Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a weekend like every other, the sun shined through his hostel window The Last City was safe, the world was quiet. His world was quiet. It had never been this quiet. His ghost always had some news to wake him with, some perilous story to share of his fireteam, some call to arms that he could throw himself into, some noise that kept the ringing in his ears quiet.

It was all he heard anymore. The ringing.

The sun shined through his hostel window, his massive defense of pillows could not shield the beaming sunlight from his eyes. The light always found a way, something he reminded himself right about this time every day. The rise from his slumber polluted the silence of the room, curing the deafening weight of its emptiness. Shuffling toward the window to slide it open, the sounds and smells of the market on the street below filled his room with an energy he once loathed.

"And the meek shall inherit the Earth," he sardonically recanted the words of an Iron Lord he met at the tail end of the dark age.

The laughter of merchants communing with daily customers, the dedicated clicking of Eliksni refugees toiling with their ether tanks, the honorably impressive footfalls of the Cabal patrols every hour on the hour, the Last City held life and an ever defiant determination to continue fighting for it. He took in a breath deep enough to pull that life as deep within him as he could. Day by day he felt that elation slip further and further from him, yet he drew breath still in defiance, much like the Last City itself seemed to.

Letting go of that breath, he turned inward to the whirlwind of a mess his hostel had become. Robes and boots leaking out of his closet and onto the unused half of his bed, paperwork and half completed research littering any and all available table space, his battle worn Black Talon loosely leaning by the door. Through the overwhelming clutter the sunlight gleamed off a forgotten memento hiding in the corner. He had earned many mementos across the sol system, be it honorably from The Vanguard and the Iron Lords, or notoriously from the Drifter, but this keepsake he tried to hide in plain sight was unlike anything he had ever seen. No matter what he tried, he could not forget it. He could not rid himself of it, any research on it proved inconclusive, and yet it always found a way to invade his mind every time he had finally thought it forgotten.

Lost in the beautiful refractions the light produced through the keepsake, the ruminations of the Warlock were disrupted by the conversation between two Guardians passing through the Market District below his window.

"Where the hell is Xur? I haven't seen them in months."

"Didn't you hear? They have a permanent "stall" set up along the wall near the tower."

"Bogus, I searched every nook and cranny when I first heard that and I didn't find a single strange coin."

"Its right by that Ramen shop near the New Monarchy plaza." The guardian added, "Maybe they just didn't want you to find them. Doubt you missed much, I try to avoid dealing with them if I can help it; Gives me the heebee-geebeez."

As the voices of the Guardians trailed off about old expired Ramen coupons, the Warlock gathered his thoughts. Pulling his attention from the void of sleeplessness, he surmised there may be one with answers, and much closer than he anticipated. He raised his right hand to summon his ghost. The small floating construct materialized entirely of the Traveler's light above his hand, seeming to tip the tiny cowboy hat it wore.

"Phoenix," the ghost chirped in anticipation.

"Showtime," the Warlock retorted, the fry of his just risen voice foiling the exuberance of his companion. "We're going to the tower today." Phoenix admitted to the excited approval of Showtime, who proceeded to bounce around the room kicking up loose leaves of paper in the process. The ghost did not care what the cause was, it was just happy to get its Guardian out of his cell for a while. As the Warlock gathered himself and stuffed the keepsake into his favorite sleeveless overcoat courtesy of the work he did with Tex Mechanica, Showtime sheepishly interjected.

"Before we transmat, could you at least clear me a space to relax when we get back? My stand is buried under all your paperwork."

Chapter Text

Phoenix was nervous. He had no reason to be, he thought to himself. This was no warzone he was diving into feet first, this was no top secret excursion of major importance, the fate of the world was not at stake, but yet he found himself nervous.

He had worked with Xur before, countless times. He knew that their will was not their own. Walking up the stairs he admitted it was not Xur he was nervous about. The keepsake in his pocket felt like it grew heavier with every step closer to his destination. The immense weight was all he could think about as he climbed the height of The Tower, having to clutch it in his palm so it didn’t rip through his pocket and crack the stairs beneath him.

Turning past the Ramen Shop, Phoenix froze. Why was he so nervous?

Before he could take another step, Showtime emerged behind him.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Phoenix?” The ghost tried to maintain an air of lightness. The Warlock turned to look at the ghost, before withdrawing on a deep sigh and silently stepping forward. He used to have so much to say, the ghost thought to himself. He used to fill *me* with light, and I’m made entirely of it. For him to say nothing was not just out of character, it was cause for alarm, he had never heard the Warlock say nothing before. The silence was deafening to the ghost, immobilizing. Showtime watched Phoenix disappear around the corner, silently screaming for their Guardian to return, a plea that would have fallen on deaf ears regardless.

The air changed around Phoenix as he entered the room. The biting cold of the wintertime did not penetrate this corner of the Last City. The slowing anxiety the Warlock faced seemed to disappear as well. He felt himself Radiant, yet he could not hear the swirling solar light dancing in his ears as it did amidst the chaos of action. Emboldened nonetheless, the Warlock gathered himself and approached the merchant.

“Welcome, Agent Scythe” the voice rang from behind the cryptic visage. Phoenix turned and scanned the room for anyone other than the two of them, but they were alone. The name meant nothing to him, but it rang with an importance that he could not ignore.

“You have not come to trade,” the agent of the nine filled the void, “yet you are here with intent.”

“I…” Phoenix stuttered. “I have a curious item of unknown origin.” As he confided in the merchant his words emboldened him, even if they were not entirely his own. “The research I’ve conducted suggests it may not originate from this worldline, but has otherwise not gotten me a step closer to understanding it from the day I received it… however long ago that was.”

He forgot how long the keepsake was his. He knew there must have been a time it was not his, he knew it was a gift… he knew he held more knowledge about it, but the ageless vaults holding his wisdom seemed to withhold their secrets even from him.

Almost as if the thought was pulled directly from his thoughts, Xur spoke,

“It was a gift.”

“What do you know of it?” The Warlock nearly cutting them off.

“It is not my will to inform you.” The purveyor of strange goods confided.

“Then who can help me figure it out?” Phoenix rolled his eyes

“The path before you has no guide, but you are the one to walk it.”

As Phoenix drew breath to retort, his focus on the merchant loosened to recognize they were no longer in the Last City. The treasure hoard found at the edge of eternity glistened and shimmered around the two.

“There is a door in the woods,” Xur raved, “it is opening.”

Behind them a twisting bout of pink and purple essence rose and swirled together. A portal… but to where?

“Is this your way of telling me what this gift of mine is?” The Warlock attempted sarcasm.

“It is my fate to help you, this I know.” Xur notoriously didn’t understand sarcasm.

With no more banter to stop him, Phoenix pulled the keepsake from his pocket, realized it hummed a brilliant light that matched the portal in front of him.

The Warlock had accomplished all he ever wanted. He trained under the light, pushed past the limits and made his own fate time and time again, rose to the challenge and mastered the darkness when he thought the light betrayed him. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the best and brightest this world had to offer, facing the strongest foes that threatened reality itself.

There was no more to be done here. His fireteam was long gone, his arsenal unchallenged and his vault impenetrable, the fire that burned within him had begun fading and it was time to find himself somewhere new. Somewhere unlike any place he had ever seen.

He took a step toward the portal.

“Before you go,” Xur held out one last offer. “A gift from the nine, one you already earned.”

Phoenix turned to see the Forerunner he had previously worked to reforge offered to him once more. He accepted with the honor of a formal handshake. A solemn goodbye

“May it serve you well, Agent of Chaos.”

The portal consumed the Warlock

As the threads spooled around him and blinded his vision, Phoenix could feel himself changing. The same gloves he had worn from the day he was risen began to shift. The robes he let loosely gather around him rose tightly around him, hardening. His helmet’s display sputtered and shut down, the blinding brilliance cradling him shined through the seems that opened and closed as he and his armor was reforged. His display soon rebooted with an interface he had never seen in one moment, but always knew the next. The armor he wore was familiar, as familiar as the robes that were now becoming a distant memory.

The dancing lights faded, the swirling dust and particles were gone as if they never existed. He rose to his feet. He felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds but could cut through the air itself like a knife through hot butter. It was overwhelming, the power he felt intrinsically. As if the armor he wore was one in the same with his own body, he breathed in a sigh of this new, yet old, existence. The light was a distant memory, he could not summon his dawnblade no matter what will he exerted, but that did not seem to matter. There was no one around other than him. He stood on a beach by himself and scanned his surroundings.

He looked across the water from where he had awoken. An island stood against the waves crashing around it, a castle ruined atop the summit of this rocky island. Elegant and efficient, the beauty and power of the fort could be seen in the lifeless husk of the ramparts still fighting against the passage of time.

The imposing mountains in the distance gazed upon the ruins, the lands converging upward and around in a ring. A Halo ring, he found himself recalling the memories, replacing those that once dreamed of the Last City.

He knew this place. This battered, broken, forgotten place.

It was once home.

Chapter Text

Phoenix yearned to return to base, to throw himself across the water and through the gates and once again be back home. The battlements were decimated, the foundations cracked and separated, yet in its slumber this imposing castle stood tall and proud. The ghosts made no sound, yet the air filled Phoenix with a timeless reverence and honor.

He stood at the gate, eyes drawn to the large plaque still standing guard: Fort Osprey Val Tor.

The vehicle and hangar bays were either empty, caved in, or housed the rusted remains of the equipment that wasn’t worth transporting. There was no clutter, no half finished projects, no market stalls to fill his hostel. Soldiers lived here, as did he. Their efforts did not die here.

Climbing through the rubble and past the training areas, the single breathing soldier found his way through all the walkways a younger, brighter eyed man took for granted. The nostalgia gave way to regret and shame. The once pristine facilities falling to ruin brought a pang of guilt. It sat with him as he pushed onward.

Past the armory, the support beams of the inner tower had collapsed, leaving just enough space to crawl under and into the main chamber. Though it had been redecorated countless times, holding many purposes, he remembered all the configurations and the many purposes they all held. Picking himself up off the floor and brushing the dust off his chestplate, the soldier lifted his gaze to the other end of the chamber. The room was not silent like the rest of the base, nor was it empty.

Phoenix was not alone.

Before he could inspect the coiled mass sitting in the biggest seat in the room, before he could notice the rhythmic sobbing of the mass, he heard a hopeless whimper come from within it. He stepped closer, outlining the arms that tightly held onto two legs. Buried in the knees was a head. This was a person crying.

This was a child crying.

Phoenix approached the figure, slowly. Something was not right, but someone was in pain and he would do anything to help. Ignoring the sirens going off in his head, he reached out to comfort the child.

As he began to, a pair of bloodshot eyes emerged from behind the opened visor of an ODST helmet, looking up from the cradled knees and meeting Phoenix’s gaze. The eyes he searched into cut him deep like a ritual dagger dipped in a poison of endless grief. He recoiled, but remained true to his mission to help however he could.

“Hey Buddy,” Phoenix exhaled, calming his breathing to add more comfort to his voice. The child did not respond, but he had began to relax just enough to stop hyperventilating. Phoenix persisted.
“How long you been here?” He asked, reaching closer to place a hand on a knee he expected to be soaking wet. He began to notice how they were particularly dry, that other than the sounds and body language, there was no other evidence of a continuous uncontrolled fit of sobbing. He still reached closer to connect, cupping his hand in preparation.

His hand phased through the knee.

In an instant, the tumultuous depths of his knowledge from his previous life and what had flooded and overwritten so much in this current life, all smashed together like the warring tides of a typhoon. The answer that seemed most plausible rose to the top of the wavepool: the child must be an artificial construct.

Reaching the conclusion he turned his attention back outward, realizing the child had began to look at him again. Color had began to return to the youth’s eye, curiosity had began to spin the dusty cogs that had been inactive for a great many cycles.

The child took a deep breath, and met the unanswered question of the soldier.

“Much longer than you have, your eyes are still reflecting a different world."

Chapter Text

Phoenix was beyond confused.

He could remember the light, the final gift of the traveler. The could almost feel the singeing sensation of it dancing off the tips of his fingers if he thought with enough conviction. He could actively view a hacked up collection of his memories, From his first breath of air in the tail end of the Dark Age to the last words he shared in that life, periodically seared like exposed film with a new lifetime's worth of memories. He had only just begun to unpack and investigate this maddeningly exponential gain of experience and understandings, failures and successes, losses and regrets. In what knowledge he had already interfaced and applied, he could feel an imrmense amount of black ink and red tape shrouding it like a house of mirrors. The life of the man he now found himself in the boots of was one of many secrets, seemingly keeping them from himself and from the world alike.

What he did know about is that he knew nothing about the "child" in front of him. Nowhere in the banks of knowledge he had incurred, nor in the vault he had retained, was a call for the prompt of this construct. Phoenix knew that it reminded him of how he often saw Ghosts that hadn't yet found their Guardian, and from what he knew about the fort he found himself in, the appearance of an artificial intelligence was not entirely surprising. He could tell this was neither a fragment nor a whole ai, but it did seem similar in some capacity from what he began to observe.
The response he got from the construct hit him like a second, heavier sack of bricks, but beyond his bewilderment he felt a spark of hope. A faint, dim, distant kindling fire was sparked in the determination it gave him, but it burned on once more.

"Are you also from somewhere else?" Phoenix composed himself before asking.

"As far as I can tell, I don't know!" The construct lashed out, turning and returning to their fetal position.

Phoenix took a step forward, the foundation shifting and throwing him off balance. Dust was kicked up and several cracks spit out rubble, but an otherwise tense quiet infiltrated the space.

He turned back to the construct, who had rotated back around and locked onto Phoenix in preparation of direction. It couldn't feel the tension, but it could tell there was no more time for idle chat.

"Can you tell me what that was?" Phoenix quickly questioned.

"A UNSC Frigate just landed nearby." The construct responded.

"Is that a normal thing for them to do?"

"No." The child smiled from ear to ear. It made Phoenix double take in a light chuckle.

"Well then they're either here by coincidence, or I made more noise coming in than I thought."

"You did make a lot of noise."

"How much? Like what do you mean?" Phoenix stopped.

"Like.... it didn't shake the fort like they did... but I felt your touchdown like a blast of radiation and I can only imagine how far and fast it spread out."

"So who's coming after me?"

"I don't know, probably people that knew you before you left."

"But I just got here, I thought you could see that." Phoenix protested

"You were placed into a role already filled in this reality, a role that was voided for a time."

"How can you tell?"

"Because I have access to the databases hiding under this fort, and your name and badge are all over the files here." The construct admitted. "Even if you did try to hide it from me, I didn't even need to override the redacted files to figure that out."

"So there's black ink on all your files too?"

"You and the research team you worked with all did a damn good job of trying to hide what you did here." The construct instinctively judged the soldier.

"Right, so they're definitely after me. how much time do we have?"

"They have Falcons landing outside now."

"What."

"Yeah, they're almost here." The child smiled again.

Phoenix breathed, "And when were you gonna tell me that?"

"When they reached the armory."

Phoenix reviewed his miscaptured reel of memories, from his first breath to his last conversation. Before he lost sight of the Last City, he remembered a Mysterious Stranger and the last gift he received. He felt that gift attached to the plate mounted on his hip. He reached for his sidearm with the dexterity of countless rehearsals, pulling it to the ready and inspecting it in the same motion. The magnum he wielded was not one held in the armory of the fort, but one of the legendary defense platforms from the Pillar of Autumn. He pulled back the slide, letting a bullet lock into the chamber in preparation for its inevitable combustion.

"Well I'm glad I said something soo-"

"HEY THEY'VE REACHED THE ARMORY!"

"smartass," Phoenix muttered as he turned and prepared for a fight.

Chapter Text

There was one entrance to this dimly lit chamber, Phoenix surmised. Unless the cracks and dilapidation opened another pathway, he had the advantage at the heart of the complex with his mythic hand cannon focused squarely on the entranceway. He wouldn't hold this advantage for long, too many variables were out of his control and he knew whoever was coming would exploit any one of them if given the chance. The words of his favorite Exo titan rang in ear with a radiant swirl, it was time to push the advantage.

The rattle and scrape of metal shot out from under the column blocking the door, giving way to a bright flash and a concussive wave. Phoenix threw himself into cover behind the foreign ambassador seating, landing with a large thud and his ear drums still intact. Launching back upright into action, he took aim at the chokepoint swiftly behind filled with smoke. An organic motion caught his eye through the billowing, a call he responded to with a .50 caliber declaration that cut through the smoke like a hot dawnblade through butter. His aim was true, he concluded in the split second he saw the bullet pass through a metal leg plate, exploding through the soldier's leg entirely before knocking a noticeable chunk out of the wall behind them.

Assault fire rang out in response, painting his position with a hail of Assault Rifle and Battle Rifle fire, shots ricocheting off his shoulder plate and forcing him hack into cover. Phoenix focused on the sounds of several footfalls running toward the chamber, trying to get an accurate headcount of the enemy.

"there's over 12 of them, with more on the way." The construct chirped directly into Phoenix's helmet, "Your warning shot was apparently the last thing they expected."

A million questions he had. No time to ask any of them, it was time to get moving.

"How come you haven't used your augmentation yet?" The construct added, "there's a TON of records on your custom evade ability."

Nothing about that made sense to the Warlock in Phoenix, but the soldier in him snapped into action. Rising from his cover, he tensed his core and felt his armor respond in kind by boosting him forward evasively dodging across the entire chamber into cover by the downed column.

To the 3 soldiers in the room suppressing his last position, a flash of metallic green blinked to their left. A swift double tap decimated the ribcage of one and the helmet of another, spilling viscera across each blast radius.

The 3rd soldier gave out a guttural war cry before reaching to his waist and unpinning a frag grenade. He wound up to lob it at Phoenix, a throw with perfect form that would have done him in rather easily, were it not for Phoenix shooting the grenade out of his hand, fracturing the metal pineapple and erasing the throwing hand down to the wrist. The shockwave threw the soldier on the ground, his remaining life leaving his body on impact.

"There's 9 more about to charge in here, they're going to overwhelm you!" The construct cried out.

"Good." Phoenix responded, immersing himself into the smoke in anticipation.

Like clockwork, the remaining squad charged in through the middle of the chamber to lock down the cover Phoenix had rocketed out of. The shrouding smoke was beginning to dissipate, revealing the ex-Warlock reaching down and grabbing a piece of rubble.

"What are you doing buddy, you're going to get shot standing there!" The construct pleaded. Were he any louder in Phoenix's ear, he might have given away his position.

Phoenix breathed in. He counted the heads of the squad, 8 of them, 1 unaccounted for.

He breathed out. One of the 8 began to call out his position.

"Showtime."

Hurling the rubble at the snitch, hitting him center mass and knocking him to the floor, Phoenix turned the rest of his magazine toward the top of the fallen pillar. Shot after shot filling the chamber with more smoke and dust, he ran for the entrance with conviction as opposing gunfire joined the symphony. The floor trembled again as he shot the column, upsetting the already unstable foundation as he hoped he would.

The final round of his magnum tore through the column, breaking the friction keeping it from fully falling. He tensed again, launching him through the shrinking gap. Leaving them stuck in the chamber, he turned his attention forward to the next hurdle.

The shockwave of the column falling shrouded him in dust, the cacophony of sound giving way to a fit of coughing from the one remaining soldier not in the chamber.

The opportunity to get some answers motivated Phoenix. He ran toward the coughing, finding the lone soldier and collapsing on his position. He grabbed the soldier by his chestplate and slammed him into the wall.

"Who are you?" Phoenix opened.

"Go fuck yourself," the soldier spit blood onto his visor.

"Why are you trying to kill me?"

The solider chortled, "Wasn't. That plan was the fallback."

"Who's plan are you talking about?"

"The boss, dumbass." The soldier goaded. "Who else?"

Picking him up and slamming him against the wall again, Phoenix fed into the soldier's smarminess.

"What does your boss want with me?" Phoenix interrogated.

Through bloody coughs, the soldier retorted, "If anyone would know here, its you moron."

"Well then maybe I should go talk with your boss, he can't be that far can he?"

"Good fuckin luck buddy, your days were numbered the first time you fucked off." The soldier tried kicking Phoenix in the chest to little success. Dragging him off the wall, Phoenix replied with a "gentle" headbutt that knocked him out cold and proceeded to lay him down gently.

"How long will he be out?" Phoenix asked aloud like he would his old ghost. The construct tabbed in to his display to respond.

"Couple weeks, a month or two at most?"

"You don't sound convinced," Phoenix jested.

"Just cause I can hop into your head doesn't mean I know everything!" The child protested. "You fucked him up, jus-"

"Language, kid. Children shouldn't swear so much."

"Just like you messed up those other guys..." it continued. "Dick."

Phoenix ignored them, "Well, what can you tell me?" He paused before adding, "And where are you right now?"

"I'm right here!" The construct jovially appeared from behind a banner. "I can be anywhere in this facility, even the levels you never had access to."

"Wait, there's levels to this place?"

"uh... Duh! The secrets here have secrets, there's record of you going down as far as-" the child stopped, "Hey! Nevermind, we're busy, and there's still people coming after you."

Phoenix swore under his breath, the child had a point. He turned and continued down the hallway back toward the exit.

Chapter Text

Making his way through the depths of the inner complex, Phoenix thought of Eris. The teleporter system he remembered always using to get around the base was not functioning, forcing him to travel through the decimated innermost corridors of the fort. The countless decades of dust collected upon the rubble and regalia decorating the halls reminded him of the countless encounters with the Hive. The countless lifetimes spent amidst Hive architecture, from the roselike elegance of Savathun's Court of Thorns and the brutal royalty of Oryx's Dreadnaught, to the ruin and wreckage hiding deep within the Moon and Savathun's Throne World, Phoenix often found himself reporting his discoveries directly to Eris Morn.

The pantheon of Hive Gods all had a way with style in their architecture, each sibling has their own choice of decorum and ornamentation, much of their character can all be discerned if one were to look closely. The architect of this Fort clearly had their own style as well, Phoenix would easily have been convinced the designer stood in the room with him, greeting him like a guest in these honored halls. Cracked, dusted, and forgotten, the light and reverence still held in the hallways, the dedication and craft in the trim dividing while blending the surrounding elements, the stories told by the escutcheons patterning the walls all carried a sense of pride and exuberance about them. Even if the foundation hid something sinister beneath, the structure itself was the symbol of something much greater.

Phoenix probed his memories in this world once more, expanding his useable vocabulary of experiences. He prompted for anything more on the architect, recalling bits and pieces across multiple systems in this worldline. Architectural practices and techniques beyond the most basic and fundamental constructions were a rare sight, to be a visionary with intentionality in their flair made for a lucrative amount of contracts. The Fort he hurried through the heart of was one of the earliest designs by them, with many systems (and at least one Halo Ring he could remember) having at least one prominent structure or complex designed by them. At a time when there were shockingly few designers to remember, the quality and innovation shown in every project made any design an iconic commodity to obtain, he remembered inspecting many bases and forts in the later years of his memory that were nothing more than cheap copies made from a selection of early blueprints made by the architect.

The impact of the architects work would challenge the Hive's Sword Logic with its prominence on this worldline, he would have reported to Eris. She would understand those words in whatever way she chose to, but just about anyone would have looked at the Warlock with a blank stare and a question mark blinking above their head. The only other person that he would have been able to was

[gone]

Agony shot through Phoenix. Every hair on his skin, every fiber of his nervous system, every cell in his body ignited and writhed with pain. He fell immediately to his knees.

In agony, he cramped and braced himself as he rolled onto the floor.

Whoever he was thinking about, the memory was more than gone. It was removed, purposefully.

Violently.

Like an exposed nerve, the memory crippled Phoenix and left him sweating on the dusty Imperial Red carpet.

The vitals in his armor had been going crazy, the overshield would have burst had it been powered by his light. The construct appeared in a panic.

"Holy shit, are you alright? What the hell happened???" The construct pleaded.

"I'm fine-" Phoenix cut himself off, rising back up onto one knee "Look kid, not every word needs to be a swear word. You gotta calm down about that."

"sorry," the construct responded sheepishly, swiftly disappearing into the background.

Getting back to his feet, Phoenix picked up his already brisk pace. Having given those chasing him a handful of seconds for free, the clock was not in his favor and his options were shrinking because of it. Checking his various pockets and pouches, he noticed a bright light glistening from within the pocket he held the keepsake in. Opening the top of the pouch almost blinded him as he looked down into it, a beautiful pink prismatic light shinning from the small stone tied to the top of the keepsake. He swiftly closed the pouch, noticing it began to weigh a noticeably greater amount with how much the bag began to sag.

He had no idea where to go, but he couldn't stay here. The landing platform might yet have a Falcon or a Pelican he could commandeer. Hearing a gaggle of footsteps down the hallway he had entered through, he didn't question the first idea he had here. It seemed solid enough, he'd "go from there" when the plan inevitably changes. The hangar above was closer, but the landing platform underneath wouldn't be as exposed, in case they already had the airspace locked down. Dependent upon which "boss" was ordering them all around, airspace was either his least or greatest concern.

Winding through the narrowing corridors that cut into the mountain directly, Phoenix spilled into the docks underneath the fort. The landing platform was not empty, much to his relief. Running to the key cabinet by the small corner office, he grabbed any and every fab left and got to work. Running from aircraft to aircraft, mentally marking which ones didn't open at all, didn't start, and which were broken beyond a quick 5 second repair. Diving into the last Pelican left in line, Phoenix heard a door blast open echo through the cave. He climbed through the blood tray into the cockpit, spot checking what he could along the way. All systems appeared kosher, but they could all very easily have been in the FUBAR position and he'd have been none the wiser. Rifling through the pile of key fabs in his arms, he plugged one that eventually seated properly into the keyhole turning on power to the controls. The dials and displays came to life and prompted for further startup procedures.

The digital display caught the prismatic light of the keepsake, which had somehow managed to grow even brighter, and even heavier. Phoenix could feel it pulling on his waist, even with his armor easily weighing a thousand pounds.

After Phoenix followed the steps written out on a note lazily stuck to the top of the control panel, the engines of the pelican sputtered, skipped, and ultimately coughed up a ton of dust coming back to life. The construct appeared again, politely buckled into the co-pilot seat.

"Great plan, bossman. You told them exactly where you are, now you've only got a few seconds to turn tail and buzz off."

"I'm working on it!" Phoenix snapped. "We'll lift off before they can do any damage, Pelicans are supposed to be great against small arms fire."

"Do you actually think I'd *just* bring small arms out to deal with you?" A voice rang out from the display of the Pelican. It was a voice this version of Phoenix knew entirely too well, for all the right and wrong reasons. It was a blessing no longer to hear this voice, it struck him with a confusion that had only increased with time. At least he knew whether the airspace was safe or not.

It would not be, but at least he knew.

Chapter Text

The construct did not know what the air felt like brushing across the skin of it's arms. It had no program to measure and judge how the amount of humidity or other chemicals affected the sensation of the air. There was no way for it to confidently proclaim if the air was "stagnant," "heavy," or perhaps even "chilling." Yet the construct was able to recognize the immense amount of tension fill the space within the Pelican, tightening at the soldier's comprehension of who had spoken to him. After thumbing through the records shared between the soldier and the Fleet Admiral addressing him, even triple checking the files restricted to the highest clearances, the construct frowned and pouted in its seat, not wanting to admit it was stumped. All of the information at its disposal would suggest the soldier ultimately would have nothing to worry about.

The clearance required to even access his profile would suggest protection from all branches of the UNSC, something the construct was sad it hadn't been asked about yet. It sat upon all the knowledge stored here and he didn't stop for one second and ask. It would have understood if the soldier simply remembered it all and did not need to be reminded, but the questions he asked and the way he practically scanned everything he saw like it was both the first and millionth time staring at it led the construct to believe he didn't know a thing, and yet he did not stop and ask it any questions it wanted to answer. This confusion frustrated the construct, causing it to cross its arms and furrow their holographic brow deeper.

Returning from the cockpit, Phoenix noticed the frustration of the construct. His initial instinct was to turn and address it, but he struggled to find any voice to use at all. An avalanche of emotions buried the soldier, all equally as imposing and overpowering: fear, excitement, sorrow, comfort, shame, envy, and behind it all a deep warmth blanketing it and keeping it from burying him alive. With the combined weight of the keepsake, seeming to weigh on him like Mammoth, and the overwhelming speed of his body and mind rushing to process everything happening, he fell to his knees and began trying to catch his breath.

He was having a panic attack.

Phoenix sent his mind's eye back to the earliest memories he held with the light of the Traveler, to a time when he could not explain with words why his body seemed to fail him while his mind smoked and sputtered like a dying engine. At the tail end of the dark age, Phoenix worked with an Exo risen that was able to explain it to him. Having many of the imperfections of humanity intentionally programmed into the exos, the words of wisdom Phoenix received stuck with him.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and held it as he blocked out everything else. No thoughts, no emotions, nothing except the time ticking in his head.

He counted 4 seconds, and began exhaling.

He counted 4 seconds, and held his lungs empty.

He counted 4 seconds, and began inhaling.

He counted 4 seconds, and held his lungs full.

And he repeated his box breathing, bringing himself back to his feet and slowly returning to the present. The construct appeared to not notice, being stuck in a frustrating loop of its own. The sound of many boots rumbling against the damp floors of the dock mixed with the hum of countless aircrafts swarming the area. He had only one option, he was going to have to confront this.

"You're not flying out of here," the Fleet Admiral shouted, projecting their annoyed voice across the dock, "I've got you boxed in, you might as well show yourself."

"Yeah, what he said," the construct turned and snarked at Phoenix. He turned to the open hatch door, looked back at the construct, and resigned with a heavy sigh. Giving himself a 3 count, he prepared to face this.

He took a step out of the pelican. Immediately as he stepped into the open, he felt the eyes of all the soldiers on him, especially the eyes of the Fleet Admiral. It flooded Phoenix's senses, eating away at his resolve. Steeling his focus, he continued to walk down and out of the Pelican. As soon as he was clear from the aircraft, he stopped and turned to face them.

In an instant, their eyes met.

The Fleet Admiral had prepared a wall around their eyes, one that had cracked when Phoenix looked into them. Phoenix peered through the crack, seeing the warmth he had been feeling inside him. These were the eyes of a friend, Phoenix saw one of his old fireteam members in these eyes. Ad' Alam, an Awoken Hunter. They shined with the same luster that Ad' Alam's had, many memories between worldlines mirrored one another, it was as if he could watch this Fleet Admiral in front of him and the Nightstalker he once raided with laugh at the same dumb joke with the same cadence.

Phoenix looked deeper, both within the eyes of the Fleet Admiral, and within himself. He felt envy rise within him, an overwhelming admiration interwoven with an insecure panic. The memories of him looking up to the Fleet Admiral, aspiring to their pedigree, their excellence, their exuberance.

"Adam," the name longingly spilled from Phoenix's mouth.

Still looking into the Fleet Admiral's eyes, his voice connected and resonated, changing what he saw. Confusion, something they were seeing had not been what they were expecting. Phoenix saw memories from this worldline in Adam's eyes that he did not have possession of. He saw Adam recalling the last time he had seen the soldier, the damning cataclysm he saw himself cause through Adam's eyes made Phoenix's skin crawl. Perhaps they saw him feel this, as the confusion compounded within their eyes. At the height of it, a simple statement matched the energy Phoenix had set.

"You're not Scythe."

The crack in the wall closed, forcing Phoenix out. As he returned to the present moment, the weight of the keepsake overwhelmed him once more. Pulling it from its pouch, the soldiers surrounding him all raised their rifles. He stiffened and raised his hands.

"I thought that's who the construct was?" Phoenix did his best to find an answer. Adam began walking toward him, something he did not want happening. Thinking too fast, he pulled the magnum from his leg plate and pointed it at the air. The tension soared, all the soldiers took one step forward, Adam took no step at all.

The prismatic light of the keepsake could not be contained by Phoenix's hand, it began to gleam and overtake him. The shimmering lights that danced around his eyes when he first left the Mysterious Stranger began again.

"Do you know anything about the AI here, about any other worldlines?" Phoenix tried to ask with the fleeting time he had left. He wanted to ask more, say anything that would get a response. The longer Adam went without responding, the more desperate he became for an answer. He stared into the wall around Adam's eyes, watching in horror as the silence consumed his fear as the light consumed his body.

He could feel the light change his body around him once again. 

Chapter Text

Old Man sat in the passenger seat of his Rumpo Custom scrolling on his iFruit phone, pipe loaded and billowing with the morning smoke, coffee cup steaming the window above the cupholder. The sun, freshly clearing the skyline, slammed the side of his van with the heavenly glow of a brisk midwestern morning, he was ready for the day. He looked down at his phone to see a notification.

"He should be there soon." - S

Old Man took in a deep breath, and sighed. By the time he had emptied his lungs, a brilliant flash of a million blinding lights erupted in his eyes in a blink. He shot back into his seat, closing his eyes for a moment and checking to see if he hadn't just gone blind. Regaining his vision, he turned to the vague direction of where the light would have flashed from. Much like he had been informed, a man stood at the epicenter of the flash, a ring of dust and litter circling him about 5 feet away, with a .50 Magnum Pistol in hand and a strange gleam shinning in his eyes

"Son of a bitch," Old Man shouted out, leaving the van and putting his phone in his pocket. "Looks like my ticket out of here!"

The disheveled stranger shoved the handgun into his coat and turned to face Old Man, exhaustion nearly buckling his knees in the process. As he looked ready to fall and collapse, he locked eyes with Old Man. It was instantaneous, the stranger burst into the home Old Man had made inside himself. Had there been a front door, it would have been torn off the hinges with how sudden and overwhelming the stranger limelighted his whole self, body and spirit. He invited the stranger in and did his best to make whatever the stranger was looking for more visible. He noticed the faint twitches in their eyes, recoiling at experiences he seemed to connect with, even if the two had never met before. Old Man couldn't quite do the math, but something about how the stranger looked at him was familiar, and whoever it reminded him of made him remarkably proud.

"No I am not even going to *begin* to know the science behind it, but I'll be damned if it didn't work the exact way he said it would," Old Man quipped through a shit eating grin. "They called me Sam growing up, but most people anymore just call me 'Old Man' so I guess that's a what you should ca- hey are you doin alright buddy?"

The stranger leaned toward Old Man, staring him down intently. Swearing there was smoke billowing out of his ears, Old Man moved in to pat him on the shoulder. "You can sit shotgun, c'mon, we got shit to do today."

The stranger's tensed up, only to drop his shoulders in defeat. "Right on, fuck it." The eyes of the stranger sank to the floor, apparently finding something unique about his own shoes. From the straight fit of his dark blue worn partially covering the red laces matching the custom Sabbath Bloody Sabbath logo on his black and white hi-top Canvas shoes, to the simple belt and fern green shirt layered underneath a stone dress shirt exposing his forearms, the stranger eyed himself up and down with a perplexing curiosity. Turning his attention to the tech watch on one wrist, a wristband and a hair tie on the other, he was caught off guard by a strand of hair falling into his line of sight. Seemingly recoiling in shock, the stranger reached up to his face and slammed his hand into the glasses sitting on his nose. He'd never seen someone learn they had long hair and glasses, but Old Man imagined that's what he was witnessing.

"Woooooooooo" he raised his two fingers in the air in joy. Time to get shit done. Waddling back to the Rumpo Custom as fast as his broken spine could take him, Old Man resigned that at least in here he didn't have to feel the pain. He pulled out his phone to make a quick call. After a ring and a half, the call connected.

"Good Morning Viktor, how's the kids?" Old Man spoke into the device. "Good? Good, hey I know its the weekend, but can you get the bird ready for me? Which one?? Uhhh, the nice one? Didn't know the bossman had more than one... Yeah, I'll need it here on the Southwest side... Yes sir, by the Terrace Village Hospital is perfect. Perfecto, gracias señor. Hasta luego." Putting down the phone, he reached for the door to the van, shimmying into the driver's seat.

As he closed the door and reached for the seatbelt, he turned back and almost jumped into the roof when he saw the stranger standing right outside the window of the car door. Old Man collected himself and started the van, rolling down the window to talk to the stranger.

"Door's unlocked, hop in on the other side." Old Man meekly suggested.

"At what point are you going to actually tell me what's going on." The stranger spoke.

"Uhhh, I can on the way?" Old Man attempted to compromise. "Get in the car, I can try to answer any question you have for me."

"Well," the stranger rocked back before lurching into motion around the front of the van, "let's start with 'where are we?'"

"Great question." Old Man chirped. "I don't know how much I'm allowed to tell you."

The stranger was silent.

"what"

"You're not far from where you've been!" Old Man insisted, "... apparently... I don't know, he tried explaining it to me a few times, but I kept getting lost right arou-"

"Who is he?" The stranger exhaustedly interrupted.

"Oh, bossman?" Old Man sat up at the thought, before turning to the rearview mirrors and getting the van in motion. "He's the boss here, at least for the business he's got set up." Old Man words were filled with a sense of pride as he spoke, "Left for Los Santos over 10 years ago. Got himself an office and a cushy job contracting through SecuroServ, and the rest was history. Now he's got a bite of just about every industry in that shithole.

"Is that where we are?" the stranger asked, "In Los Santos?"

"Oh, fuck no." Old Man reassured. "God no, I'd never go anywhere like that hellhole, no matter which worldline he throws me in," he chuckled at his own joke.

"Then where are we?" The stranger returned.

"You sir, are in the Midwest." Old Man confirmed. "Welcome to Summit City."

The answer didn't mean nearly as much to the stranger as it did to Old Man.

"Why here?" the stranger questioned.

"eh-I don't know exactly." Old Man dismissed, "less competition maybe? There's only one super billionaire here, and the farmers outside of town ran him out when he tried to buy their farmland to put a private racetrack on it. Bossman gave them all free service on their work trucks for life through his auto shop... Either way, few years ago he started expanding beyond Los Santos, and the first place he chose was here in Summit City. 'Its the intersection of America here in the Midwest' he'd say. 'If we can get set up here, we'll be able to expand anywhere next.'"

"where are we going?" The stranger asked.

"Oh yeah, we're heading to the bunker," Old Man admitted, "It's my job to get you from where you spawned into a safe location."

"... am I not safe right now?"

"Uhh... no? Yes? Yes. You're with me, and I'm taking you somewhere safe, so yes."

"What makes it unsafe here?"

"The uhh, the crazy assassin lady chasing you? I was told she wasn't far behind you and we had to get moving quickly."

"Well this is news to me," the stranger sighed. After a beat, the added "How does 'the bossman' know me?"

"Oh yeah, uhh... he uhh..." Old Man tried to find the right words to bullshit an answer, but the look on the stranger's face as he failed to filled him with nostalgia and overcame his resolve. "I couldn't tell you if I wanted to honestly. As far as I can tell he met you a while ago and you helped him, he can be vague on the details."

"Did he bring me here?" The stranger inquired.

"No, it not that kind of thing" Old Man responded. "He had to hamfist a bunch of shit to get me here, but you're getting you everywhere."

"Have you been doing this... travelling too?"

"The worldline hopping?" Old Man rose his tone. "no, that's all been you, I do come from... somewhere else, but the door only goes one way for me, I can't hop around like you can."

The stranger stopped and turned to face Old Man, "Wait, what do you mean 'its all been me?'"

"Oh yeah, he made sure I remembered to tell you this part." Old Man filled his lungs and began, "Your device is what makes the travelling possible, but you have to control it by- FUCK!"

Old Man swerved out of the way of rocket, detonating the car behind them with a fiery explosion. The two men looked out the windshield up into the sky.

Above them was an Oppressor Mk II, a flying motorbike with an assembly of rockets, aimed directly at the Rumpo Custom.

Above the hoverbike sat a woman, her face concealed by a jet black helmet.

"Okay, so I lied." Old Man admitted. "You aren't safe with me here."

Chapter Text

Phoenix was tired.

This mind had not stopped spinning since he first left The Tower. His chest burned and his mind was beyond sputtering. In body and in spirit, he was exhausted and overwhelmed.

Phoenix shut down.

He did not close his eyes, yet he left them, or perhaps fell into them. Where he let himself go, it was dark.

He filled his hyperventilating lungs full of air. He dropped the breath, and tried to let go of as much tension as possible. He could still feel the stress resting on his shoulder blades, tight as a knot and binding him yet to a deep well of exhaustion. He felt himself hugging his knees, sitting hunched over in chair, covered by a coat. His favorite coat. His only coat.

He breathed in deeply once more, feeling the space around him. It felt cold, dirty, foreign. It made him miss his hostel above the market.

Phoenix missed The Last City. He missed the laughter of the communing merchants. He missed the clicking of Eliksni refugees toiling with something important to them. He missed the sounds of the periodic Cabal patrols. He missed the lively defiance the people of The Last City inspired in Phoenix. Even here, in this dark, dingy place he had fallen into, he left far away from home.

He was scared. Nothing made sense and he was scared.

Phoenix always had a plan. And even when he didn't have a plan, he knew that he'd figure something out. There was always something he could use to figure it out, it was always just a quick plan and a heartbeat.

Except he didn't have a plan. He was scared, he was tired, nothing made sense, and he had no plan.

His lungs were full. He breathed out. Focusing on the walls and the furniture and the appliances around him. The lights were all off, he sat in a wooden chair in the middle of a dingy yellow room. It was not chilly, yet the stale humid air made him feel cold, unwelcome, like he was in his own tailor-made hell.

It reminded Phoenix of the Red War. His connection to the light severed, desperate to find his ghost before either were found first, yet he kept going. He remembered how little he felt as he crawled through the wreckage, how dull and weightless the slashes of pain, sorrow, and rage were against his shattered, lost soul.

For years after that day, Phoenix found himself secretly envying the new lights that did not have to face a reality without The Light. There was a very distinct weight to the gaze of every guardian that survived the Red War, a weight that every new light lacked. It wasn't until he met eyes with an awoken that had freshly been risen from the Tangled Shore that he got called on it. He could almost envision her now, her beautiful blue hair-

[is gone, and will not save you.]

Agony ignited his nervous system, every hair of his skin, every cell in his body. The pain was too much for Phoenix.

He closed his eyes.

And there she stood.

[Stop, and this pain may go away.]

It was like getting stung by a million bees inside and outside of you, it was like being submerged in the heart of a volcano with a stomach and lungs full of magma, it was more painful than the augmentation process for Project Freelancer. But still Phoenix persisted, fighting against the pain, the fear, the exhaustion, against the weight he could not fully pull from his shoulders he held his eyes shut and fought with all his spirit to see her.

[please stop this]

He witnessed her beautiful hair, her shimmering pale blue skin, her cloak embossed with the insignia of The Spider.

[please]

He begged for her to turn and meet his eyes once more. His throat seared and his lungs spasmed in pain as he desperately choked out a faint cry.

She turned to face him.

Her eyes locked with his,

There was no pain. There was no exhaustion. There was no fear, no weight, no feeling nor thought within him at all. Her gaze illuminated the dingy, peeling yellow walls around him, disintegrating all that he grappled with. Like she had the first time, and every time she looked into his eyes, she saw through all the walls and all the flaws Phoenix had built around himself. He was content, he smiled warmly. A tear fell from his eye.

He felt nirvana in the absence of it all. This moment was beautiful, nothing mattered but the eyes that saw through him. He lost himself, enamored by the effortless grace and heavenly inquisition she wore on her face.

The absence of thought was ended as a simple question invaded Phoenix's mind.

"What the hell is Project Freelancer?"

Chapter Text

The question erupted from Phoenix's mouth as he opened his eyes and sat forward.

Bracing himself on the dashboard and door handle of the Rumpo, he filled his lungs with air and took stock of the situation. He was still 'fuckin exhausted' as he told himself, 'So it goes.' Old Man was keeled over the steering wheel, panicking. They were still moving, albeit barely.

A nearby explosion rocked the van, throwing Old Man out of the driver's seat and onto the floor of the van. Rocking off its driver's side wheels, Phoenix was pushed into the door, smacking his head on the glass. He felt a massive weight in his back pocket as he was forced around.

The van came to a rest for a brief silence, then began to rock back down onto all four tires. With a massive thud, Phoenix was launched like a slingshot into the driver's seat. Taking in a quick breath, he looked down at the pedals.

There was three.

A part of him wanted to consider the e-break switch on the side a fourth pedal, but he knew he didn't have time for semantics.

Rotating his body into driving position, he looked at the display of switches and monitors in front of him. He searched his mind for discernment. He thought of his sparrow and the time spent learning the infinite complexities of their driving mechanics. 'This is vaguely similar?' he told himself. He continued his search. Rifling through the hazy and freshly abundant memories of this worldline, he thought of the years spent behind of the wheel of vehicles with an automatic transmission, and only a handful of distant faded memories of learning a manual transmission. Were they not in immediate danger, maybe that'd be enough, but they were, and it was not. He continued his seach.

Opening his mind to the Soldier he previously found himself as, he was surprised to find a complex facility storing vast catalogs of memories previously hidden to him.

Had Phoenix been any less tired, this likely would have drove him back into a frenzy. Instead, he blinked a few times, rolled his eyes in resignation, and accepted the present for what it currently was. He floated a prompt through the catalogs in his mind's collection, thinking of the time spent racing Warthogs, Mongooses, and even covenant crafts like the Ghost, and his favorite craft the Revenant, across various climates and star systems.

Focusing specifically on the Warthog's mechanics, he worked to parse down the functions of the several additional pedals this van did not seem to have.

Taking a little from what he knew across all worldlines, he dropped his left foot down on the pedal he correctly assumed was the clutch, and reached for the shifter.

Between the rocket fire and OId Man losing his cool, the van had died. He shifted back into neutral, made sure to wiggle it to check it was loose and 'in neutral' before reaching for the ignition and firing back up the vicious v8 hiding in this Rumpo Custom's Engine bay. The rumbling that resonated in Phoenix's chest put a smile on his face, thrilled at the thunderous roar that came as he slammed the car into gear.

Lost in the excitement, he let the clutch slip into gear a bit early, causing the van to jump into action. Continuing to give it gas, the clutch successfully engaged and the engine powered on. Proud he didn't fuck it up, he turned his attention upward to the mosquito-looking bike that had been scared off course by the sudden movement. The rocket it had been attempting to line up veered way off target, landing square into the side of a Burger Shot to the left of Phoenix.

Smashing the pedal into the floorboard, he prepared to take a turn off the wide open, 4 lane highway Old Man had them damn near in the middle of. Letting off the gas and cruising through the turn, he quickly accelerated to top out the engine's revs and prepared to shift up. The road he took continued in the leftward curve, going up a hill and behind a plethora of buildings he could use for cover. He rolled down his window and looked out behind him for the Oppressor. Seeing it, and the woman perplexingly positioned atop it, curving around for another bombing run attempt. Leaning back into the seat, he took his hand off the shifter and reached for the Magnum pistol he had tightly held onto.

Placing the pistol into his lap, he noticed a prismatic light emitting from around his back ass pocket. Undeterred, he dove his hand into the pockets of his coat, hoping to find a full magazine to replace the live empty one. Successfully finding one, he retrieved it and placed it by the shifter, and quickly took the opportunity to shift up into third gear to keep climbing. He grabbed the magnum, the new magazine, and quickly reloaded.

Looking into his rearview mirror, Phoenix saw the bike turning the corner and explode toward them. He continued to max out the revs, waiting as long as he could for her to get up to speed.

He slammed on his breaks and cut left as hard as the Rumpo could handle. Shifting back into second, he picked back up the Magnum and took aim from his broadside. Focusing center mass, he pulled the trigger and lost his hearing as the bullet propelled toward the bike.

He could not tell his aim was true till the bike dropped down like it had sucked in a mosquito of its own. The motion sent the woman violently careening off the bike. Tumbling through the air, she hit the ground hard, but used it to catch her bearing, pushing back off and redirecting her momentum upward. Doing a flip or two extra that Phoenix found slightly unnecessary, she landed into a perfect roll and stood straight up and directly toward the Rumpo. Quickly pulling a concealed pistol of her own, she fired a handful of shots that busted out the side windows of the van.

Phoenix sped the van up and ducked behind the corner he had cut into. Spilling back out onto the major highway they had been on, he quickly got up to speed to put some distance from their attacker.

Old Man then had the audacity to pipe up with some dumb shit.

"I really thought if you knocked her off the bike, she'd glitch out and do nothing."

Without hesitation, Phoenix aimed the Magnum at Old Man's head.

"Talk, what the fuck does that mean?"

"She's not real!" Old Man jumped to.

"Fucki- no shit," Phoenix rolled his eyes.

"No, like she's not from here... She's different, like uhh..." Old Man raced, "like a construct, I think is the word Bossman used."

"Construct?" Phoenix was as curious as he was ready to pull the trigger.

"No! It was Protocol! She's a protocol of some kind, I don't remember the name." Old Man cried.

Cutting right into the parking lot of a church, he parked and killed the engine. The words he used sparked memories and connections to his facility of knowledge, the experience with the construct coming to the forefront. He considered these thoughts, and pushed past 'Project' and other key words toward the other word Old Man had used. There was a handful of protocols with various names and levels of complexity to them. It was too much for Phoenix to try to dive into, he was mentally and physically spent.

Letting himself take a moment to feel this body and the connections to this worldline, he began to rebalance himself and calm down. He took a step out of the Rumpo and hid his Magnum into his pocket once more. He turned to see Old Man had returned to the driver's seat, and was looking at Phoenix with a pitifully defeated stare he immediately wished he could forget.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this," Old Man piped up, "but Bossman gave her a nickname so I would remember better."

Phoenix paused, waiting for the second half.

"And?" He inevitably had to prompt.

"It was probably related, he's really bad about being subtle," Old Man joked. "If I remember correctly, the name he gave her was 'Winter.'"

Like a baseball bat, the word struck Phoenix in the back of the head, immediately shaking forward one protocol in Particular.

The Winter Night Protocol.

"Hey uhh," Old Man interrupted Phoenix's train of thought, "You're kinda... glowing a lot of colors...."

Old Man trailed off as Phoenix prepared for the inevitable once more.

"Can I get you something, are you gonna be alright?" Old Man asked.

"No." Phoenix admitted, as the light began to blind and envelope him,

"I want to go home."

In a blinding flash, Phoenix was gone.

Old Man pulled out his ifruit phone and sent a text.

"He knew about Project Freelancer."

He waited hoping for a lenient answer.

"Its Fine" - S

"I'm cutting your pay for almost getting you and him killed." - S

"Expect to stay here for a while longer." - S

Old Man looked at his bank account, a 25 added now attached to the front of the $103 he had been rationing.

"Damn," he exhaled, "I was at least hoping for 50."

Chapter Text

Phoenix began to feel the intensity of the light around him diminish. Realigning with this worldline, he felt the air and gravity envelope him once more. It felt familiar, if not a bit thinner than he expected.

He noticed his feet were starting to sink into the previously solid ground. The more his sight returned to him, the faster he could feel himself slipping. Looking down, he recognized why. He was in the middle of the air, directly above The Last City.

He began to fall backwards.

Letting himself tumble through the air for a moment, Phoenix soon extended his arms and legs, stabilizing himself facing the ground he would soon meet.

It was his left index finger that he first felt a spark. Cutting through the air, he feeling continued down into his hand, making its way up his wrist and elbow. Phoenix had experienced this before, it was the light returning to him. The rush of it travelling through his arm into his chest made him erupt in a fit of laughter. He was more alive than he could have ever dreamed.

Rushing through the rest of his appendages, the light flooded into Phoenix. Blinking away a tear from the rushing wind, he caught a glint somewhere beneath him. He focused his attention around where he saw it. By the river through Midtown, Phoenix witnessed a cacophany of light and darkness exploding in between the buildings and into the street. He tried to pick out the transmat affects happening at the edges of the chaos, recognizing it was contained to a small block. 'Shaxx must have been officiating a Crucible match in Midtown,' Phoenix concluded.

Turning his attention to the horizon, his eyes met the wall. He was in line with the Tower now, and he wasn't falling nearly fast enough.

His eyes dilated, he commanded the light overflowing through him. Two wings of solar light ignited from his back, grabbing the air and slowing his descent for a moment. They continued to brighten and grow. At the height of their raging brilliance, Phoenix stretched them wide, and launched himself toward the chaos below, well exceeding his previous terminal velocity.

Swiftly approaching his target, Phoenix picked out 5 unique transmat effects. It must have been a classic Rumble pit Shaxx refereed. Phoenix reached out his arm and called upon the storm. Grabbing hold of a lightning bolt, he cocked back and hurled it next to an elevated tree, right next to where he remembered A flag being place. The landfall splashed the area in a jolting field of arc light.

Phoenix gained more speed, the unsheathing sound of him calling upon his Dawnblade echoed through the whole city. A tear drop of warming, restoring light expanded out from around him as he plummeted.

Raising is dawnblade high above him, he twisted and began spinning like an arrow. Eclipsing the rooftops, he pulled from his center a black hole of void light, preparing for impact. At the last possible moment, he let the void consume him.

His dawnblade drove itself into the soil, a cloud of solar flames exploding from it. The light reached the perimeter of the field of arc light, only to be sucked back into a black hole of void light growing from the pommel of the sword.

The light coalesced into the pommel for a brief, quiet moment, before Phoenix reappeared gripping the handle, blasting the entire arena with the combined power of his Arc, Void, and Solar light.

Everything was quiet, save for the faint sound of Shaxx howling with excitement from atop the Tower above them. Phoenix stood up, held out his hand, and let out a call,

"Showtime!"

Soon his old Ghost appeared, fitful and barely holding its excitement in. Phoenix was alive, and he had come back. Before they could make their proper greetings, Showtime was inundated with a call from the Tower.

"THAT WAS MARVELOUS!" Shaxx congratulated, "I'VE NEVER SEEN A GUARDIAN JOIN A MATCH LATE WITH SUCH FEROCITY!"

"Uhh..." Phoenix stumbled, "thanks, I thought it'd be kinda neat." He brushed his long hair off his suddenly burning ears.

"YOU SCORED 6 POINTS FOR THAT MANEUVER, 1 FOR EACH KILL, AND 1 FOR THE FLOURISH. THAT PUTS YOU IN THIRD PLACE FAR, GUARDIAN," Shaxx explained. "NOW, GO CAPTURE FIRST!"

"Yessir, you got it!" Phoenix saluted toward the tower. He turned his attention back to Showtime, "You still holding onto my favorite Auto Rifle?"

"Always!" Showtime chirped, preparing to deliver it to Phoenix. A reward from his efforts studying under Lord Saladin, Phoenix wrapped his hand lovingly around the grip of his reliable, adaptive, and deadly paintbrush of kinetic arms fire. The sigil adorning his Forward Path gleamed as bright as the day he first received it.

"You think I should backpack a sidearm?" Phoenix asked his ghost, "Or should I play this one loose?"

Showtime responded by preparing his Fusion Rifle, the Zealot's Reward, "I think you know just what to do." Phoenix nodded and slid the fusion rifle onto the holster he had fashioned for it on the small of his back, reaching back up to the slide of the auto rifle and racking it into battery.

"Give me my helmet," Phoenix demanded, "Its time to dance."

Chapter Text

Phoenix felt safe.

Perhaps "safe" wasn't the exact word to use, he thought to himself as he glided into cover. He knew he was in danger, that the tool in his hands was moments away from taking life once more. He knew that he needed to move swiftly, otherwise he would be exposed and easily out of range. He knew where he was, what he was doing, and how to do it well.

He knew he was not scared. Perhaps that safe feeling was simply a lack of fear. Perhaps it was his decades of discipline participating in Lord Shaxx's Crucible that suppressed his fear of the impending chaos. Letting his wings open wide, he swung them backwards to send him bursting through the open cover while considering what, if anything he should be fearing. Aiming his Forward Path down a common alleyway, he caught a Titan swapping to their submachine-gun out of range. Phoenix traced the Titan's head with the sights of his rifle, downing the Titan before flying past a wall and into a more advantageous zone.

He knew enough to make a plan, to strategize and trust himself. He banked left around the corner of the wall, catching a Hunter off spawn. Dropping to the ground and sliding toward the Hunter, Phoenix unholstered his fusion rifle and disintegrated them in an instant.

Someone else apparently wanted to farm a free kill, as Phoenix's helmet got trucked from behind by a hand cannon shot. Jumping back into the air, he shot his wings forward, propelling himself back behind cover. A tripmine grenade almost immediately landed on the wall parallel to Phoenix, forcing him back out into an open lane. Catching the glint of a sniper rifle, Phoenix turned and tossed a light grenade of his own to distract the sniper. Feeling and seeing a piercing bolt of lightning whiz above his head, he reached cover and touched down at the top of the steps leading down to the docks on the riverfront.

He could reliably predict the enemy and their weapons, as he was almost certain that shot came from an exotic Cloudstrike. Confirming his assessment, the same Titan wearing Peacekeepers he had first killed was struck with a massive lightning bolt as they sprinted into the open lane. Phoenix put up his arm to shield himself from the blowback of the lightning, and noticed a Warlock had spawned at the back by the columns. They were just outside of his range, but the Hunter that pushed his previous position with a shotgun was just close enough for Phoenix to put down cleanly.

Dropping the magazine and slamming in another, he could feel the radiance swell within him as he slid out of cover toward the incoming Warlock. Taken by surprise, they could not land a proper shot on the encroaching Phoenix before he secured the kill and turned back toward the open lane where the sniper had been.

He leaped into the air and soared toward the power position above low street. The sniper must have retreated into the market, he surmised. A Hunter grappling onto a tangle of Strand launched down the stairs from the common middle area broke his tunnel vision and crashed into him, sending them both careening back to the pavement.

The Hunter dexterously rolled, Phoenix heavily slammed onto his back and slid into a wall. Pushing off the wall and reaching his feet, Phoenix noticed the Hunter pull one of their many knives and charge toward him. He launched toward the Hunter with as much speed as his solar wings would grant him, empowering his right hand with a searing fury of solar light. As he barreled toward the opponent, he smacked away the incoming thrust of their knife, opening them up for a solid hook directly to the skull. The ignition sent them into the ground and awaiting their revival from their ghost.

Phoenix was enjoying himself. The maddening chaos of the battlefield felt familiar, the lack of restraint he felt within the Crucible in particular was intoxicating. He lived for this rush.

Catching a sniper glint from the Market, he plunged back behind the wall checked the empty alley behind him. He swapped to his Zealot's Reward and double checked the battery for a charge, counted 2 seconds like the Crucible Doctor had taught him, and charged. The Titan wielding the sniper had it holstered and was busy engaging in another fight, leaving them defenseless to the onslaught of fusion bolts Phoenix decimated them with.

Returning to his auto rifle, Phoenix grabbed the cover the Titan previous had used, and turned the corner to continue where they had left off. The Strand Hunter had been stripped of his shield and was trying to duck back behind cover. A couple well placed shots landed Phoenix another down, and into second place.

Phoenix loved the rumble pit. After the light was returned to the Guardians and the Red War was ended, Phoenix spent most of his time participating specifically in the rumble pit. Teamwork was something Shaxx heavily encouraged within his Crucible, a pillar of the tutelage Phoenix had also received from Iron Lord Saladin and his Iron Banner, a pillar Phoenix felt he had relied upon too much. He all but confirmed this to himself the first time he had chosen to take part in a rumble match and got dragged through the mud by the entire roster. The pitiful display set Phoenix on a path of improvement that carried on for many years, sometimes passively, sometimes all-consuming. If he could hold his own, on his own, against equal and stronger opponents, let alone come out on top, perhaps he wouldn't be so helpless next time the light leaves him.

Gaining his fourteenth point by charging a Last Word wielding, sharpshooting solar Hunter and flinching their aim off target enough to win the duel, Phoenix began to search for a better position. His solar wings carried him into a nearby alleyway behind the market, opening up into the garden the other Warlock had taken position within.

The dance enraptured Phoenix. The fear and exhaustion took a back seat to the ecstasy, the hunger that pushed him forward. The Warlock tried to block Phoenix with a wall of stasis crystals, but the thrill of their shatter controlled Phoenix more than the pain of him crashing through them. Grabbing the Warlock by the throat and lifting them into the air, Phoenix disintegrated them with an overwhelming combination of solar and void light, scorching and devouring every molecule.

Venturing in from high street, the Peacekeeper Titan aimed their Submachine gun at Phoenix and let The Huckleberry rip. Instinctively, Phoenix grabbed for his fusion rifle and began to charge a burst. As his shields broke under the kinetic fire, he let looses a burst of void bolts that connected and ripped the Titan apart.

"Fuck. You. Specifically, I guess," he joked at the disappearing corpse of the Titan, marveling at their unluckiness.

Retreating back toward the market, he watched the two Hunters engaging one another, a fury of Solar light contrasting the dominating Strand darkness. Suspended, scorched, and both near death, the winged Phoenix soared above them, his left hand held close to his chest, charging his grenade and infusing the Solar fusion with Void light. Lobbing the handheld supercharged fusion-vortex near the two Hunters, the grenade landed and pulled them both off their feet. The inward force exploded exponentially outward, decimating the two and all the specters, threadlings, and tripmines they had littered low street with.

The glint of the Cloudstrike from the alley prompted Phoenix to dive to the ground, a wave of fire and void erupting from his landing. Taking flight around the Market and above the river, Phoenix flew around back to the docks and landed at the bottom of the steps. Reaching into the ammo resupply station on the wall, he charged his fusion rifle's battery once more and prepared to flank the Titan, hopefully now focused on low street or up toward the Apartments.

Diving out of cover toward the Titan, they were looking directly at Phoenix and readied their aim.

The joust began. Could the Titan get a clean shot before Phoenix could close the space? Phoenix bet his life on the gamble, and drove through the air like the Warthogs he had memories of racing.

This moment, and the ecstasy that was held within it, were more potent any other drug or substance injected into his system. He was addicted to this gamble, this ultimate uncertainty, held perfectly with these fractions of a second.

Phoenix blinked forward, causing the Titan to lose sight and panic. Taking a bad shot and missing Phoenix entirely, he exploded with power and erupted a Dawnblade in his hand. Diving toward the Titan, the sword met its mark, cleanly slicing through the armor and the exo biomechanics of the Titan.

Not losing any speed, Phoenix shot though the connecting stairs into the middle common area. The Warlock had tried to set up a stasis turret to guard the Service tunnel leading to high street. Charging his dawnblade and flicking his wrist, a Talon of solar light toward the turret, shattering it in one explosion. He turned his whole body and planted his feet on a wall , another wave of solar and void light emitting from him. Through the service tunnel, the Warlock slid out with a Hammerhead heavy machine gun locked, loaded, and ready to stop Phoenix from running out of Medals for Shaxx to give him.

The machine gun ripped into Phoenix, piercing through his arm and landing in his chest before he could move. Using his dawnblade to block a shot that would have landed right between his eyes, the pain aggravated him more than it damaged. In a wicked fury, he descended upon the Warlock, blinking through the air to stand directly in front of them. Reversing the grip on his blade, he empowered it with as much void light, as much of his hunger for this violence, into the blade itself. A fiery orange with solar flames barely contained within slowly morphed to a blazing red, to a blinding magenta, to a dark consuming violet, to an infinite black.

He plunged the black blade into the ground, and from it erupted a void blast that threw the other Warlock into the wall with enough force to kill them outright.

Jumping over the wall separating the Apartments from the common area, the sharpshooter Hunter heroically raised their golden gun to the sky with vicious intent toward Phoenix. His back turned to the Hunter, he violently ripped his blade from the ground, charged it, and flicked his wrist to let loose a Talon of void light at the Hunter. Before they could get their shot off, the talon cut into them and imploded, destroying the Hunter entirely.

In defiance, Phoenix roared. He was not done, he hungered for more fighting, he craved violence.

The call was made regardless, the match was over.

Chapter Text

Showtime did not feel safe.

The ghost had been over-the-traveler about the return of its guardian. To have seen a fire in the eyes of Phoenix for the first time in years gave Showtime hope, a light of the ghost's own it felt.

That light quickly turned to a darkness deeper than the loss of their light entirely. Watching the man Showtime thought was his guardian tear through his fellow guardians horrified it.

It was not from the way Phoenix seemed to bend the rules of light and darkness, it was not from the precision and efficiency the battled with, it was not even from the vicious way he mocked and toyed with his opponents.

It was his eyes that scared Showtime.

It was the paths they took through the city once the match had ended. Phoenix was very particular about the roads and paths he took through The Last City, even if it was unbeknownst to the Warlock. Once he was on or within the safety of the walls, he rarely if ever called upon Showtime for transmat. Even if he was on the complete opposite end of the city and received an emergency from Commander Zavala himself, he would make his way through the city on foot.

Every time the faith in the protection of those walls was challenged, Phoenix would double down on this stubborn choice, much to the irritation of many partners and fireteams.

"Its important to spend time down in the city," the Warlock would always protest, "To be a Guardian is to swear to protect this Last City, to love it like the home it is for any and all allies of the Traveler."

"To love this city is to know this city," he would continue, if he wasn't hushed up by then, "and the only way to know and love this city is to walk within in, to live within it."

The eyes Showtime saw were not the eyes of the Phoenix he knew. The eyes that Showtime desperately tried to pull away from watching, the eyes that burned with a terrible voidwall fire as he stared down his death with a smile Showtime hoped he would never see again...

The eyes that looked directly into Showtime's spirit and told him to transmat him to the top of the tower.

The same eyes that made no attempt to search for any of the seemingly endless amount of friends he knew would be at The Tower at any given time. The eyes that instead locked in on the Quartermaster's station, unpackaged the Autumn Wind, a Joxer's Longsword, plus a smattering of legendary shards from the engrams he earned from his performance, and immediately turned back to Showtime and told the ghost to ready his Custom Retrograde Tourer ship.

"you don't even want to go back to home first?" Showtime sheepishly piped up in response.

The eyes of Phoenix unfocused, taking the man behind those eyes what felt like an eternity to ponder what should have been a simple answer. The eyes refocused with a solid nod of agreement.

"What is the best way to get their again?" Phoenix asked.

Showtime was floored, and deeply terrified.

"we need to go home now. i'll just transmat you there." Showtime whispered.

* * *

Phoenix took a step through the door, and almost tripped over something. Knocking into a bunch of clutter and robotic components, he caught himself on his desk and kicked up a tornado of leaves of paper. Looking around at the mess, he could determine that at one point or, he was deeply invested in every half completed project taking up space and collecting dust in this hostel he called home. The vex part wrapped around his leg seemed to be the latest curiosity of his.

He called upon his memories of being a Guardian, of the communing beneath his window, of the Eliksni clicking, of the Cabal patrols. He sought to remember the people of The Last City, and how they inspired him. The lives and memories Phoenix had been living through collided and wove into the memories Phoenix had of being a Warlock. He struggled to work through any of his memories, the way they all tangled together like a rat king of film reels exhausted him more than the physical workout he got from his crucible match.

Phoenix took a deep breath. 'The best way to think through this is to do a menial task, and this place is a mess,' he thought to himself. 'Guess its time to clean my room.' He shrugged and got to work.

Gathering all the papers scattered around the floor, he sorted them as best as he could between important documents, research notes, and the sketches he would doodle out while listening to audio recordings or other various live feeds. Storing them in the proper shelves under his desk, he got to work addressing the clutter of previous research, separating out all the objects that were most likely a trophy or otherwise some spoil of conquest Phoenix held onto. The items that weren't taking up an aggressive amount of floor space: a Bell of Conquest from Caiatl, a cipher and a ceremonial dagger from the Warmind, a handful of staves, spears, and other ruinous curious obtained through the numerous battles Phoenix fought against the Hive Pantheon, and a couple of Awoken artifacts that called out to Phoenix in particular.

Phoenix was doing his best not to notice Showtime acting strange. He might have a lot to unscramble, but even he could tell there was something bothering it. It was when Phoenix reached for his old Wayfinder's Compass that he noticed Showtime had almost frozen entirely. He turned toward his ghost.

"Are you okay?" Phoenix asked.

"you're scaring me, Phoenix." Showtime eventually stammered out.

"What am I doing?" Phoenix threw up his eyebrow with open curiosity.

"You're acting like... not yourself."

Phoenix grew suspicious. "Who am I acting like?"

"I don't know!" Showtime almost shouted. "You're just doing things a lot differently than I remember."

Phoenix was silent for a beat, letting the silence hang in the air like a pallet of bricks.

"Who am I acting like?" He repeated.

Showtime went to respond, but no words came from the ghost. After it gathered itself and tried again, they replied, "I don't want to talk about it."

Phoenix crossed his arms. "And why is that?"

"Because I don't want to!" The ghost shouted. "You're scaring me and I don't want to talk about it, please stop pressuring me about it right now."

Phoenix stopped. He was putting a lot of pressure on his friend. He took a deep breath, and apologized. He went back to the last thing he was cleaning. Resting his eyes back on the Wayfinder's Compass, he realized why it stuck out to him. It reminded him of the woman he saw when he closed his eyes. He couldn't see how the connection formed between the two amidst the tangles of film reel, but he could feel her memory light up when thought of the compass. He grabbed the compass and held it toward Showtime.

"Who does this remind you of?" Phoenix asked lightly.

"Umm... I don't... I don't remember" Showtime choked out an reply. It added, seemingly hoping for no answer, "Does it remind you of anyone?"

Phoenix looked inward at the question. He found no memory within the times he could remember wielding the light. As he prepared to dive deeper into the memories of the other worldlines he visited, he felt something light up within the complex of archives built from his time on the Halo Ring. Following the epiphany his its end location, one name leaped out to him like a Hive Tombship.

"Mox!" Phoenix shot up, grabbing his hair and pulling is back with both hands. "I saw her! I don't know where, I can't tell you how, I can't even explain what I can't explain!" Phoenix victorious breathed in, "But I know that it was her." He took a moment to evaluate his conclusion.

"They're all out there still, somewhere." Phoenix turned to Showtime, who had lost all the color to the light in its eye.

"Oh no," is all the ghost could mutter out, once again faintly catching the whispers.

Chapter Text

"i'm going to need you to be as explicit and to the point as possible, phoenix." Showtime made its voice as quiet as possible, but as loud as necessary.

"About?" This 'Phoenix' responded.

"Who did you see first?" The ghost could almost barely be heard. Showtime almost didn't even want to know the answer.

"Uh..." Phoenix launched into thought and trailed off for a moment.

"A construct?? of some kind?" Phoenix settled on an answer.

"what." Showtime soft reset.

"It was like some kid?" Phoenix started attempting to describe his confusion with his hands. "He was wearing armor, for some reason, even though he was a... fuckin hologram, kinda like... um..." Phoennix searched for another answer.

"phoenix."

"I guess like a submind of Rasputin?"

"Phoenix." Showtime raised its voice.

"Sorry, what?" He turned back to face the ghost.

"Who did you see next?"

After a moment, he began with another answer, "a fireteam of some military soldiers, I think there was-"

"Who did you see *after them,* Phoenix?" Showtime cut him off. "Who was the next 'important' person you saw next?"

"... I got stopped by the, boss of the place." Phoenix asserted, "I'd say Big, but I think I was just a little taller than 'em."

"their name." Showtime stated.

"Damn fine beard," Phoenix admitted, scratching his own mustache. Turning back to Showtime, he continued "kinda jealous, if I'm honest."

"What was their name?" Showtime demanded.

"Adam." Phoenix stopped, and returned to a neutral position.

"Please tell me that name meant nothing to you." Showtime hoped.

"It..." Phoenix chewed on the answer like it was a piece of leather, "reminded me of this Nightstalker."

"If you say their name I swear on the Traveler"

"..." Phoenix hoped he didn't give the wrong answer, "Ad' Alam." He felt the name resonate behind his eyes, enlightening the beginning of a web of lost memories.

"I hate you so much right now." Showtime turned and glided across the room.

"What?" Phoenix turned toward Showtime, "Did I see someone I shouldn't've?"

The ghost sharply whipped back around to face Phoenix, "Yes."

Phoenix stepped back.

"Yes you did." Showtime continued. "There's maybe 3 to 5 people you could bring up right now that are 'someone you shouldn't have,' and you currently have spoken 2 of those names."

Phoenix paused. He sat with the statement Showtime made. After a moment, he replied "Were these names connected?"

"Yes!" Showtime shouted.

"Does this have to do with me pressuring you a bit ago?" Phoenix questioned apologetically. "Probably should've been my first question, sorry."

'No!" Showtime maxxed out their speaker. The ghost was livid, Phoenix could be so irritating at times.

The thought clocked Showtime, and caused it to calm down. Maybe this was still the Phoenix it knew.

"I'm really mad at you right now." Showtime stated. "Because now I have to tell you about them, and why they're not here anymore."

Phoenix stirred on the answer. Accepting their combined fate, he dropped his shoulders and responded, "You know I need to know, if I'm ever going to figure out what the hell is going on."

Showtime had been preparing for this moment as long as it could remember the noble stranger that aided the ghost in finding its guardian. It knew no amount of practice would ever truly ready it for the burden of this conversation. As prepared as it could be regardless, the ghost summoned all the courage it could muster.

"You killed them." Showtime admitted flat out. "Your entire fireteam. You smothered their light with your own."

"In that moment, you did what you said you never were going to do. You used the powers of darkness against other guardians. You encased them in Stasis. You shattered them, and then you unraveled them from the weave entirely," Showtime paused, "or so you explained at the time."

"I-" Phoenix could find no words. The knowledge exploded behind his eyes, illuminating pockets of lost memories like a carpet bomb of light grenades. The guilt and the grief weighed him down, falling to his knees.

"The look in your eye you had earlier was the same you had then." Showtime concluded. "After that night you buried everything you could about them. Your fireteam, your friends. All final deaths by your hands, all nothing more than whispers now.

"It worked," Showtime elaborated. "The nightmares, like the ones we witnessed on the Leviathan, were all decimated and have been dormant ever since. I was surprised how efficient you were able to block them out entirely, mostly because I refused to help you forget what I had to remember. but the nightmares were never banished entirely.

"I knew you were going to remember at some point, you always find a way to break these kind of things, especially when you don't mean to."

Phoenix looked up at Showtime and raised his arms "I'm sorry that I don't mean to."

Showtime paused for a moment. "I'm going to power down for a moment, you have me at my limit and I need to settle down. We can continue this conversation after."

"Yes. That works. Thank you Showtime, I appreciate you, I know I'm asking a lot of you right now, I appreciate you trusting me." Phoenix rattled off.

Showtime found an empty space to get cozy, and let itself relax.

The words Showtime used sat with Phoenix, he began unpacking them amidst the chaos happening behind his eyes. Before he got too deep into any one part of it, he chose to put it on the back burner in favor of making the space for him to meditate, and to find more answers when he closes his eyes.

Setting up a clear space by the window of his hostel, Phoenix centered himself. He breathed, and relaxed, and fell back into his eyes once more.

Chapter Text

Phoenix walked through the front door into the dark room at the center of his self.

The words of Toland came to mind, on this studies of the Sword Logic and Throne Worlds. How the strongest of Hive would cut open a pocket within the Ascendant Plane to create a plane entirely constructed from their will, often resembling their method of satiating the hunger of the Sword Logic.

Toland had a Throne World. "A scrap of a world" according to Mara Sov, but a Throne World nonetheless. Perhaps this space Phoenix returned to once more was not unlike a Scrap of a world within himself.

Phoenix turned to look out the window next to the door. He expected to witness the trees, the plains, the farms, the grains, the lush heartland that had always blown with the wind outside this place.

He instead saw mountains, deserts, a smoldering city illuminated by a night time sky exploding with the light of ballistic hellfire, a firework show of terribly beautiful colors.

He turned his focus back to the room. The dark room had been configured differently, it rarely stayed the same. This time however it was new to him, a years old memory recently unburied. the front door and the window ran the short width of the space, the length running deep backward, he could barely see the other wall. The handful of appliances and the trashy, tattered bed covers reminded him of a shitty motel.

[For one night, this was home.]

The words spoke through Phoenix, not at him. The unbearable pain he had expected was shockingly absent. He turned to look out the window once more, preparing for the dazzling lights to rain down on him at any moment.

[I don't want to hurt you. But I don't want to go down this path.]

"You made your choice a long time ago," a cold, fatally feminine voice resonated from behind Phoenix, deep within the darkness along the back wall.

Phoenix spun around, reaching for a sword that was not there. He took in a breath.

"Who are you?"

"A daughter of Starlight and Dark, you would say."

Phoenix grew fearful.

[Mox?]

"That name carries much pain, does it not?" The voice emerged from the darkness one step at a time. "I am but an aspect of the limitless pain you can cause."

The woman standing before Phoenix awed him. This was not Mox, she stood just taller, her legs just longer, her waist to her shoulders curved just wider, her face was just smaller and more round. Her hair, however, was a long and flowing dark, devouring black, and her eyes gleamed with an irrefutable, seething hatred.

"I am the Miserable creation of yours and one, and you cannot run from me this time."

"This time?" Phoenix asked, bending his knees and feeling for the window behind him.

"Has your memory failed you?" The woman mocked, "or are you trying to pipe down for once?"

[I do not want to go down this path.]

"You have already made your choice!" The woman roared, growing in height, stretching and contorting her features grotesquely. "You will suffer as you have made these worlds suffer!"

The woman grew and contorted, pulling from the darkness a massive pair of beautifully horrifying wings, not unlike the moth-like wings of the Witch Queen, Savathûn.

"Your cowardice will not fool me," the figure continued, "and it will not fool everyone. The protocols of yours and one will always flush you out of hiding. You will atone for what you have done."

"What have I done?" Phoenix shouted the question up to the creature of darkness, expanding well above the ceiling yet somehow staying within the room that felt like it was shrinking.

[Buried. Mourned. Forgotten.]

The pain Phoenix had previously expected returned. Taking the wind out of his lungs and dropping him to his knees. He expected the symptoms of nausea but they did not arise, surprisingly. He regained focus, picking his gaze up off the floor and back to the enamoring sight in front of him.

"What have I done?" He repeated undeterred.

"I am neither the Judge, nor the Jury. It is not within my protocol to pose, nor to answer that question." The voice echoed within the room, within his mind.

"Then what is your protocol?" Phoenix meekly inquired, the air steadily growing colder and getting sharper as he breathed in.

"To purvey the results, and personally administer the consequences when you try to hide or run from them."

"Are you coming to take my light?" Phoenix shivered.

"In cowardice, you were unmade." The moth took flight, circling Phoenix, the beautiful explosions bouncing off the glistening wings that snowed flakes of ash and of ice all the same. "twice now you have been delivered to me, this time you cannot be stolen away by your precious 'Showtime.'

[But he is not I! He has changed. He is stronger, he learned the lesson.]

The pain warmed Phoenix's spine and lungs, unfreezing him from against the window. As he exhaled his jaw shivered and his cloak gusted within the rapidly accelerating wind. For but a fraction of a second, his eyes were drawn to a black book sitting on the counter, surrounded by a faint hum on light.

"You are one in the same, as accomplished by your vile Project Babylon, as shown by the blood on your Scythe." The booming voice paused as the connection between Phoenix and I frayed.

"As the consequences return you to me, your Winter Night Protocol."

"Then you will not have me." Phoenix stated.

[I can't run from this.]

"I am not running," Phoenix breathed in and stood up straight, raising his head and proclaiming "I am standing my ground. I am experiencing this pain, this misery, as I am experiencing these dead and unburied memories. I am cold and the light is far from here, but I am further yet from this darkness you float on above me. You will not have me, for if I am guilty I shall bear this misery and I shall learn from it. I will learn, and I will grow, and I will continue to change until this misery is safely secured and buried in the past and stop the spreading the suffering along with it." The ground beneath Phoenix's feet slowly began to illuminate, growing like a bonfire and pushing against the encroaching, suffocating darkness. By the time he made his final statement heard, he shined like a lighthouse on dark wintertime waters.

[I don't want to go down this path.]

"I will have my answers." Phoenix responded.

"You will be returned to me, in time." The moth dissipated into the darkness of the ceiling.

"Yes." Phoenix confirmed, "But there is still much to be done between now and then."

"And when I return do to you," he added as he relaxed his attachment to this place within his self, "It will be willingly, as a friend. Not as the executioner."

As this place collapsed and returned to the abstract concepts it was created from, the protocol hummed one last reply.

"... Logic in dark."

Chapter Text

Phoenix opened his eyes, takin in a deep, defiant, heavy breath in before exhaling and letting his shoulders fall beside him.

Looking up from the ground, he focused on the voice of his ghost that had rocketed over to check on him.

"Welcome back to the light!" Showtime chirped "While you were... meditating... I had time to get you something to nibble on from [LJKHN2C@] downstairs. Some fruit juice and a buttered pastry. I know how much you love them."

Phoenix heard the name, the voice of his ghost was clear concise and jovial as always, but he couldn't understand what Showtime had actually said.

"Who?"

"[N*&%TBK]... The Elisnki trader that we get all our produce from. He's a weaver by trade, but he's always got a smattering of fruits and delicacies from trading their felt and silks." Shotime paused, "They were really worried about you when they saw you transmat right in front of our hostel..."

"Almost everyone in the market was giving me concerned looks," the ghost continued after Phoenix dropped his cue, "its only been an hour or so since you've been back, but you falling out of the sky has been the talk of the whole city... feels like everyone's been reaching out to me asking where Xûr took you, and who fell out of the sky after you."

"I uhh..." Phoenix trailed off, trying to focus on the name of the trader, the stall that he remembered passing by every morning. "I went to see an old ruined castle I used to frequent."

"Xûr took you to an old Warlord's fort?" Showtime was floored, "Perhaps we should check in with one of Ikora's informants to-"

"No, it wasn't... here." Phoenix continued to focus on the merchant. The daily exchange of some glimmer for some fruit to enjoy on his walk up to the top of the tower. He tightened his hands to hold onto this memory, of the goofy smile the Eliskni would flash at Phoenix every morning that would put an equally goofy smile on his face.

"What do you mean?" Showtime waited for Phoenix to finish his thought before breaking the silence.

"I was... uh, transported somewhere. To a different world."

"Was it outside of our Solar System?" Showtime tried desperately to bring Phoenix out of his slump, he loved to go off on long tangents at questions like these.

"No..." Phoenix coldly replied. The face of the Eliksni trader burned in his mind, partially intact, partially exposed and melted away. "Er... It might have been, but we can't just go there now."

Showtime grew wary, "Do you mean it was on a different plane, perhaps existing within the Leylines?"

"what was his name?" Phoenix turned and looked at Showtime, a look of desperate, pleading melancholy written in his eyes. Showtime was caught entirely off guard.

"I don't know, he appeared to fall from the same hole you came out of. The vanguard hasn't been able to locate the man, but they asked me to have you meet with Crow as soon as possible."

"The trader." Phoenix replied, not hearing Showtime at all.

"... [NC8GB3ICX]."

"No. What is his name?" A tear fell from Phoenix's eye.

"I just told you Phoenix." Showtime dimmed slightly. "We should really go see Crow or someone that can help me figure out what's going on."

"No. I need to know their name." Phoenix moved toward the door, his satchel beginning to shimmer a prismatic glow.

"Phoenix..." Showtime was at a loss for words, watching their guardian recklessly throw himself about, as if he had drank too many spirits up the street at The Spider's Ether Tank.

The dim hallways and stairways outside his hostel held him together as the memories were exploding and colliding behind his eyes. He caught the last step down and almost tumbled before he reached out and grabbed the railing and stabilized himself. Opening the front door to the outside world, the midday sun blinded him and caused him to fall back flat on his rear.

"Are you okay Phoenix??" Showtime blitzed over to check, his Satchel beginning to hum with rays of prismatic light.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just..." Phoenix trailed off again, looking out into the market and the crowds of people within it. Some of the eyes were on him, most looked away about their business. He crawled back to his feet and stepped out into the light. "I gotta say hi."

He tripped over himself as he exhaustedly limped through the market. He got a familiar distance away from the front door before turning to his left instinctually. Spinning on his heel, he looked the Eliksni standing where they always had in their eyes. He seemed worried, but delighted to see him.

"Do you have any of that bread you're always telling me about?" Phoenix remembered all the times he laughed at a joke the trader would tell him about it, how he would only come buy it on a special occasion.

"Yes!" The Eliksni proudly spun on his heel, lifted a blanket off a basket with his top arms, and pulled out a warm loaf of bread off the top with their bottom arms. Returning to the table, they extended out the bread and spoke in a crude but developing Common language.

"For you! Please take."

Phoenix felt slightly uncomfortable, he reached into his satchel to grab some glimmer or perhaps some shards, anything to offer the trader for the exchange. As he opened the top flap, he was blinded by the prismatic light coming from the star on his threaded keepsake. Shielding his eyes and turning away, he searched the pocket he had sewn into the satchel to hold his various currencies. Grabbing the only thing he felt in that pouch, he pulled out his hand and closed the pouch on the dazzling light show.

He extended his hand, opening it up to reveal a handful of strange coins.

"Here, will this afford the bread?"

The Eliksni used an empty hand to close Phoenix's fingers back over his offer, "No. You take! Happy you're still... with us."

A wave of warmth came over Phoenix, relaxing him and bringing him down. His face was very warm, it made him smile.

"thank you," he responded meekly, putting his hand into his side pocket so as to not blind anyone else on accident. As he let go of the strange coins, he felt something else crumpled up in his palm. Pulling up the ball of parchment back from out of his pocket, he began unfolding it into a small green rectangle. It appeared to be a note of some currency, worth 20 of its denomination. It might have held worth in some worldline, but here it was a piece of paper that felt uniquely appeasing to run his thumb and finger over.

"Where did you get that?" Showtime slowly pushed toward Phoenix, expecting him to disappear any moment into the aura of prismatic light and darkness surrounding him. "Ikora would definitely have something to say about it."

His eyes began to lose this worldline, it reminded him of what he came out here for. He turned back to the merchant as he felt himself get lighter.

"What is your name?"

"Namrask. A friend." Phoenix remembered the name. It brought a smile to his face. Namrask had not always gone by this name, Phoenix remembered this. Namrask had stolen a name from Sol when he had first arrived. "Woe to the Enemy" Namrask was no longer, he was a weaver, a trader... a friend.

Phoenix walked around the table, "Yes. Friend. Thank you friend, you have always been here to patch up my tattered robes, to fill my heart with joy and my belly with food. You have made this district, this city, a safer and brighter place with your trades." He opened up his arms for a hug. "You are a friend I am grateful to know. I will never forget you."

The light surrounded Phoenix as he hugged Namrask, who whispers the names of those he has lost until he falls asleep. The Eliksni was warmed by the embrace, as Phoenix fell through the threads of this worldline Namrask could feel the warmth still. The light quickly dissipated after Phoenix has disappeared, leaving the entire street watching in confusion.

"Thank you. Friend." Namrask smiled and closed his eyes, remembering the goofy smile the Warlock would always return to him.

Chapter Text

- 'So who is he again?'

~ He followed him through the portal that bracelet created. Everyone's likely going to comment that he's a taller version of...

- 'Phoenix.'

~ Is that his name here?

- 'Its the name he's taken everywhere, so far.'

~ That's dumb. You choose dumb names.

- 'I'm sure you'll remind me when he learns Phoenix's name again.'

~ And what's to say he doesn't know it already?

- 'Just because he slipped through the portal Phoenix created doesn't mean he gets access to any of my memories. He's still tethered to his connection, even if he uses the other means of Worldline travel.

~ Well, he knows of Spider. And all the trades that fat bastard makes.

- '... So you did do your homework, I'm proud of you.'

~ I'll backhand you *so* hard

- 'How much does he work with Spider?'

~ Where's he currently in the story?

- 'He's operating out of a bar in the Market District of the Last City, The Ether Tank.

~ I thought you said it was the Empty Tank?

- 'No that was in the Tangled Shore, it was a Lost Sector... The Shanks had trays of drinks on their head it was really neat.'

~ Well, then the Ether Tank is the first place he'd go for a lead.

- 'So he doesn't work with Spider.'

~ Space is a big place, he'd have fucked off outta this galaxy and found somewhere in need of a dealer. He'd have intel on the big man, possibly even a couple of transactions.

- 'At least you're right to the point about it.'

~ Brother mine, if there's a world with a functioning civilization, there's going to be a drug trade, and he is going to be a part of it, surviving or thriving.

- 'That'd be difficult as a Guardian of any kind.'

~ I just said he's definitely got the light, isn't that drifter character not a class?

- 'So he's a rogue lightbearer, also risen around the Dark Ages?'

~ He would have been risen when the Last City was maybe halfway built, seen it, and chosen to fuck off as far away from it.

- 'So why then is he suddenly falling out of the sky right above The Last City and seemingly bringing storm clouds with him?'

~ Like you said, because he's still tethered to his connection. Much like how the light gives Guardians the ability to make their fate, the connection he's tethered to can bend the reality of whatever his original Worl...

- 'Worldline.'

~ That's also a dumb fuckin name... Him coming through Phoenix's portal could have... added him to it.

- 'You mean like the opposite of Aetheon?'

~ .... fuckin, probably?

- 'The first raid boss, Aetheon (Time's Conflux) had the ability to basically erase people from the timeline. Are you suggesting that Phoenix indirectly reverse engineered that process?... Somehow?'

~ I mean, I'd say it was more Caramon's idea, since he chose to dive through the portal.

- 'So that's the name you're going with?'

~ Yes, and the first thing he'd do is find someone to ask a simple question.

- 'The market district is down the block from where he landed, he would have gotten interrupted by the commotion of Phoenix leaving a portal behind on your way to the Ether Tank.

~ Then he'd single out the confused ghost of his and ask it instead.

- 'Showtime would look at him approaching, a rough but well dressed outlaw, clearly having spent much time beyond the Sol System, matching the eyewitness reports of "A slightly taller version of Phoenix" and would subsequently freeze from system overload, what's your question?'

~ "Hello, I'm Caramon! Have you seen my brother, Raistlin?"

Chapter Text

The light surrounded Phoenix, it blinded him in its beauty. It had yet to cease amazing him how the dazzling light overwhelmed all his senses.

He once again felt the floor begin to melt away, he prepared to be sent into freefall once again. Leaning forward as the light let loose its grip, he began is descent parallel to the force pulling him.

He promptly fell flat on his face after falling only like 5 feet.

After catching his breath, he rolled over onto his back with an unexpected ease and sat up. Reaching to touch his lips, he felt the blood running from where he busted it open kissing the floor so hard. He laughed a little at himself, hoping he didn't have a concussion.

His vision was blurry. Perhaps he did have a concussion. Using a soft focus he felt out around the dull gray he was surrounded by. Feeling a pair of eye glasses, he fumbled to put them on, realizing why his vision was blurry.

After a moment Phoenix began to realize he was not wearing a helmet like he had been previously.

Nor was he wearing any armor.

He had on a lab coat.

And apparently he needed glasses. He made a note to thank Showtime next time he saw it.

"Are you done making a fool of yourself?"

Phoenix heard a familiar voice and froze. In an instant, he felt the questionably infinite eyes of a hidden source. Surveillance? Two-way mirror of some capacity? He couldn't immediately discern, yet he trusted the feeling that all eyes were on him in this moment.

Panicking, Phoenix felt himself default to the response that never seemed to let him down. Just bein' a dang ole smartass.

"I mean, I could shake my ass if you *really* wanted me to." He trusted the first thought that came to mind, for better or worse.

"You miserable fucking pissant." The voice of Adam was played through a live speaker invading the gray box Phoenix appeared to be held within. "I should have you shot dead for what you've done. Your 'protocols' be damned."

"Wait," Phoenix focused on where they heard the voice coming from, "You know about the protocol that's been trying to kill me?"

"You're really going to try and play coy with me?" Adam responded, one of the walls fading to reveal a dark room, and a single figure standing within, bearing the face of a friend Phoenix had taken the final death from in another Worldline. Their eyes were hiding in the dim light of the room they stood within, yet Phoenix could feel their intense anger.

"I know everything about your pathetic little 'Project Babylon.' You tried to hide it from us, but it was only a matter of time before I got around your lazy attempts to keep it hidden in plain sight, from the documents all the way to hiding your Frankenstein of a machine underneath Fort Osprey Val Tor."

The words Adam used all spoke to a truth Phoenix knew he should have some amount of hairs to split with that synopsis. As he reached into the archives of his memory to confirm, he found the knowledge he expected to find destructively vacant. Moreover, there was no archive for which he could access. If it was there in his mind, the connection he had to access it had been violently severed and locked away. The attempt to access this void of a memory physically pained Phoenix, leaning forward and cupping his hands around his eyes. He ran his hands through his hair as the piercing pain faded, noting his long hair falling around his shoulders, a short but full beard blanketing his mouth and jaw.

"I'm sorry," Phoenix dropped his shoulders. "I'm afraid I don't remember. I know I should, I can feel the memory like its on the tip of my tongue, but there is nothing but a void where those memories should be."

"Damn you." Adam spoke after a beat. "If I am to believe you, that is to mean one of two things. Either you're catching me in the biggest bullshit lie of your should-be dead life... Or goddammit your stupid machine actually did something. I should have you shot dead where you lie."

"I'm... sitting right now."

"I will have you muzzled and then shot, if for no reason but to know you'll take that silence to whatever hell claims you."

"Is that what I'm into? Or is that what you're into?"

"You think this a game? The damage your Dimensional Cascade has done to our entire Industry, the fallout of your... resignation, the goddamn littany of ONI suits that have been up my ass for the past 10 years since. And now you're back, making an ass of yourself once again." Adam paused. "I thought you had shown the depths of how pathetic and disgusting you could stain this world, yet you are determined to reveal a new low at every opportunity.

"You are an awful man, and you have done terrible things to good people." Adam concluded.

Phoenix sat with those words for a moment, and then another. They entered his head and promptly took over all other noise. Even as they stood in silence, Phoenix could still their words echoing in between his ears.

After another moment, he responded, eyes trained on the floor in front of him. "You are right. You do not need me to tell you, nor should my sympathy mean anything to you, but know that you are right."

A latent memory once forgotten, returned to Phoenix. It was a brief memory, a moment stuck in between two voids of time amidst his growing web of emerging and disappearing memories. He remembered standing above his friends and their ghosts, lifeless and cold and staring blankly into the sky. The eyes of Ad 'Alam specifically fell to where Phoenix stood, lifeless yet gazing deep into Phoenix's spirit. Those same eyes bearing down upon Phoenix, accusing him of the murder he knew he had committed, but did not remember committing.

"I can not currently discern the depths of how correct you are, but I promise you by the end of this journey I will see clearly this vile act I have done, and I will do what I can to-"

"No, No. No!" Adam interrupted, "No fucking pity parties! No 'doing what I can,' no bullshit... There is no fixing this, Scythe."

"That's not my name... and perhaps there no 'fixing' this, what I have caused. Perhaps there is nothing to be done... But what if there is?

"I will entertain this no longer," Adam turned and began to walk away. "If that is not your name, then I was right to remove you of your armor. If that is not your name, then I was right to remove any and all access to you have to every facility. If that is not your name... Then I would be right to have you permanently terminated, effective immediately.

"You would be." Phoenix darkly agreed. "But I don't think that's how this is gonna go down."

Turning one last time before leaving the room, Adam replied, "You will have plenty of time to 'think' about how this will go down as you rot here, amidst the ruin of your own failure."

"Am I at least worth knowing where this mysterious 'here' is?" Phoenix asked.

"After your resignation following your little Project Babylon, I found your paper trail, and with the help of the tear you left behind the first time you showed your worthless mug, I discovered how to control the stunt you keep pulling. After I figured out how to guarantee where you would land..." Adam chuckled, leaving through the door as he concluded, "the rest was history. Just had to find a place to put you."

"Welcome to Black Site, your very own prison you helped create."

Chapter Text

Phoenix sat in the silence he was left in. The window to his gray room faded back to the matte, soulless color of the blank walls enclosing him.

Words echoed through his mind, words of his friends, words of his ghost. Each word brought to light a different memory, old and covered in years of dust, yet fresh and bright enough to blind him if he focused on any one of them for too long.

His eyes trained on the floor in front of him once more, it felt like weeks, months passing as the memories ripped through his mind at lightning pace. Part of him yearned for this captivity, the part of him that was buried and lost to him, perhaps. He could almost feel them trying to claw their way out of his pupils and escape from the prison behind his eyes.

He thought about the name Adam had called him. "Scythe." It meant little to him in his experiences as a Guardian. Eris Morn had once forged a scythe out of the Nightmares found within Calus' derelict Leviathan, but Phoenix preffered the mettle of his own sword.

He thought about his Black Talon. Through thick and thin that blade kept him safe. It was not the blade that killed gods, it was not the blade that slew entire armies. No, it could not cut through the mountains, nor did it part the seas, but it kept him safe. Since he was first reborn, Phoenix felt safest with a sword on his back.

He thought about his helmet. Not the one that had been crafted for him by his friend, the helm he had recovered from the ruins of the Last City during the invasion of the Red Legion. How in the midst of him losing everything, the horned helmet gleamed in the rubble, almost whispering to him.

He thought about the magnum Xûr had gifted him. How it felt more familiar in his hand here than it had when Xûr first handed it to him. When nothing felt familiar, the grip of the handgun had kept him rooted to some sense of himself.

He thought about the bread Namrask had given him. As soon as the blanket had been lifted he could smell the mouthwatering scent of the loaf. It made his stomach grumble at him.

Phoenix realized he had not eaten all day today. It made him crave his gifted bread that much more. He dreamed of having that loaf here with him. Eyes still trained on the ground, he did not notice the light emmiting from the pocket on his coat. He kept dreaming about being able to enjoy the gift a friend had given him.

The more he focused on the wondrous smell, the more he started to feel it invited in through his nostrils. Before long he could almost believe there was a loaf of bread in the room with him.

"What's that?"

The youthful voice of the construct Phoenix previously met invaded the silence of the gray room, derailing his train of thought and causing him to open his eyes to witness the bread sitting right beside him.

"Its uh... its bread." Phoenix didn't know what to say. "I got it from a friend."

"That's cool!" The construct bobbed in affirmation. "Which friend? I know a few people here are bakers, I didn't know you were friends with any of them!"

"No, I got it from..." Phoenix stopped, not really knowing how to explain it, "I brought it with me, I guess."

"You are really good at bringing things with you!" The construct proclaimed. "Do you have any notes about how you are able to?"

"I don't even know how I got here the first time, man." Phoenix shook his head.

"Aww, that's unfortunate." The construct lamented. "I was really looking forward to adding to the notes of Project-"

The construct froze for a moment, then shifted instantly into place slightly to the right and continued.

"What did you just say?" Phoenix turned to focus on the construct.

"I was just looking for more notes to add to the Project, don't mind me "

"Which project?" Phoenix inquired.

"Project-" the construct glitched again, seemingly unaware it was doing so. Phoenix could not tell which project it could be reffering to, the word alone had Phoenix standing on the edge of an abyss in his mind, unable to view any of the archived memories within.

As he probed his mind and the memories he still held. The vanguard ran Operations and rarely did he refer to his own pursuits as "projects." Any of the projects he undertook roaming the streets of Summit City did not seem to have any relevance either at this juncture.

He recalled his time with the Old Man, and the words that brought him back into control of himself.

"What do you know about Project Freelancer?" Phoenix asked.

"Oh!" The construct was estatic that someone finally started asking it questions. "That was the first project you were a part of!"

"What do you mean I was a part of it?"

"You were selected early on to run trials as a test subject," The exuberant projection continued. "There was a great deal of disagreement between project leaders, but ultimately you were selected as one of the candidates to undergo the Augmentation process."

The words were foreign to Phoenix, and it took him a moment to catch up. "I'm augmented?"

"Yea!" The construct shouted, "Er, well, not entirely anymore. You *were* augmented on. A handful of the subjects that underwent the process developed... unruly behavior. You were among them, but your response was less destructive... at least physically."

"So I went Cuckoo for Coco Puffs and they took all my toys away?" Phoenix quipped.

"What's a Coco Puff?" The construct asked innocently.

"You mentioned physically," Phoenix continued, "was there other damage done? Perhaps mentally?"

"Nothing that was noted. All tests returned fine through the duration of the Augmentation process, as well as the removal of the more obvious enhancements. There was a noticeable increase in reaction time and reflexes, even after removal. It was seemingly important to those interested in the project's development.

"There weren't any further questions about it till half way through Project-" The construct glitched again.

"Fuck, which project?" Phoenix hoped for an answer.

The air around him changed, he could feel all eyes on him once more. Instinctively, he turned to face the wall opposite to where Adam had stood. The solid wall confusingly remained its matte gray, yet his attention was pulled to it first, and would not relent till the other shoe dropped.

"Project Morpheus." Adam's voice returned to the space. "When you stood witness to Oblivion."

Chapter Text

"I don't know what you're on about, by the way." Adam spoke directly to the construct. "Do you have any idea what 'augmentation' means? Beyond whatever loose files Scythe programmed you with?"

"... If I'm entirely honest," the construct spun on its digital heel to face Adam through the glass, "I got nothin. The only file I have access to with the word is Project Freelancer."

"So you know about... them?" Phoenix asked Adam, pointing to the construct.

"Really wish I didn't!" Adam cast a sardonic smile. "I'd introduce the fragment as 'Frankenstein's Monster' if you yourself weren't an undead abomination."

"A fragment?" Phoenix asked, watching the construct turn away sheepishly.

"Yes," Adam lifted their hands and motioned air quotes, "an 'intelligence' fragment created as part of the contingency protocols added last minute in the aftermath of your Project Babylon."

Phoenix sat confused. "What do you mean by all that emphasis on intelligence?"

"I mean you have none." Adam replied flatly. "Its built upon the handful of memories Scythe had his brain scraped of, plus the ripped out chunks of our database that you had access to."

Frowning and reaching up to play with his beard, Phoenix paused in thought before turning back to Adam and asking, "So this thing's the reason I can't remember shit right now?"

"No, Scythe was." Adam retorted. "Only reason Icarus here functions at all is because of the ripped data and the archivist that coded it. Everything Scythe added was sloppy and fell apart almost instantly."

"Its name is Icarus?" Phoenix turned to the construct, who was silently looking at its feet.

"That's the dumb name of the protocol it was born from, yes." Adam gave the fragment a disgusted amount of side eye. "Can't access project Morpheus, can't even gets its facts straight about Project Freelancer."

"okay, you've said like 3 different project names at this point, and you're starting to lose me." Phoenix sighed.

"Project Freelancer was Scythe's first major project, that much is true." Adam began. "The thesis of yhe project was the attempt to augment a direct infantry unit, based on UNSC Spartans genetic makeup. While the initial goal of early development was the discovery of how to apply the augments to the unit, ideally without fatal repercussions, the benchmark quickly began to revolve around lowering the mortality rate of equipping test subjects with MJOLNIR class powered assault armor to under 5%.

"Scythe took part in the augmentation process." Adam continued. "And though he was barred from further testing, the augmentations were never 'removed,' like Icarus told you. That's not how it works, and its stupid that you'd think it would work that way."

"I didn't know!" The fragment protested, pointing a childish finger at Phoenix. "Like you said, I'm just the memories he left me with!"

"So what did happen then?" Phoenix pushed for more answers, wondering why Adam was being so forthcoming with this knowledge. "What did... 'I' do during the project?"

"You kept breaking everything and you wouldn't listen to anyone." Adam replied. "So I took your armor and your permissions around the facility, not unlike the position we have found ourselves in once again. This time, though, The Director isn't here to bail you out."

Great, another ominous name that *should* mean something to Phoenix. It made his head hurt to ask, "The Director?"

"'For the exceptional performance in the Operator squad role throughout advanced testing stages,' was his bullshit answer he gave to everyone else as to why he vetoed you getting banned from the project. I don't know what his actual reason was, but it certainly wasn't your driving skills.

"He must've seen something that you're missing or forgetting." Phoenix breathed out a half laugh through his nose.

"He probably saw the worthless pile of pig shit sitting in front me," Adam quipped, "Scythe never directly stated what he saw during the testing of Project Morpheus, but the longer I have to hear your grating voice the more I'm able to make a pretty solid guess."

"Okay," Phoenix inserted in an irritated tone, "What did we test with Project Morpheus, since you are so insistent on answering all questions of someone you hate so deeply?"

"I don't give a good God Damn about you, even if you are what he saw when we put him through that test." Adam jumped on Phoenix's question immediately. "Project Morpheus had us simulating an experimental weapons platform that, if wielded by the right subject, would essentially push time through the weapon and collapse all matter onto that single point upon activation, effectively unraveling the fabric of the simulated reality with the test subject at the center."

"... So like a Handheld Supernova?"

"Have you held a supernova in your hand?" Adam asked, trying to hide their curiosity.

"At one point I could hold 3," Phoenix thought aloud, "but its been a while since I tried all that... What happened if the wrong person was selected?"

"The simulations all crashed before the platform could fully activate." Adam confided, "In Isolation and in group testing, Scythe was the only subject that the platform would bind itself to. For a while we wouldn't even let him fire it, we were so busy trying to figure out why it always latched onto his connection to the simulation."

"How many times did we actually test fire it?"

"Only once."

"And what happened?"

"On our end?" Adam raised. "Nothing. The other subjects were disconnected and all components of the simulation instantly were pulled onto one point. Any means we had to track the simulation were obliterated, all we could do is sit back and watch as your body stood frozen stiff while you experienced everything falling apart. What you claimed to have seen was wildly different, the sun and all shadow disappearing, all other subjects in the simulation frozen in place, and any means of naturally disconnecting yourself were unsuccessful. Apparently both drowning and jumping off something really tall did not end the simulation like it was supposed to."

"Is that what I told you?"

"In way too many words, yes. Getting a simple answer from you has always been like pulling teeth, but nothing you ever said about that project seemed to make sense. Eventually it came to light that you spoke to someone during Project Morpheus."

"Who?"

Just then, a tremor shook through the entire facility. The room Phoenix was in remained quiet, but he could tell alarms were starting to go off in the adjacent control room. Adam appeared to either not notice, or not care.

"The same person Scythe tried to contact during your Project Babylon, when he unraveled himself attempting to push time through his physical body instead of the weapon platform used in Project Morpheus. The resulting dimensional cascade decimated the lower levels of our facility, almost caused Fort Osprey Val Tor to collapse into a sinkhole, and has left our Industry scattered and vulnerable to ONI interference."

As Adam finished speaking, a man in a lab coat with a clipboard and an overwhelming amount of stress on their face flailed his way through the door to the dark room Adam stood in. The speaker quickly was muted so Phoenix could not hear the emergency news being presented, and sadly Phoenix had not yet dedicated the time to learn how to read lips, so all he could do was patiently wait for Adam to be done listening to the report. Wait, and wonder what secrets this Icarus Protocol was yet hiding, unintentionally or otherwise. At one point he noticed Adam aggressively pointing at him directly, seeming to tell the scientist that "he's right there." After a couple more exchanges, the scientist sped out of the room as fast as they could physically walk, and Adam turned back to face Phoenix.

"Who followed you?"

The question shell shocked Phoenix, leaving no answer for him to provide. The cluelessness he exuded seemed to answer Adam's question all the same.

"If I'm to believe that you're not Scythe, but you're connected to the point of his memory fragment confusing you for him, then that means he's still out there. Somewhere. Is that not a fair assumption?"

Something deeply buried within Phoenix screamed at him to answer with a No, but he swallowed and reburied it with a affirming nod. As he silently responded, a question rose to a boil within him.

"Why have you been telling me all this if you're so worried he's still alive?"

Adam turned to leave as a large collection of arms, legs, and lab coats passed by the door to the room they were in.

"If you're not Scythe, but you're connected to him... You can find a way put a bullet between his eyes."

Stopping by a terminal and pushing a few buttons before leaving, Adam looked up and locked eyes with Phoenix, "And you better find out how before he does the same to you."

Chapter Text

A noticeable tremor shook the floor of the cell Phoenix stood within. He turned to face the constructed fragment, still in its digital ODST Armor, standing maybe a quarter as tall as him.

"What was that?" Phoenix asked the Icarus Protocol.

"A drop pod, definitely of human design," the eyes of Icarus lit up as it reached for the answer, "except its not unlike anything we've ever seen."

"Don't you mean *you've* never seen?" Phoenix raised his eyebrow in confusion.

"Nope." Icarus replied flatly with a smile, "It was pulled from another worldline, one not connected to you, me, or anyone I can see in the database here."

"Wait, I thought they took away my access to all that," Phoenix interrupted.

"They did." Icarus affirmed. "They didn't take away mine, couldn't even if they wanted to."

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Phoenix goaded the fragment.

"Like Adam said, I'm built on data ripped from these archives. I may not be a full 'Artificial Intelligence,'" Icarus made a nasty face and motioned quotes with its fingers, "but after a decade of silence I'm gonna figure Something out."

"Great." Phoenix pivoted, "What's the best way to get out of here?"

"Actually, 'Here' in this cell is probably the safest place to be right now, leaving would guarantee two conflicts minimum in any direction."

"What, is the security around me that tight?" Phoenix asked with an amount of confidence.

"No, there's no security detail around this wing at all," Icarus retorted, unintentionally bursting Phoenix's bubble. "The whole facility's gone tits up since the ODST from the drop pod released an SOS signal."

"What?" Phoenix was confused by the soldier's tactics. "Who was he signaling for if he *just* landed?"

"Not sure, but it appears to have been picked up by a clan of raiders." The eyes of the fragment lit up as data raced through its processors. "The base is under attack. For the first time in almost 10 years."

"Great, where does that leave us in this?" Phoenix shrugged, turning sarcastically to the wall he was certain he felt someone looking at him through.

Almost as if on cue, a massive force exploded through the door of the cell, blasting Phoenix face first into the wall with a thud.

Recoiling and regaining his senses, he turned around to find the door to his cell was curled and mangled and spitting a wall of fire.

"So the front door's not an option," Phoenix leaned toward Icarus, "We got any other ways outta this mess?"

"Absolutely!" Icarus chirped as one of the tiled floormats along the wall to his left shifted to reveal an opening. "We can take the ventilation path into the cafeteria and ride the lift up to the garden."

Phoenix sighed once before moving toward the missing tile, "this is dumb." He swore before jumping down into the ventilation system, "this sheet metal shouldn't even be able to hold me up."

"If you think about it," Icarus appeared the end of the current pathway, "it was made by the same guy we are."

"And the same guy that apparently hid an invisible Ghost outside friendly bases to harass incoming raiders and visiting UNSC officials." The fragment continued.

Phoenix stopped and thought for a moment, before concluding, 'yeah, that sounds like something I would do.' Him and Showtime derived quite a bit of joy from misdirecting and infuriating the enemy when on patrol or otherwise not requiring lethal force.

Catching up to the fragment, he came to a gap along the path. Looking down, he was met with the rays of light passing through an opening to the floor below. He looked back up to Icarus, who was staring encouragingly.

"Where do we go from here?" Phoenix asked after a moment

"Oh, we go down." Icarus answered brightly.

"I can't just jump, kid." Phoenix confided, "I'm not in my armor and I can't glide down like usual."

"Sure you can!" The fragment jumped down the chute and promtly disappeared before touching the grate. "There's a teleporter hidden, its powered separately from the rest of the grid, I was able to keep it functional through the years."

"Why would you?" Phoenix questioned, not fully trusting the fragment yet.

"Cause... I wanted to I don't know!" The fragment grew bashful, returning through the teleporter and standing weightless on the grate for a time. "It mattered to somebody, or they wouldn't have made it."

It had gotten him this far, he watched as the fragment jumped back up and disappeared again, seeming to go back through this invisible teleporter. He resigned himself, his fear of heights not having an excuse any longer. He hopped down the chute.

Right as his feet were about to touch the grate, he felt himself move through the teleporter's network. His feet came in contact with a solid floor, and almost immediately he saw the light under him flood into his eyes like sharp daggers. He closed and rubbed his eyes before regrouping with Icarus.

"Where to next?" Phoenix shook his head

"Uhh..." Icarus was distracted, "Twelve o'clock."

Phoenix immediately turned to the clock on the wall, confused that the time was 3 hours off, realized what Icarus had actually meant, and proceeded to face forward. In front of him a door to the cafeteria had swung wide open, a short but incredibly furious woman in a labcoat, not unlike the one he was wearing.

"Icarus, who's that?" Phoenix sheepishly asked the cowering fragment.

"The head of HR," Icarus confided, "This is a major conflict."

"SCYTHE!" The woman roared.

"Its time to run." Icarus said.

"that's not my name." Phoenix spoke under his breath as he back pedaled in the opposite direction.

With a lightning reflex that Phoenix almost missed with a blink of his eyes, the woman reached down and retrieved her shoe from off her foot. In the same motion she broke out into a sprint toward him.

"Oh goddamnit, you get the FUCK back here you rat bastard! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH PAPERWORK I'VE HAD BECAUSE OF YOU?!?"

The woman launched her shoe with explosive powerful and uncompromising discipline, not breaking her stride in the slightest. The shoe sailed gracefully through the air, curving right smack dab into the back of Phoenix's head.

"Ah, fuckin-" he stumbled, shielding his head with his left hand. "Where are we going?"

"Through this door, I'll lock it behind us." Icarus appeared right by what looked like a storage room door.

Not waiting for a better option, Phoenix dove through the doorway as it motion activated and slid open.

"YOU CAN'T RUN FOREVER, I *WILL* HAVE YOUR ASS!!" Phoenix shivered as he heard the woman's shout was muffled by the door slamming shut behind him.

"That could've been worse," Icarus huffed, simulating being out of breath. "There's reports of her ripping peoples' heads off."

"I doubt those reports are founded." Phoenix pivked himself back up and dusted off. Looking around the dim room around him, there was a short corridor and a ladder. "Is that my way to the garden?"

"Yep, from there we can find a way to run for the hills and find a way off this ring."

"What a thrill." Phoenix joked to himself, standing at the feet of the ladder. He gazed upward, losing sight of the end somewhere above him. He grabbed the ladder and began his sisyphean ascent.

Somewhere in between just starting and halfway to the top, Icarus appeared on a pipe not far above Phoenix, breaking his concentration and almost causing his grip to slip.

"Check this shit out" The fragment chirped, projecting a cut of the live feed from its left hand. "Just a bit ago one of the facility cameras picked up that rogue ODST. he appears to be making a break for the lower levels. He keeps shouting something but I can't quite make out what it is."

The footage showed a single ODST rounding the corner of a smoke filled corridor, engaging with a squad of rthe raiding party, and seeming to inject a stimulant into his leg after getting grazed by incoming gunfire. As the stimulant pierced his leg and was injected into him, the soldier roared before the feed repeated itself.

"RAISTLIN!"

"Judging from the location of this feed and whered the drop pod initially landed, there is a high likelihood he's trying to get to your cell bay." Icarus predicted. "Either that or he's really hungry and wants to stop for chow."

The name shook Phoenix. It resonated with him at his core in a way he could not deny. He had no memory, no connection to this name, and yet it resonated with a distinct familiarity. He acknowledged it internally and continued his ascent with a renewed urgency.

Chapter Text

Swinging open the access door above him, Phoenix crested the top of the ladder and emerged atop the battlements of Fort Osprey Val Tor. He moved away from the stone façade of the mountain toward the edge of the wall to view his surroundings.

In every direction he could turn, from the impossible number of UNSC starships varying from carriers to corvettes looming above from orbit, to the various militias and convoys littering and colluding at the foot of the mountainside and along the beach, Phoenix could not shake the reeling dread that overwhelmed him. He could almost feel the MAC cannons aimed at the base, eager to glass every hallway and secret held within. Were the situation any different, Phoenix would have sat and marveled at the majority of the fleet being comprised of Human crafts. The armies of the Cabal, the Eliksni, the Reef, and the ships of The Last City could all decorate her airspace with their combined might, to see a massive army of this scale be majority of humanity's make was a dream Phoenix shared with many Guardians, to see The Last City become The First City.

As Phoenix backed away from the battlements, he considered how the motion he saw on the ground level and in the immediate air space was all in formation or following a supply line. The cacophony of sound dancing with the wind noticeably lacked any thunderous boom of explosive armaments, any sharp crack of small arms fire. The mad scramble to set up and rendezvous was in full swing, the starships scrying for any reason to let loose their orbital bombardment, the various Pelicans and Falcons seeming to take flight paths as far and wide around the cliffs and terrain to minimize time in the line-of-sight of the base, it was palpable how tense this world waited for the second shoe to drop.

An SOS beacon oscillated from the other side of the base Phoenix emerged from, the ship it originated from resting noticeably closer to the Ring's surface than the other fleets, not even the small number of Covenant crafts came half as close. The Frigate was clearly a human design, its outline and the cannons on the front reminded him of the UNSC Grafton and the short time he spent aboard it. A yellow decal ran the length of the ship, the name appearing to rest along the snout. It wasn't close enough to read the name with the glasses he had managed to keep intact so far, but it was close enough to tell the design of the ship was clearly not like any UNSC starship Phoenix had knowledge of.

"That beacon came from the same one that ODST came out of!" Icarus innocently pointed up at the ship Phoenix had begun studying, doing what the fragment could to be helpful.

Phoenix blinked before responding. "Do you know what the name on the side is?"

"No." Icarus once again smiled happily. "But all the radio chatter bouncing from the other ships is really confused about calling it the 'SES Song of Starlight,' so I think that's probably what they're talking about."

"I thought the beacon was what brought them all here, who's here to fight who?"

"That's what they're trying to figure out, it seems," Icarus relayed. "When the ODST landed, he appeared to light a small flare to call down that beacon. It began broadcasting on any open channel in the area to rally on its coordinates. The responders that have arrived appear to mostly be raiders thinking the SOS was an open challenge to attempt another raid, the first in over a decade."

"What is it they're trying to steal? Is there a resource shortage of some kind?" Phoenix tried to rationalize.

"They're raiders, not thieves." The construct mimicked disgust, "If they're here to take anything, its the record this base holds. Not a single raiding party has been able to break through these walls. Fort Osprey Val Tor and its clan are undefeated."

"So they're just here for the love of the game?" Phoenix turned his attention away to a soldier moving along a plateau beyond the Fort's walls. The soldier was crouched down and walking following a set path, seemingly as a punishment getting dished out by the superior officer standing over the crouch-walking soldier. He turned back as Icarus continued.

"Basically, yeah. They're looking at the beacon like an invite to bring your friends for a party game."

"Then what're they waiting on to get this party started?"

"The clan leader of this base to invite them to." Icarus continued with the metaphor. "The leaders of the two forces have to parley... more or less, before the raid can officially commence." The bewildered face Phoenix gave the fragment caused it to respond, "Hey, there's rules to this shit, and this'm them's's."

Phoenix was going to ask what if Icarus had glitched out again, but the question left him as the sound of a door bursting open around the corner brought them back to the moment. He grabbed the rock wall and moved to examine the garden terrace hiding from the sight of the access ladder. From the corner Phoenix peaked around, Phoenix watched Adam continuing through the garden from the wide open door behind them, a SPNKr Rocket Launcher resting on their right shoulder, with two MPs flanking their left and right.

"You think they're gonna shoot a flair out of there or something?" Phoenix whispered to Icarus.

"I think they're going to aim it right at that Super Destroyer," Icarus anxiously inferred. Phoenix gave the fragment an alerted look before swearing under his breath and resigning himself to the next step he was about to take.

"I don't think a single missile is going to do much." Phoenix stood straight up and pulled away from the wall to be better seen, projecting his voice so he didn't have to shout. On a dime, the Fleet Admiral had the SPNKr down, turned around, and aimed back up directly at Phoenix.

"I'll put one on the bridge and still have one left over for you!" Adam Spoke through gritted teeth, "What do you know about it, Mr. Starlight?"

"No more than you do, I promise." Phoenix stated, raising his hands by his head. Adam was quickly collapsing the distance between them and Phoenix.

"Then why shouldn't I put an end to this insurrectionist propaganda?" Adam used their open hand to draw a handgun of their own, "Why shouldn't I put a bullet in your head for bringing it here? Bringing back more ghosts of our past with it?"

Adam raised the silenced magnum and placed the tip of the barrel on Phoenix's forehead.

"That wouldn't do much either, now would it?"

A voice rang out from the access ladder. Adam turned to look, Phoenix attempted to.

"Gimme a second, I'm almost there." A huff and a labored grunt or two later, the rogue ODST pulled himself up from the ladder, dusted off his cape, and turned to face the two frozen in place, gun still resting on Phoenix's head. After a moment of silence, the soldier spoke.

"Can you stop pointing that at my brother's head?" In one motion, Adam holstered the handgun and aimed the launcher at the ODST. Phoenix immediately turned to investigate the ODST. The armor looked almost identical to that which he had seen other Orbital Drop Shock Troopers wear, and what many Spartans and other Freelance Soldiers had based their armor styles on. The decals that adorned the suit were what stood out to Phoenix, as they were unlike any that he had seen in the field. Where he expected to see the traditional ODST logo on the the shoulder pauldrons specifically, there was a simple white angular skull instead.

"Woah, that's not very 'for Democracy' of you, fellow support trooper." The shock trooper raised up his right fist in salute.

"You've brought the raid community back from the dead, and at my doorstep no less." Adam threatened, "You are nothing but the enemy right now."

"That's cool, right on. I'm just here to take him and go home, do you mind?" The soldier lowered his arm and pointed at Phoenix.

"What?" Phoenix asked, being drowned out entirely by Adam shouting "YES!"

"You're damn right I mind," Adam continued, "there's now 3 of you I'm trying to get rid of!"

"technically there's four, if you count my son." The soldier interrupted.

"And I'll put him down too if he shows up and starts breaking everything." Adam stepped toward the soldier.

The trooper pulled their silenced smg from their waist, "Now that's something I'm gonna have to make you stand on, you don't threaten my kid."

"Who are you even fighting for?" Icarus appeared in the middle of all three and asked the soldier.

"For Super Earth." The soldier mockingly announced.

Phoenix reached for the pocket holding his star stone keepsake. Adam reached to pull the trigger of the SPNKr, the soldier reached for Phoenix as he dove through the air toward him. Phoenix grabbed the stone and felt it warm to his palm, Adam grabbed cover as the missile exploded behind them. Phoenix focused on the stone and the light that blinded him when it blanketed him, the soldier focused on his brother as he began to open another portal. Phoenix told himself to think of a place where he would be safe, where nobody would be pointing something dangerous at him.

"Send the Director my regards," Adam told Phoenix.

The light enveloped Phoenix. The floor beneath Phoenix melted away, the light holding him firmly and gently as it carried him. It overwhelmed Phoenix, but in a way it calmed him, soothed him almost.

The light he stood on began to dissipate again, he could feel his feet touching water, slowly rising up to his torso. As the light faded, he found himself in a dark, empty, stone hall. There was no light sources he could see.

Strangely, it felt as if he could see the light in the corner of his eyes. He kept trying to turn and find it, yet the antechamber he stood in with torso-high water defiantly remained unlit. He looked above him to find a light source mounted to the ceiling. It was so big he could not see it all at once, and every time he focused on a sparkle he thought he had witnessed, it would disappear and another would catch his eye on the opposite side. The cracks he could see in the stone bricks were similarly vexing, he more he stared at them, the more they seemed to fill themselves and disappear, only to regrow right after he turned away.

He stared at the water around him. It was most certainly soaking his boots and pants, as well as his socks and boxers, but the more he looked down to confirm he was wet, the water seemed to dry away and take the grime along the stone tile with it. It perturbed him. He thrashed to get out of the water, half expecting it to not be there as he kept watching it dry away. A step of steps ran into his foot as he twisted and turned, trying to find something that wasn't withered and dust. He climbed out of the water, crawling into a ball and shivering uncontrollably. He coughed till he threw up, he couldn't focus on anything.

He closed his eyes. He began to cry.

He felt someone kneel down and pull him into their arms.

"Its okay, Raistlin. I'm here. I've got you."