A/N: Enjoy. Leave a review!!!! Throw some stones!
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[Spider's Base]
Spider shuddered.
A sound echoed faintly from the halls behind his chamber.
Footsteps.
Measured. Soft. Too soft to be his guards. He turned aghast. "What—"
A scream cut through the air. Then another. Gunfire erupted. Brief. Too brief. He rose as four figures flickered into the chamber.
His guards were down. They hadn't even drawn their guns.
Spider's claw slid toward a hidden trigger beside his throne.
But then—
A whisper came from behind him and the shadows twisted.
"Don't."
Feeling the cold edge of a blade on his neck, he froze. Spider's mandibles twitched.
The presence behind him was close. He didn't dare turn.
It was too late.
Spider's eyes darted, carefully examining each and everyone present, trying to recognize the them. But nothing came to mind. To him, these four figures were simply unknown people.
"So? What'll it be? Glimmer? Resources? What is it that you want." He grumbled.
Then, a fifth human approached him. The one before him was clad in black—light armor, scarred plating, no markings. He walked with a phantom's gait, unarmed and unhurried.
Spider's eyes flicked between the one ahead… and the blade behind.
He swallowed dryly. "We can always talk."
The man didn't flinch. Didn't nod.
Behind him, the blade stayed where it was. Close. Absolute.
Then the voice came again. Calm. Inevitable.
"We will." He paused, "but if the terms don't please us…"
The blade from behind pressed in, just enough to let him feel it cut. A drop of ether ran down Spider's cheek.
"Well...I'm sure you understand."
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[The Last City – Vanguard Hall]
The lights in the hall were dim. A soft hum of arc-energy generators echoed faintly beneath the floor. The walls of the war room were draped in hundreds of projection maps—flickering overlays of Earth's surface, lunar regions, and the scattered remains of human outposts across the system. Some blinked red. Some had gone dark altogether.
Zavala stood at the head of the strategy table, his arms locked behind his back, jaw clenched tight. The silence between the Vanguard was not one of peace—but the kind forged under the pressure of attrition.
"We're losing ground," Ikorra said, voice crisp, yet edged with weariness. "The Cosmodrome's fallen quiet. No patrols, no scouting fireteams. Nightstalkers say the Fallen move freely now."
She paused, "If we don't stop them soon, they'll scrap most of the Cosmodrome. The tech buried in the desert isn't something we can just hand over. We can't risk a six fronts again."
Cayde exhaled sharply and leaned against the console. "Hell of a twist."
He stood in silence and tapped his holster, "Used to be we fought to push them back. Now we fight just to keep what's ours from being picked clean."
"The squads don't look too good either. Too many members lost. Not enough scouts to cover ground." Cayde spoke with a low voice, "We can't fight this losing battle."
Zavala didn't look at him. "We're not fighting," he said bitterly. "We're reacting. And it's killing us."
Ikorra nodded. "And the Vex… they've shifted formations. Orbiting Earth. Coordinated. Calculated. But still no pattern we can identify. Not yet."
She brought up a wireframe of Nessus. Entire regions blinked out—static-laced.
"No contact for weeks. No reports. Fireteams sent in haven't returned."
"And Mars?" Zavala asked.
"Ashfields are stirring," Ikora answered. "Solar anomalies. Cabal signals, faint but repeating. Might be a false lead—might be a precursor."
"Either way," Zavala muttered, "we don't have the manpower to push back the Cabal legions. We have to spread our forces, pick our battles there on the frontier."
Cayde slammed his knife into the table, blade biting the metal.
"There's nothing to pick big blue. We're down thousands maybe more. Greenhorns don't know the difference between Hive and Vex. What good is defending Mars if Earth falls? What good is guarding stars we can't reach? The system is falling apart!"
"People are losing faith", Cayde scoffed, "Heck, at this point I am too."
Zavala turned to him, eyes cold and a leaden voice. "So we abandon the others?"
Cayde's eyes met his, and he hesitated. "I don't know."
The silence that followed wasn't passive—it was hollow. Heavy. Like a breath held just before collapse.
Ikorra lowered her gaze. "We've left too many behind already. Mercury. Titan. Io. We've spent every last light trying to reclaim the stars. Maybe it's time we turned inward."
Zavala sighed, "It took us centuries to reach the stars. Thousands of guardians gave it their all. Are we just supposed to throw it all away?"
"No. We're not abandoning them. But we need to choose survival. Earth first. It always starts with Earth"
This time, another silence took over the room. It felt short, like a quick breath.
Then they, all felt it.
A presence stirred in the room.
It came not as sound, but as stillness—an ancient quiet that parted their storm of thoughts like a blade through fog. A sense of ease spread washed over them.
The Speaker stepped forward from the shadows near the far window, and looked towards the horizon, where the Traveler loomed above them like a moon locked in eternal watch.
His white robes shimmered with the faintest glint of Light, but in his eyes was something strange. Distant. New.
"You all speak of dwindling numbers," he said, softly, "It's true. Now we are less in numbers."
Three pairs of eyes turned toward him.
"You measure victory by boots on the ground. Fireteams. Weapons. Territories. And yet…"
He paused, lifting his gaze slowly from the Traveler and turning to them. He chuckled softly.
"…Do you not feel it?"
Cayde furrowed his brow. "Feel what, exactly?"
The Speaker nodded, then exhaled—slow, deliberate. As though he were breathing in something only he could sense. As though he was breathing in a new life.
"There is movement within the Traveler. A tremor beneath its song. It hums again, like it did before the first resurrection. Like it did when the Light chose its first champions."
Zavala stood, voice quivering, "You mean? New guardians."
"No. Not this time, this time its more than that," the Speaker replied. "I can see it… a great potential. I can see Legends."
Ikorra's lips pressed into a line, she hesitantly asked, "Is it a new generation?"
The Speaker nodded, slowly. "They will not be forged in Golden Age memory or the City's glory—but in fire and war. They will not inherit peace, but a mission."
He stopped and turned to them, the room now utterly silent. Even the arc-hum of the machinery seemed to still.
"They will rise not for territory, or fame. But because they must. Because the dark will not end until it is burned out."
Cayde's smirk, usually ready to cut through tension, was absent. He stared down at the floor, then up at the Speaker.
"And if they fail?" he asked, quieter than usual. "What then?"
The Speaker tilted his head toward the Traveler. He lingered in the silence, as though listening for something just beneath the hum. The light cast across his mask flickered like starlight on still water.
"Then perhaps," he whispered, "we end with them."
The words hit like a hammer blow. Final. Unflinching.
Zavala said nothing, fists clenched at his sides. The years weighed heavily upon him—fights he could no longer lead, friends buried, victories soured.
"The last generation of Guardians," she said. "Is it finally coming?"
No one answered.
Not Cayde, whose fingers rested nervously on the hilt of his blade.
Not Zavala, whose silence now seemed carved from stone.
Even the Speaker closed his mouth, the air around him stilling.
They all gazed upward.
Each of them stared up toward the massive, floating sphere in the sky. Above them, the Traveler pulsed. Faint. Rhythmic. Alive.
As it glowed, hope bloomed in their hearts, like a single ember in a sea of ash.
And beside the Traveler, its shadow lingered.
Above them, the Traveler loomed in the dusk sky. Its body scarred, but whole. Its light dim, but pulsing.
A quiet thrum. A heartbeat. Alive.
And in that moment, something stirred within them—a flicker.
A single ember caught in a sea of ash.
Hope.
And yet—beside the Traveler, its shadow stretched long and thin. As if something waited behind the light.
"Maybe so," the Speaker murmured. His voice drifted like a forgotten verse. His eyes stayed fixed on the shadows reflected by the Traveler's light.
A memory shimmered—brief, bright, and gone.
Then he turned to face the Vanguard.
"Maybe," he said, more certain now, "it's already here."
The Vanguard stiffened.
Something passed between them. A silent reckoning. A weight not just of duty—but of destiny.
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