and jumped onto Matt's back. He pulled out his knife, and thrusted it into the Vandal's neck, but the damage was already done. Using the distraction to its advantage, the Servitor fired off a purple bolt of energy that exploded at the feet of the three Guardians. It flung them in different directions, and Ash felt herself fly backwards and smash through a stained glass window before tumbling onto the ground, glass shards falling all around her. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, and looked back into the church. The Servitor was firing at Aria who danced around the interior of the church, narrowly missing being hit by the beams which forced the wooden pews in their way to shatter and burst into splinters. Matt lay on the ground next to the dead Vandal, slightly stirring. Ash rose to her feet, and charged back into the fight.
Jumping in through the same window she'd been thrown out of, the Servitor made note of Ash's entrance, and began to focus on her. Aria brought her arm back, charging up an aura of void energy, and hurled the Nova Bomb at the machine-god. It missed by just a few feet, and though it definitely injured the rampaging sphere, it was not going to kill it. That left Ash as the last resort. She looked over to Matt's prone body, and swore that she wasn't about to let the psychotic floating ball hurt him. She felt the familiar electric currents begin to lance up around her arms and legs. She aimed straight for the Servitor, and ran full sprint towards it.
Leaping into the air, she managed to grab ahold of the rim of its eye, and hang there. The Servitor seemed shocked at the action, and this gave her enough time to find footholds for her legs. She let go of the rim with her arms, brought them back, and focused all of her available arc energy into her fists. There was a single moment where Titan and machine were silent in preparation for the final blow. Then, she drove her electrified hands into its eye with as much force as she could muster.
All of the waves of energy created by her Fist of Havoc was channeled directly into the center of the Servitor, and completely obliterated its core. The stained glass windows of the church shattered from the shockwaves, and the empty shell of the Servitor fell to the ground, Ash still holding onto the exterior. Drained of her energy, Ash stepped from the sphere to the ground, and steadied herself against the husk of the once living machine. She turned to see Aria checking up on Matt, and she walked over to see him start to move in earnest.
"Oh, it's dead." Matt stated the obvious fact with a small tone of surprise, as though he were noting an unexpected change in the weather. He looked up at Ash to see her extended hand waiting to help him up. He took it.
"Well, we got some new info, and managed to destroy a Prime-Servitor. I'd call that a productive day." Matt gestured towards the smoking metal sphere. "I suppose we just-" He stopped talking as all three Guardians heard the roars and howls of Fallen, much more than they'd estimated. And they sounded close by. They probably weren't going to be too happy with the news of their dead ether supplier, and Matt shouted, "Back to the ship! Back to the ship!"
They took off running towards the front of the church, in the direction of where they'd first arrived. Every so often throughout the mile-long sprint, Ash would turn and see the horde of Fallen chasing them, firing arc bolts from their wire rifles, barely missing the Guardians who ran from them. Seraph hailed the Javelin, giving out orders; "Operation is a success! We need extraction immediately, I repeat, immediately!"
Finally, they came back into the crumbling ruins of Winchester, and they saw the black outline of the Javelin rushing through the air to meet them at their position. But the Fallen were still behind them, and they weren't going to have enough time to wait for extraction. "Get to the bridge!" yelled Matt, and they began running towards the crumbling bridge that had so quickly become their place of refuge.
"Tell them to fly over the bridge, and get ready to transmat us as soon as we're in range!" shouted Matt, and Ash assumed he was talking to Seraph. The now had reached the base of the bridge, and as they began to cross it, she could see the Javelin speeding towards their location.
Upon reaching the middle of the bridge with Fallen not far behind, they waited for a few precious seconds. Each one felt like an eternity to Ash, trading every moment waiting for the Javelin for one less second of safety as the Fallen quickly approached them. The ship was just about to fly over the bridge when Matt yelled, "Jump off! Go!" Ash turned, and leapt from the ledge of the bridge along with Aria and Matt, escaping the clutches of the Fallen who pursued them. There was a moment of exhilarating free-fall, and then-
Her butt and back hit the seat of the pilot's chair, and Ash wasted no time in fastening her restraints. She checked to see that Matt and Aria were wearing theirs as well, and they both gave her the thumbs up. Ash took command of the controls, and accelerated them away from the ruins of Winchester, and into the sky. Once they'd put enough distance between them and the Fallen, Ash let go of the sticks, allowing Whip to have control again. She turned to look at her two heavily breathing fireteam members, and said, "You know, we've really got to stop ending all of our missions with near-death experiences."
Both Matt and Aria busted out laughing, and Ash grinned in her helmet. The seriousness of the situation was lost as they enjoyed themselves in the safety of the ship.
Matt stopped for a moment to ask, "Seraph could you please retrieve that box?" It materialized on Matt's lap, and he opened it again. Ash watched him dig through the photos, and pull out three; the one with him, Lucas, and Sara, the one of him and Sara alone, and another that had Matt with two shorter kids, a boy and a girl, who both appeared to be the his twin siblings. "These are the only ones I need," he said, and he put them inside a pouch of his belt. "I don't care about the rest." Without a word, Seraph dematerialized the box, and nobody asked where.
Ash liked to think that Matt wasn't trying to hold onto his past; he was trying to bring a small part of it with him, but continuing to make a new life for himself with her and Aria, as she herself had been forced to do without her memory. She smiled, and though the ride passed by in silence, it was the comfortable silence that fell upon friends who didn't need to say anything for their feelings to be understood.
-X-
"I don't think that this 'Diplomat' is a different person, I think it's the same one with a different title. Different cultures, different terminology for the one they speak to," finished Matt, giving his report to the Vanguards.
"I see," said Ikora, and both Cayde and Zavala nodded in agreement. "In addition to confirming that the Fallen are in league with the same being who communicates with the Hive, you've destroyed a Prime-Servitor. That kill alone has just bought us months of time to plan our next move. Thank you, Guardians." All three of the Vanguards bowed to the three newborn Guardians. No, thought Ash, that wasn't the right word. No longer were they completely inexperienced Guardians, stumbling their way through discoveries. They were established, they were known. They'd fought for and supported each other the last few weeks, and Ash had begun to depend on Aria and Ash as though they were parts of her body, extensions of herself. No longer would they be coddled with the air of innocent children, but they were treated as equals. It felt right.
As the trio exited the Hall of Guardians, Matt turned to both Ash and Aria, asking, "Anyone up for a trip into the City? Maybe buy a drink as a reward to ourselves?" Aria, usually stubborn about her anti-alcohol consumption, now said, "Yeah, sure. I think I need some after this last mission." Matt turned to Ash and said, "What about you? You good to go?"
Ash thought of what Matt had told her about Sara, and his feelings of affection towards her. His past life, broken and shattered by the loss of someone he had so deeply cared about. She thought about her own status, and what he considered her to be. She knew that she hadn't reached the same level of friendship that he'd had with Sara, but she thought, staring into his expectant face, that she could sure start to try right now.
"Sure, a drink sounds great." Matt nodded, and together the three Guardians walked into the courtyard, eager to enjoy each other's company and await their next adventure together.