On a distant planet, within the outer system of Sol... Our Solar System, lays a centaur minor planet called 7066 Nessus, better known as Nessus to the inhabitants within Sol.

It's known for it's destination name as "The Arcadian Valley" where a Golden Age colony ship known as the Exodus Black had crashed before The Collapse, the end of Humanity's Golden Age and beginning of The Dark Age.

The planet alone is populated by the Vex, strange robotic time travelling organisms from origins unknown, The Fallen, space pirates who had their own Collapse before Humanity and then the Cabal, war-mongering, military race. At least Fragments of the Red Legion are still within the planet's grounds.

(See Ch.0 - Prelude for information, I should make an index on allies and enemies for this story tbh)

Within the planet's grounds as of right now? Were two beings...

A human, once dead but brought back with no affiliation of his former past... Until he found out anyway, even his own birth name.

Alongside him? The one responsible for bringing him back to have a second chance, called... a "Ghost", born from the Traveler that saved Humanity just in time before they were wiped from The Collapse. She resurrected him, making him...

A Guardian

Her shell was white and a precious gold, with a gold center where her one eye would reside, the special blue iris not of a Human, but almost robotic... But sentient and has a personality of her own.

"We're not far now, her Ghost's trace is just up-ahead" the Ghost of this Guardian spoke as he rode on his Sparrow, though it wasn't his Sparrow originally...

He uses it in honor of his best friend... Who gifted it to him, along with his Hand Cannon within a final message he had for him.

"I wonder why she went off without her Fireteam? It's odd I know, but..." The Ghost spoke, confused but worried.

"Can you blame her? She's a Hunter? They always roam the wilds, no matter what planet" the Guardian spoke, drifting around a corner into a valley downwards called... "Hallows"

"And... Ever since the death of... Cayde... Most Hunters fled from the Tower, scared they'd be the next Hunter Vanguard" the Guardian spoke with a depressing tone, mourning the loss of his best friend... Cayde-6

He got off his Sparrow before it disappeared in a flash of blue light, gripping the handgrip of the Hand Cannon, Ace of Spades, once Cayde's weapon... Now? the Guardian's main weapon, attuned to his hand only.

The red flowed through the highlighted two lines on each side of the gun, along with the handgrip of an upside down Ace and within the Ace that resides on the middle of the weapon, an energy swirled within it... Paracausality like.

"Yeah... I know how you still feel, Y/N... *garble* But... *garble* You took the oath in Cayde's name, remember? They shouldn't be running away like this" the Ghost spoke, a hint of sadness behind her voice whirling every time she spoke.

The Guardian... Revealed as Y/N, which he now preferred being called as now since finding out about his past before becoming a Guardian, he pulls out the Ace of Spades from his metallic holster which retracted to allow him to equip it into his hand with a simple click of metal making little noise.

His holster was much like Cayde's... Though it wasn't his Lucky Pants...

"Glace... I know" he exhaled a short breath into the air. "Being temporary Hunter Vanguard does have its uses, at least I'm still able to leave the Tower without being stuck behind to look over reports half of the time" he sounded a little relieved but still sad at his core.

"Thank the Traveler for that" Glace agreed. "From what Sundance told me before? She used to be so bored sticking at the Tower with Cayde" Glace touched on a memory, making the both chuckle.

"Haha, yeah... Those were good times" he smiled a little before an ominous mechanical sound was heard, making the Guardian dive to a wall to hide.

"Vex" Glace informed.

"Only a squad of em" Y/N peaked around the corner, seeing a few Vex Goblins and one Hobgoblin scanning the floor with it's one beady red eye.

(Vex Goblin)

(Vex Hobgoblin)

Glace looked at the surroundings of her Guardian while safe within his invisible backpack of sorts, noticing another type of Vex enemy with a particular void shielding.

"Annnnd a Minotaur" she pointed out, if she had arms, she'd point toward it.

(Vex Minotaur)

"Well... I brought my void shotgun, though it'll be absolutely useless when I can throw a void grenade at it" Y/N remarked.

"They're also in the way for us to investigate the trace we found, right below where that Hobgoblin is standing, near the pillar *garble*" Y/N looked to what Glace was talking about, the pillar he could see had a Light sort of aura beside it, the trace of Light Glace detected upon landing on Nessus near the Cistern.

"Welp... Let's go bust their little patrol up then" Y/N suggested, getting out of cover and immediately firing his hand cannon at a Goblin within it's center spot where Vex Milk resides, killing it in one precise shot.

This alerted the patrolling Vex, their whirls cried out as they faced toward the approaching Guardian, immediately responding with firing back at the intruder.

Y/N leaped up, jumping two more times while midair to take the high ground, firing down at the Vex firing at him.

A Goblin fired out a grenade that stuck to the surface he stood on, immediately making him dodge out of its blast radius, a threw a fan of Solar knives at two Goblins standing beside each other, taking them out with

The Hobgoblin that stood atop the pillar, fired its beam rifle at the Guardian, getting a successful hit on the somewhat impossible, cloakless/capeless Hunter with a hood covering his face, he fell flat onto the ground, hissing in little pain due to the fall, but out of sight from the Hobgoblin playing the sniper position.

"Behind you!" Glace called out, a Minotaur snuck behind him and attempted to smack him.

Luckily, the Guardian rolled out of the way, his hand emitting with Void energy, a threw and attached a Void Magnetic grenade onto the Minotaur, exploding with Void Light the next, pieces of the Minotaur hit the ground with a metal clank, like metal pipes.

"Sayonara" Y/N quoted, loading his Ace of Spades with a Memento Mori round, the gun fired a powerful shot as the gun smoked with a Light substance, leaving at least five more Memento Mori shots left.

The shot hit the Minotaur in its creamy center, now falling apart piece by piece before the Minotaur itself exploded in Solar Light, due to the Ace of Spades' special ability

"Just one left... That little sneaky Hobgoblin taking sniper position" Glace informed as Y/N stood up from the ground, dusting himself off the next.

Y/N poked his head out of the wall he took cover at, the Hobgoblin spotted him and began charging up its beam rifle which he immediately rolled out of cover and fired his weapon, hitting the Hobgoblin in the arm, preventing it from firing again, though it would easily miss if he dodged again.

The Hobgoblin's response was immediately shielding itself with a immune Solar shielding to regen, making the Guardian chuckle a little as he approached it quickly.

"They always fall for it" Y/N humored, aiming his hand cannon at the Hobgoblin, waiting until it finished regening itself... Right on que, it stopped to only look down at the Guardian who pulled the trigger, shooting another Mori shot into its creamy center, making the Hobgoblin explode in satisfactory Solar Light. "They always do" he humored again.

"Well, now that the remaining Vex has been taken care of *garble* Bring me to that trace of Light!" Glace informed, letting out one more garble of robotic noise that every Ghost makes.

Y/N extended his palm out, making the palm of his hand face upwards as Glace appeared over his hand, looking right at the Light trace they found.

Glace then floated over to the Trace before her shell split apart into tiny pieces, with a little blue aura surrounding her as she began to scan the trace of Light.

"Hmm" Glace hummed metallically. "Good news that it is the missing Guardian, bad news? She and her Ghost went down into the Sunken Cavern, a heavily populated area with Vex" Glace shared what she found. "Found another trace that could help us locate her position, let's go!"

Glace disappeared out of sight, back into Y/N's backpack like inventory to stay safe from anything hostile before his comms began to buzz in.

"Zain... Glace" a firm voice spoke into the Vanguard Channel. "Have you found the missing Guardian yet?" the firm, commanding voice asked.

Zain was Y/N's name after his first resurrection into the world as it is today, with a Last City built around the Traveler, usually he stuck with Y/N now rather than Zain... But he allows it nonetheless.

"Not exactly, Commander" Y/N responded back, walking over some rocks upward where it was wet and damp. "Glace has found a trace of Light from the Guardian's Ghost however, tracking another trace as I speak, might have to fight Vex along the way, however."

The Commander exhaled a little. "Keep your search going, break the Vex if you have to, we don't want another tragedy in our hands... Not since... Cayde..."

"I know, Zavala... It won't come to that, she and her Ghost will be brought back to the Tower safely" Y/N responded before the Commander could finish. "I'll report back when we find something, Zain out" Y/N tuned out his comms as he kept walking toward the cave up-ahead.

"Zavala sounds... Weary today" Glace touched on about the Titan Vanguard's tone of voice.

"Can you really blame him?" Y/N sighed. "The Vanguard has been up and down recently, more difficult to work in these difficult times" Y/N added next, entering the cave toward the Sunken Cavern.

The Guardian and Ghost were pretty much quiet the rest of the journey into the Sunken Cavern, Y/N walked past an overgrowth of leaves and a part of what seemed to be a branch from a tree, sticking out of the wet walls of the cave.

'I wonder how Eris is doing... Haven't heard from her since the Red War' Y/N pondered to himself in his own thoughts, thinking back to Eris when she helped him during Oryx, The Taken King's influence around the Rings of Saturn after decimating the Awoken Fleet that Queen Mara led... Before she was ultimately killed...

Or so mostly everyone thought...

Y/N had now entered into a massive room within the cave, a light in each corner of this cave itself, touching down onto the wet floor of this cave, a little echo sounding out from his footsteps contacting the wet rocks and muddy water.

"There's the second trace" Glace broke the silence as Y/N took her to the trace, she appeared above the palm of his hand again after he summoned her, to his right was were floating rocks resided, down to another part of the Sunken Cavern, mainly the main area of it, the cave was only the entrance.

Her shell opened again as she began to analyze it, Y/N watched on as Glace was doing her work.

"Okay, it seems they've been looking for something down here, not sure what it is but? *garble* I just hope they're alright" Glace's voice echoed. "Alright, picked up another trace, marking it on your lenses" Y/N's eyes shown a marker within his field of view, much like Ana Bray, he also had integrated lenses in his eyes from the Golden Age, origin unknown about why he had it, he thought Exos could only have something like it.

"Seems to be dead Vex down there also from what I see" Y/N zoomed in with his now pulled out sniper, a basic sniper before he transmatted the gun out of his hands, pulling out his hand cannon once again.

He made his way over as Glace disappeared out of sight again, into her Guardian's backpack as he jumped on top of a floating rock, moving ever so slowly as he then jumped to the next... Then the next...

"Always wondered why these rocks tend to float in here, kinda freaky also" Y/N pondered out to his Ghost.

"Well... It's something to do with Nessus, maybe we should ask Failsafe when we visit her next time?" Glace suggested a visit to the Golden Age A.I that resided within the Exodus Black, a split-personality A.I to be precise.

"I guess so" Y/N shrugged, as he jumped to the final rock, taking a leap of faith to jump onto the arena like platform the Vex once roamed around in, now only finding dead Vex spread out everywhere. "Seems the Vex have been busy getting their shiny metal asses kicked, maybe we should ask them where our missing Guardian is?"

Glace made herself appear and floated in front of him, aware there wasn't any danger around them for now, she seemed to glare at him. "Y/N... They're dead".

"I was joking" he blatantly told her who then left a robotic sigh.

"The trace is up-ahead, in that... Room with the two statues?" Glace questioned at the end, confusion in her voice as the Guardian began to make his way up the Vexy stairs, toward the room with the statues of two Minotaurs.

"Wonder what had her and her Ghost go in there" Y/N wondered also. "You sure they were looking for something?" Y/N asked Glace next just as they approached the room, unsure if she was correct or not earlier, 

In the middle, laid a Vex like table, it looked as something that could be a table for an offering of some kind, the room however wasn't all too special...

Or so he and Glace thought...

"Well *garble* Why else would they come down here, then? I assumed..." she thought for a moment" Did I forget to mention that?" Glace then asked.

"Yeah... You did" he gave her a frown as they approached the table within the middle of the room, where the statues were.

"Light trace is here, hang on" Glace's shell popped open again and swirled around her, the blue aura surrounded her delicate inner shell again as she pulsed.

Y/N noticed something rather strange on the wall ahead of him, the wall wasn't the pale white like Nessus's walls, but it was rather... Bronze.

"Hmm... That's strange... I'm detecting some rather odd signal" Glace pondered. "But that's the last trace I could find, nothing more... We lost track" Glace finished scanning.

"Glace, come take a look at this" Y/N called out to his Ghost as he investigated the bronze wall ahead of them.

The curious Ghost went over to him as she began scanning the wall using her little laser beam from her eye. "Curious... I've never seen this before every time we've been down here" the Ghost spoke with a curious tone.

"Nor have I" Y/N chimed in. "Which is rather strange because-" before he could finish speaking, the wall began to shift with a metallic unlocking of a door, the door didn't open like a Vex door or gate.

The wall began to shift into nothingness, with blue particles making the wall disappear completely, what laid behind it was stairs going down to somewhere.

Y/N and Glace took a complete moment to understand what they had just witnessed, they've seen magic and all sorts before... But not to this much extent.

"Okay..." Glace broke the silence once more. "What in the name of the Traveler did we just see?" 

"Glace, get me into contact with the Commander, now" Y/N demanded. "He needs to hear what we've just discovered".

"Uh... Okay, hang on" Glace opened the Vanguard Channel again, getting her Guardian into contact with Commander Zavala once more.

Y/N's comms soon buzzed in, some static was there but it soon faded once he turned on his communicator back on. "Zavala, this is Y/N, you read me?" 

"I read you Zain" Zavala responded nice and firm. "What have you found to report?" the Commander then asked.

"Unfortunately, we discovered one last trace, but it led us to a strange discovery within the Sunken Cavern, my Ghost is patching her feed to you now" Y/N responded.

Glace's feed was now shown to the Commander, he observed the footage in front of him, who looked very concerned with what Y/N and Glace had discovered, he began scratching his chin.

"One of the secrets from the Vex?" he pondered.

"Doesn't look like something the Vex would've kept secret, though they're always so unpredictable behind our eyes and ears. There's many Vex dead outside the room but... I believe this is where the missing Guardian went" Y/N responded. "Going off to investigate it further, I'll report when we find something out about this... Discovery".

"Then be careful, Zain. Who knows what lurks down there, find that Guardian. Be Brave" Zavala tuned out the comms next.

"So... Seems we're investigating this rather secret undercroft then?" Glace asked, as the Guardian stood beside her.

"Seems like it... C'mon"

* *

They had no idea of the huge discovery they had just made...

In the middle of this massive spaced out room, laid four pillars, two on each side... Humming with an unknown energy.

Not Light.

Not Dark.

Something... Different...

The walls had glyphs and runes of some sort, each wall had orb like planets with runes above them, all the same pattern on the orb which made it look like the orb resembled...

The Earth...

Y/N ran his gloved finger across a dusty golden table, which had books stacked on top of each other, he'd investigate and read through them but he was too baffled to even do it.

Glace on the other hand scanned the glyphs on the walls, each with different symbols on them, the runes were unidentifiable, the language wasn't anything Glace could understand and translate, it was almost gibberish to her and Y/N.

"What is this... Room? This isn't Vex technology, nor Fallen, Cabal or Hive?" Glace asked a question that was impossible to answer, no one knew the answer. "The walls have these planet like orbs with the same pattern as... Earth? That's... That's odd?" she was confusing herself more as it is.

"Look at this" Y/N called out, his eyes staring multiple symbols, one of them caught his eye which gave him a little chuckle. "An S huh? Nice design, even has a shield layout... Wonder what it stands for?" he pondered at the S shielded glyph, there was a multiple, some had different designs. He made an inside joke that it meant something stupid or... Perhaps super.

The same went for other symbols the pair found on the walls, symbols of a bat, a lightning bolt, a star with a round shield, a symbol with the words 'JL', 'JSA', and a particular italic shaped 'A' with an arrow pointing to the right and many more symbols to count.

"I suggest we report this to the Vanguard now, no sign of our missing Guardian" Glace suggested.

"It's what I'm doing" he responded. "Zavala, do you read me?" he spoke into his communicator, but only received static on the end, which concerned him. "Commander, this is Zain, do you copy?" he spoke different words this time... Still only static.

"The room must be jamming our signal" the Ghost spoke. "I suggest getting atop, our signal is jammed in here" Glace disappeared out of sight into the Guardian's backpack once again. "This whole discovery is already mindboggling as it is... Even for me".

"Agreed" he nodded his head with a sigh. "Let's go, before we attract unwanted-" he took one step and stood on top of something that pressed down on the sole of his boot, making himself freeze in position, a clank then sounded off, realizing he had stepped on a pressure plate.

"Did-Did you just step on something?" Glace asked with a firm tone, her voice speaking in his head.

"M-Maybe" Y/N stuttered as the pillars began to light up blue, the runes on the pillars lit up also as a brush of wind began to pick up.

"Y/N, what did you do?!" Glace shouted over the wind intensely picking up.

"I don't know!! How was I supposed to know about a pressure plate?!!" Y/N shouted back over the intense wind, he covered his face slightly.

The pair then witnessed a portal beginning to form as a powerful distorted noise ringed out, the wind picking up more intensely than before, Y/N suddenly felt himself being pulled toward it.

"Y/N! The vortex is dragging us in!" Glace shouted as Y/N pulled out his knife.

"I know!" his instincts kicked in as he dived for the floor, impaling his knife into the ground to keep himself from being sucked into the vortex.

The books on the table began to move a little as some of the ones stacked on top then flew off the stack, being dragged into the vortex itself with the wind being intense due to the mass of the portal.

It was then... Y/N felt his knife being dragged across the flooring next, making him wide eyed. "Shit!" he shouted in a panic, bringing out his other knife. "Glace, brace yourself!"

"What?!!" she responded, only hearing gibberish from the Guardian as he attempted to use his other knife.

"I said brace yourse-" he was cut off with the knife giving out, the vortex was dragging him, he attempted to use his other knife, stabbing it into the ground.

The next thing that happened which made his heart sink, he accidentally cut his holster while trying to use his other knife, freeing Ace of Spades from his holster as it was sucked into the vortex, he looked in horror as it went into the portal.

"Ah fuck it!" he shouted, losing his hand cannon, gifted to him by Cayde-6 in his last message for him, motivated the Guardian to simply let go of the knife he held and be dragged into the portal.

"Y/N, what are you doingggggg!!!" Glace shouted...

Then...

They vanished through the vortex...

* *

"Ugh... Hnnnngh... Oh my head" the Guardian's eyes slowly opened to a blue hue disappearing, replaced by the white and gold shell of his Ghost, who had resurrected him.

"What made you think that was a good idea, Guardian?!" Glace interrogated with a furious tone.

"Geez, ease down with the tone, Glace" he held his left ear. "I lost the Ace of Spades through that portal... Shit... Where is it?!" he began to slowly panic upon realizing.

"You... You lost it?" Glace asked, looking down at the ground, which gave Y/N a hint.

"Ace!!" he sighed of relief, picking up his hand cannon once again. "Thank the Traveler, I won't make that same damn mistake again" he cursed at himself.

"Are you going to answer my first question or what?" Glace said with a sassy tone, making the Lightbearer look at her.

"Uh... I said I lost Ace, cut my holster on accident without realizing I did" he informed with a frown.

"Be careful next time then" she responded.

"Hey! Don't get sassy with me! Just be lucky that we're alive" he crossed his arms, while sitting on the grass on his ass.

"Actually... I don't even know how I am alive... I can't sense the Traveler" she responded with a worried tone, concerning the Guardian.

"What? What do you mean you can't?" he asked, while looking around, noticing he was surrounded by trees. "Wait... Are we on Earth?" Y/N asked next.

"Yes... We are" Immediately the Ghost responded, her tone worrying next. "But... I don't remember another populated city being on Earth, nor has any city been fully rebuilt and populated for over 700+ years since the Collapse" Glace's wordings worried the Guardian even more.

He got up immediately and scoured through the tree trunks as his Ghost followed, before coming to a pathway in front of him, leading up to a golden statue of a man in a suit and cape, wearing a familiar symbol Y/N had saw before, with an eagle perched on the man's arm.

"Glace... Where did the vortex take us?" Y/N asked as he looked at her.

"I'm asking the same question too, Guardian" Glace said with worry...

* * *

To be continued...

Word Count 4207