Cameron slowly woke up from the knockout she suffered. Her jaw ached from the impact of the knight's fist from earlier. She tried to keep her eyes open, but she felt incredibly tired. She couldn't move either. She tried to move but noticed the large shackles that were attached to her legs and forearms. 

"Fantastic, bound to a wall in the middle of, uh, hmm, where am I?" She asked herself glancing around. She noticed the bars in front of her and the ones on the other side. 

"Oh, great, the brig." She said to herself sarcastically. "Athena, why do the hive even have a prison in the first place? Especially considering when they could have just fed us to the chronovores."

"Truth is, I don't know. I would think that they would torture us then render us down to make weapons and armor from our own." Her ghost replied.

"Oh fantastic, I always wanted to be a sword."

She looked around in the cell hoping to find a sort of indication as to where she was in relation to the other cells. Then she noticed something in the cell with her. It was another guardian, somehow asleep in spite of her yelling to herself. Cameron started to wonder, could it be? Was it possible that Vel had survived all these years in a prison cell? 

"Well, only one way to find out." Cameron thought to herself. "Hey!" She yelled at the guardian next to her. 

The other guardian woke up slowly and looked over to her left. "Well, I wasn't expecting a visitor." The guardian replied it was a female's voice. She was a titan much like Vel, even wearing a similar set of armor from when she had disappeared. It was much smoother than Camerons an older, less protective model. The guardian even had a similar build, muscular but not abnormally so. It was time that Cameron finally asked. 

"What's your name?" She asked hopefully.

"Vel, Vel Tarlowe." She replied quietly.

"VEL YOU'RE ALIVE!" Cameron exclaimed happily.

"Well yeah, it's been a long time, I thought the tower forgot about me." 

"Well I didn't, after all, I'm your best friend." 

"Wait, Cameron?" 

"You betcha starborn!" Starborn was a nickname that Cameron sometimes used when she would talk to Vel. She called her starborn because she was originally a reef born awoken until she was unfortunately banished. Upon arriving toward earth, the fallen shot down her ship and she died in the crash. Vel was then brought back by a ghost and became a guardian of the city. 

"I can't believe it! What are the odds?" Vel replied.

"How the heck are you still alive?"

"Well, I have literally been here for about, what, forty years? They locked me up and basically forgot about me."

"How did the loneliness not drive you insane?"

"That's because I wasn't alone. I have Neo to talk to." She said having the black ghost with a green eye fly out for a moment. 

"Well, I'm glad you're alive. I just have to think of a way that we can get out of here." Cameron said to her. 

 "I'm not sure how we can if there were a way I would have found it by now."

"We're too deep to transmat also," Cameron remarked. The pair were silent for a little bit just taking in their surroundings again, hoping to find some method of escape. 

"So how did you spend those forty years?" Vel asked her hopefully. 

"Well, I was feeling pretty low for a while. I didn't really make any new friends in the time that you and Saint were gone. I just couldn't do it. I felt empty. That is until three months ago."

"What happened three months ago?"

"Well, I met my boyfriend, James." 

"Oooooh, a boyfriend. Tell me, what's he like?"

"Well, he's strong, brave, modest and humble, and a very smart and kind person." 

"Wow, sounds like he's a great guy to be around."

"He is Vel. He's trapped down here with us somewhere, oh god, he must be so worried."

"I'm sure he's okay Cam." She replied to her hoping to ease her worries. "So how did you two meet each other?" 

"Well, we met three months ago I was just getting back from a patrol mission in Chicago. He was reading the plaque before heading into the hall of guardians, I told him about it, showed him the ropes, then I went on another mission. I was captured on that mission by the house of devils, and they planned on sacrificing me to their prime servitor. That is until James, and my hunter friend Aaron showed up and killed the Archon who was going to commit the act."

"Wow, that's one heck of a story Cameron."

"It gets better. So Aaron and I were sent to the moon to deal with a hive invasion, and we got put into a pit with a giant spider thing called a chronovore. Aaron and I were nearly killed, but that is until James showed up. Eventually, our fireteam of four was sent to take out a gatelord to solve another problem. That was when I learned how James felt about me."

"How did he show it?"

"He sent a beam of pure void energy into the chest of a gatelord."

"Wow. That sounds amazing."

"I brushed it off originally after that until he cemented how much he cared about everyone. It was when he went into the heart of the Black Garden alone; he said that he didn't want anyone dying here but himself. That was honestly when I fell in love with him." 

"So he was just a friend before then?" 

"Yeah, but what if I told you that we knew each other before we both became guardians?"

"What? Get outta here."

"I'm serious. We were a part of a special unit of Earths military during the Golden Age called the MDU." 

"Did you two like each other then?"

"Well, he told me we did, but we had no idea as to how we wanted to go about it."

"Really? Wow, that is coincidence to the third power."

"He had memories from that time that a new buddy of ours helped him find. Well, I'm having a hard time calling him buddy after what he did to Sidriks." 

"Sidriks?"

"Yeah, he is sooo cool Vel. He's a former fallen captain turned guardian."

"What?! I didn't even think that was possible." 

"So did I, especially after Saint died."

"Well, what did your 'friend' do?" She asked accentuating the friend.

"He basically taunted him into yelling at him, calling him names I think or something like that. He also landed on the back of his head when the two of them landed on the surface."

"Some friend," Vel remarked. 

"Yeah, I don't know what his problem is, Sidriks is a nice guy when you get to know him. His abilities Vel? There unlike anything I've ever seen before. He can turn himself into a shadow and climb walls, and he can create a solar ax and swing it around destroying everything in his way." 

"Man I missed a lot." 

"I'm sure we'll be able to catch up a bit more once we take Crota out for good."

"So that's why you're here?" 

"Yeah, we got sent on a mission after we killed all of his commanders. Now we're after the big bad himself."

"If you wouldn't mind I'd like to tag along; I've been waiting for a chance to take that guy down for years." 

"Not at all, we'd just have to get out of here first. Too bad we aren't solar light users, we would have been able to melt these clean off." Cameron remarked.

The pair grew quiet again until they heard footsteps echoing down the long empty corridor, they were loud, quick. Like someone urgently running. "Come on Sidriks they have to be in one of these cells." They heard a voice say. 

"WE'RE IN HERE!" Cameron yelled. 

The pair of guardians eventually located the cell with the two titans inside. Sidriks took his swords and sliced off the lock on the cell. The pair then opened the screechy chitin door to enter the cell. Sidriks with a fwoosh activated his ax and cut the two down from their shackles. 

"Thanks, Sidriks," Cameron said to her Captain friend.

"You're welcome Cameron." He replied lending her a hand helping her get up. 

"We're glad you're okay," Charon added. Once Cameron was on her feet she delivered an arc charged fist into Charon's abdomen. The resulting impact sent him reeling back into the bars of the cell with a clang. Charon felt absolutely winded. 

"What was that for?" He huffed.

"For getting us into this mess in the first place. But then again if you didn't I wouldn't have found Vel. I don't know what to feel right now."

"Well, I suppose I deserved that," Charon said getting up off the ground. 

"Have you two seen the others?" Cameron asked retrieving her weapons.

"No, we started looking only fifteen minutes ago," Sidriks replied. 

"Well we'd better get moving," Cameron remarked handing Vel a spare assault rifle.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

James finally awoke to see that he was being held captive in a large cell. The bars were close together, and a massive bridge heading out over a pit signaled to him where he was. "Maximum security, I should be honored," James remarked to himself. He started flailing about in an attempt to get himself free then stopped after about twelve minutes when he realized how pointless it was. "James, you're a warlock for god's sake. Think your way out of this." He thought to himself. James started taking in his surroundings to get a better idea as to what his situation was. 

There were two guards on the top of some spires that were a distance away. They were acolytes based on their stature, but that's where the similarities end. They had armor that was looked sharp on both their shoulders, chest, and joints. Their helmets, in particular, were odd. They were unlike any that James had previously seen. Their helmets were elongated at the front looking a lot like a snout than a front to a helmet. The helmets had red eyes going through as opposed to the usual green hue that hive warriors had. The weapons that they held looked like a hive shredder as a base, but they had much longer barrels as opposed to the typical short ones that the hive usually used. 

"Snipers?" James thought to himself.

"By the looks of it, you'd be right. I don't recall seeing anything like them in our previous adventures." 

"Maybe they're a special ops unit. Used only when they're absolutely necessary." 

"It's possible; we'd have to add this to your field notes when we get the chance."

"Grimoire is getting kind of full of information Ghost; perhaps we need another book."

Grimoire was the name that James had given his research notebook. It's a small, black, leather-bound book that he always kept with him in one of his belt pockets. It contained everything that he had seen that was of note to him. From the Dregs of the fallen houses to his personal experiences of the collapse and the golden age. He would stay up late from time to time writing in that small book. Cameron would look through his notes from time to time before she would head out. She would ask him for a copy of them, but he said that it would take a while before it would be finished. She would groan and reply, "That book is the one that never ends James."

James's concern then grew. "We need to get out of here. The others could be in trouble." 

"Well, start thinking." 

James then remembered when they were fighting their way to get to Omnigul, a captain's sword melted upon contact with his armor. "Ghost, can you check the melting point of these shackles?" He asked his ghost telepathically. 

"Melting point?" 

"Yes, can you check the exact temperature that I need to increase to in order to melt them?"

"I'll see what I can do." After a few moments Ghost displayed a small number on the corner of his hud. 

"Fourteen hundred degrees Celsius. That's about the same as steel." James thought to himself. "Okay here goes nothing."

James began to glow an orange hoping that those acolytes didn't see him. He continued to activate radiance and increase the temperature around his body. Then a massive purple bolt impacted the cell bars close to him. "Well, I guess that answers one question." James thought to himself. He continued increasing the heat around himself in order to break free. All the while the acolytes above him kept shooting. Several bolts impacted his body in his chest and joints. 

The shackles began to glow due to the increasing heat from the warlock. "You're almost there James, just a bit more!" Ghost said encouraging him.

"Almost there UAGH!" He yelled out in pain from another round impacting him. 

"Okay, Okay. NOW!" Ghost yelled.

James then pulled at the shackles, and they began to creak and crack with the full force his robotic body could muster. The shackles then sprang off from his hands with them still hanging from the ceiling from the chains. James then dove to the floor and pried off the ones on his feet to get back up. James then took it another step forward and activated his radiance and his twin arm swords. With just a few swift strikes he cut down the bars ahead of him kicking them off into the abyss below. 

"Great now we have to get across." Ghost said to him. 

"Not a problem," James replied blinking across to the other side. "Now let's go find the others."