The magnanimous, the one and only slayer of Gods, the greatest Guardian to ever live, Jabes, the Fire Wolf, looked down through his steepled fingers, his elbows on his mahogany desk. He was troubled. "I'm sorry my friend. I cannot commit our clan's stores of Vex Radiolaria to your cause, noble as it may be. So many other Guardians' lives were sacrificed in the Vault of Glass to acquire my stores."
He spun around to face the other way, thinking of the logistics. "Besides, you can't even get Radiolaria from the Vault anymore, we drained it dry. Every drop is precious."
Langston Hugs stood confident. He knew he would come away from this conversation with the milk. There was an ace in his proposal.
"Jabes, the Fallen orphanage still stands."
The Guardian spun around in his Cabal leather seat, horrified. "Impossible!" He narrowed his eyes. "We burned it to the ground!" He shook his fist, anger seething at the existence of Fallen children.
"They rebuilt it, Jabes. Stronger. Sturdier."
"We razed the very foundations from orbit! Do you remember the Eclipse Zones Langston, the asteroids, the glorious asteroids! It was nothing but a crater!" He was agitated, on the verge of exploding at his Hunter friend. But there was no way it could be done. The Fallen Kells barely had enough money to fund their scattered militaries. The rationality calmed him. "No no. You must be mistaken. We secure the Zones every week. Besides, where would the Fallen even find new orphans! Our solution was brutal, swift... final."
Langston leaned in, "Simple. We slaughtered the parents in droves. And their children. Became the orphans. In our hubris, we created legions of them!"
Jabes was for a moment, speechless. "How could we have been so blind?" He buried his face in his hands. "We created the very thing we swore that day to destroy!"
"The Kells had no choice but to construct a new orphanage, and Spider funded it. It's as impregnable as a nuclear shelter, the Eclipsed Zones won't work anymore. But I have a plan. We spike the Fallen ether with Vex milk, they'll destroy themselves from the inside! The orphanage will become the deadliest gulag in the system! It is the only way."
Jabes slammed his fist on the desk, scorch marks blackened the point of impact from his lightning covered hand. "We must punish Spider, traitor that he is."
Langston waited for the inevitable response that Jabes would use to quell his rage.
"SQUIIIIRE!" Fire Wolf shouted.
In came a portly boy, a Guardian of the lowest ranks.
"Yes, my liege?"
"UNIBEAM!" BWAAAAAAAAAAM.
Jabes atomized the squire, the enormous line of crackling light and death engulfed his whole body. Even when the boy was incinerated, Jabes carved deep troughs through his office until Chaos Reach trickled to a stop. His rage had subsided.
The squire spawned, trembling. His nerve endings realized what had just happened and urine filled his trousers as the phantom pain ebbed.
"Will… will… will that be all Sire?"
"Leave me Spiff." The squire limped out of the room, he had to lean on the wall to support himself. He closed the door and Langston heard a bang on the floor as the squire collapsed. Fire Wolf pulled out his Sunshot and loaded it in preparation. "We Guardians have wanted to slay Spider for years. Perhaps now is the time."
"No Jabes, I need him. How will I acquire the narcotics I need to spread? I must have the Spider alive. For my hobbies!"
"He will suffer then, but he must thank you for sparing his life." Betrayed and shaken to his core from the news, Fire Wolf slumped in his seat. He was emotionally drained.
Langston put his hand on the legendary Guardian's shoulder to comfort him. "We can end this. Once and for all. But. We need. That. milk." He knew in this moment that the orphanage's fate was sealed.
It took Jabes a minute to compose himself. "Of course. It shall be done."
Langston jumped for joy. He began searching the room in excitement, "Where is it? Where is the sweet fluid?!"
He swept the desk clear of all Jabes' toys and paperwork. A drinking bird flew to the ground. He began rifling through cabinets and the closet. "Is it in the clan's warehouse perchance?"
"No, my boy. My failure to stop the orphan epidemic… This is personal. I must use my private stash." He said with conviction. His jaw was tightened, the mechanical frame where teeth would be grit together, sparks tumbled to the floor.
"Where is it? Is it here?"
"Gods no! Vex Radiolaria is dangerous! I wouldn't keep it here, are you insane?!"
"We need to begin the crusade immediately, Jabes, where is it?"
"Come with me. Due to the sensitive nature of my collection, it is hidden in a place only I know. But for the sake of our oath, I will show you. We must make haste." Jabes grabbed a shovel covered in dried blood and dirt from the closet, Langston cocked his head.
"All will be revealed soon my boy."
They journeyed through the Last City until they came to a large manor.
It was almost two in the morning, but Jabes mercilessly banged on the door with the shovel. "Open up, in the name of the Traveler!" He kept banging for nearly a minute, until the resident of the house opened the marred door.
It was an exhausted Zavala in a nightgown and old fashioned cap, he rubbed his sleepy eyes.
"Guardians, what is the situation? What threatens humanity at this hour?"
Jabes pushed his way past Zavala without a word. He stormed the stairs.
"Mr. Hugs, what is the meaning of this? My wife is asleep, is there a threat in my manor?"
"Commander, this is a threat to us all. I can't go into the specifics, but you're lucky we're here. There's a tool in your house we can use, it's the only thing we can leverage against the darkness."
A woman's scream came from upstairs.
Fire Wolf had unceremoniously thrown Zavala's bed across the room with his wife still on it.
The pair of Guardians downstairs rushed to the scene.
"Dear Traveler, come here dear!" Zavala grabbed his wife in one arm, his other fist raised for whatever threat may appear."
Jabes struck the floorboards which lay beneath the bed with his shovel, breaking them to smithereens.
"WHAT IS GOING ON?" Zavala's wife shouted.
"I don't know dear, but this is for the sake of our safety, no, for the safety of humanity. These are great and powerful Guardians, we can... trust them…" Zavala's voice trailed off. It came to him exactly who the two people were that had entered his home. He became suspicious that he was in danger, and not just from whatever nebulous threat the Guardians were talking about.
"What exactly are you two doing here?" He said, starting to become angry.
"I assure you Commander, this is important." Langston said.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes..." Jabes repeated, thigh deep into the floor. He reached down and pulled out an enormous burlap sack. He undid the twine and pulled out a flimsy ziplock bag of Vex milk. "My sweet, precious loves." He whispered to the fluid. "I'm sorry. But your lives must be sacrificed to a far greater cause. But you, like me, are immortal and glorious. You shall conquer and thrive."
Zavala's mouth lay agape. "Is that…?"
"Our only hope," Langston said. He put his hand to his heart as Fire Wolf wept for his soon to be defiled liquid children.
"I've been having nightmares for years, flashes of geometry and constructs on other worlds, thoughts to 'purge the imperfections'… I thought I was going mad." Zavala's wife muttered. She held her hand to her head and collapsed. Zavala walked over to Fire Wolf.
"What. The. Hell."
"I know I know," Jabes said. "I never thought it would come to this either. It is my mistake, mine and Langston's. Our pride blinded us to the orphan threat. Don't worry. It'll all be over soon."
Zavala whipped to Langston, alarmed, "What do you mean, orphan threat?!"
"The Ahamkara." Langston said without missing a beat, his cunning mind only capable of trickery.
"The… Ahamkara?" Zavala fell for the misdirection.
"Riven. Riven of a Thousand Voices."
"She was slain by Mr. Wolf's own hand. You had better not be—"
"Exactly, which is why he feels so responsible."
"So Riven is alive? We must contact Mara Sov at once!"
"NO!" Langston backpedaled. "No, no, I mean Riven is dead, in body. But she has residual power, she is a parasite of the mind."
"I will allow you one minute to explain yourselves. One minute, and then I will decide whether or not to oust you from the City." Zavala, with great will, pulled himself out from under the gaslight.
"Do you know why she is called 'Riven of the Thousand Voices' Zavala?"
"Well no, I assume it's because she lived at the Keep of Voices but…"
"Exactly! You have no idea. She is called thus because of the number of minds she infects. Just like with Uldren, she has a voice inside many minds that serve the darkness, that serve Savathun."
"You're telling me that there are over a thousand people under her residual power, even after she has parted?" Zavala was struggling, just like Banshee had, between his own reality and the unreality Langston sewed before him with the power of a seamstress god.
"Yes. A thousand exactly. And where, pray tell, would you manage to come across a thousand impressionable souls, angry at the universe enough to call out to the darkness for the power to take revenge?"
"There are many that are hurt and powerless in this solar system…" Zavala began to slip into Langston's grasp.
"And who are the most downtrodden? Who have the most anger? Who have Fallen from grace the most only to face defeat after bitter defeat?"
"Yes, the Fallen. It makes sense that they would be easy prey for that silver tongued worm."
"And who are the weakest among them? Who have had their lives unfairly ruined, houses destroyed, made bereft of their families. Who would yearn for the most revenge against humanity? Against the Traveler?"
"The… the orphans." Zavala looked down, the horrible 'reality' of the situation was placed before him.
"Yes Zavala. This is why we didn't want to tell you. There are a thousand Fallen orphans under the spell of Riven, even though she is dead. They are accumulating the power of darkness, and soon they shall be Taken."
"No, that's too cruel." Zavala balled his hands into fists, a tear came down his cheek. His empathy for the weak could only be eclipsed by Langston's sociopathy.
"We wanted to spare you this knowledge, spare you the decision my friend." Langston went in for a hug.
"True to your name I see." Zavala forced a bitter smile as they embraced. "I appreciate your concern for me, but I need to be aware of all threats to the City."
"We were just looking out for our kind, empathetic commander."
"Still Guardians, I cannot condone the killing of orphans. There must be another way."
"I'm sorry commander, but you don't have to condone it. We're rogue agents, remember? The blood is on our hands."
"No, you can't. It goes against the light…"
Langston summoned a small crystal of ice and held it in front of Zavala. "We will take on your burdens, we will bear your darkness so that you don't have to. The City needs you. They need a strong beacon of light to stand against that darkness. So we will work in the shadows. My heart, it can't bear the thought of slaying those… Fallen orphans… but we will do it. For humanity, we will lose our humanity."
"I… I can't stop you. I can't, I just can't." Zavala sat down and shook his head. He cradled his unconscious wife in his arms.
"We do what we are forced to do to protect people like her. She's very beautiful." Langston smiled.
"Yes, the most beautiful and wonderful person I've ever met."
"I couldn't stand the idea that her, and people like her, could be killed or even worse… taken."
Zavala grit his teeth at the idea. Langston smirked, his work complete. The gaslighting was so complete that Zavala had entirely forgotten about the burlap sack of Vex milk hidden under his bed, even as Jabes now began to take gingerbread cookies out of his pocket and stuff them inside the ziplock bags of Vex milk, the liquid aliens swallowed and deconstructed the cookie in seconds. Langston went on.
"So we will do this for you, don't make this harder for us than it has to be. We already can't live with ourselves for letting this happen. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the blood that will be on my hands after this."
The Guardians left with the milk.
Zavala's wife came to, and lifted her head from the floor. Lucidity flooded back to her in one horrible second. "Did Jabes store Vex Milk under our bed?!" She whispered in terror.
"Those boys do more for this City than you will ever know." Zavala said, and saluted the two Guardians as they walked away from his manor. "God's speed boys. God's speed."