I do not own Destiny or The Rising Of The Shield Hero.

Criticism is welcome.

"-And that's the gist of it." Cayde-6 finished. "Get in, take a look at what the killer robots are doing down in Venus, maybe start a little fire fight or two, then get back to base."

I stood before the Vanguard command room for my debriefing, the three leaders in three separate moods.

The hunter vanguard, Cayde, was leaning against the pillar, casually summarizing a highly dangerous military operation into the heart of an enemy stronghold in a few steps. Commander Zavala was not amused.

"While the summary was a bit crude, that is the general layout of this operation. You will infiltrate the Vault Of Glass and investigate these strange energy readings. Then immediately head back to base." The titan vanguard said.

"Anything else I should know?" I asked.

"Our satellites over Venus detected sudden spikes in cosmic radiation emanating from the Vault Of Glass approximately twelve hours ago." The warlock Ikora began, hiding her smirk behind a data pad. "The spikes have been getting stronger and stronger over time. We need eyes on whatever the Vex are doing down there."

"Your fireteam as well as a few others on standby just in case this operation goes haywire." Cayde informed. "Either way, keep your trigger finger sharp guardian."

I nodded. "When do I leave?"

"As soon as you get your gear ready to go." Zavala answered.

Without another word, I left the Vanguard to their duties.

Cayde turned to his fellow vanguard as I left the room, his voice carrying along the hallway. "...So whatcha gonna name this operation commander?"

The titan shifted. "I'll call it… Operation Intern."

"Really? Operation Intern? What does that have to do with anything?" The hunter laughed. "Man you suck at naming things."

"Silence."

Entering my ship, the Odrerir lit up in my presence.

Opening up my inventory, I began to shift around my loadout.

"Flash. I'll need Patience & Time, and Sol Edge."

"Alrighty then!" Flash appeared next to me. The lively divine drone then manifested the three weapons I requested.

"Soooo, since we're gonna be fighting Vex, would you like some anti-time-travel-murder-robot guns?" The ghost suggested, his chipper tone in stark contrast to his melancholy mode earlier.

I allowed myself to smile a little. "Sure. Surprise me." Through the centuries, where time tends to blend together, I can always count on my ghost to shed a little light both figuratively and literally in my life.

"Up top!" Flash tosses the materializing handcannon towards me. I catched the timelost Fatebringer and swiftly holstered it. Now what else?

I left Patience & Time on the weapon rack, and had Sol Edge dematerialized in my inventory. I already had Tomorrow's Answer on me. After all, always having a rocket launcher on standby is just common sense. Now a machine gun would be nice as well…

"Say, didn't Banshee need some spirit blooms?"

I nodded.

"Ain't that convenient. We can knock out two goals at once and pick them up on our little voyage!" The crimson red ghost smiled. Well, about as good as a smile as a sentient floating supercomputer who's only defining feature is an eye can do.

"Let's focus on the more important objective right now." I turned my back towards the exit ramp. Walking to the cockpit, I began to type in coordinates.

"Eh lighten up a little! I'm sure this won't take too long." Flash shrugged.

Shaking my head, I finished typing in the coordinates to Venus, before noticing a brief sign of movement out of the corner of my eye—

I tilted my head to avoid a knife striking at the open air next to me. My hand lashed out to grab their overextending grip, twisting it. Throwing them back with one hand, my burning eyes turned to the hanger to meet my foe.

Silver eyes stared back.

Pulling back her white hood, the fellow hunter eased up and sheathed her knife before beginning to speak—

And was immediately cut off by a bullet landing right between her eyes.

The crimson haired hunter tumbled out of the ship, her ghost manifesting behind her. He sighed, before expanding in a brilliant show of lights and her corpse began to glow; before disappearing for a moment and reappearing alive once more. White rose petals patted her return to the living.

Her ghost began to berate her actions, which of course she ignored.

"Owwww, what was that for?" Summer rubbed the back of her head. "I put down my knife!"

"Hey," I held out my arms to the side, the still-smoking barrel of the Fatebringer held in my grasp. "Cayde told me to keep my trigger finger sharp."

"For the Vex!"

"Well, then think of this as a lesson." I began. "Don't try to use the same, ineffective trick to sneak up on the same guy for the millionth time. Try to be a bit more creative."

Summer gawked at my teasing. I glanced to see Mia and Michael standing off to the side, both quite amused at my fellow hunter's antics.

"It'll work eventually! I swear it." The guardian paused. "Hey-hey-HEY! You don't get to do that!"

"Do what?" I prompted, a subtle grin adorning my face.

"Lecture me! You're only like…" She stopped to think. "A hundred years my senior!"

I scoffed. If only you knew how much you were lowballing that…

"Oi! Wipe that grin off your face." Summer protested. "You know I'm great at stabbing things! The best! I just struggle a bit at sneakily stabbing things…"

"Yeah I'm sure Isaac would vouch for you on that." I holstered my handcannon. "Speaking of which, where's our favorite blade enthusiast?"

"Cayde sent him off to Mars an hour ago. Something about investigating a Cabal distress signal on Phobos." Summer's ghost answered.

"Don't cut me off Pause!"

"It's kinda in the name Summer. Besides, we got a job to do y'know." The monochrome colored ghost countered his guardian's cry.

Ignoring Summer's ramblings, Pause turned back towards the rest of Fireteam Last Light.

"We're to be on standby in orbit; should Raiju's reconnaissance find trouble." The ghost then stopped to bonk his whining guardian on the head with his shell. "So get your guns ready and prepare to deploy as soon as possible. Anyways, I'm gonna go start up the ship."

Pause floated towards the Unsecured/Outcry with an angry Summer in tow. May the Traveler help us all…

Anyways. I, as well as the remaining members of Last Light went to our respective ships.

As I started up the engine, three distinct pings indicated that Mia, Summer, and Michael had connected to comms. The latter was attempting to comprehend Isaac's current assignment.

"The words 'Cabal' and 'distress signal' are not two terms I'd ever expect to hear in the same sentence."

"Yeah." Summer jumped in. "Don't they have like five words for advance and none for retreat?"

The three of us guardians plus Flash unconsciously turned our attention to the only warlock in the call.

"Actually they have six, not five." Mia explained.

"Sounds about right." Michael sighed. I could tell the titan was facepalming. "So why do they have distress signals in their society?"

"Well they justify it by calling a retreat a 'backwards advance.' That's what the sixth word is for."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously?" Michael-12 managed to sound both surprised and thoroughly unimpressed at the same time.

"Nah I'm just fucking with ya… I think?"

I tuned out the conversation to look out my cockpit as we flew out of the hangar. My gaze was drawn to the moon-like object floating in the sky, perhaps a little too close to the surface to be safe.

Despite that, the Traveler shielding the last vestiges of our people gives me a little peace. The fact that such a powerful celestial god found a comparatively weak species like humanity worthy enough to survive in this unforgiving universe is comforting.

I don't know who I was before. If my name ever even was Tohr, or Raiju, or whatever titles I've been granted over the last four hundred and fifty-seven years since my resurrection. But I do know this; The Traveler brought me back to this dying system to help light humanity's way out of this long night.

And I'll be damned to let that light flicker and die without a fight.

A/N

And that's chapter two. I used this chapter to practice characterization, and to set the scene as to how some comically overpowered space cowboy is dropped into horribly cliché fantasy world number 5,000,000.

Anyways I'm quite excited for Shield Hero season 2. Moving on…

I'd hate to beat a dead horse and use the term "Quiet before a storm" so I decided to use another gun phrase for this chapter name. I've got a whole spreadsheet of gun-related puns and phrases for chapter names. It's surprisingly fun!

I think this is the part where I reply to reviews. So I'll start off with the oldest one for Gunslinger V2.

wstiglet: How tf do you pronounce your name? Er I mean. Thank you for your support! I hope you stick around. I'll admit that I struggled to find my words while writing and rewriting Gunslinger, but it's the whole-hearted support of reviewers like you that tell me I didn't waste my youth chasing a dream.

K: While I did consider that, Gunslinger already had a bit of a following. So it seems more convenient to those who cared enough to watch my amateur ass fumble around with a keyboard to just update the already existing story with the rework. Because I doubt there are many other fanfiction enthusiasts like me who desperately browse the recently updated tab for something good to read.

Also, it just kinda pisses me off to look at what I used to consider to be my "best work" have hundreds of followers and likes when smaller, but much more high quality stories are struggling to breach fifty.

I still have the files, but they are highly unedited, as I was forced to do a lot of the formatting in FF . net since the website is dumb sometimes.

Ebuc: No spoilers, but I hope you'll stay long enough to see how I string the various tales and legends of the Destiny universe together. I can't promise you that you'll be impressed, but I can promise you that'll I'll sure as hell try.

This goes for everyone who cared enough to stick with me;

I want to write a story deserving of all the attention y'all are giving me. And I hope my best is good enough in your eyes. Rewind out.