Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a coin, Blitz calls it, or at least it resembles something similar. A thin, circular-shaped piece of copper, if the Ghost scans it accurately. Even Blitz doesn’t know what purpose it once served. He is fascinated by it — old world artifacts.

“I think it’s a key,” he suggests, twisting the coin between his fingers. “Or something meant for passage. Something so small has to have some value, no? Or else why make it?”

“It couldn’t have been that valuable,” Blitz reasons, and the helixes of its body spin one rotation. “Something that small would be easy to lose. How much could it have been worth?”

He taps the edge of the coin lightly against the Ghost’s eye, chuckling as it flinches back. “Do you believe that about yourself? Size can be deceiving.”

“I am a construct of Light created by one of the universe’s highest powers. That is a thin circle made of cheap material the Last City uses for the least important of things. And I am dozens of times larger than it.”

“That you are,” he agrees. He sways as he walks, sliding his bare feet through the dirt with each step. “But you can’t make me clothes.”

“I can compact physical structures into Light to carry and access at your command,” it reiterates. “I didn’t leave the Traveler with a pair of pants pre-installed.”

He looks down at himself, and at the torn and dirty rags that cover the important bits and very little else.  “And where is this Last City again?”

“On the other side of the planet.”

“Isn’t that charming?” he mutters. “And you can’t just let me die here and revive me on the other side of this rock?”

The Ghost flies into his rib with a light tackle, tilting its segments to glare up at him. “I need your body to bring you back, Titan. I can’t make you out of nothing.” Titan hums through the back of his throat, twists the coin to the nail of his thumb, and flicks the little disc into the air. It lands in the pale palm of his hand, the image of a building he doesn’t recognize facing him.

“What’s the Traveler like?” he asks his Ghost. The little machine of light flitters into the air above his head, and blue flashes from its eye. In front of Titan, a giant circle with a triangle in its center forms from the projection.

“Calming,” Blitz surmises swiftly. “The Traveler doesn’t speak to anyone directly, but the sight of it always comforted me when I returned — while I was searching for you. Sometimes, I felt a wave of warmth and love wash over me in its presence.” The Ghost’s projection grows, as a miniature ring forms beneath it and fills with the vague shapes of buildings. “The Last City is a good home that sits beneath the Traveler, even as it’s moved higher into the upper atmosphere. We’ll both be safe there.”

“We’re safe here,” Titan comments, turning his eyes away from the blue projection to the empty wilderness around them. “We’ve yet to see any of these Fallen or Hive or Cabal you talk about. If they’re not here, do you think they’ve surrounded the City or killed each other in battle?”

The projection fades and Blitz falls to hover over his shoulder. “We’re not too far from the Cosmodrome — maybe another day or so’s walk. Other Guardians usually venture out here, where the Fallen would set up camp and empire. If we keep advancing, we’re bound to cross paths with someone.”

Titan flicks the coin into the air again, catching it in his palm for the head to land upright. “Is it too much to ask for them to have some clothes I can borrow when we meet them?”

“An extra pair of armor is standard equipment for the field, and I doubt a fellow Guardian would deny you—” Blitz cuts itself off, snapping through the air around his head and drawing his attention past a huddle of trees. “It’s Fallen. Dead Fallen.”

There’s an opening of dirt as Titan walks closer, and littering the dirt is an array of bodies that do not match his own; four-armed creatures with blue-greyish skin, splayed out over puddles of their own blood. Most have holes in the chest of their armor; a few are missing their heads entirely. “Do things usually go this violent?”

“It’s war,” the Ghost states softly. “I’ve not been back to the City since the Traveler ascended into the sky, but whatever the Vanguard has gone through since hasn’t ended the conflict. It’s us or them.” It scans the bodies, floating around the wider area as he examines one of the headless bodies. “These wounds are old.” The blood is already dry and cracking through the dirt, Titan adds. “But these look like Vanguard weapons had caused them. If they’re gone, then we have to look for the Vanguard’s local watch; there should be another Guardian in one of the safer sectors who works as a point of contact between Guardians out here and the Vanguard leaders.”

“First,” Titan suggests, and clicks apart the intact chestplate from the fallen alien. “Help me figure out which uniforms are the least bloody. I’d like to be less naked, and I don’t think these guys mind.”

He takes from an assortment of bodies closely shaped similar to one another, and just large enough to still fit over his body too. The suits beneath the armor smell putrid, even after a wash in a small river and left to dry, but they cover more than the trash he woke up in. The pieces of armor he plates over his limbs and torso are awkwardly shaped, but they fit nonetheless and the extra sleeves for the tiny arms he doesn’t have are easy to tie up and leave the holes closed. Titan does find it strange that their weapons are left to rot, but he thanks the Guardians he hasn’t met that they left him with something to defend himself.

“There are Fallen living in the Last City, last I remember,” Blitz informs him for the first time. Titan deadpans at his ghost. “It might be best to exchange that for proper Vanguard armor when we meet up for a rendezvous. Not give them the wrong idea.”

The man flicks his coin into the air again. “Thanks for the heads up,” he gives sarcastically, even as the coin lands as such in his palm. “If I get shot for this, I’m telling them it was your idea.”

“ You can’t bring me back to life if I die.” The Ghost shudders, zooming through the air to huddle beneath his arm. “Let’s not put ourselves in needless danger.”

“If it takes as long as you did to find me, we won’t meet anyone at all to threaten us. Let’s hope I have better luck.”

Chapter Text

He doesn’t.

A few hours later in the day, trading forest and green for buildings and brown, and Titan never crosses paths with another living creature, much less a sign they were ever around to begin with. Blitz tells him the Cosmodrome was once overrun with Fallen and Hive, and in recent years have dwindled in such numbers that the Ghost thinks they’re also flying in to the area just to challenge the Guardians who show up; every single thing they pass, though, is old Earthling technology, not alien.

He flicks the coin to pass the time, taking leisure on a rock that overlooks the edge of a cliff out to the abandoned and ruined city of a past society. “You’re certain this is where someone else sits around doing nothing all day? That has to be the worst job you could get. I’m nearly bored out of my mind.”

“I don’t know exactly where they’re stationed,” Blitz defends, a faint glow of light pulsing from its body. “I can’t get a good signal with any other Ghosts if they’re in the area, and I don’t think the Vanguard would station someone without the Light so far away from the City.”

“Could they have been called back?” Titan suggests. “Jump at the chance to go home? Be in the middle of swapping shifts with someone else?” He stops flipping the coin on its twentieth go, as it lands tail-side up in his palm. He frowns.

“And leave other Guardians without aid for even a short amount of time? There should be plenty more Guardians like you to spare. Maybe they’re on the other side of the city, that’s it. The center of a place like this would be too dangerous to fly into the middle of; get shot out of the sky from someone hiding between the structures.”

He gazes to the horizon, to where the buildings never seem to end, and his frown deepens. “My feet already hurt like hell. Please tell me there’s a better chance they’re just gone altogether.” His Ghost doesn’t answer, and he takes the silence with a sigh and falls backwards on the rock.

“If Fallen were still in the area for Guardians to kill without a ship, there’s still a chance more of them are in hiding. We should find shelter for the night.”

While Blitz flies back to the rows of hangers they had already passed, Titan pushes himself up to sit, rolling the coin between his fingers. He looks at the first hanger the Ghost flies to and flicks the coin into the air. When it lands tail-side up, he clicks his tongue and moves his eyes to the next, flipping the coin again. The second and third hanger receive the tail end of his coin, but the fourth is when he finally flips head and heads right for it. “This one will do.”

He grabs a brick, approaches the closest door and smashes the handle, prying the tin door open for his Ghost to fly in behind him. “At least wait for me to scan for anything hiding around us,” Blitz hisses at him.

“You already did,” he reminds it. “Your luck continues and there’s still no one else in sight. I’ll be wary of more corpses.” The interior is mostly empty, save for a few cabinets along the walls, tools and knickknacks littering the floor, and something under a tarp in the room’s center. “Find our second evidence that life still exists on this planet like you tell me. You sure everyone hasn’t abandoned this planet outright?”

“The Traveler is still in the sky,” the Ghost notes, flying away to gaze out one of the high windows. “The Last City won’t go anywhere without it. I don’t think any other planet in Sol is safe enough to relocate all of humanity to.”

“How many are there again?”

“There are supposed to be eight, but I heard Mercury and Mars were lost to us the last time I was home. Vex predominantly control Venus, and the other planets are gas giants; only their moons are possible to inhabit, but we lost control of our own to the Hive long ago.”

It sounds unbelievable to Titan, that something as large as the planet he walks on could be “lost,” whatever that meant. Blitz has a few recordings of the enemies he talks about from his journey, which helped to educate him on his surroundings and place on this Earth, but if any of them had power like that then how was there even hope of winning a war?

He walks to the center of the room, teetering around the covered object in its center, and pulls the dusty drape off to reveal a strange machine. Its body is long and thin, painted green and black, with a cushion and handles near one end, and exit holes further behind them. “Is this yours or theirs?”

“That’s a sparrow!” Blitz exclaims loudly, soaring back down to hover over and examine the machine. “Our allies develop these as a means of ground transport for the Vanguard. What’s one doing all the way out here?”

Titan wipes a finger along the hull, catching dust on his glove. “Being abandoned, like everything else. This place is old. How long has this been a war?”

“Centuries. For one to just be left hidden here this long means an old soldier left it behind. To not return for it…The fuel’s withered away, but I might be able to jumpstart it with a jolt of Light.” The Ghost’s spikes rise off its body, as a faint ball of light forms around it and keeps the rest of its body floating around it. “It should let us ride around the Cosmodrome until you want to stop; I’m not sure it’ll turn on again if you do.”

Titan flicks his coin into the air once more, and it lands in the palm of his hand with its head upright.

“We’ve still got some daylight. Let’s give it a whirl.”

Chapter Text

Driving a sparrow is a lot harder than he expects, but at least Titan doesn’t crash.

After doing almost exactly that while moving it out of the shed, he follows Blitz’s advice and takes it slow as he drives between the abandoned, crumbling structures of the Cosmodrome. It’s just as empty up close as it looked from a distance, the eerie quietness of it all unsettling as the sun dips lower and lower.

“Any signal yet?” he mutters to the Ghost in his head — still getting over that bit of information — as he comes to a stop at a crossroads, engine still running.

“Nothing,” Blitz reaffirms. “If anyone is picking up our signal, they’re not responding.”

He fishes the coin from where he tucked it into his armor, dancing it between his fingers as he looks left. He flips the coin and it lands face-down in the palm of his hand. He turns to the right and flips it again, to the same result.

“Have you been using a coin flip to decide where we go?” Blitz finally asks him, voice straining ludicrously.

“Well what sounds better; heads or tails? I’ve got to make a decision somehow.”

“And just let chance guide us? That’s dangerous.”

Titan flips the coin one more time, and it lands upright in the palm of his hand. “What else do we have?” He tucks the coin away again and boosts forward slowly, carrying down the empty road at a slow pace. “If everywhere is this empty, why is the City the only place on this planet for us?”

“There are spots around the planet where other survivors live — I know there used to be. The Last City is the safest, though. Until we know our enemies have left the planet for good and can rebuild elsewhere, it isn’t safe to move people out of the Last City. We shouldn’t risk the lives of those without the Light.”

Titan decides to risk his own, putting a little more speed into the thrusters by the second, zooming down the road faster and faster. The sun falls lower than the buildings to his left, and darkness slowly encroaches over the roads. “Is anything picking up the signal, ally or other?”

“Not that I can tell—Wait. Something is close by. Next left!” Titan twists the handles as he reaches the next opening, kicking up dirt curling around the corner without slowing down. There he finds the person his Ghost warned him about, in the middle of the road, right in his sparrow’s path.

“Shit!” Titan curses, twisting and slamming on the breaks even as Blitz shouts for him to, missing the person by barely. But he’s lost control of the sparrow, and it catches somewhere on the ground and flips, throwing him off to tumble and scratch on the dirt while it smashes down the road past him.

“Hold on, Guardian.” Blitz sparkles into view above him, expanding with light that envelops his body like a blanket, and the stinging in his cuts and bones fades slowly. He still groans while the pain disappears, and tilts his head aside to watch the old sparrow spark and burn down the road. “Eyes up, Guardian. We have company.”

Titan snaps his head around, finding the figure not standing but hovering over him, glowing blue eyes staring down at him. 

TITAN

She speaks, though her mouth does not move.

FORFEIT CALM RISE

He scrambles back, pulling the gun from his hip as he rises to his feet. The person before him looks nothing like him, her visible skin marble white, pitch black or painted streak of blue. The black and white coat she wears is large and loose on her body, with cut strands that dance in the wind down her arms or over her shoulders unnaturally. Her face is expressionless, bright eyes staring him down unwaveringly. As his gun comes in front of him, still pointing at the ground, she makes no movement to defend herself. “Blitz, who is this?”

UNIMPORTANT

She interrupts the Ghost before it could say how it does not know.

I AM HERE FOR YOU

Titan points the Fallen gun at the woman’s face. “It’s important to me. Spill it.”

I AM SPEAKING TO YOU THROUGH A VESSEL OF WHICH HAS NO NAME OF THEIR OWN AND DOES NOT MATTER

FOLLOW OBEY UNDERSTAND

His eye twitches at the brief moment where he hears nothing when she speaks. “What do you want?”

YOU

“I don’t know what this is,” Blitz admits in his ear. “They’re not Awoken or Human. I’ve never seen someone like this.”

YOU NEED NOT DISTRUT ME OR THIS EMISSARY

YOU ARE MORE IMPORTANT

OBEY FIGHT COME

“Stop that,” Titan hisses. “What are you, really?”

She does not answer, but raises her right hand slowly. Her fingers twirl, and a coin dances between them — Titan shoots a hand back to his armor and finds its pocket empty. His finger twitches on the trigger.

YOU ALREADY UNDERSTAND THE CONSEQUENCES AT HAND

THERE ARE THINGS BIGGER THAN YOU IN THIS UNIVERSE THAT YOU CANNOT CONTROL MUCH LESS PERCEIVE

YOU AND I ARE NOT ENEMIES THERE IS TIME YET TO AGREE TO OUR ALLEGIANCE WITH YOUR RIGHT OF MIND

UNDERSTAND ALIGN OBEY

“Why should I believe you?” Titan tests, both hands back on his gun.

BECAUSE THE NINE DEMAND IT

“You’re the Nine?” Blitz spins forward along Titan’s arm to hover behind the blaster. “I’ve heard of you before. You can stand down, Guardian; they are our ally.” He lowers his gun less than a foot, eying the floating woman cautiously. “What are you doing here on Earth?”

I AM ONLY ONE

AND TITAN IS HERE FOR ME

Her hand draws forward with the coin balancing on her thumb, but she does not float closer for the human to take it from her. She flicks the coin into the air, and Titan catches something else.

YOU UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF FATE AND YOUR SUBMISSION

ALL IS FATED

THIS PREDATES YOUR BIRTH

He opens his hand to find not the coin he plucked from the roadside when he woke up, but a small, white, cylindrical model with a wider base and a headpiece with flat bars rising from its rim.

FATE HAS BROUGHT YOU HERE, NOT CHANCE

YOUR FATE INTERTWINED WITH OUR OWN

AGREE CONFORM BEGIN

Titan eyes her warily. “What fate is that, then?”

SURVIVE THIS WAR

Chapter Text

Titan follows her down the road, floating him neither in the direction he came nor was going. His gun sits idly in one hand, while the chess piece in the other rolls around in his palm; on its base, the head of the coin was etched into its stone material.

“You forgot to mention this Nine,” he chastises the Ghost by his head, giving it a soft glare from the corner of his eye. “You don’t seem to like mentioning our allies until it's too late.”

“They’re a separate organization from the Vanguard and the Awoken,” Blitz hastily explains. “No one seems to know where they came from or what they look like, but I know they’ve helped us and our other allies in the past before. That’s all I know about them.”

YOU KNOW ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND

Titan gazes at the back of the woman’s head. “You’re not the Nine, or whoever is talking to me. Who are you?”

THIS EMISSARY DOES NOT POSSESS A PERSONAL IDENTITY

THEY ARE OUR CONDUIT

AGREE FOLLOW DISCOVER

“How did you know I was out here?” he prods more. The rook in his palm sits between two fingers, the base rolling along his palm. This Emissary and the one speaking through them were not attacking him now, but that promises nothing.

YOU ARE OBVIOUS

FATE DEMANDS YOU ON THE FRONT

STAND RECOVER WIN

“I heard the Nine only talk through a select number of people, or send a messenger like Xûr the shopkeeper to interact with the Vanguard,” Blitz explains more. “That they came to you directly means this is important.”

“You’re asking me to join your side of this war?” Titan phrases another question, brushing his Ghost aside gently.

THE VANGUARD ARE ON OUR SIDE

SO ARE YOU

YOUR WAR HAS ALREADY ENDED BUT SKIRMISHES SMALL AND UNIMPORTANT REMAIN

Blitz flies past the floating Emissary, its eye flicking at the woman’s face. “The war can’t be over. I still see Fallen ships scout the planet — we passed a destroyed camp the other day.”

THE WITNESS WAS FELLED BY YOUR VANGUARD’S HAND

DARKNESS HAS FAILED ITS MOST IMPORTANT PLAY

ALL THAT REMAINS ARE THE SMALL FIGHTING OVER NOTHING

SUCCUMB OVERTHROW DETEST

“Witness?” Titan looks to his Ghost, but it looks just as lost as him. “Do you mind explaining any of that?”

YOU KNOW ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND

“Why was I expecting more?” he mutters to no one. At least they don’t respond.

It does not take long for them to leave the structures and return to the plains. As the approach another forest of trees, Titan spots a group standing at its edge, turning their heads and acknowledging their arrival. They are five more beings unlike him and the Emissary; a blue woman with waves moving on her face; a robot with one arm; one of the larger Fallen he had seen at the camp; a smaller bipedal with a single eye and a pair of red horns on its helmet; and another floating Hive creature made of decay and white-glowing eyes.

The large Fallen eyes him hardest, stepping forward before the rest. “You wear a Vandal’s armor,” they growl. “Am I partnering with more of my people’s killers?”

“Someone else killed them,” Titan says, the gun tensing in his hand — the Fallen carries a similar weapon on his hip. “I’ve not fired this yet.”

“Pray to the Machine that you don’t face the barrel’s end,” the Fallen warns.

“Is it the time to fight?” the floating corpse sings airily. “I have been itching to go at your throat, Captain.”

The Fallen Captain turns his glare on the Hive, while the Emissary floats by unbothered towards the thicket of trees. “I need only crush yours between my small hands, filth.”

The blue woman and the one-armed robot step up between them, pushing the Fallen and Hive a pace back. “Let’s not do that,” the Awoken warns the Captain, hands fiddling with the knife on her hip. “We’re not here to kill each other. Let’s not change that.” She turns her ruby eyes on Titan, and they trail away to Blitz floating behind him. “You’re a New Light? How long have you been alive?”

“Seven days?” Titan answers with a hesitant look to his Ghost, who confirms the number with a nod of his body. “I thought I was called a Guardian.”

Another Ghost trickles into reality, pieces of glitter forming a similar small eye to his, though its white segments were replaced with a blue snake. Blitz  “We are,” the woman affirms.

The Hive wizard lowers a hand of her own, and a third Ghost forms itself, its body made of bone shaped as an X. “Only us three, it seems. The God chooses carefully.”

His Ghost recoils back behind Titan. “A Hive Ghost?” it asks in disbelief; Titan shares the same emotion on his face. “That can’t be possible.”

“Anything is,” the shortest creature among them laughs at Blitz’s expense. “Your God’s a false prophet.”

“The Traveler-r-r-r is no God,” the broken Exo comments back. “It is a-a-a-a machine like any other-r-r-r.”

ENOUGH

The Emissary stops at the cusp of the forest and turns. She points her hand first at the Psion, then the Captain, then the Exo, then the Wizard, then the Awoken, and then him.

MIMAS ENCELADUS TETHYS DIONE RHEA TITAN

YOU KNOW ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THAT WHICH FATE HAS DEEMED IMPORTANT

ACCEPT BOW BEGIN

Enceladus the Fallen Captain scoffs. “I do not need another falsehood to give me a new name,” he barks. “Explain why you’re here before I gut you and be on my way.”

YOUR KIND HAVE ALREADY BEGUN THE TESTS OF STRENGTH WILL AND KNOWLEDGE UNDER OUR HAND

CONFLICT BREWS ON THE EDGE

YOU HAVE ALL BEEN SELECTED FOR THE FRONTLINE

Dione the Exo buzzes. “Another war-r-r-r? Is the Black Fleet not dead?”

AIMLESS ARE THE DREAD NOW

A NEW FIST GOVERNS THAT WHICH IT CAN TAKE

TIME IS ON NO SIDE

“Why us?” Mimas the Cabal Psion questions.

FATE HAS CHOSEN YOU TO LEAD THE CHARGE

YOU HAVE BEEN COLLECTED TO BEGIN THE WAR WHILE THE REST PROVE THEMSELVES WORTHY TOOLS

Rhea the Awoken shakes her head and walks to the side. “I heard others were dealing with this in the Ix Realm. I don’t have time for your people’s games.”

THE GAME HAS ALREADY ENDED

IT IS TIME TO PROCEED

The air shifts behind the Emissary until it tears, blobs of darkness rolling into a ring around a bright center that pulls at the wind. Every one of them flinches back.

“What is that?” Dione the Hive Wizard asks with hesitance.

THIS IS THE PASSAGEWAY TO THE FRONT

NOW YOU MUST OFFER PAYMENT

Titan the human tilts the rook in his hand, standing it in his palm. He moves it to the top of his thumb in his fist and flicks it into the air. What comes back down is a gold coin landing heads-up in his palm. He eyes the Emissary as he approaches, and offers her the coin.

YOUR PAYMENT IS SUFFICIENT

PROCEED EXPLORE FIGHT

He keeps the coin, sliding it back into his armor as the others pass him by, one by one stepping into the portal and disappearing through the light. Blitz gives him one last look before disappearing in a sprinkle of light towards his body, and he steps forward to follow.

A hand snaps on his shoulder roughly, the Emissary gasping through a frown. ‘Good luck.’ Her face stretches back to place with a placid look, while her hand flies off him to hang by her side once again.

Titan stares at her, stunned and silent. He hesitates but ultimately raises a fist, gently knocking his knuckles against hers. “Thanks,” he offers back, before he steps into the portal and watches space tear apart before his eyes.