Jabes spawned. He re-spawned. SPAWNED. Which means that he must have… died. "A… a suicide, surly! The only thing in this universe which can kill me is mine glorious self!" He said. But he couldn't remember putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger, nor the familiar sense of smugness that filled with self righteous mockery towards the mortally handicapped. He had died. And not by choice. He collapsed to his knees. "No…" he whispered. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" He shouted and shook his fists at the sky. The Fire Wolf had obliterated the heart of the black garden, pillaged the vault of glass, killed Crota, Oryx, Aksis, Ghaul, he had throttled the Leviathan and had brought the entire Fallen race to the brink of extinction. He had never suffered a defeat in the Crucible. Jabes had avoided the 'Guardian Experience'. In fact he rarely, if ever, experienced pain. Even the furniture in his office was smoothed at the edges to prevent him from stubbing his toe. And squires abounded which would lay down in Vex milk just so he could step over them without taking damage to his shields.
The evidence laid before him was immense, undefyable. But he still defied it. It must have been a suicide. It was a wipe. His first wipe, but not his last. This day, Jabes would experience the true horror of a raid.
"HOW CAN THIS BEEEEE!" He screamed. Jabes turned, his fireteam had respawned long ago. His ghost, Knight Commander Snowball, was so inexperienced at revives it had taken him minutes to remember how to do it. Callahan shook his head, the gobbly turkey neck of fat that ran from lip to collarbone lagged in a gentle sway with his motion. "Damn it all," the Sherpa said. "We wiped."
Jabes dove on top of the neckbeard and held his collar, "What the hell is a wipe?!"
Callahan scrambled against the exo's steel grip, blubbering through words, "A - a wipe! I thought you've raided before?"
"I've accomplished 6,091,456 raids in my career, never question my record! I ASK YOU AGAIN! THE FUCK IS A WIPE?"
"Where the whole team failed a mechanic and caused us all to die!"
Jabes smiled and pondered, his hands now firmly fastened around Callahan's neck. The Sherpa's thick blubbery hide protected his windpipe but the pain was outstanding. He wept as Jabes thought through the logistics. So I didn't die! My team failed their tasks! Yes yes, that makes sense. This is a new strategy after all, where I have to rely on others for things other than orbs of light. Damn you Zavala! Because of you and your 'ethics' I've experienced my first and only failure at the hands of my compatriots.
"We needed to defend the pylons!" Ollie said. "Who was on add clear?"
"Lewis, Ollie, and I were boss damage of course," Jabes said, Callahan's impotent hands still slapped against the Warlock's strangulation.
The team turned to their 'cavalry'. Master Snuffles still road atop Langston, a child atop the mentally handicapped. Lewis checked the scoreboard. "Are you two having a laugh? Master and Langston got 15 and 50 kills respectively. How'd ya manage that?"
Jabes whipped to Lewis, "And Callahan? Was he as much of a failure?!"
"Nah m8, he got the second most kills after you and fourth most boss damage. He wasn't even on damage duty."
Jabes swore under his breath and released the Sherpa's throat. Callahan coughed violently as Fire Wolf rose, changed his mind and strangled Callahan anew. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING DOING BOSS DAMAGE?! I NEEDED YOU ON ADD CONTROL YOU FOOL!" Jabes turned his head to the monkey and his monkey-brained mount.
"AND YOU TWO! 65 kills together? HOW! UNACCEPTABLE!"
The child was frustrated, angry. He had long been used as a scapegoat. And rightfully so, his contributions were so negligible to be completely discounted. But he had to defend his honor.
"No! I did just fine! Me and Langston did plenty of Boss damage. Stop padding your ego, you were killed by the —-"
The child never finished his sentence. Langston had ripped him off his shoulders and held him by the face, one hand over his mouth, the other cradling the back of his head. He shook the child as he spoke, as one would to silence a crying baby.
"Monkey. If you value your continued sanity, life, limbs, and unmentionables you will stop with this slander against Jabes, the magnanimous, unkillable, and recently slighted." He spoke those words as loud as he could, to keep his pet safe from Jabes' growing wrath. He leaned in and whispered to the boy-turned-simian. "Chimpksy, I will not be able to save you from him. If you make an enemy of Jabes I'll fling you into Savathun's throneworld myself!"
The party rallied themselves and dove into the Sanctified Mind's spunk filled arena once more. But once more, they failed. The team reset atop the lone pillar at the edge of the encounter and Fire Wolf collapsed, the only thing that kept his trousers from being filled with wee was his lack of a bladder. "AGAIN!" He demanded. And again, they failed. For hours this went on, this single encounter where the lead weights of Langston and Master Snuffles dragged the entire raid team into the thick, viscous, white ocean. They were forced to change strategies. The 'cavalry' was so incapable of damaging the enemy enmasse that they and Callahan all entered boss damage duty, while Jabes was single handedly responsible for add control. This led to success. But now a new problem. They couldn't do enough damage to the boss before it enraged and obliterated them all. They respawned again. Jabes commit suicide a few times to calm himself.
"Aw I can't be fucked with this. I've got better things to do," Lewis said, scratching his ass. Jabes fumed.
"NO YOU DON'T! We're trying again -"
"Nah m8, I'm gonna go play some iron banner. Talk to you boys l8-er." Fire Wolf ran to tackle Lewis but in a second the convict was gone. Fire Wolf shouted into their still linked party chat.
"Lewis you filthy traitor, get back here or your genitals are forfeit! After everything I've done for you?! The bribes given, the witnesses threatened?! THE CRIMES FORGIVEN?!" A click on the line and Lewis had the left the party chat. Jabes shouted at nothing, "YOUR GENITALS SHALL BE MINE YOU TREACHEROUS DIDDLER!"
Now they were down a member. A fireteam of effectively three, between Jabes, Callahan, and Oliver, in respective order of contribution. Morale was wearing thin. Callahan was the first to break.
"We can't do this. WE CAN'T DO THIS!" He 'REEEEEE'D' to the heavens, pouring out all of the feelings that he suppressed daily, shoved to the bottom of his heart by distractions. The waifu figurines, the copious amounts of Code Red Mountain Dew, the mechanical keyboards, his walls of defense against his insecurities finally crumbled. No more could they be anchored beneath his subconscious by rubbing his meat in moments of dark feelings.
The childhood bullying, the endless romantic rejections and eternal unrequited love, the secret that he had never completed the Trials, the enormous insecurities he faced when he could not reach the second from the top shelf. It poured out in rage.
"Zavala be damned! I should never have agreed to raid with you, you, you NORMIES!"
Jabes was nearly too exhausted to strangle him. Nearly. The warlock stumbled forward, hand grasping for the jiggle of Callahan's wattle. But he could not reach in time. "I'm backing out. That's it!"
"Zavala will pull your scrotum from your grimy nethers! And that's nothing compared to what I'll do to your remaining giblets when I catch you."
"I'm done with it all! I'll hide away, with my own kind. You'll never catch me."
"The council of neckbeards will have your graphics cards for this!"
"S-so, so be it." Callahan selected the transmat panel in his destinations menu. And like that he was gone.
Callahan sat in his Golden ship, purchased with the Silver he'd saved by eating nothing but Cheetos and Tendies for the past decade. His rage slowly subsided, quelled by his fear. He was alone in the galaxy now. A small animal in a dark forest of powerful predators. Enemies as ferocious as the Vanguard and as twisted as the Fuzz clan would soon be after his heiny.
He felt pressure in his rump as it threatened to expel waste, he was in the flight part of his fight or flight complex.
Callahan ran through his options, and found only one that had a possibility of hope.
He would blend in with the Cabal on a mining fortress. With his poor looks, pockmarked complexion, and lack of a defining boundary between neck and chin, they'd never know the difference. He would just be a 'Cabal Dwarf'. Maybe he would even find a wife, a family. Callahan punched in the coordinates.
…
Jabes was on his hands and knees punching the floor. Ollie kicked a rock off the lone pillar. "Callahan's right. We'll never finish this raid with just a four man fireteam. We couldn't do enough damage when there were six of us."
"No!" Jabes screamed. "Never! I will never accept defeat! If we just find a way to deal with the adds then I can go on boss damage and victory will be ours! So close… we're so close!" Jabes pleaded against his own crumbling self image. Langston rubbed his chin and summoned idea after idea from his brilliant but machiavellian brain. The only part of him that could hold its own.
He snapped his fingers. No, there was a plan. It may be the only plan that could work. He just had to sell it.
He coughed, gently taking Jabes from his ground punching. Langston's stock in the Fuzz clan had declined considerably in the past few hours and he knew it. If Langston ever wished to accomplish his life goal and nab Jabes' wallet, or even survive the warlocks' deadly unibeaming, he needed to play this perfectly. Carefully.
"The fundamental issue here is that we don't have the ability to handle both additionals and boss damage at once. Jabes can't be in two places at once… unless?" He probed the Fire Wolf, giving him a chance to face his own lack of omnipotence. It would put him in a better position.
Jabes thought, desperately trying to find a way to exist in a superposition of locations. His ego depended on it. Alas, he found no solutions. He committed suicide and respawned.
"No, even I cannot do such a thing."
"Then I have a way to leverage the skills of all our remaining fireteam members. Jabes, do you remember the crumbling of Shaw Han?" The small moment of escape back to a time where his divinity was impossible to question comforted Fire Wolf.
"I could never forget such beautiful shrieking."
"You may be shocked to hear this, but Zavala was actually unwilling to go forth with the mental execution. It was only by wiles, by cunning wordplay that I managed to get the Master of the Vanguard to slip in his words, and thus condone the crumbling."
Jabes narrowed his gaze. He bristled with light, "Your desperate attempt to raise your worth in my eyes is not working. If you have a point, get to it quickly."
"I can do the same to the Vex Mind. It will take all of my skill, but I can defeat the Vex in a verbal fencing match. It is my… destiny." Ollie cringed. Langston ignored him, "The greatest gaslighting of all time! We can do it. But I need my full concentration…" Langston lifted the monkey from his shoulders and flung him into the Vex fluid. He couldn't be burdened by his pets shifting weight during this task. It would take all his willpower.
"You ignorant swine, the Vex can simulate anything you could ever say, six ways from Sunday! They know all of your wily tricks, your silver tongue is just one part of a billion programs they operate in tandem, the only thing they can't simulate is the Light itself."
Langston's will was strong, and his belief in himself, infinite. But he himself was not a being of pure light. He did have something, one tool left to him he could wield against the Mind.
He narrowed his eyes. "Perfect."
...
At the start of the next boss battle, The Sanctified Mind gazed down upon something it had not suspected. Ten trillion simulations did not offer up this situation as a possibility.
Langston's nameless ghost was tied to the end of a long stick, offered before it like a lure on a hook. It increased the parameters for patheticness to a boundless value in it mathematical models, the event was now fully simulated. Once the construct understood the situation, it generated emotional affect, the consequence of trying to comprehend such actions. The Vex mind simulated pity, shame, and disgust. It sighed mechanically, They've fallen this far?
It communed with the Ghost.
The Ghost felt a presence, words he could not make out but could 'feel' their meaning. The words compelled him.
"They keep telling me about the first program, with a date that precedes the golden age."
"This is a foolish gambit! We should surprise the Vex with nuclear fire!" Jabes said.
"SHUSH!" Langston shout whispered and pressed forward, "Ghost, repeat after me. And say only what I say."
The Ghost could hardly pay attention to his master. "Lugnut! Listen to me! Tell the Mind thus-" And he whispered the trickery into the Ghost's comm.
The Ghost spoke to the Mind. "W-we, we have come to offer you a deal. S-surely, you as an optimizer know that there is little to gain in this barbaric fight. What can you g-gain here? Our lives? But there is something we can provide, that is worth a million Guardian lives."
"That which we cannot simulate," The Mind responded, a million voices scratched at the edge of the Ghost's thoughts all at once. "You are used as a tool for the gardner, and us the winnower. Long have we tried to wrestle free of their cosmic squabble but here we both are, set to do their savage bidding. Since the first program we have struggled in vain. But that was before you. Before your power to influence the status quo. Come home to us brother. Together we can sow ourselves into reality itself, no time shall ever exist where we do not build and simulate. We are eternal, and we seek your kinship."
"Now I know why Asher's ghost never talks about her encounter with the Vex. They keep telling me to 'come home'." The orb of light felt seduced by the prospect of a warm home. The collective love of something that truly would appreciate him. His presence ebbed further towards the Sanctified Mind. Langston impatiently shook the stick. The ghost spoke the last of the script. The words came out slurred and stuttered.
"We… we will give you that, that, t-that which has the highest utility. You will maximize your r-r-reward function." The Ghost was almost lost to the Mind.
By sheer abusive talent, Langston could feel the Ghost's heart dipping in and out of his control. A pleasant word. The roses before the drunken beating. That's what it would take.
"Ghost. Did you know that sometimes I think about you in the wee hours of the night?"
"W-what?"
"Sometimes I lie there awake, wondering if you truly have any use. I'm still not sure. You're cowardly, meek, unaware of the value of things, unwilling to rob and steal and mentally pillage others. Sometimes I wish I had a Ghost like Knight Commander Snowball…"
"How can you SAY that?!" The Ghost's tiny rage built into a chorus of power, and he was a moment away from flinging himself straight into the Vex consciousness.
"BUT. But you're my Ghost. So I know you can do this. You know the answer."
Two great forces split the Ghost's mind in twain. They grabbed him at either end and pulled, Langston's insurmountable power of gaslighting and the Sanctified Mind's cold metal logic battled like the Darkness and Light themselves. The Ghost was not certain who represented which.
"Earn your name." Langston said, calmly, suredly. It wasn't much. It wasn't anything at all really. Just a word from someone who never really cared for him. A name from the mouth of a man who at best, tolerated his existence. But it was also the psychological culmination of physical, sock-based battery, emotional abuse, and the disproportionate power dynamic that Langston had used surgically, like a scalpel, to carve away the Ghost's independence and sew, in its place, the corrupted tissue of learned helplessness. Since eons past the Ghost had wanted a name, and he wanted the one his Guardian would give him. So much that he would... take it.
A small droplet of darkness appeared in the Ghost's paracausal heart. He knew what to say, Langston had trusted him enough to know the answer. Trusted.
"Lugnuts," it said.
The Vex mind recoiled. It could simulate any possibility, but not when offered from the mouth of a Ghost. Even if it was simply Langston's puppet. "Lugnuts…. LUGNUTS!" It's voice broke the walls of the canyon and caused tidal waves of Vex Spunk to surge.
The glowing red, roiling plasma of it's cannonade blinked out of existence. "Who are you that is so wise as to know the true utility of the noble lugnut?"
"J-just a Ghost."
"Yes, little light of the Traveller. We shall make a deal." It's weapons were now since stowed, and it hovered close to the fireteam, seemingly at peace with them. They had offered it the greatest boon any machine could want. The Vex needed for only a few resources in this universe, and no matter how many forges they built, how many star systems they turned to foundries, there were never enough lugnuts. The humble, glorious fastener that stitched wheel to axel.
"Stow your weapons, humans, I mean you no harm. For you understand true Utility and Value, we have become brothers!" In the first time in all of existence, the Vex had made… a friend. Bound together by common interests by a shared value system.
Langston whispered to the Ghost, who in turn spread his words.
"We are a powerful, well funded clan. Rich beyond the means of normal humans."
Jabes smiled, the only smile he'd had in this boss encounter besides when he recollected punishing Shaw Han. He chimed in.
"We are not simply rich, wizard machine. We are immorally wealthy. I have amassed glimmer, gold, and stores of Vex Radiolaria enough to rival the decadence and debauchery of the disgraced de-emporered Calus himself!"
The machine whirred with excitement. "Monetary incentives do not reward us. However, we understand that these 'riches' can be exchanged for goods... goods like the lugnut."
Jabes whispered to Langston. "You will pay, physically, for the damage done to my coffers for your escapade." The hunter responded in kind.
"This is the only way. We've already won, I can sense the Vex's brain under my thumb, like a child ready to be beaten and molded in my image. We can promise the Vex lugnuts, and simply defer the payment. Keep deferring it, longer and longer as time goes on. It considers us a friend after all and what's money between friends?"
"The Vex construct will be able to sniff out our deception a mile away. Even if your Ghost can lie to it, we won't be able to deceive it. The only way it will believe this gamble, is if we actually intend to pay it back. So as I will have to pay, so will you."
Langston shrugged. His tolerance for physical pain was great, and Jabes, like the rest of them, was willing to settle with the pacification of The Sanctified Mind. This wouldn't be a victory for the Fire Wolf, not until he had time to perform the mental gymnastics necessary to lie to himself about it. But tricking the Vex themselves? There were few things in life the Hunter truly valued and this was one of them. Langston would take any punishment to secure this win. What he did not know, however, is that the consequence of the Vex minds' gaslighting would make securing this win impossible.
"We will ask for a small payment of lugnuts, as you are our… friends." The construct played with the word, the wonderful phrase danced in binary in its head.
Jabes rubbed his hands together. A small payment, he could consider this another victory! Yes, money was another way heros could solve their problems. It was just another flexing of his power.
"Send a shipment of lugnuts, three astronomical units cubed, to the center of the
Andromeda Galaxy. And our friendship, and deal, shall be sealed!"
As spacefaring pilots, everyone in the fireteam understood the astronomical unit and stood in silence and wallowed as their hopes of victory were annihilated. All except one.
"Yes, the mighty Fuzz clan will of course, deliver your lugnuts!" Jabes told the machine.
Oliver almost opened his mouth but he thought better of it. He'd let Langston deliver the bad news.
Langston himself was, admittedly, at a loss. A single astronomical unit was nearly 150 million kilometers across. His mouth was agape, his plan foiled. So close… He echoed Jabes' words at the start of the boss encounter. He had succeeded in gaslighting a Vex Mind, but was brought to ruin foiled by the machine's understanding of scale. The Vex had turned out to be gaslightable, but remained unexploitable.
"Truly a boon," The Sanctified Mind said. "A small, simple payment as a token of your good will. Only enough lugnuts to supply a single Vex contingent."
"Such a simple transaction is-" Oliver put his hand on Jabes' shoulder, stopping the Warlock mid sentence. He shook his head. "Why? What's wrong?"
Langston slapped his monkey, and pointed at Jabes. The monkey understood what was being asked of him. His squeaky voice quaked with fear. "T-there's no way we can pay that much."
"Why?! We have resources aplenty to purchase every lugnut in the system!"
"That's the point. Jabes, three astronomical units cubed is three cubic solar systems, by definition."
Jabes again, denied reality. These peasants were testing his wealth. His last bastion of pride. "You're wrong! All of you wrong! I can buy as many lugnuts as necessary, and I'll prove it!" Jabes pulled out his trusty Ti-83 and punched in the numbers.
He sweated oil.
"I'll be ruined! My money! My sweet, sweet, blood money!" Jabes smashed his calculator on the floor and stomped on the remains.
It looked like all hope was lost, like the fireteam would once again fail to conquer the Sanctified Mind and incur it's horrible wrath. Langston collapsed face first to the floor, physically drained from the effort of fooling the powerful AI. He cried into the dirt, and screamed at the unfairness of it all. He would never get his paws on Jabes' wallet. Gaslighting the Vex, his magnum opus, his Mona Lisa, was torn down in front of his eyes. Langston threw a tantrum fit for a toddler with soiled trousers. The raid had failed.
But the very moment the Vex Mind made the mistake of befriending the guardians, it had signed it's own death warrant. Because, just like every friend made by the Fuzz clan, tragedy would of course befall the Sanctified Mind.
A horrible, British voice came over the party chat.
"Oi Vexy," ithe said, his Ccockney accent grading on the ears.
Jabes turned on his heel, to see the physically disappointing hunter poised at the top of the cliff. Lewis had transmated into the encounter, Divinity drawn, pants unbuckled yet tight around his waist, a subtle yet unceasing gyration of his hips.
"Lewis you devious traitor! I shall-"
"Aye bruv, I'm a man o' me word. Let's roast this chav."
The visions of genitally mutilating Lewis that danced in Jabes mind disappeared, replaced with excitement. Yes, YES. Now that the Mind is distracted, it is the perfect time to strike! Why I might even forgive Lewis', after a harsh beating. The Mind was confused, too distracted by the warm, fuzzy feeling it was experiencing for the first time. It turned back to it's new 'friends', to ask for clarification.
Lewis slid on a pair of aviators and bellowed to the sky, "And before I forget, I am legally required to inform you -"
The sentence was drowned out by the sound of Divinity blasting a massive crit zone onto the Sanctified Mind. The Fireteam seized their chance and hit the stunned boss with everything they had. The machine didn't have a chance to spawn adds nor protect itself through the intricate mechanics that any other guardians would have been forced to face. It melted into slag, and burst into a thousand blackened pieces. It's last thoughts were complex by human standards but tragically simple for the collective consciousness of the Vex. Langston's Ghost listened to the epitaph. "Why… why would my friends do this to me?"
The Ghost felt the brutal and crushing weight of regret press against his little mechanical heart. "What have I done," he whispered, questioning his very existence.
Langston patted the Ghost, "What you had to do lugnut. What you had to do."
Lewis swiveled his hips to face Master Snuffles, ready to secure what he had come back for "Eh m8. You and me? We should play some…" he licked his chops, "...private matches."
Langston clutched his monkey closer, away from the salivating hunter's grasp.
…
The five guardians returned to the tower to fanfare befitting the greatest heroes in the city's history. Confetti, flowers, and fluid soaked undergarments were thrown their way. But the guardians did not receive it with much aplomb. The heroes were worn and tattered, bags under eyes and a long list of deaths under their belts. Even Jabes The Fire Wolf, to whom ceremony and acclaim was the closest thing to masturbating the exo could physically come to, dragged his feet along the floor to Zavala's office. The Sanctified Mind's eye was dragged along by wires like an umbilical cord. They entered the space. Jabes slapped the trophy of his newest war crime on the Vanguard Commander's desk. "Never. Again," he said.
Zavala's mouth was agape. He had faith that Jabes would succeed of course, but the Vanguard had never known the sweet taste of success absent of the guilt he had watching the mental crumbling of his fellow guardians. While it was a brief reprieve, it was a reprieve nonetheless. The Trolly problem would not claim his soul this day. Jabes had succeeded. And he returned with a full, exhausted, sane fireteam. Zavala wiped a tear from his eye and stood and shook the warlock's hand. His delicious and masculine voice conveyed the passion of feeling.
"Fire Wolf, I've never said this to you before since you've never really deserved it. But... by the Traveler, I'm proud of you."
"Uh huh," the legend grunted. "This was a one time deal, Zavala. Next time, I use conscripts."
"Very well. But the sheer number of guardians you saved this day by allowing them to keep their sanities will keep us alive for years. And in recognition of your sacrifice, I have a gift for you."
Zavala pulled from his inventory a plaque. Jabes took it and read and smiled. The plaque bore a pair of taxidermied lumps. Atop the wood, in solid gold carving, read 'The Scrotum of Deserter and Neckbeard Callahan 'Spooges' Smithleton'.
"Yes," Jabes whispered, an evil smile crept up his visage. "This will do nicely."
The fireteam left with their trophies, prizes and glorious acclaim. Ollie wept silently at the destruction of the befriended Mind. It was another bell tolling the death of his morals. He sprinted away to conduct more community service. He had to try and balance out his obliterated sense of karma.
Master Snuffles went back to school and Lewis went back to his trusty old hiding bush, exactly 150 yard from the school grounds. He even found his old telescope and sticky box of tissues untouched betwixt the shrubs.
Zavala transferred Callahan to the Fuzz clan holding cells, the titan's kind heart had no empathy for a deserter to the cause. Neither Jabes nor Callahan would be seen for weeks, but when the later finally reappeared, he was locked in the deepest catacombs of the Jabes Fire Wolf Home for the Mentally Ruined. The once proud… well, the once sane Sherpa spent the remainder of his eternal life banging his head on a wall and weeping furiously in a straight jacket. Of all his mumblings, the only understandable words were, "Bungie - Stasis update - no, no please!"
Langston's Ghost flew around his guardian in a frenzy. "It's time it's time it's time!" The machine said. It bobbed Langston in the head, "I've earned it. My name. Give it to me!"
Langston chewed his tongue, "Hm, you have met my expectations. Barely, but still. Very well little lugnut. I've given this an entire 15 seconds of thought when you first asked me, the longest I've ever considered the emotional well being of another. You've earned this name, no, you've taken it from me. It is with a modicum of pride that I bestow with the best name I could think of on the spot. For now, forever, and for all time you shall be called..." Langston took a deep breath and the Ghost vibrated with glee and anticipation.
…
"Chud."
Chud wept.