I’m Coming Home, Ace - Part 4: You Know How This Ends, Guardian
Part One: Gunslingers Ode
Part Two: The Tower
Part Three: Sweet Business
[WARNING: Spoilers for Destiny 2′s “Forsaken” expansion ahead!!!READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!]
Alex, Spartan, and Mad all arrive at the same time as Cayde-6, they dock and dismount their ships, they meet up with Petra Venj and fight their way through the Prison of Elders.
You already know how this ends.
Spartan and Mad were still fighting off a last wave of Scorn, they sent Alex ahead to find Cayde after their ghosts informed them that Cayde no longer had his own ghost.
"Listen, kid..." Cayde muttered, looking up at Alex as he knealt down beside him, "this... Ain't on you."
"You brought us here to protect you," Alex remarks, and Cayde smiles.
"No.. Brought you here to finish the job..."There was a pause, Cayde coughed, the lights in his head flickering on and off with each struggled breath.
"Tell... Ikora... Zavala... The vanguard was..." He coughs some more, gripping Alex's forearm as Alex looks down at the dying hunter, "the best bet I ever... Lost..."
His light fades away, the mechanics in his body slowly die out and stop. Alex hovers over him in silence for what felt like hours. After a while, the gunfire stopped, a few short minutes after that Mad and Spartan made their way towards him, weapons raised and ready for combat. They lowered the weapons in silence after they saw what had happened.
"Oh shit..." Mad looks over at Spartan, who doesn't say a word.
The two of them walk towards the titan, who pulls off his helmet and sighs audibly.
"Alex." Mad states silently, almost afraid to break the silence. There's no response.
Alex reaches into the pouch on his belt, ordinarily Mad would roast him for his belt bearing the symbol of Dead Orbit, but not this time. This time, there was no room for jokes or insults. He pulls out a small kerchief and holds it up to his face. Mad sighs sorrowfully, kneeling down beside Alex as Spartan starts shaking his head.
"No." Spartan groans.
"Spartan," Mad tries to get the hunter's attention, the hunter shakes his head and walks towards the sealed elevator door, reaching for one of the knives holstered across his chest.
"No. No. Fuck. No." Spartan growls, pressing his hand against the door's controls to try and open it. The door flickers red, and the words "Unauthorized Access" flicker across the screen. "NO!" He shouts angrily, trying to override the controls without success. He screams angrily, shoving his blade into the door's controls repeatedly.
"SPARTAN!" Mad shouts, and Spartan stops, banging his head against the door angrily. After a few seconds, he turns and looks at Alex.
"Break the door down." He commands.
"What? Spartan, you know I can't-"
"You break that goddamned door down right now or so help me-" Spartan marches towards him, pointing at the door accusingly as he does so.
"Spartan you need to stop." Mad interrupts, stepping in front of Alex and holding his hand up.
"No. He's a titan. He can break through that door no problem. We can still catch up to them, we can still finish this."
"Spartan, that door is two feet thick and made of solid metal, and even if we could break through it, the elevator would crush us all on the way back down."
"Then we get to our ships, we chase them down right now. You can't stop me." Spartan hisses at the Warlock.
"I can and I will, don't do this." Mad replies, charging up his fist with nova energy. Alex stands up, sensing the tension between the two of them.
"For the love of the light will you assholes just shut up and kiss already?" He turns and looks at Mad, poking his chest firmly, "Put your goddamned hand down right now, if you punch him I punch you."Mad complies, and he turns and looks at Spartan. "Spartan. Listen to me. I know you want blood. So do I. So will the vanguard once they find out what's happened. But this? This isn't the way to do it."
"Give me a good reason not to hunt them down right now and kill them all."
"Because we just lost one of our comrades in arms. We just lost a goddamned vanguard, and we just lost one of our goddamned friends." This time, Alex makes no effort to hide the tears streaming down his face as he scowls menacingly at Spartan. "We take him home. We bury him, we mourn. After he's been buried, that's when we hunt that awoken son of a bitch down and put a bullet between his eyes."
Spartan lifts his head as though he were prepared to protest, but out of the corner of his eye he sees Cayde laying there, lifeless, and lowers his head. When no more words are spoken, Alex turns towards Cayde and puts his helmet back on. He kneels down, grabbing Cayde by the back of his neck and the back of his knees, and lifts him off of the ground.Mad leads the way back towards the hangar, keeping his weapon ready as they pass back through the prison cells, where everyone was either dead or back in their cages. A handful of frames pile the dead and mop the blood stains. It reminds him briefly of the mess they had to deal with after reclaiming the city from Dominus Ghaul.
What was it that Cayde had called Ghaul? Gary? Gil?
Alex follows a few feet behind Mad, giving him the breathing room he needs to lead the way without being cramped. Spartan follows from quite a ways back, perhaps thirty or forty feet, sulking in silence as he flips one of his knives in the air repeatedly.
Petra sees them walking forward with Cayde's body and frowns."Guardians... I'm so sorry." She states, sounding as sincere as she possibly could.
She was sincere, Cayde was one of the good ones.The guardians don't reply, Alex nods politely and she thanks them for their help before they load up and fly back to the tower.
"Lucille," Alex calls for his ghost as he straps himself into the driver's seat of his ship, "Contact the vanguard, please..."
Lucille pops up on his dash in silence and activates his comms.
"Guardian? What news do you bring us?" Zavala's voice booms in Alex's ears.
"The Prison of Elders has been reclaimed, a few prisoners escaped but most are accounted for..." He pauses, trying to find a nice way to say it, but fails, "Sir... Cayde-6 is dead."
"WHAT?" Ikora shouts over the comms loudly, "What do you mean 'dead'?!"
Alex sighs, rubbing his forehead.
"The chaos wasn't a prison riot, it was a prison break. A group of... I don't know what they are... They broke Uldren Sov out and they escaped. Cayde blocked their path, so they destroyed his ghost and then... And then him."
There's silence for a very long time, before finally Zavala responds."Affirmative, Guardian.. Thank you for informing us... Report back to me and Ikora at the Tower as soon as you can."
"Affirmative, sir." He flicks off the comms device, breaking down in the solitude of his ship's cockpit as he looks back at the body in the cot behind him.
"I'm so sorry..."