"Move! The Cabal aren't gonna wait for us to get our bearings. They'll have control over this whole district in less than an hour. Hey, Ollie! Did you not hear me? I said GO!"

I put a hand on Ollie's back and shoved him through the ruins of an apartment, trying my best to ignore the twisted faces of the mother, father, and child under our feet, their bodies crushed by concrete and steel. Overhead, Cabal warships shined blinding spotlights onto the city below. Every now and then, we heard the KRAK KRAK KRAK of ship-mounted slug-throwers followed by the screams of those who failed to hide.

"Fuckers. Can't wait to take the fight to them. We'll push them out of the Sol system, then we'll see how they like it when I come after their families," Joanna said as she pushed her way through the apartment, kicking up dust as she made it to the partially collapsed doorway on the other end.

"With how you're walking there, I'd give 'em at least three seconds before they spot us," Urthan said. "City ain't going anywhere, princess. They catch us out in the open with all this smoke in the air, you can kiss your revenge goodbye. Besides, the people aren't helpless. They'll fight back."

Joanna turned at that, her expression hidden behind her plated helmet. But her emotions were clear through her voice.

"Do you even care about these people?" She asked. "Not just them," she said, gesturing towards the floor. "I'm talking about the ones in the city, all of the ones under attack right now. Don't you have just a little hatred towards the Cabal? Of course not. You just care about your meals. You care about alcohol. I've never seen you talk to anyone in this damn city without trying to fuck them. You have no right to tell me anything about what the people will or will not do––"

I pushed both of them out the door and into the ruined alleyway where the corpses of Cabal and human alike littered the area, the latter massively outnumbering the former.

"You can both fight when we get back to the Tower. Neither of you are gonna get what you want if we shoot each other before the Cabal gets a chance to. Now. Get. Going."

Joanna grunted an affirmative, and Urthan shrugged. Considering that they weren't biting and shooting at each other, I considered my words a success. Ollie was the last one out, his head on a swivel as he looked up and down the alley.

"Now we're gonna get around this boulevard here, and it should be a clear shot to the Tower district. Gonna be a helluva fight, though. Still, we're Guardians. We'll pull through like we always have."

I surveyed the street, and found the scene an absolute hellscape. Buildings collapsed into the road and sidewalks, Cabal legionnaires and a few of their tougher Centurions patrolled the area, and worst yet, one of their tanks stood guard at the end, its turret scanning back and forth.

"Alright, you all know what to do. When we're finished here, the Tower's waiting just on the other side."

We stacked against the end of the alley; Joanna first, then Urthan, followed by Ollie and I. Joanna picked the moment to go, and she waited until a distant artillery barrage drowned out most of the nearby noise. She waited for the booms to crescendo into a cacophony, then turned the corner, running straight for the nearest patrol.

She didn't give them time to react: A single fusion grenade flew from her palm as she sprinted by them in a blur, and a second later, all nine of the legionnaires were incinerated in a burst of solar energy.

The phalanxes ahead planted their shields behind steel barricades and, supported by more legionnaires, began to hail fire at Joanna. Slugs broke on her armor, sparks flying where Cabal bullets deflected off of her. As she sprinted closer to their position, a series of staccato gunshots pinged the left side of the phalanxes shields.

They turned accordingly and saw Urthan, who fired at them brazenly with his bright red hand cannon. What they didn't see, however, were the throwing knives coming from above. Their shields and bodies fell as Urthan's knives sunk deep into their exposed necks, black tar-like blood spraying up into the air.

Joanna vaulted over the barricades and began beating the life out of those remaining Cabal, her fists crunching armor and weapons like cardboard. Unseen by her, however, were a squad of four psions perched up at the top of a nearby residential building. They aimed their deadly rifles down at Joanna, preparing to fire.

However, a twin volley of light and lead shattered the armor of the first two, spattering shrapnel and blood on the fronts of their companions. Shaken, they tried to readjust their position, but Ollie and I were too quick. Our rifles cracked the night as they were thrown from their perches, a trail of gas marking their descent before they crashed into the ground.

By now, that Cabal tank had a lock on us. It took aim at Joanna first, its cannon burning hot orange before unleashing a molten burst of energy directly at her. She saw it coming of course, and threw up a barricade that absorbed the blast easily, the flames dissipating around her light.

It would be easy to just swarm the tank and take it out from all directions, but three Centurions blocked their path. The tank was charging up another round, so they had to act fast. Urthan jumped into the air and threw another knife at the leftmost one, taking out its shield but leaving it otherwise undamaged. Surprised, he was unprepared for the retaliatory fire that followed from all three, melting the hunter mid-air.

Great.

A little light remained where his corpse was, his ghost. It began the agonizingly long process of reviving him, its blue rays reconstructing him little by little. Basically, he was out for the short term, which meant one less gun for the fight ahead.

I grabbed the back of Ollie's robe, motioning him to go and cover for Urthan's ghost. I stayed in position, trying to help Johanna fight off the Centurions. I finished off the one Urthan tried to kill, my bullet caving in its helmet and crushing its head inside. Joanna began blasting the others with her machine gun, all while taking red-hot slugs from them in return. As their shields nearly depleted, I tossed a smoke bomb between them all, hiding Joanna while blinding the other two. Just in time, it seemed, as the massive fiery blast from the land tank that followed narrowly missed the titan, sailing down the street and melting the already scorched debris far behind them.

The last two Centurions were both picked off by Ollie and Urthan, the latter of whom was still getting his leg regenerated by his ghost.

"My bad," he said. "Forgot those big fucks had shields."

I nodded and motioned towards Ollie, who was now surrounded by sparks and shocks. He faced the land tank, a small pocket of light in his hand growing larger and larger by the second. The tank, too, was charging up yet another blast. But it was too late; a searing beam of arc energy slammed into the hull of its turret, melting the armor plate and Cabal beneath it. Ollie kept the lethal surge of light going until the tank was nothing but a heap of molten debris.

Then, quiet.

"Good job everyone," I said. "We keep this up, we'll have them out in time for ramen––"

Suddenly, something hit us. It wasn't anything like a slug or a blade. Those things were familiar. They only hurt our bodies, and that was something we got over quick. But this…. It was different. Much different. It felt like a punch to my soul, like something came and ripped out a piece of my spirit. I looked up, and gasped in horror as I saw what the cause was.

The Traveller. It was caged by that strange device. I felt my Light leak out of me like I was bleeding out of a million wounds at once. Every single muscle and bone inside me ached like they'd been drained of all the cells that composed their structure.

"Karsk," Ollie struggled through panicked breaths. "The Light, it's gone! I can't feel it anymore!"