Sorry for not posting for so long lol. ___________________________________ As the Guardian picked his way through the bones and chitin chunks if the Hive he had killed, Ghost floated a ways in front, illuminating the caverns for the blood-stained silhouette. Something scrambled away from Ghost, just withing the gloom. Without deviation from his course, the Guardian planted a bullet in its head. Ghost continued on, noting strange cracks in the floor below him. Ghost flashed once, twice, then thrice, to indicate their goal was near. All of a sudden, Ghost felt Light drawn through him by the gods layer. He crouched, then blasted a hole through the floor with a solid, Arc-infused punch. Dropping down, they found their goal, a large hive portal, fueled by a Tomb Husk, now drained of soulfire. The Guardian scooped some organic matter off of himself, then liquefied it to use as a paint on his fingers. Tracing glyphs on the ground, in a pattern that Eris had taught him, he energised it with fragment of a Hive sword that he had used earlier. Glowing bright green, the glyph began to whisper. At first it was faint, then it progressed to a scream, drowning out Ghost's thoughts in the cacophony. Holes began to appear in the walls, and Thrall dragged themselves out in droves, a dozen or more at a time. When the slaughter was over, both Ghost and Guardian, servant and master, were covered head to toe in gore. A single, famished Worm crawled out of the remnants of a Knight, and was consumed in a cleansing blaze, along with the rest of the Hive. Now, the Tomb Husk shined, and the portal opened. Zavala sat at his desk, going through reports of the latest attack. He groaned, his back protesting for too long spent hunched, reading. Why had these come to him? Shaxx was supposed to be handling these for today. When he saw why, a moment if panic washed over him, but he forced it down, as he had been trained to do so long ago. Patrolling the Iraqi wastes had almost made him wish for a Siberian Winter. This report was bad. Very, very bad. Midtown was gone, all the civilians missing or dead, and the Drifter and Eris were unaccounted for. On top of that, the Guardian had just... Disappeared. He sent the report to Ikora, along with a request for her Hidden to locate anyone they could. He got up, muscles crying in complaint after disuse, and walked over to his window. Not 2 years ago, he'd been able to see the Traveller from here. Now they faced the annihilation of reality itself, and their best weapon against the Witness was missing. Charging out of the portal mere seconds after it was opened, 2 high ranking Knights, and an entourage of Thrall and Wizards came out, searching for the one who had summoned them. They never saw their slayer. He descended upon them clad in the burning Light of the Sun itself, armed with nothing, but everything. When they gazed upon him, they saw only Radiance, before their brains, small though they were, melted, and the blades of their swords evaporated before they even came close to that figure. When the last of them fell, the portal winked out, moments before they could pass through. The Guardian yelled, shattering the caves in his rage. Lime and chalk quietly removed themselves from this plan when he approached, and pummeled the rocks with his fists, with a hammer, or with Nova Bombs. It didn't matter. He had failed. He couldn't save Eris, or those people, and he couldn't even get revenge for her. Then those whispers, ever in the back of his mind, grew louder. He could hear them calling to him, as if they beckoned him somewhere. The trek to the Pyramid was long, and the footing unsteady, but eventually he made his way inside. There, in the chamber where he had discovered that artifact so long ago. Where Eris had first touched Stasis. That statue whispered to him, telling him, commanding him, to touch it. If only Ghost could warn him. The Light makes you forget. But the Darkness makes you remember. Many scholars debated on the meaning of this. Some suggested that this was because the Gardener, though they called it Traveller, needed willing soldiers to fight for it. Why have soldiers with free will when you can take their personalities? Others said that this was false. Those said that the Darkness did not grant true, objective remembrance. It gave a twisted, scrutinised version of events, plausible enough to be true, but lies all the same. Young Wolf knew better. The Gardener made you forget, because it knows the pain of memory. Of loss, and sorrow, and anger and strife. It made you forget, because it didn't want you to suffer. To truly suffer. The Darkness makes you remember so you can suffer, so that you can put an end to suffering. And everything else too, but that didn't matter to it. But, sometimes, the Gardener makes you suffer too. But not to convince you to end everything. To remind you that you, and everyone else around you, can be good. That you should want to be good,and make things better. That way, suffering is decreased. For the Guardian, remembrance was nothing but pain. For the first few centuries of his life, the Guardian had used the Gardener's power to terraform planets, and make them into lush gardens. Sometimes these gardens failed, but he could regrow them. But the others of his race had murdered each other, and all had united into one horrific being. The Witness. He had lost his best friend the day the Witness was forged. Maybe he had lost him even before then, when he started to sympathise with those heretics. For the next few billion years, he fitted from civilisation. He had lost millions of friends, lovers and children. He had seen systems wiped out in an instant, trillions of people murdered in civil war, over religion, or for some dispute over cheese. He had seen firsthand the evils of society. But the good years had stayed with him. Those had kept him going for so long. With those memories, he had found solace, sanctuary. When he had finally died, during the Collapse, his mind had been wiped. One blessed mercy from the Gardener. He had finally been free from all the tragedy. Or so he had thought. The whispers had been in his mind since the Witness was created. A clarion call in his mind to go 'home'. A few times, that call had driven him to using the Darkness. In those times, he had been a warlord of terrible power. He had mastered the Dark. But those memories reminded him of what he should be doing, and eventually he would go back to his gardening. Sometimes he'd start another family, only to lose them again. Without those memories to strengthen him, that whisper has become far louder than any before. Those good memories the Guardian had were riddled with holes of cynicism and paranoia, offering no aid. The Guardian woke up. He was still in the chamber, and had been out only a few minutes. He could not see for the army of spectral red figures surrounding him. Ikora walked down the corridors of the Tower, careful to keep her walking speed consistent and not to appear hasty. She had received a transmission that the Guardian had requested transmat to his room, and needed to know why he'd been gone so long, along with what happened at Midtown. She rounded a corner, finding his quarters, and she rapped on the door. After a delay of a few seconds with no answer, she went in a way, expecting him to be on an armchair, looking sullen. Instead, she found him crying in the corner, surrounded by Nightmares yelling abuse at him.