The following is a recollection of Crucible match Mayhem Rumble #1 from cameras and participants. C1 was with a close Titan friend, Ar.
C1: Hehehe. This'll be fun! So glad I managed to convince Shaxx to let us release all limits on our Light.
A(G): I still think you're going to be destroyed.
Ar: I agree with your Ghost. This is a dumb idea.
H(G): Oh hush McBroodypants. Its a chance for you to cut loose. Traveler know's you're stressed-
C1: Thank you Harmonia for being the voice of reason.
H(G): -Bbbuttt this is still overkill.
A(G): *Mockingly* Thank you Harmonia for being the voice of reason. *looks to C1* That's you.
C1:...Shaxx start this already. Ares? Prepare plan...
Ar: You better not say get h-
*Moments later Ar carried C1 with one arm across his shoulders as if injured to the forefront of the 20 New Guardians of under a century from the opposite point of the area*
Ar: Someone get help! He's been hurt!
*the UC Guardians worriedly hurried forward to help*
Ar: *spins and launches C1 in a throw as C1 erupts in Solar Light and kills all with a Golden Gun*
Time: 00:17/10:00
Kills:
-Bravo: 20
-Alpha: 0
C1: *stands and brushes off dust as 20 Guardians charge him with Golden Guns, Nova Bombs, Fists of Havoc, etc. very obviously angry*...Well...shi-*C1 dies as 7 Nova Bombs impact, 4 Golden Guns fire, 2 Shadowshot Tethers are landed, 3 Hammers of Sol hit, and 4 Stormtranced Warlocks make contact. His Ghost had hidden with the other Ghosts in their perch*
Ar: *scratches chin of helmet* maybe we should limit this to only a few Guardians in the future.
Cain froze. "What did you just say?" Came his hushed whisper.
Salvador raised a bushy eyebrow. "I said they called themselves War Hound." He gained a puzzled look. "Are they not friends? Would you like me to ki-" Salvador did not get to finish as a blur pushed passed him. "Huh. Guess he can handle it then. Now, onto the blackmail material I got last night." Salvador chuckled and began to review his 'special' video stash.
Cain threw open the doors to the Crimson Raider HQ and ran towards the stairs. He heard voices. As he tore up the stairs, he heard the one voice he had missed more than any other during his time on Pandora. He arrived at the top of the stairs and looked for the source.
Cain laughed softly beneath his helmet in relief and pure joy.
Brown hair in its usual gravity defying style? Check. Pale skin and eyes as dark and fierce as the ocean? Check. Currently making yet another leader nearly wet their pants from her stare? Triple check.
It was Toles, but Cain noticed something. The woman he saw as a daughter had gone through a bit of a wardrobe change since he had last seen her. She now boasted a white helmet that had a black, heart-shaped, opaque face-shield, a dark gray vest and armored undershirt that fitted her generous, for her rather small stature, chest pwell, an arm guard that had one, gray chitinous pauldron, and black leather leg armor covered by...Traveler, those were Ahamkara bones, specifically Eao if he remembered. 'Wonder how she got those.'
However, it was the cloak that had his attention.
Black as pitch with a gold border and tattered bottom, the symbol of the War Hounds stood proud on the top of the cloak resting between the shoulder blades.
It was his old cloak.
He smiled and chuckled softly.
He was so damn old.
His second chuckle alerted the group at the table to his presence.
Toles' eyes saw him and lit up in happiness. "Cain?"
Cain spread his arms as he ran to her. "Toles!"
She smiled and began to run to him. "Cain!"
"Toles!"
Toles' eyes suddenly hardened and she turned that smile upside down as she yelled. "Caiin!" Her arms that were opened suddenly had one reared back with a fist and the other at her side.
"Toles?" She was now close to him. "Oh Sugar Honey Iced Tea!" He went to turn and run from his irate daughter but her hand lashed out and caught him by the chest-plate and pulled his helmeted head right into her fist. Cain had no choice but to take it and was launched back by the force. He crashed into the wall and laid still.
She held up a smoking fist as her scowl deepened and she stomped towards her father.
Roland leaned over to the brown-haired, bright blue robed man and whispered to him, "Is she always like this?"
Skitter simply chuckled awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head. "Just let it run its course. If anything breaks, we'll fix it."
"Where the heck have you been you old coot? Do you have any idea how worried I was searching for you?" Toles raged as she now held Cain by the scruff of his cloak and shook him back and forth.
Cain held up a single finger and she halted. His world spun for a few seconds and the eyes of his helmet blinked to get his optics straight. They then turned into smiles. "Missed ya too kiddo." Toles then enveloped him in a tight hug. Cain reciprocated with a chuckle as he ruffled her hair, which caused a frown in his shorter daughter.
"I told you not to do thatttt!" She huffed.
"I adopted you. It was in the paperwork as a right."
She pouted and glared at him before smiling and hugging him again. "I've missed you!"
"I know kiddo. Five years is a while."
"Five years?" She blinked. "It's only been five mo-"
"-Course doesn't mean I didn't get you anything for the missed birthdays. Got them at the house I have here."
"I mean yeah! Five years." She said, acting her part. Her mind said otherwise. 'Score!'
The other five present Guardian members saw her antics and decided to not inform Cain that it had been only five months. He'd figure out sooner or later. It was the price he would pay for being stupid and letting the Vex get one up on him.
The Hunter duo finally came over to the table where the rest of War Hound and Roland congregated. Cain laid his palms on the table.
"So, you guys finally got here," his posture spoke of a grin. "Took ya long enough. We will go into things relating to home later. Jab, thank you for saving this place and its people." The man nodded with a grunt. Cain then spoke to Alastor through his neural link. 'Let the other Ghosts know that Roland and everyone else don't know shit about us.' He received a mental nod from his Ghost who went to do his Guardians wish.
The Guardians gathered all gave subtle signs they received the message. Skitter's eyes flashed orange for a brief moment with Solar Light, Toles knocked her foot against his, Jabaho gave a very small nod, Shift-13's Graviton Forfeit helmet gave an almost imperceptible flare of the Void energy that coalesced in the face-shield, Sevin straightened up, and Fox's mad grin lessened slightly.
"So, give us the rundown." Toles spoke.
"Well as you have all seen, someone doesn't like us and didn't seem to take my Lesson to heart." The Guardians chuckled nervously. Cain's lessons were very...infamous in the Tower. His crusade against the Cabal when they took away a member of his original fireteam and his bonded were one such example. Cain...he made the Cabal fear his coming. The second Lesson the Tower had witnessed was when a Guardian denied Toles' parents in their request for help.
The fact that Guardian survived was only due to Cain stating the Ghost didn't deserve death for such a pathetic excuse of a Guardian.
"So who is this unlucky chap then boss?" Fox posed the question on their minds.
Cain chuckled and leaned back against a pillar. "Roland, your bad guy 'god'. You tell them."
Roland sighed. "'Handsome' Jack." He pulled up a 3-D holographic display of the man in question. "He's the head of Hyperion and is trying to open Vaults."
Cain piped in, "Not like Glass. I checked. Apparently just loot caches from a long dead race."
"Anyways. He's trying to open the Vault of the Warrior to use the Warrior to rule and erase the 'bandits', aka most people on Pandora."
"He has a weird 'peace-that's-not-actually-peace-and-actually-wholesale-slaughter' schtick." Cain interrupted again.
"Would you like to explain Cain?" Roland irately asked, when no response was given he began again. "It began five years ago when another Vault was opened. Since then he's been a menace to people on Pandora." Roland motioned to Cain who straightened up and nodded.
"So. Since Jacky didn't like my first lesson it's time to move onto Lesson Two. Information on him. I want it. As much as you can gather. That goes for your Raiders too Roland." The man nodded. "That's about all the important info. Oh wait. Roland, SevinShift-13JabahoSkitterFoxToles, SevinShift-13JabahoSkitterFoxToles, Roland. Just incase no one was introduced."
Those gathered nodded. Cain dismissed his team. Once they left, Cain sought to follow but Roland caught his shoulder by laying a hand on him, "How good is your team?" His question was met with chuckles from Cain himself.
"As good as me if not better. Toles? She's my kid. Trained her myself." Cain slid from his grip and walked down the stairs.
Roland stood frozen.
He was suddenly glad he was on the same side as the Hunter.
/ / \ \
/ / \ \
/ / \ \
Walking into his home, Cain was greeted to the scene of his team already waiting.
Cain removed his helmet and smiled as much as he could, not having to put up the hologram in this company. It was so good having his family back. "War Hounds, bring me up to speed. What'd I miss?"
Sevin spoke from his position on the couch, "Fallen, nothing worth reporting."
Fox spoke up, "Vex being Vexy boss."
"Douchey with a side of murder?"
"Yep!"
Cain nodded to Fox. Shift-13 spoke next, "Hive normal," the usually silent man stated.
Jabaho nodded. "Factions of the City remain peaceful."
Skitter looked unusually serious as he shifted from foot to foot, thinking how to word his findings while he chewed on his cheek, "I've heard whispers of Cabal plans. Nothing good, but nothing concrete yet, well, nothing that's logical."
Cain leant against a wall, "Explain."
"I've heard plans to trap and use the Traveler's Light but even the Hive can only smother it. It doesn't make sense."
Cain nodded. "We'll keep an eye on it. So no one here knows about Guardians or the Godly Ball of White as far as I'm aware like Al told you. They know I have powers, but thats it. They have something called 'Sirens'. They use powers that are eerily similar to Void Light. I want our Warlocks investigating that." Skitter and Fox nodded. "For everyone else the plan is is as follows. We are going to kick the 'Handsome' out of Jack and go home. Plain and simple. I wouldn't feel right just ditching this planet to him. First step. Lesson Two. Find any info you can on him. Loved ones, hobbies, anything you think will be useful."
"What are you gonna do with it?" Toles asked.
"Depends on the info. Need the info before you can act on it. Once we have information to act on I'll call you all." He walked to a window and pointed at Helios Station in the sky, "See that? Do not go there," Cain came back in the window and looked over a map of Pandora he had on the wall. "Thats Jack's home turf, while I'm sure we could storm the place and end this all now, we won't because we have no recon done of it. Not risking any Light. If you can get info on the station while planet-side, do it."
"Um, Cain?" Sevin spoke.
"Yes?"
"Might seem like a dumb question, but where's your ship? I figured you'd have the thing lying around somewhere but there's nowhere near enough that's big enough to hold it."
Cain sighed. "I crash landed when the Vex sent me here. It got damaged to the point of inoperability. I have it hidden in a cave system far from here. I plan to repair it soon as possible. Just need a skilled enough mechanic that I trust."
Sevin nodded.
Toles piped in, "I'll lend you mine until then."
"Thanks kiddo but I'll be planet-side mostly until, if, we go after the big ol' H up there."
His daughter nodded with an eye roll. "Gotcha." Leave it up to Cain to be stubborn in accepting help.
"Well. That's all I have. Anyone else?"
Shift-13 raised a hand that held a rectangular box.
"Whats that?"
"Vanguard." That one word said all that was needed.
"...I'm gonna get an attempted ass chewing from Cayde and an actual one from Ikora and Big Z aren't I?" The looks of pity around the room confirmed what he already knew. Cain sighed.
Dammit.
"Dismissed." Shift simply tossed him the communicator silently.
Shift-13 was about to walk out when Cain tch'd. "Shift. One sec. Knew I forgot something." The Exo turned to his friend and a cloth bundle was tossed. He caught it and opened it up.
It was his Thorn.
Well that explained where his staple hand-cannon went. "How did you-"
Cain leaned over his workstation in the corner, already working on a project with various hand-cannon pieces lying about, the communicator set to the side. It was obvious Cain was putting off that particular conversation as long as he could. "Ya forgot it last time ya went aboard my ship. Had to use it a few times since I've been here. Don't leave it next time yeah?"
Shift nodded his thanks, though it went unseen, and departed.
/ / \ \
/ / \ \
/ / \ \
Gaige passed by as Shift left and caught the door as it swung to close. She knocked. Cain peeked his re-helmeted head out from a corner to see who it was. "Oh, Gaige. Come in. Give me a sec to clean up." He cleaned his hands of some grime and grease with a rag and left his workstation that had what seemed to be parts for a sidearm or hand cannon on it along with several different sized barrels.
Gaige took a moment to actually look around the home of the Hunter, not having done so due to alcohol being present. The room she was in was mostly square with a small alcove off to her left where Cain was working. Off to her right was a stairwell leading down. On the wall there was a obsidian plaque with an odd, white, y-shaped symbol with a oval in the center of the fork. Beneath it was white writing that was too small to see from this distance. The writing looked chiseled in.
Across from that wall was Cain's weapon rack with a few hand cannons, rifles, shotguns and even rocket launchers on it. The Gjallarhorn was not present, nor was his blue electric rifle from earlier.
There was a coffee table in the center of the room with the sofa they had used and two arm chairs around it.
To her left, much to her surprise, was a photo of the Vault Hunters. He had taken it some point during one of their technical rides. There were few other photos scattered around that section of wall.
One was of his current fire team standing in front of a corpse resembling a cybernetic spider that laid on a platform.
Another was of a blue horned robot with a cloak, a blue skinned male in heavy armor, and a black woman in deep purple robes all huddled around Cain, smiles aplenty.
There was one of a man with a mustache and beard combo with hair held back by a bandana and his body covered in furs with rods poking out of the shoulder pads and a hand cannon tucked into the waistband of his robes. A black shelled Ghost floated with Alastor off to the side. The man looked like he was pushing Cain away though his half smirk belied his intentions.
One appeared to be from a festival and Cain was being hugged by a short, elderly, matronly woman while he held a plate of cookies haphazardly in one hand due to the height difference.
One was something Gaige could relate to, a mechanic's garage. There was a blonde woman helping Cain work on what appeared to be the early stages of his Hornet.
One had him standing with a very short, by comparison to her compatriots, woman wearing a knightly helm and a cloak along with similar armor to Cain, on his left were two large men, one in gold and silver armor and the other with red and white helmet that was missing a horn.
The final photo melted her heart.
The shot was close up and it had clearly been taken when Cain wasn't ready. He held a little girl with short, brown, gravity defying hair on his shoulder as he wiped something from her cheek with a gloved hand, clearly a younger Toles. She was trying to get away while clutching her stuffed seal. Alastor floated behind the two and she could just see the amusement in his small frame.
"What can I do for ya Firecracker?" He asked as he tossed away the rag he used while Gaige and he sat across from each other on the couch.
She smiled.
"I just wanted to talk. We alone?"
Cain raised a nonexistent eyebrow at the question and nodded. "Just you, me and Al."
"So...when you took down the Buzzard Academy, I saw something," the Mechnomancer began, squirming in place, unsure how to approach the topic, "Your arm...it's metal isn't it?"
Cain blinked. Internally he cursed, 'Fuck all kinds of space duck. Al?'
'She has a metal arm Cain. Make it seem like a prosthetic.'
Cain nodded. "Yeah. What about it?"
"Can I see it?"
He removed his armor on the right arm and rolled up the sleeve, revealing the metal limb in question.
Gaige's eyes got wide at the level of highly advanced technology she was seeing. "This is...geez this is advanced." She wanted to go complete tech nerd but she reigned in the desire. "If I can ask...how'd you lose it?"
Cain was silent seemingly in remembrance, in reality, 'Alllll? Any help?'
'...Wing it?'
He sighed and decided to tell a half-truth, "It was a shitty day all around. The arm...honestly not that bad considering everything. It was a mission with my bonded, your guys definition of 'married', Meri." He had missed the look of jealousy that flashed on her face as he said this, "We had been sent to exterminate a Cabal war base that was getting a bit too dangerous to be left alone. The Cabal are bi-pedal race that look like turtles when unarmored. I don't care if people say they look like rhinos. They're wrong." That day...it was so long ago, but it felt like yesterday. Four hundred years had passed since then. As he spoke, he slowly got lost in memories and the sorrow that accompanied it. "This base is what we call a 'Dark Zone.' That means very dangerous. Lethal if numbers are not present normally, but me and her were one of the best teams. She was worried about it. Said it felt like a trap. It was...I should have listened. They killed her, I've know her for fi-..a long time. As I said, we were...bonded." Cain leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "She died and I lost my arm trying to save her. Bastard had a huge blade and knew how to use it. Didn't help my mind was clouded from loss." He tsked, remembering that Cabal, Valus Ma'ruon, he hunted Ma'ruon for decades, the hunt spanning multiple systems. He had to off himself to fix his arm mid-battle. "In the end though? I killed him," Cain chuckled, "Climbed his armor and shoved a grenade down his throat after a lucky shot blew off his helmet. After that...heh, well that's not what ya asked." He finished and was quiet. Gaige was as well strangely. Cain leaned back to his normal posture and went to look at his Mechnomancer companion, "Gai-WHA-" a weight crashed into his chest and knocked him and the couch over backwards.
The pig-tailed girl sobbed, clinging to his chest. "THAT'S SO SADDDDDDD! WAHHHH!" As the girl's speech devolved into gibberish, Cain on the other hand knew not how to react so he just hugged her and patted her on the head.
"You good?" Cain asked. She nodded into his chest. "Then ya mind gettin' up? If someone walked in they would get the wrong idea." Gaige blushed bright as her hair and scrambled off realizing their position.
"S-sorry...just...sad stories make me cry," she mumbled strangely timidly. "Hey...can ya tell me about those?" She asked, pointing at the photos.
Cain chuckled. "Sure." He patted the seat next to him. "Where do you wanna start?"
She put a finger to her lip in thought then pointed at the one of the old woman hugging the tall man with cookies.
"Ahh...Eva Levante, Grandma to all of us misfits. That was during the Festival of the Lost..."
Time passed as he described the photos to his female friend in detail, laughing at some, becoming somber at a few, and swelling with pride at others.
Gaige ate up every bit hungrily.
Eventually, all good things must end
"So," he began as he righted the couch, having leaned against Gaige to show her who everyone was "Anything else you needed?"
Gaige thought for a moment, there had been one th- "Oh! Yeah! Roland wanted to see you!"
"Know what for?" When the Mechnomancer shrugged, he sighed. "Alright I'll go see what the ol' boy wants. Thanks," after walking her out, he went to go see the Crimson Raider leader.
Gaige smirked as he left. Her plan had worked. "Oooohhh Alastor," she sang. "You still here little dude?"
Alastor peeked out from his position in one of Cain's spare cloaks. He had come out a few times to give his input on the photos. He calmly flew up to eye level. "Yes Miss Gaige? What do you need?"
"The people who came, was Cain's daughter among them? I saw a woman."
Alastor internally debated telling Cain about Gaige's questioning, but decided against it. Worst case scenario, they could handle Gaige. "Yes. That was her. Are you looking for her?" The very happy nod he received was concerning but he dismissed it and told her where Toles had gone. Gaige left with a thank you and went to find the daughter of Cain.
Cain strolled into the Crimson Raider HQ with not a care. "Rolaaannndddd," he called, "you just saw me. What do ya need now ya lazy bum?"
Roland walked down the stairs, a perplexed expression on his face. "I never called for you but since you are here you can answer some more questions I had about your cohorts."
Cain sighed and pinched the bridge of his helm's beak, its eyes shut in irritation. He has been royally duped. So this is how it felt. "That little...alright." He stood straight up. "Shoot."
"Those spaceships, why are they so advanced?"
Cain had a feeling Roland was a kid and the Nighthawk was the candy store of knowledge. This would take a while.
Gaige would sooo be getting it for this.