My jumpship arrived back at the tower, the transmat system depositing me outside as the jumpship flew into the maw of the hangar. I remembered I had a engram to decode, but I also had some glimmer to spend, and I needed something to replace my now outclassed sniper rifle. I decided to go to Banshee-44 first, and walked over. After chatting for a bit, and purchasing a new shotgun (a Suros MKB-51), I continued on to the Tower's resident cryptarch. As I walked to Master Rahool to get the engram decoded, I noticed that there was a bunch of scary decorations put up all around the tower. Was it…Halloween?

"Ah, Ace, wasn't it?" asked Master Rahool. "I assume you have a engram for me to decode. Unless this is a social visit?"

I smiled and opened my inventory management system. "It's a business call. I need this engram decoded, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Certainly!" said Master Rahool. "It'll just take a few moments to crack the data encryption. Ah! I haven't seen one of these guns in ages. Looks like the engram information was faulty. This is a legendary engram. As well as that, it contains a hand cannon, not a pulse rifle as the header says. The 'Imago Loop' according to this unscrambled information. Ah, this takes me back a long way…"

Ghost had warned me about two things with Master Rahool. One was his old habit of switching out engrams for ones he knew were worse than the one you gave him. Apparently that had been fixed when Cayde asked him to 'Decode this Sack of Doorknobs'. The other was his tendency to lapse into long tales. Despite being one of the most experienced cryptographers in the tower, and certainly the oldest active Guardian in the world, he was still as eccentric as all the university professors I had been lectured by during my brief stint at the University of Alberta. So I already had been briefed on how to disengage from such rambles.

"I'm sorry Master Rahool, but I'm needed in the Control room. Thanks for decoding the gun."

I nodded to him, and ran towards the control room, hoping Cayde would be there. I passed Eris, who was standing among a group of pumpkin skulls, arguing with a human janitor.

"I don't care that it's 'Part of the Holiday Spirit! Crota's Bane will NOT be part of your childlike festivities! The Darkness must be kept at bay!"

"But Ma'am! I'm not the one who put them there! the maintenance staff were explicitly warned by Commander Rey not to decorate any part of your workspace! I have no responsibility…"

I ran past, heading for the control room. I passed many Guardians wearing holographic costumes, and others wearing masks of other people at the tower and other places. Ahead, I saw that Zavala and Ikora were absent, while Cayde stood at the map table talking with Arthur Solas.

"Sir, May I remind you that today is MY day off?"

"But Arthur, I'm the Vanguard Hunter! You're my Deputy! Can't you celebrate tomorrow or the next day or something?"

Solas sighed. "You do realise that tomorrow is the day of Mourning, and the celebrations only occur the day before, don't you?"

"Oh. Well, let's assume that I have a few hundred units of Glimmer with your name on it if you 'decide' to take today to stand here and read some of these wonderfully 'entertaining' reports?"

Solas looked thoughtful. "Make that 1000 Glimmer and two legendary engrams. Then we'll have a deal."

"Done!" said Cayde. He turned, and spotted me.

"Ace! You're back!"

I grinned and wrapped him in a hug. Arthur looked uncomfortable, and moved off towards a control panel to retrieve the latest field reports. I walked out of the room with Cayde, towards whatever passed for a bar around the Last City.

"So…you want a lemonade?"

"Cayde!"

My dad laughed, his mouth lighting up with mirth. As it turned out, Exo can drink and eat. The scientists at Clovis Bray apparently built a biobattery into their torsos that could turn organic and inorganic matter into energy. As a result, Cayde was digging into a plate of what appeared to be spaghetti, and had a massive tankard full of beer. I was still waiting on my order.

"I'm not 13 again," I said, smiling. "I am old enough to drink alcohol."

Cayde laughed again, wheezing electronically. My order finally arrived. Since he had taken me to a facsimile of a Italian restaurant in the middle of the last city, I had ordered what I always took as the ultimate Italian dish.

"Pizza? Seriously?" said Cayde in disbelief. "My god, you come to the only Italian restaurant in the entire world and you eat PIZZA?"

I frowned at him. "Pizza is the best. What do you have wrong with it?"

He coughed into his fist and gaped at me, I smirked at his expression that would be normal on a human face, but looked extremely comical on that of a Exo.

"First off, that dough from this place will give ya cardiac arrests," Cayde stated. "Second of all, that grease clogs up my finger joints and is IMPOSSIBLE to get off. Third, said grease begins to stick, and I get as light-fingered as a arthritic tortoise. Fourth, you're having PIZZA with PINEAPPLE! Who does that? Lastly- and this is the big one- I though I raised you better than that! I mean, didn't I ever tell you that pineapple doesn't go on top of Pizza? That's a crime against humanity!"

I laughed as he gaped even more. This caused me to laugh even harder, which caused Cayde to begin laughing. We continued sharing our mirth for the next hour, after which I began to feel like I was home again. But as always, work will always get in the way. After another hour, Ghost informed me that I was needed by Commander Zavala. I finished my light beer, and excused myself. I walked back to the Tower, and caught the high-speed lift up to the top floor. When I finally got there (lots of parties and lots of people catching the lift), I jogged to the Control room. Commander Zavala was waiting there for me to arrive.

"Ah good, Ace," he said, greeting me. "Our computers just decoded Rasputin's full message. Turns out he instructed us to send a guardian to a deactivated satellite array in the cosmodrome. The array was once used to link all the Warminds together. If we can reactivate it, we may be able to get Rasputin to use the old planetary defence network to keep any enemy ships from arriving. All the invaders would be cut off from resupply! We would finally be able to gain ground, and take back more of our home. I'd like you to head out to the array and reactivate it. Rasputin has kindly provided some activation codes. Your Ghost should have the details now."

I nodded, and rushed out the door. I pulled out my new Imago Loop, and checked the load. It was a very large revolver with a removable cylinder. I holstered it, and checked my other weapons. I pulled out the new shotgun that I bought from Banshee-44, which I proceeded to holster across my back. I then ran to the hangar, and flew out into the night sky.

Author's note: Sorry everyone for the wait. I was quite lax in releasing this chapter, which I started before Halloween, and ended up publishing closer to Christmas. So yeah, shorter chapter. I'll be publishing more at some point, but I'd like to take the time to thank a few new people to favourite and follow this story. You guys are really showing support for this, and I'd therefore like to acknowledge the following individuals. Thanks to Corbyl Undromiel, Dr Nafario, Saberius Prime, StarGazerNightSky, Steel Sombrero and TheHyperDragon for favouriting and following, and additionally hamhjolf Stormcrown for following. Thanks guys, see you next week! BTW, next weeks battle song will be something from a Australian band. Kudos for guessing which one!