The party had long since concluded, Emily, Will, and David were all up stairs playing one of their favorite video games. While the two guys were typically better at fighting in a more physical sense, Emily always managed to beat them in video games. Her fingers frantically moved across the controller as the group continued to beat up each other using the characters on screen with Emily executing a combo on Will knocking him off the stage; causing her brother to groan and drop his controller in frustration. Then it was down to her and David. 

Both concentrated on the screen intently, their eyes locked onto their characters as they moved about frantically. David looked at Emily for a second then partially triggered his Invictus form in his hands causing them to move incredibly fast. Emily was unphased by her brother's sneaky move, Will did that to her all the time when they would play together at home. Emily moved her hands over to the grab button on the controller and snatched David's character before throwing him backward off the stage, causing her to win the game. "YES!" Emily shouted. "Even when you cheat you can't beat me!" She laughed happily. 

"Why is it that I lose all the time?" Will questioned sounding frustrated. 

"That's because, Will, you don't bother to look at the combo lists you just mash buttons." 

"That worked all the time when I was younger." 

"Yeah, cause I let you win my dude." 

"Guys, guys, relax," David ordered them. The group then heard a knock on the door behind them with the three looking at each other then back to the door. David got up then opened the door to see Kronah standing there. 

"Aunt K! Hi!" David said to her. 

"Afternoon guys, now I have some news for all of you, the Vanguard have given you a new assignment. I'm going to be your supervisor." Kronah told them forthrightly. Will and Emily perked up at that idea and sprinted over to the door with their ghosts giving them their armor and body gloves. 

"What is it!?" The pair of twins asked her excitedly. 

"There was a Cabal distress signal found on Phobos, one of Mars' moons that's tidally locked in the planets orbit," Kronah replied. "Since the Vanguard doesn't want you getting killed out there, they're sending me to look after you. So, get to my ship in a few minutes, and we'll head out." She said walking out of the room and back down the stairs. Will and Emily sprinted down the stairs while David was pondering in his room still. Something about this didn't feel right. Unlike most people his age, he would read and learn about the language of the races that share the Sol System. 

He'd read over Cabal texts and transmissions before, getting an understanding of their language, albeit a basic one. If it was one thing that he understood about this enemy, it was that they had no words for retreat, but he'd done his research deeper than nearly everyone else besides Ikora and his father. They not only had no word for retreat, but they also had no synonyms for the word either. Evacuate, fall back, nothing. He looked out the window to see the rain pitter patter on the glass and track down to the window sill. Geneva floated out next to him.

"You okay?" She asked him as he continued glaring out the window. 

"I don't know....something seems off about this G....can you get Caesar loaded up and on my ship?" He ordered her passive aggressively. 

"Uh, yeah, why?" She questioned floating to cock her shell slightly. 

"I don't like this. Not one bit. The Cabal have no word for retreat, nothing even falling under that definition, so why, or better yet how did they make a distress call? If we get into a situation that not even my powers can stand up to them, then I want to ensure the cavalry can arrive before we get hammered." David replied speaking the most officially and tactically that he could. He then headed downstairs toward the door, that was when he noticed his sister pull Emily to the side. "Probably going to talk about her attitude again no doubt." He thought as he pulled up his helmet and walked out into the hallway. 

Emily groaned loudly when Nova pulled her off to the side again. "Yes, Mom?" She sighed rolling her eyes underneath her helmet. 

"Listen, I wanted to talk to you about your attitude Em." 

"Here we go again." Emily thought to herself. Ever since she was able to see the world, she'd gotten incredibly overconfident with her abilities. She was taking more risks than necessary, and her Mom told her that before. Emily wasn't too fond of listening to what her Mom said, sure she taught her how to see, but she was upset that she didn't do it earlier. 

"When you go out there today I want you to be careful alright?" Nova ordered with her glowing purple eyes meeting Emily's through the visor. 

"Okay Mom," Emily replied haphazardly before heading to the door throwing it open. "I love you Ma!" She shouted then slamming the door behind her. She made sure that the door was shut before sprinting through the rain towards the hangar. The rain began to collect around her feet and get absorbed into the soles of her shoes, the rain began to fall in larger quantities, the vendors went inside until the storm passed. She felt a childish smile creep across her face as she splashed around in the puddles on the way to the hangar. 

In the hangar, the three others were waiting over by Kronah's ship. David was checking the ammo on his pulse rifle, making sure that every bullet appeared on the gun's ammo counter. Will was doing a similar thing with his gun, making sure that every weapon was loaded correctly. Kronah flagged Emily over to them as she sprinted towards them. 

"So, are we ready to go?" She asked them eagerly. 

David looked up to her and put his gun's clip into the stock of the weapon locking it in place. "Yeah, I'm all set. What about you Will?" He glanced over at his brother. Will put a rocket into his launcher tweaking the sight on it. After twisting the back of the launcher and hearing it click he raised his thumb and looked at David. "We're all good to go." He told her again. 

Emily nodded and sprinted up into the ship. 

"Grandma, she is not flying the ship," Will said to her sternly. 

"William, that's no way to talk to your Grandmother," Kronah joked. "But yes, she isn't flying the ship."  

David listened and heard a groan from the inside of the ship and snickered to himself as he walked in and took a seat behind the pilot's seat. While the twins and his Grandma all took a place on the ship, he looked out the window. "Why would the Cabal send a distress call?" He thought again as the engines started to rumble. The thrusters boomed to life as the jumpship took off into the rainy skies, erupting out of the clouds like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean with the water from the rain falling off as soon as it landed. 

"Guys?" David asked them. 

"What is it, David?" Kronah asked as she switched on the jumpdrive controls typing in the coordinates of the signal they needed to get to. 

"We may be walking into a trap," He said didactyl and forthright. The group looked at him intently except for Kronah as she plugged the coordinates from the signal in then pressed the jump button. "The Cabal have no word for retreat or any words falling under that definition, we need to be ready for anything. This isn't a simple investigation anymore." 

"Oh relax David," Emily replied turning to face the front kicking her feet above the dashboard. "What's the worst thing that could happen? Remember when we tracked that Valus Ta'aruc guy? The strongest thing they threw at us was a tank, and we turned it into spare parts in, what? Five minutes? And you've got your Super Saiyan thingy, we'll be fine." She said shutting her eyes as the ship entered the jump tunnel. 

David looked out toward the center of the windshield as the jump disengaged. 

"Alright boys and girls, welcome to Phobos!" Kronah shouted over the engines. The triad of children all looked out the window at the mishappen, brownish-red rock ahead of them. Will glared intently at the rock before looking at his brother. 

"Hey, David?"

David looked over in Will's direction to acknowledge him. "Yeah?" 

"What did they use Phobos for? You know, during the Golden Age?" 

David reflected for a moment, putting his hand on his chin. Then letting it go once that he remembered from one of his books. "Well, if what the records say is anything to go on, they used the moons of Mars for bomb testing." 

Will raised an eyebrow at this comment. "Bomb testing? What bombs? I thought the Golden Age was a peaceful time." 

"It was, only after decades of war with other nations, and then wars with the numerous terror cells. It was not a bloodless peace as much as many of us would like to believe." He responded coldly almost somberly as the ship dropped them off on the surface. The group made sure their helmets were on as they pulled out their primary weapons. David looked around at the scenery as they walked. The land was dark and dead as they walked toward their destination. David could now say for a fact that this place was used for bomb or missile testing. The built in Geiger counter in his helmet was setting off all sorts of alarms. There was a ton of radiation around them, with only their armor to protect them from getting radiation sickness. It didn't hit the top of it, but it was somewhere in the middle. 

"Rads are off the scale," David remarked to the others who had older models that lacked the tech that his did. 

"Hope you brought your Rad Away David," Emily chuckled as they kept walking. The group then heard a large engine rumbling up on their left and drew their weapons in its direction. A Cabal Harvester gunship rose up from the cliff side shining a light on the guardians for a moment, with the engines sending small pebbles off to the side before the ship took off. The group looked around for a moment at each other before taking a look up in the distance as the sky was full of Harvesters and Vexillums taking off for the surface of Mars. 

"That doesn't look good." Will murmurred as they approached a Cabal base ahead of them. The base was surrounded by flames and burning wreckages of Cabal vehicles. The ground covered in blue blood and the massive corpses of Cabal soldiers all of them positioned as if they were trying to escape. "From what?" David thought as he knelt down to the ground and placed his hand on the corpse of one of the legionnaires. "Hey Will, come here," David called to his brother. 

Will ran over to him from the other two. "What's up?" 

"I need your help to turn him over," David ordered him as he started to turn him over. Will went to the side with David and placed the corpse on its back. David looked at it scrutinizingly, trying to find the cause of death, however, nothing appeared to be wrong with it. No indents in the helmet to indicate blunt force trauma. No gun shot wounds. 

Nothing 

David stood up and looked at Will. "Let's keep moving, but hold fast to your gun." He said coldly to William. He turned around with his head cocked slightly to the side. 

"Why are you so worried? We'll be okay." 

"I don't know Will, I wasn't expecting this," David replied as the group hooked back up with the other two people who were with them. An explosion erupted from the depths of the facility, lighting the dark atmosphere of the moon for a brief moment in a glow of orange. David looked at them as Emily sprinted toward the door. She ran inside, and the group quickly followed behind. 

Emily saw this as something special and new. This investigation excited her. The facility was slightly dark, with sparks flying out of the walls and with flames close to them. Emily looked ahead to see an orb floating nearby. She cocked her head to the side as the ball danced about fluidly in the air. It was like a jellyfish, with a single large tendril on the end of it. Emily walked towards the orb slowly, and steadily. Then the blue object blinked away to the right of the hallway. She looked back, hearing her brother's and Grandmother calling her to come back. She sprinted onward, to see the object again.