- "Battle for the Traveler", The City -
As her world crumbled around her, the young girl ran from the beasts that chased her through the streets. They'd already slaughtered her family and neighbors, but she had run away. Knowing what would happen if she stopped, she ignored the pain in her feet as she sprinted through the cobblestone paths and alleyways. The howls of the four-armed monsters behind her urged her forward, spurring her to go faster.
Finally, she made it to the main street, the street which would take her straight to the tower. She followed the road as the growls and echoes of her pursuers continued to terrify her into action. Suddenly, a large blast of arc energy from a passing Fallen ship impacted against the building to her right, causing it to completely explode in a shower of rock and debris. She was knocked off her feet, and landed several yards to the left, partially obscured in the rubble. She struggled to stand up, but a sharp pain in her foot, likely a broken bone, kept her from moving.
Footsteps slowly approached her from where she'd been running from, and she turned to see several Fallen staring at her. The largest one held two swords humming with energy, tiny sparks crackling in the air. It approached her, and began to raise them for the killing strike. She closed her eyes and held her breath, hoping that she wouldn't see her end coming.
Several gunshots rang out, and she heard the thud of a large mass hitting the ground. Waiting with bated breath, she was surprised to find that no sword came slicing through her abdomen. She tentatively opened her eyes to see the large Fallen on the ground, blood seeping from its chest. The other Fallen had faced the new threat, only to each be peppered with bullets, their heads exploding in gaseous vapor.
She looked to her left to see two humanoid shapes running towards her through the dust and clouds that all the gunfire had caused. As they approached, she saw that they were Guardians. One was a Hunter, his cloak flapping in the air and with white and blue armor. The other was a Warlock, her robes ripped at the bottom, colored white but with carnation pink accents and boots. They saw her lying in the debris, and the Hunter knelt down.
"Hey there. Looked like you were in a tough spot kid." She nodded vigorously to show that she agreed with him. "You saved my life!" He laughed. "Well, that's kind of our job. Are you alright?" She shook her head. "My foot hurts a lot, I can't walk," she said, pointing to her left foot. He nodded. "Alright. Aria, can you lend me a hand here? Possibly broken foot." The Warlock stepped closer, and one of her hands began to glow orange. "Hold still," she instructed, and the girl complied, eager to follow her saviors' commands. The Warlock reached her glowing hand forward until it made contact with her foot, and suddenly the pain disappeared.
"T- Thank you," she stammered, wanting to express her gratitude. The Warlock knelt down next to the Hunter. "It was no trouble, sweetie. Where are your parents? Do you know?" At the mention of her dead mother and father, the girl began to silently cry, tears streaking through the grime and dirt on her face. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean- let's talk about something else. How old are you?" The girl sniffled a bit, but wiped away the tears and held her head up, hoping she looked more impressive than a crying baby. "I'm thirteen, almost fourteen." The Warlock gasped in easily detectable fake surprise. "Wow, you're thirteen? You're very brave for one so young." The girl decided to ignore the fact that this was obviously just meant to make her feel better, since the woman was just trying to help her.
"Ouch, looks like you got tagged badly there," said the Hunter, pointing to the girl's left cheek where a streak of burned and charred skin stretched from the middle up to her temple, leaving an angry red gash in the flesh. She nodded. "One of their orange cannons grazed me here earlier, it burned a lot." The Warlock looked over. "She got tagged by a shrapnel launcher? Imagine if that Captain had aimed even just a few inches more to the left-" The guy held up his hand to stop her. "Not in front of her, she doesn't need to hear that."
He looked at the girl again, and felt like he was analyzing her. He gestured to the mark again. "That's a pretty big scorch mark you've got. Can't say that you'll walk away without a scar on your face, but hey, at least you'll have a cool story, right?" His voice carried a smile with it, and she couldn't help but return it.
One of their Ghost's appeared, the Hunter's. "Matt, Ash is more than a little freaked out that neither you nor Aria are responding to her transmissions on the comms." He stood up quickly. "Shit, I didn't notice the radio hail, I was talking to the kid." He looked up into the sky, as if hoping to see something. "Ash, sorry. Situation got a bit complicated. Gonna need you to meet us over by where we led the other survivors, there's one more that we found." He paused, then nodded. "Understood. We're moving." As he turned back to the girl, a large ship flew overhead, black and shaped like a jet. It began to fly toward the base of the tower which was at the end of the main road.
The Hunter motioned to the girl with his arms. "C'mon, we're gonna get you out of here." She reached out, and he picked her up from under her arms. He bent down slightly, and placed her on his back. She looped her arms around, and held on tightly. "Let's go, Aria!" At a brisk pace, they began running down the main road.
They met no resistance along the way, and within ten minutes, they'd reached the tower. Looking inside the lobby, the girl could see a large number of other people, most of them wearing similarly tattered clothing and sporting injuries of all kinds. The Hunter leaned down, and set her on the road.
"Alright kid, this is the place. Head inside and wait here with the other survivors until the battle is over. Medics will come take care of you and make sure you're not in any more danger." She nodded to show her understanding. He gave her a small salute with one hand as he walked away, a little nod to her before he left. He began to stride towards the ship they'd seen earlier which now hovered twenty feet in the air a few meters away, waiting for him and the Warlock. The aforementioned Warlock also began to walk away, but the girl called out.
"How do you do it? How do you fight the monsters without being afraid?" The Warlock turned, and appeared to ponder the question. "Well, you don't. Every time I go into battle, I'm afraid. Afraid of losing those I care about, about being killed. About other things, some of which are worse than death." Her tone was serious, and the girl held onto every word.
"The trick is, we're always afraid. There's a difference between being fearless and being brave. Being fearless is stupid, it can get you killed if you don't heed signs of danger. But bravery means that you're using your fear to your advantage, and not letting it conquer you." The Warlock nodded. "If you have to be something, be brave." With that, she turned and followed the Hunter over to the ship where a blue light surrounded them, and they disappeared. A second later, the ship took off and began to fly towards the city center.
The girl stood there in awe, admiring her newfound idols. If she were to survive this battle, she knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to become a protector, to be one of the Guardians who fought off the monsters, who others looked up to.
Most of all, she wanted to be brave.
-X-
- 7 Years Later, Outskirts of the City -
-X-
She sped through the obstacles on the course with the wind whipping her brown short-cut hair behind her. She glanced to the right to see the spectators on the side cheering as she zoomed by on her sparrow. She flashed them a smile, and continued on. One person's sparrow behind her malfunctioned, and began to short out. It nosedived into the dirt, and began flipping through the air, its rider flung off like a cowboy from a bull. She silently cheered as part of the competition was pulled away into the sidelines to avoid being run over.
All she had to do was finish this lap, and the prize would be hers for the taking. The only real rival she had to worry about was Numai, an Awoken female a few years older than her. She'd been racing sparrows since she was a kid, and had much more experience. But there was something that gave her an advantage over Numai, a sort of sense she had when things presented themselves to her. She couldn't explain it other than a natural ability to predict outcomes.
As she rounded the bend, she felt an odd urge to drift to the right and allow Numai to take the inside, usually a move that would be suicide winning-wise. Sh ignored that line of thought, and decided to trust her instincts as they'd steered her right so many times before. Pulling to the right slightly, she gave enough room for Numai to speed up and take the lead by a few feet. The veteran racer turned to look at her as she flew past.
"Thanks for the win, dumbass!" She gave a loud laugh before her vehicle hit a four foot long shard of the exploded sparrow from earlier that had flown clear of its original vehicle, and stuck itself vertically in the dirt on the track. She couldn't remember having made note of it, but apparently she had sensed that it would be there waiting for another sparrow to hit it. Numai's sparrow immediately flipped, throwing her into the dirt and out of the race. Raising her two hands in the air, she piloted the sparrow the remaining twenty feet forward, and accepted the loud cheers that greeted her win.
As several members of the crowd ran onto the track, she walked back over to Numai who was cursing from all the scrapes she'd accumulated in her tumble. The Awoken gave her a withering glare, but she only smirked in reply. "I guess you could say that you got… scorched!"
Numai looked confused, then widened her eyes. "Wait… what?" She shrugged. "You know, because like… I'm Scorch? My racing name? It's a play on words." Numai just looked stunned. "But… that's so dumb!" Scorch jerked her head, taken aback. "What? I thought it was clever!" Number shook her head. "No, making your racing name "Scorch" after your scar was clever. That one-liner? Not so much." The Awoken woman walked away much to the chagrin of Scorch, who stood there dumbfounded. Just when she'd thought that she'd gotten the last word in on Numai, she tore down her catchphrase.
Shaking her head, she walked back toward the crowd of people. The race manager flagged her down. "Hey there, Scorch! Listen, I've got a race for you. Four thousand guaranteed, seven thousand if you win, near 'Messenger's Fall'." He slapped a card into her waiting hand. "That's your money prize for the race, it's got all five thousand on it." She nodded. "Thanks, Jay!" The manager tilted his hat forward in acknowledgement, then turned to address the crowd. "That's all for tonight, folks! One more time, let's hear it for Scorch!"
The crowd of people whooped and cheered, mob mentality forcing each of them to follow the others' example. Scorch smiled, and waved back at them. Deciding it was time for her to head home, she began to walk towards her sparrow, her mode of transport. She held out her hand and said to the air, "Go ahead and store that for later please. I might lose it otherwise." A Ghost popped up in front of her, and scanned it.
"You've really got to learn cooler catchphrases. 'You got scorched'? Not the best idea you've had." She shrugged. "I'll think of something else for next time."
Suddenly, a ship lit up their position, spotlights flooding the area. The symbols on the side indicated that it was from the tower, a task force's transport. Now usually, Scorch was very grateful for the work that the city's task force did in cleaning our Fallen bandits and whatnot, but they were definitely a less than welcome sight here.
"Shit, we've got guards! Everyone, run!" The race manager's voice called out to the crowd from behind her, and the large group began to disperse, people sprinting in every direction but toward the ship. Suddenly a voice began to emit from an external speaker.
"This is the city task force. We are looking for an individual who goes by the name of Scorch. I repeat, we are looking for an individual who goes by the name of Scorch." She stopped in her tracks, and turned to look at the ship. They were looking for her? That couldn't be good. She began to run even faster toward her sparrow, but evidently her moment of hesitation had marked her as their target. Blue grids of light appeared in the air, and with them came Guardians of the city. There were three of them, two of which were Titans sporting the task force emblem. The third was a Warlock with task force robes who stood several feet in front of her, and held out his hand. "Halt!"
The Titans on the side came at her, and attempted to apprehend her. She rolled forward out of their reach, and next to the Warlock. Bringing one hand up, she clocked him in the head with the palm, and with him stunned she ran the last few feet to her sparrow. Hopping on, it started immediately, and she blasted off into the darkness. Being on the outskirts of the city near the wall, she hadn't expected any of the task force to find them. If they were really looking just for her, then whatever it was couldn't be good. Maybe they were here to finally take back Spectre, maybe not. Either way, she wasn't planning to find out.
She thought she'd gotten away before the spotlight found her zooming away on her sparrow once more. Out here in open fields, she couldn't avoid it, and she knew that they were going to track her. Or, at least she thought they would. A crack sounded in the air, and a humming sound steadily grew louder before something finally hit the front of her sparrow. It immediately ceased to work, and she fell onto the ground as it crashed into the dirt. She tried to push herself back up with her hands, but as she got to her knees, she heard the sound of footsteps. Looking up, she made note of the task force Warlock from earlier. Held in his hands was a sniper rifle with a smoking barrel.
"Sorry about that, but we really couldn't allow you to get away. It's taken us a while just to find you here, and we didn't feel like repeating the process. Consider us even for you smacking me in the face." She said nothing, but instead stood up, and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. He took his helmet off, and held it at his side. He was a male Exo, with a light grey colored face, and glowing green eyes. A black stripe stretched from his forehead up to the top of his face, ending in a triangular point. A waited for her to say something, and then sighed in exasperation. "Look, we're not here to arrest you for illegal sparrow-racing. You can even keep whatever earnings you won, but we really need your help."
This seemed highly suspicious, and she raised one of her eyebrows. "You need my help? With what, ratting out other racers? Because if you think-" He shook his head. "No, this has nothing to do with that." He looked around. "Look, I can't really discuss it here. You're coming with us like it or not, but you can decide to leave later if you're so inclined." Now she was truly curious, because the guard seemed genuine. "I would highly recommend against that," came Spectre's voice.
The Warlock looked around. "Who was that?" The Ghost appeared, and narrowed his eye at the Exo. "That would be me." The Exo seemed sincerely confused. "Wait, you have a Ghost? But how-?" He shook his head to clear his mind. "Never mind, it's not important. Just brace yourself for a transmat." She was about to open her mouth to ask something before blue light surrounded them, and she fell onto the floor of the ship that had been waiting to recover them. A pair of magnetic handcuffs were unexpectedly placed on her wrists before she could resist.
"Hey, I thought you said that I wasn't being arrested!" He nodded. "Don't worry, you're not. But I don't trust you to not make a move to escape. Just wait until we've had a long chat with the Vanguards, and those babies will come right off." She sat back down on the deck of the ship, resigning to the strange turn of events that had just occurred to her life.
-X-
The Warlock led her down the steps into a hall of sorts. She'd been escorted from the hangar with a Titan on each side, and the Warlock taking point. As she'd passed by other Guardians and people who worked in the tower, they stared at her and whispered to one another. Obviously her presence her was not a surprise, but was something important. Why? What did she have that was of interest to the Guardians?
Finally, the hallway opened into a chamber that held an indented pit with a long table. Three people stood at the table, one on each of the far ends, and one on the left adjacent side. The closest one to her and her captors was a black woman with buzzed hair, who turned at the sound of their footsteps. The other two, an Awoken man in Titan armor and a hooded Exo followed suit and let their gazes fall upon Scorch.
"We finally found her. She was gambling and participating in a sparrow race near the outskirts." The woman's eyes widened slightly. "Gambling? I wouldn't have expected that, but good work Eager."
Scorch stood there, waiting to be addressed. There were a few moment's of silence before the Exo broke it, "Not a very talkative one, is she?"
She glared at him. "What reason do I have to talk? What do you people want from me?" Her tone was quite hostile, and was easily sensed by the Vanguards. The Awoken man attempted to calm her. "Young one, we mean you no harm. If you'll kindly listen, we can explain everything much faster."
Scorch gave a small sigh to settle herself and said slowly and clearly, "Fine. I'll listen." The man nodded, and began introductions; "My name is Zavala, commander of the Titans and city task force. This is Ikora Rey," he gestured to the woman closest to Scorch, "and this is Cayde-6, more commonly called Cayden." The Exo nodded, and waved. "How you doin'?
She nodded. "I know who you people are, you're the leaders of the Guardians. The Vanguards." Ikora nodded. "That is correct, young one." Scorch faced her. "None of you have ever cared about me before, why do you care about me now?"
Ikora opened her mouth to answer, but Cayde held his hand up to stop her. "Whoa, whoa. What do you mean, 'before'?"
The Vanguards stood waiting for an answer, and Scorch could only marvel at how seemingly ignorant they were of her, of her situation. She narrowed her eyes and spoke. "In the 'Battle for the Traveler', I lost my parents, my neighbors, my home. I lost everything that day, everything and everyone I ever cared about. The only reason I even lived was because of several Guardians who saved my life from a group of Fallen, though I still was left with this." She held her left hand, still trapped with the other in handcuffs, up to her respective cheek, and pointed at the long scar across her face.
Cayde slapped his face. "Of course, that's where she gets her namesake! I was wondering why it was such an odd name-" He silence himself at the glare of Ikora, who then turned back to Scorch and said softly, "Continue."
"I thought that working to protect the city as a Guardian had to be the greatest service that anyone could offer, but I was wrong. Despite my requests for help, nobody ever responded. I wrote, I tried many times to contact anyone, but I was left to the streets, to grow up on my own with nothing but my wit and thievery to keep me from starving." The Vanguards seemed taken aback. "Why, we never-"
"For years, I endured the cold winters, sleeping outside without anyone to take care of me." She shrugged. "I figured that there had to be a better way to live, and so I joined sparrow-racing. The pay was little, though at least I was able to afford food, an actual apartment. As I got better and entered more races, the earnings grew until they became my steady source of income." She pointed with her locked hands at the Vanguards. "And not once in all the years I survived on the streets did I ever hear that help might come, that someone might come along to take care of me. And I'm not the only one who got screwed over, there are plenty of others like me who just had bad luck." She laughed loudly, but without mirth. "So, excuse me if I find it slightly ironic and funny that the people who never once tried to assist me are now asking me for help."
The Vanguards were silent, speechless at what she'd said. Not one person said a word until a voice from behind her said, "I'm so terribly sorry, Scorch. I truly am."
Everyone in the room looked to see a man in white robes and a masked face behind Scorch and her escort, the Speaker. He walked around her and down the steps to the Vanguard's table, speaking softly all the while. "But there are greater things at stake here, for the present moment. Greater than even we could have predicted."
Cayde nodded. "Yup, that about sums it up. By the way Speaker, the body's been built and is ready to go." The Speaker acknowledge him with a curt nod of the head saying, "Thank you, Cayde." He turned to Ikora. "Perhaps it is better for her to understand by simply hearing the message itself?" The Warlock Vanguard nodded, and faced Scorch. "We received a message, one of two components that was in a transmission originating from somewhere inside Venus. You might want to take a listen."
She held out a device to Scorch, presumably an audio device. Scorch hesitated, not wanting to unknowingly agree to something she didn't know about, but her sixth sense kicked in. She felt a strong urge- no, a need to listen to that message. Reaching out her hands, she grabbed the device from Ikora, and brought it close to her. There was a screen on it, and she pressed the play button.
Staticky sound began to emit from the speakers, and it was hard to make out what the person was saying. "…lost are here, the lost… rescue… urgent mission… darker than any of us could…." The audio quality was terrible, punctuated by intermittent pauses and audio jumps that prevented them from making complete sense of the message. Scorch was only slightly intrigued at first before the message's next words played; "…Scorch, find Scorch and she… save…child of light, the Balance, it all makes sense…their last chance… wait… my God, it's opening! We're-" The message abruptly ended, and Scorch was left with more questions than answers.
"That's as audibly clear as we could make the quality when we unscrambled the transmission," said Zavala, shaking his head. "We are left in the dark to decipher its contents, but we have several guesses as to what this could mean." Scorch looked over at him. "You do? Because I don't. Whoever this is, they apparently know me. I don't understand what that 'child of light' and 'balance' stuff is, though. I'm not sure what help I could be to you."
The Speaker look up at her, and tilted his head. "You could be of the greatest help. While we may not know for certain, there are several clues that have piqued my curiosity each time I listen." He walked over to her, and held her in his gaze. "Firstly, you are asked for by name, so whether it is of convenience or not, you are tied in to this mystery. How vital to the mystery depends on what course of action you would like to take." She cocked her head to the side in surprise. "I have a choice?"
"Oh yes," he said nodding. "You could simply hear us out and we would tell you what our plan going forward with this is. Even then, you would still have a choice. Or, you could leave now, and return to your current life. I will do all in my power to ensure that you are properly compensated and given more appropriate living conditions, as well as the other individuals whom you spoke of. I assure you, it was not our intent to leave citizens trapped homeless and alone on the streets."
It sounded like a good deal, one that she would have ordinarily taken under any other circumstances; free money, a better home, and possibly a chance for her to quit sparrow-racing. No matter how much she enjoyed it, she knew that it wasn't a great long-term plan. The offer seemed almost too good to be true.
"Take it." Spectre materialized into existence in front of her, and shocked everyone. "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that," came the voice of the Warlock Exo who she now knew was named Eager. "You- you have a Ghost?" questioned Ikora, at a loss for words. Spectre faced the Vanguard and vibrated slightly to show his resentment. "Yes, she does, thank you for your clever observation." His sarcastic stone caused the Vanguards to stare at him, slightly affronted at his blunt nature. He turned back to Scorch. "Look, you're not going to find a better deal again. This is your chance to start moving on up, get a fresh start like you've wanted!"
His words made sense to her, but there it was again. That feeling. She looked at him with a pleading look in his eye. He moved from side to side, anxiously. "No, don't say what I think you're going to say." She gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, you know I can't control it." Spectre groaned. "I really hate that sense of yours sometimes."
Eager leaned forward slightly. "I'm sorry, what sense is this again?" Scorch shook her head. "It's not important." But now everyone was waiting to hear an explanation, and she silently cursed Spectre for bringing it up. Drawing in a deep breath, she explained, "It's like… a feeling I get that tells me what to do, almost a sixth sense. I can just tell when I'm supposed to do something, what I'm supposed to do, and how to do it. I don't know how to explain it." The Speaker looked thoughtful. "There's no need, I already know. Now, it may be I who has to explain to you."
He began to pace, as though he were putting pieces of a puzzle together himself as he showed her how to connect everything. "There was a prophecy, centuries ago. Long before I had even come into this world, the Warlocks had attempted to decipher messages from the Traveler in its dormant state, seeking guidance in the dark times of the Collapse. What they found was a divination; one that foretold the coming of a child of light, someone who would initiate the Balance, an event that would bring order and equality to the scales of light and dark."
"What's a child of light?" asked Scorch. The Speaker looked at her, and shrugged. "As I said, you have two choices. I can't tell you anything more unless you promise to hear what we have to say in all of its completion." Scorch bit her lip, and thought to herself. Her feeling was still there, practically begging her to listen. Who was she to deny it now, when it hadn't failed her before? "Okay. Now what's a child of light?"
The Speaker made a small nod to her escorts, and Eager moved in front of her to reach down, and take off the magnetic cuffs. She rubbed her wrists, trying to move blood back into circulation as he retreated back to his spot behind her.
Walking down to the Vanguard table, the Speaker rested his hand upon the end of it. "Children of light are people whose souls have been directly created or touched by the Traveler itself. With constant exposure to the Traveler and its light, it is only natural that as with radiation fallout, some members of the population may become altered by its power. They are more in tune with the flow of light, more aware of fluctuations within the energy that flows around us." He pointed at her. "Your sixth sense, as you call it, is a symptom of that. Even now, it guides you to make the choices that will lead you towards your destiny."
She raised an eyebrow. "You mean it guides me, tells me how to succeed at stuff?" He shook his head. "No. Everyone has a fate which awaits them at the end of their life. How one ends up there is up to the individual. But your guidance will help show you the path which will lead you to your destiny in the most efficient ways; whether it's making a choice between two life-changing decisions, or simply telling you how to survive so that you can make it to the next day, it will always be there, whispering in your ear."
"In recorded history, there have been three other known children of light. The first died long ago, our only records consisting of how he seemed to wield the light more adeptly than anyone had ever seen before. The second of course, is me." She raised her eyebrows. "If you're a child of light, why haven't you tried to fulfill the prophecy?"
"Oh, I did long ago, when I was just as young- maybe younger than you are." He shook his head. "I was such a fool, allowing pride to rush to my head. I set out without even the faintest clue of what I was supposed to be doing. When I returned, I realized my true calling. I am the least powerful of the known children of light, and as such I am just a servant of the Traveler. I talk with it, commune with it. I know my place; I am not the one of the prophecy." He extended his hand palm up, gesturing to Scorch. "You, however…. your place is not yet known."
She held up her own hand, signaling him to stop for a moment. "Hold on. Who was the third child of light?" Immediately, silence filled the room. Her escort behind her muttered, "Jeez, touchy subject I'm assuming." Evidently, he nor the other two had any idea about any of this.
Ikora looked up gravely as Scorch. "The third child of light was one whose name has become legend, someone to be feared. I warn new Guardians each time that there are those that the light was never meant to touch. He is the reason for that." Scorch crossed her arms. "Who was it?"
Ikora whispered, "The Consumed." There was a gasp from the three Guardians surrounding her, and even Scorch knew the legend of the the Consumed. "I thought that was just a myth?" she asked, her voice suddenly small. Cayde shook his head.
"No, he's very real. Before we gave him that rather descriptive title, he was a Guardian known as Kaine. He was a child of light just like you, except that he decided to ignore his destiny. He believed that he shouldn't be chained to one path of fate, and that true power was being able to defy time and destiny itself." Cayde scoffed. "Turned into a damn lunatic, he did. Got much closer to the Darkness than even he could have predicted, and before he knew it, he was more corrupted than Dredgen Yor."
"He is an example of our failure," said Ikora, changing the subject. "You will not end up like him, should you proceed from this point." Scorch nodded, trusting the Warlock's sincerity for the moment. "Alright. Now what about the rest of the message? What does me being a child of light have to do with any of this?"
The Speaker raised a finger, as though she'd gotten an answer right. "Ah, now that's the question isn't it? You see, I can understand the individual parts of the message, but not how they fit together. It's as though I were solving a puzzle with only corner pieces. From what I can gather, you're supposed to go on a mission of some kind. Now as for what kind of mission, we believe we know the answer." Zavala took over, expanding on the Speaker's thoughts. "We lost a team of Guardians a little over five years ago, and to this day haven't the slightest clue what happened to them. They were however, the best of the best, so whatever it was that caused their disappearance is powerful indeed."
"Who were they?" asked Scorch. She'd hear rumors of a legendary team of Guardians go missing, but she'd never believed them to hold truth until now. Zavala gave her a sad sort of expression, one that suggested he had a bond with these Guardians not just as a mentor, but as a friend. "They were the saviors of the city, the only reason the Traveler is still around today. Their names were Matt, Ash, and Aria. In recent years, they were commonly referred to as 'the Heroes', an honorary title in recognition of their accomplishments."
Scorch recognized those names, and she tried to remember where she'd heard them before. Suddenly, the memory of her near-death experience at hands of the Fallen, the one that had given her the namesake, 'Scorch', surfaced. It had been them who saved her that day. She remembered the Hunter calling the Warlock Aria, and his Ghost referring to him as Matt. Ash had been mentioned by the Ghost at some point, and before she knew it she had been dropped off at the base of the tower. She still remembered Aria's parting words to her; If you have to be something, be brave.
Scorch swallowed hard as Zavala continued. "One day, they embarked on a secret mission, one that not even we were told about. We noticed their disappearance after a week, but had figured that they were caught in the middle of some quest. A year later, after several search parties and expeditions, there was still no trace of them." He sighed deeply, then stood a little straighter. "But now, we may have a lead. We believe that the transmission came from them, no matter how unlikely it is that they're even alive at this point."
Scorch felt a bit confused. "Wait, what makes you think it's them?" Cayde held up two fingers on his hand. "Two reasons. One is the message. It refers to 'the lost' being there, wherever there is, and something being 'their last chance'. With the word 'rescue' in there as well, I think it's safe to say that whoever it was needs help. Now, the only lost we know of are those Guardians, and if we interpret the message correctly, you apparently might very well be their last chance for survival. You can see why we might be a bit eager to get you." He leaned to the side a bit to wave at the task force Warlock. "No pun intended, Eager!"
He faced Scorch again, and his voice had returned to its serious state. "The second clue is data fragment that we've been very cautious about using. But at this point, we're kinda out of options, so we're giving it a chance." He grabbed a radio on his belt, and brought it up to his face. "Reed, bring in the body please." A moment later came an emotionless response that Scorch assumed was from a Frame saying, "Affirmative, Sir."
Cayde clipped the radio back on his belt and sighed. "Whatever happens, this is gonna be crazy. Either crazy good, or crazy bad. Maybe a bit of both."
A few seconds later, Scorch heard the sound of servos and motors whirring behind her. Spinning around, she saw a Frame transporting a hovering table of sorts, almost like a hospital bed. It maintained a height of about three and a half feet in the air, and on top of it was a metallic figure. Scorch moved in to get a closer look.
"Who is this?" she asked, referring to the body before her. It was a female Exo, its paint scheme consisting of white and silver, with the white covering most of the body. Cayde pointed to the body. "You mean that? Nobody, at least not yet. Although the body has been built to resemble, albeit with some modifications I recommended, the likeness of Ash, the Exo Titan on their team." Ikora looked at him and asked, "Modifications Cayde?" He looked at her blankly before his eyes widened and he protested loudly, "No, no! Nothing like that at all. I just meant that it's not going to be an identical twin of Ash. An extra plate here, a bit less sheeting there, you know. There might be a few features that differ between the two."
Ikora nodded, satisfied. "Alright then. Are we ready?" Scorch held up her hands. "Wait, I'm lost. Are we ready for what? What are we doing?" Cayde held up an electronic chip.
"You see this? It holds the data fragment we were sent, but it's not just any fragment. It's a person. Do you remember tales of the Warrior?" Scorch nodded. "Of course I do, I was told stories as a kid. Why?" He shrugged slightly, as if to take blame off himself should she find fault with what he had to say next. "Well you see, Ash used to be the Warrior before she lost her memory, and became a completely different personality. The Warrior actually gave up her body so that the persona of Ash could live on." He pointed at the chip. "And this thing?" Scorch nodded slowly.
"This is the second clue. The person in the data fragment is the soul of the Warrior."