Darkness.

Normally weightless, but at the moment, the Darkness felt like it weighed down on the fireteam's shoulders. Sulfur, blood, and a strong smell of different metals hung in the hot air. The silence almost reminded the team of a cliché horror movie. Something was bound to pop up any second.

But nothing ever did.

All three guardians carefully walked through Tenebrous Tunnels below the city of Freehold on Mars. The ghosts lit up the way like little bobbing flashlights. The power had been cut, tunnels evacuated, and everything stood in the place it was left. Trains had their doors opened as they sat right in the middle of the tracks. The ventilation system didn't work, so the heat down there was almost unsettling. Bodies sprawled out in a few places among the walkways, their blood dripping down into the train track.

Tanis stepped over the bodies and continued the walk, but couldn't help but to cringe internally. His mind flashed back to a meadow with thousands of dead bodies, some of whom he had known once. Then, like a switch, he was back in reality staring down a branch of three tunnels ahead. He put his hand up and examined it, flexing his fingers to make sure he was really there.

"Are you okay, Tanis?" Dinklebot questioned, noticing his hesitation. He got closer to his helmet to examine his guardian to know what he was feeling. Confusion. Slight anger. Confliction. His analysis halted once Tanis put his hand up to brush the subject off.

"I am fine." Tanis glanced over at his teammates. He pointed his gun ahead of him. "Which way?"

"Split up," Malachi suggested without thinking. Macey turned to look at him and shook herself to show she was against it. He shrugged. "What? Should we waste time and check all three as a team? Sometimes you have to improvise."

Alaura sighed to herself and shut her eyes tight. As stupid as it was, he was right. Those two weren't trained for long missions. Condensing time is exactly what needed to happen. Tanis could handle himself. Malachi? Well...he would be against it if one of them joined him down a tunnel. He was still healing from his wound, but was stubborn enough to come along. No amount of bickering could've stopped that. "Stay on comms. If we haven't found anything within five minutes, we head back here. Got it?"

"Are you implying that I'm right?" Malachi smirked slightly underneath his helmet. He glimpsed over at Alaura, who didn't reply and walked right into the tunnel to the left. He scoffed and looked over at Tanis, who was half-laughing to himself. "She's stubborn as all hell. Stay safe, buddy." Malachi grabbed his hand cannon and walked into the tunnel in the middle.

This team is starting to feel more like family everyday. Family...yeah. That's the word I'm looking for. Tanis thought to himself for a short second, the word sticking to his mind for some reason. He stepped into the tunnel to the right and walked for a good minute. Dinklebot worried about his guardian and looked at him, accidentally shining the light at Tanis. Tanis put his hand up to block it, and Dinklebot quickly turned away to face down the tunnel as he started talking, "Stop. Take in the environment."

Tanis glanced around in confusion and bluntly declared, "It's a dark tunnel, Dinklebot."

"Eyes only see what they want to see. The Darkness blinds you. Close your eyes. Listen to the sounds around you. Focus on the Light The Traveler has given you. It will guide you. It is, only then, when you find what you are looking for."

As ridiculous as it seemed, Tanis complied and listened to the environment around him. He focused on The Traveler's Light, slowly at first. Soon, all he could see was Light behind his closed eyelids. There were clinking sounds, then silence. It picked up again, echoing against the walls in the tunnel. There were blurry figures at the end, causing Tanis to break focus and open his eyes. "Guys, it's this way," he spoke up over comms. "Dinklebot, you're the best! If you teach me how to do that better, I could probably map out everything ahead of me. Right?"

"Theoretically? No. Is it possible? I wouldn't rule out anything. I have faith in your abilities, Tanis. I want to see how much you can actually do. Now your teammates? That's a whole different conversation altogether," Dinklebot replied as he headed down the tunnel.

His guardian side-stepped over that conversation and defended his friends in a light manner, "They mean well." Tanis watched Alaura and Malachi turn around the corner into the tunnel, their ghosts bobbing beside them. "They're my friends. If they don't hunger for knowledge about the Light like I do, then so be it. They'll get there eventually."

The three walked to the end of the tunnel and ended up staring at a battlefield. With the little area the ghosts lit up, all they could see were dead Vex body parts and white fluid. Lights and gunfire darted in the middle of the room, followed by the eyes of the Vex staring down the enemy. Hive were fighting back maliciously, as if they were trying to take this territory away from the Vex. Many golden Knights and thralls pushed back the forces of the Minotaurs and goblins.

"Why are the Knights a different color than before?" Tanis asked, stepping forward to examine them more closely.

Dinklebot focused in on them, and quickly bobbed back. "I never thought we'd see them again...The Spawn of Crota are here, which means Crota is on his way to this galaxy."

"What are you talking about?" Malachi raised his gun as a precaution.

Jarvis filled him in, "Crota is a Hive god. The Eater of Hope. He's been stalking The Traveler for a while...Now his spawn are here." Jarvis' eye widened and he flew around urgently, "We have to get out of here now! Omnigul must b-"

A shrill scream echoed against the walls of the train station, causing the fireteam to cringe and nearly cover their ears. A poison cloud formed around them, constricting their lungs with its burning touch. The guardians scrambled out of it and inhaled in fresh air. Their light shields remained up, but were damaged.

The scream tuned to a higher pitch before a wizard spawned in ahead of them. Its eyes glowed blue and spikes jutted out of its bony head structure. The bottom of its robes were dyed in the blood of its enemies. It screamed again, but this time, it sounded more like a laugh than anything.

Jarvis yelled out, "She's here! Find some cover!"

Alaura fired her automatic rifle at Omnigul as her teammates dove for cover. The wizard glowed blue and dodged as many bullets as it could by rapidly flying through the air. Omnigul raised her arms and summoned the Hive to surround the fireteam on all sides. The Vex teleported closer to the group, seeing that the Hive had taken their directive elsewhere. The robots attacked from behind, while the enemies protected Omnigul. The wizard called out a spell and put a slowness gas all around the room; she closed off all of the exits with heavy poison clouds.

Alaura reloaded her weapon and called out, "We need a way out of here!"

Macey projected out in front of herself, "We haven't pulled guardians long distances before. We'll need some time."

"Time is not on our side. Remember?" Malachi stated as he shot at any enemies he could. Each pop of the hand cannon kicked back against his hand. He took a brief second in between shots to line up his next one, hitting the targets right in the critical areas. The Vex twitched and crumbled to the ground, while the Hive disintegrated upon impact. He threw a knife at one of the thralls, hitting it right in the middle of its head.

Alaura jumped up into the air and shot a rocket at the huge cluster of thrall below. She accidentally backed up while in the air and fell into another cluster. She kicked one back into a couple more thrall. Alaura's fist collided with another, sending it flying in an aura of blue. Her hand grabbed a hold of her fusion rifle and blasted her enemies away a couple at a time.

Tanis shot at the Knights that were moving up on his side. The guns they held were massive, and he tried his best to dodge every blast. He pushed some thrall away and disintegrated one in order to devour its life force. The life replenished some of his damaged Light shield, but not much. He reloaded his scout rifle and attempted to gain some ground between him and the enemies, but they all swarmed around the team. He could hardly tell where his teammates were amongst all the chaos.

A sharp claw dug deep into Tanis' arm. He cried out and twisted around to throw the thrall off, but came in contact with a Knight instead. The guardian gasped and shot his weapon at the enemy's head, but to no avail. The Knight brought out a sword and chopped Tanis' arm right off, the thrall falling with it. He screamed out, yet his facial expression never changed. Tanis flailed for a second, stumbling backwards in disbelief.

"Tanis!" Malachi called out. He felt a rush of worry and anxiety about his friend possibly dying. Malachi grabbed one of his knives and slashed through as many enemies as he could. It built up in his system so much that before he knew it, he was emitting a bright blue light and moving at a faster speed. I can't let him die. Not like this. His speed grew quicker, and soon, he was flying through the air, hacking at multiple enemies faster than he could swing normally.

Alaura ran over to Tanis and covered him as much as she could. She tried to summon her abilities, but failed to do so. She called out to Jarvis for help, and he guided her onto the right path. Alaura slammed her fists down onto the ground, sending a surge of electricity outwards that obliterated any enemies in its path.

Once Malachi started to slow down, he caught a moment to catch his breath. It wasn't much until more Vex teleported in, and Omnigul summoned more of her minions. He pulled out his fully loaded machine gun and mowed down anyone that came near the team.

Tanis peered down at his empty arm socket in slight shock. He opened his mouth to say something until Dinklebot started talking in an attempt to soothe him. Tanis regained some strength and grabbed his sidearm, shooting the small pistol at anything that got too close for his liking. It got his mind off of his arm for the time being.

Alaura glanced down at Tanis' dead arm and then back at the battle. A knot formed in her stomach as her mind started to hesitate. She put her gun down and stared at the oncoming enemies.

The gunshots rang in her ears, bringing her back to the days of her fireteam. The blasts the Knights fired turned into the RPG that Kai was hit with. The dead, putrid smells mixing in with metal almost reminded her of when she killed those sleeping men and had to rub their blood off of her knife. She flinched and blinked a few times to come back to reality; the knot grew in size. The words that came out of her mouth were almost too quiet to hear, "There's too many of them. I...I don't think we can do this."

Malachi turned back to her quickly and declared over comms, "What? Of course we can. You're having doubts?" A thrall came too close and he knifed it quickly before it could claw him.

Alaura backed up into their small cover space and reflected out loud, "Tanis is wounded. More Vex are spawning in. Omnigul is here. I have to think about my team. The enemies are in the subway station, so we have time to warn the base nearby before they get to the surface."

"I-I'll be fine, Alaura," Tanis stuttered for a second. He got a tighter grip on his pistol and fired it at a Knight who inched towards Alaura. It fell and crumbled into nothingness.

Alaura snapped, "I'm not losing either of you. Got it?" She shot her fusion rifle at a thrall closing in behind Tanis and let out a deep breath. Her chest weighed heavier than she remembered; she tried to clear her mind from panicking, but it seemed like all she could do at the moment. Failure was imminent. Her and her fireteam were stuck and there was nothing they could do about it but fight until their last breaths. Memories of all the battles she's gone through flashed through her mind, causing her to close her eyes for a brief second. "I'm sorry. I just need a second to breathe."

Omnigul whipped around the room and focused in on where the fireteam was. She whirled around their cover and aimed to fire at them. The last thing they saw was the bright shining blue bolts shooting through the air towards them before the ghosts teleported them up to the entrance of the tunnels.

A sick feeling overcame Alaura and Malachi, causing them to lean against the wall. Being in the heat of battle one second and then ripped away released a lot of built up pressure too quickly. Malachi breathed heavily and took a second to take off his mask. He wiped the sweat off of his scruffy face and spit some blood out of his mouth.

Tanis whimpered about his arm, but felt Dinklebot settle on his shoulder for a moment. A sense of reassurance washed through him; he closed his eyes to calm himself. "At least we know it's a dead zone down there. No people to save," he said with slight assurance. He opened his eyes and saw his teammates nodding in response.

"We-we have to warn the base." Alaura shook her arms out, ignoring all of the heavy feelings and knots in her system to the best of her ability, and got ready to go back out onto the hot Mars terrain. She let out a deep breath as her mind silenced, and all that could be heard was the soft buzzing in her ear.

The team was thrown back a bit by the sheer force of the wind and sand whipping through the air once they got outside. They had walked directly into a massive sandstorm. The sand piled higher and higher against the tall buildings, almost covering some of them completely. It was anything unlike the ghosts had ever seen. The whole city was about to be buried and taken over.

The fireteam pushed forward through the hot, heavy sand. Rocks flew up and clinked against their armor. Tanis' coat flapped against the wind, but held in place. Malachi's hood yanked him back by the neck, and he desperately reached for something to grab onto, but came up with nothing. He stumbled backwards and almost got swept away in another direction until Tanis and Alaura caught him. They all linked arms and treaded on, even though they had no clue where they were going.

A scream echoed off of the sand dunes in the distance. Alaura peered desperately into the abyss, but in the end, she couldn't see shit. There was gunfire, explosions, and a siren started to go off. She reached forward and started making her way towards the commotion until all three ghosts yelled out to stop over communications.

The fireteam froze. Through the heavy amount of sand, the guardians could barely see the Vex standing all around them, but the Vex could see them clear as day. Their glowing red eyes stared at the three guardians, unmoving and unblinking. Sand whipped around and clinked against their metal bodies, yet they didn't move an inch from their positions.

Alaura glimpsed around quickly, her mind racing with different tactical strategies to use in the next minute in case guns started firing. She breathed heavily as she could hear the bloodbath coming from just the other end of the storm. Soldiers were out there laying down their lives, yet here the fireteam was, trapped in a Vex enclosure.

Malachi glanced over at Tanis, who was practically scanning the robots with his eyes and taking mental notes. He didn't reach for his weapon. Malachi turned to Alaura, who analyzed everything underneath her helmet. His hand twitched for his hand cannon on his belt, but he held himself back for once in his life and thought about it. He trusted Alaura's judgment, and reacting recklessly like he used to would only make things worse. "Alaura, what do we do?"

"We can barely see them. There's nothing we can do," Tanis answered simply, his voice lowering in a tone of lost hope.

"We're going to..." she paused for a split second in hesitation, but quickly felt a rush of reassurance. There can't be more Vex surrounding us now than there were down there. We have a chance this time. Alaura grabbed the grip of her assault rifle and responded, "Triangle formation. Take them out."

Jarvis' voice rose up on comms, "Not so fast." The ghosts proceeded to pull the fireteam into their own ships that had flown in above them. Alaura yelled out, while the other two sat down in the pilot chairs in disappointment. "We're leaving, now."

Dinklebot attempted to ease the situation, "It's too dangerous here. This is for your own safety."

We can help! Why won't you let us? Alaura threw her hands out and yelled out, her words echoing against the sides of her helmet, "We can't just leave the troops here! You leave no brother in arms behind. That's what I was trained for. Take Malachi and Tanis to safety. Let. Me. Go."

"The Traveler told us to leave. I'm sorry, but we have to go, now." Jarvis materialized near the flight console and his eye turned to the window. More gunfire and explosions sounded off in the distance. Then, the ship shook and took blasts from the Vex below.

Tanis started to come together. If there are people we can help, then we should. That's our duty as guardians. He stood up and abruptly cut Dinklebot off before he could speak, "We're leaving no man behind." There was nothing they could do down below, but now they could take action. If only they could see through the storm...

Dinklebot materialized and flew over to the side of the ship in agitation. Here the ghosts were trying to save their guardians, yet they were seen as the bad guys. They were just following orders from The Traveler. Who would they be if they disobeyed their own creator? Dinklebot sent a message to the base. He turned back to Tanis once he was finished and stated, "There, I've told them to evacuate. Now let's go."

The guardians attempted to take control of the flight controls to steer the ships into battle, but the ghosts had it on lockdown. All they could do was curse to themselves as they were taken to safety. 

AN: Here's Alaura's Arc aesthetic! This was the first one I ever made, I think.