Prelude/Present/Epilogue

"Error"

Everything was on the line. The Dreaming City, the Tangled Shore, the entirety of the Reef. Lennox-2 knew that. But it wasn't what drove her to delve into the dragon's insanity.

She roared, she punched and kicked, she fired until her gun clicked empty and then she turned to her Light. A Taken Knight bore down on her with a raised sword and fire in its eye, but she slammed her Arc staff into it, through it, before it could annihilate her.

A Void arrow whistled by her head and struck a Taken Hobgoblin dead centre. Great limbs of violet shot out and linked with the Taken's pals, and through them to others. A well-thrown Solar grenade put an end to them, but the Taken kept coming. The Ahamkara was giving no quarter.

"Sniper on your six."

Lennox twirled about and tossed a knife at the altered Vandal. It fell apart in a fine shadowy mist. Her Ghost dropped another weapon in her hands. She holstered her hand cannon and hefted the fully primed rifle. A pull of the trigger cut down a swathe of rapidly replicating Psions that had begun to make a nuisance of themselves.

A line of shield-bearing Cabal clad in unkind stars came into being before them. Not a moment later, a beam of roaring Arc cut them all in two, shields included. Their killer, a Warlock in Braytech armour, ran past their evaporating corpses without a second glance.

"Come on!" He called back. He held under one arm an orb full of Darkness. A storm hovered around him, crackling with barely-restrained fury.

Lennox cursed. "My knife!"

"We'll get it later," Gecko quickly told her, "but you need to keep moving!"

She grumbled but raced on all the same. She would have to settle for punching - oh, if only Jaxson were here to see!

They shouldered and shot their way into the next chamber, where a pit lay waiting in the middle of the pristine floor. They were close, very close. Only a horde of Taken between her fireteam and victory.

She unloaded all of her energy rifle's power cells into the mass of Taken limbs and eyes, but it wasn't enough. A towering Centurion reared up above the dragon's host of minions and held up a glowing fist.

Lennox took out her sniper rifle, which snapped and screamed just like the creatures before her, and fired point blank. The Centurion died. It was poetic: killing Taken creatures with a Taken weapon.

"Stay focused."

"I am focused," she snapped. A Captain jumped her. She ducked beneath the sloppy swipe of its swords and smacked it across the head with her rifle. She finished the critter with a Solar knife to the throat. Lennox was ecstatic. She loved this. The intensity of combat in this mad dash for victory. Nothing their foes could throw would ever stop them in their tracks.

She wished every mission would go this swimmingly.

She wished.

Lennox-2 didn't even have time to scream as the jaws of finality slammed shut and dragged her off into the depths of unreality.

Lennox onlined her optics to a world of off-kilter symmetry. It didn't make sense at first. It didn't make any more sense the longer she looked at it. An unending metal landscape in every direction. Everything was polished to a gleaming bronze. The architects of the place couldn't have made it any more different to the Dreaming City if they tried.

"This looks like... Vex."

She said that. Or would say that.

"Kinda hard to tell when time's stagnated."

That wasn't her. She doesn't know who it is, but she will know/does know/has known. The voice was/is/will be all around her, as formless as morning mist.

"Stagnated is the incorrect term, actually. It hasn't stagnated. For something to stagnate, it has to be active in the first place/last place, which never did/never will happen here. There's no time, aside from what bleeds through the Vault, through the Pyramidion, the Forest. All those places that link the universe to the place Vex come from. That place outside the river. Outside time. I like to call it the Observatory, but, ya know, whatever suits."

"Who are you?" She asked and would ask.

"Ah, names! What are names? Bits of funny-sounding air designed to encapsulate the identity of an existing thing. Utter crap, that. Things just are!"

"But... there's a purpose in talking."

"Not the way you talk. There's a language, a harmonic one, that captures the very essence of that it names, and there's the Vex numbering for everything too, but in this in-between of ours neither will make sense."

Lennox didn't/wouldn't like that. "So we're in Vex space?"

"Normally I'd say there isn't so much 'space' in the Network, but you and your pal changed that."

"My pal?"

"Your gun."

Lennox understood. She'd always known it, and somehow never would. "Oh no."

"Oh yes. He may be the Will of Thousands, but by His Logic one Will has to prevail against all others. His Will, to be exact. And He Willed this in being."

"So the big whatshisface wanted us to talk?"

"No, and that's the funny part. He wanted something, but first He had to get there. Death is a journey, something you and Him both understand. You were the vessel, and He the hitchhiker. Now He is the potential vessel, and you the would-be hitchhiker."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Getting nervous?"

She stood up and raised/would raise her fists. No knife. Where was her damn knife? "Try me."

A crinkling laugh echoed across the vast Vexscape. "You Guardians really are brutes! All you do is fight and kill and destroy."

She lowered/would lower her fists. "Praedyth?"

"No."

"Then who?"

"Just another lost soul."

"Are you Vex?"

"They're a sophisticated bunch, but you and I both know that despite their reality-wide existence, they get a bit dumb whenever Guardians are involved. No, I am not Vex."

"Are you going to tell me who you are?"

"I can't answer that."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't. I don't have anything. I'm just a voice with eyes."

"What do you want?"

"Same thing as everyone: not to end. I like wandering around these Vex installations. They're like great big windows, and there's so much to see. I'll forget it all, but hey, then I get to experience the blissful sensation of discovery all over again."

Lennox huffed. "Right... Where's the exit?"

"You don't remember?"

"Remember what?"

"And I thought I was the forgetful one. What happened before all this?"

"I was with my team in the city and we..." Lennox froze up. "It caught me. She caught me. The Dragon."

The voice hummed/hums/will hum thoughtfully. "The dragon whom feeds on the separation between subjective desire and objective reality, whom feeds upon the creation of a wish. The Vex cannot replicate that which does not have a clear pattern of causality, so that entails you, the Dragon, and He the Worm. But the Dragon and the Worm are not like you. They are beings of a different ecological niche. I always wondered what would happen if a Dragon and Worm met one another... at least I think I wondered. I'm wondering now, but wondering loses its luster when you know the answer."

"What happened?!" Lennox panicked/panics/would panic. She was dead/She is dead/She will be dead.

"Wishes and whispers, my dear. Wishes and whispers. A grand ploy, one only a being as old as the stars could muster up. The metaphysics involved... goodness, now that was stroke of genius. He may be the littlest of the clutch, but your gun is surely the smartest. He needed a medium through which he could garner tribute and sustenance, so he used you. He needed a place to dig through the walls of time and space, so he picked the locked door of Io's Pyramidion. He needed the power to break that lock, so he used the desire of the Dragon whose self-made wish was to kill you. Now he's free to find a breeding grounds of his choosing and cut it away from all other timelines. He will not just be Xol, weakest of the Worm Gods. He will be Xol, the Sole God. The Victorious Worm."

Lennox and metaphysics didn't mix. She left/leaves/would leave that with a certain responsible Warlock. "Oh no," she repeated/repeats/would repeat. She looked/looks/would look around. "Where's Gecko? Where's my Ghost?!"

The voice tutted/tuts/would tut. "Gone. Here. Everywhere. Dead and not dead, and everything in between."

"I've got to find him, please help-"

"He's a part of you. Your precious Ghost was only a gathering of Light/Sky/Gift/Blessings that is also a part of you. That's the relationship between Guardians and Ghosts, right? The Traveler, a being of Light, sawed off pieces of itself to share that Light with younger and lesser beings to suit its purposes. Light is life, so it became life and it made life that is different-but-the-same. There's always a pattern. Children have to take after their parents in some manner. In this case you were a being of flesh, but your very life was kickstarted by the very same Light that kickstarted your Ghost. If the shell of a Ghost is pierced, the Light is released and spreads out."

"He's... dead?" Her hands shook/shake/would shake.

"Are you listening? His shell was pierced, and where did his Light go? Between the Dragon and the Worm who both salivate over the chance to eat some Light and life, it fled to the nearest sanctuary it could find. You. The energy that was your 'Gecko' is now and always will and will never be a part of you."

She stopped/stops/would stop listening at that point/all points/no point. "NO! NONONONO!"

"Yes. Yesyesyesyes. Look, I'm going to forget about all this very soon, so I'll... You're not listening, are you?"

"WHY?!"

"Because Worm Logic/Sword Logic/War Logic cannot allow for unnecessary alliances. Hey..." The voice softened/softens/would soften, and Lennox heard it/hears it/would hear it whispering in her ear. "Want to break even?"

"These cliffs are bottomless."

"You said it would be this way!" She hated/hates/would hate how ragged her voice sounded/sounds/will sound. There was/is/always will be a gaping hole in her mind, in her very soul where Gecko had once been. It had been/is/will be too sudden. She didn't/doesn't/will not get a chance to say goodbye. It was/is/will be too cruel for her to fathom, and because of that she promised that the Worm would pay for it.

The voice persisted/persists/would persist. "It is."

"It's a dead end!"

"Only if you see the edge as a barrier. This ravine is where the Will of Thousands tore off his new fiefdom. Conquest is his way."

Lennox peered/peers/would peer over the ledge. "What happens if I fall?"

"Eternal limbo."

"Not good."

"No, probably not."

"Then where to, oh mysterious voice?"

"Do you want to get even?"

She hardened/hardens/would harden her gaze. "Yes."

"How far are you willing to go?"

"What?"

"How far?"

It didn't/doesn't/will not take long for her to decide. "As far as I need to. Gecko was mine."

"Remember what I said? Light seeks out a medium when faced with hostile elements."

"Yeah?"

"You are Light."

"Wait, hold on, what are you-"