#kab cayde

[moffkyng]

I'm Coming Home, Ace - Part 1: Gunslinger's Ode

"He's reckless, incompetent, childish, and he lacks any of the traits that a vanguard should have."

"He lost his life gambling, look what he's become now."

"He was stupid enough to get caught up in a vex teleportation network."

He'd heard everything that people said about him, in hushed whispers as he passed by.  He knew that people doubted his abilities, as both a vanguard and as a guardian.  It never bothered him.  It was water that trailed down the back of his cloak as he passed, he knew who he was and what he was capable of, that was all that mattered.

He knew he was reckless, and he had always had a sneaking suspicion that his recklessness would be the death of him someday.  And not the temporary death that comes before his ghost rezzes him, although those deaths were also primarily caused by his own actions.  No, the death he meant was permanent, unending.  The kind of death that no amount of the Traveler's strength could pull one back from.

Until that day, however, he was Cayde-6, the Hunter Vanguard and an all around stand up guy.  He loved noodles, gambling, talking without cease until there was nobody around to hear it, and his fireteam - even if he and Zavala oftentimes didn't end up agreeing.  Even those who disliked him would typically show him the respect he was due for his duties, and after the end of the Red War, the gossip had stopped.

He'd always had friends, of course, to watch his back and reassure him that he was a good soldier, and a better friend.  Not a day went by when he couldn't manage to make Ikora smile, even on her particularly bad days.  There was also Holliday, the Tower's Shipwright, the other regulars at the Ramen joint on the other side of the tower, and there was the Guardian who slayed Oryx, and his fireteam.  Sure, they were new, but they were damned good company.  Which was why he'd asked them to come with him when Petra needed their help re-securing the Prison of Elders.  He didn't even know their real names, they all had fancy code names that Cayde was actually pretty fond of.  There wasn't a fireteam leader, they all worked simultaneously, and they didn't really need one.  

The hunter called himself Spartan, and he certainly lived up the name.  He was Cayde's favorite, due solely to the fact that he was a hunter.  He was among the Tower's greatest nightstalkers, not that there were many nightstalkers these days.  The two had a lot of respect for each other, and while Spartan and Cayde rarely talked, Spartan laughed at his jokes and that was all that mattered.

The titan was just called Alex, nothing too fancy.  A lot of his teammates called him the King, Cayde wasn't sure if it was because he reminded them of Elvis Presley or if he was actually some kind of royalty.  The big bastard was a titan, but with none of the defining features.  Sure, he liked to punch everything that stood in his way, but he wasn't as stoic orboring as Zavala.  For some reason he was the lone wolf of their fireteam, which was almost unheard of for guardians as egotistical as Titans.  He'd disappear for days on end doing Traveler knows what while his fireteam carried on with their own day to day duties.

The third member of their fireteam was called Mad, though he hardly ever seemed to live up to the name.  He was snarky, sure, but not in a way that warranted hostility.  He found Mad and Spartan made a great team, even without Alex's company, though they oftentimes argued over trivial things during their missions.  When he'd sent them after Oryx's dreadnaught in Eris Morn's ship, he was fairly certain that they'd spent the entire trip bickering with one another.

They reminded him of an old married couple, in a way.

There were plenty of other Guardians in the same group as those three, and whenever Alex disappeared there was always a replacement - Toby, Vanilla, Commie(he never understood that last nickname, but in hindsight none of them made much sense), but Cayde felt closest to those three out of them all.  They'd seen some fairly interesting days with Cayde-6, and he was certain that there'd be many more before their legends were over.   They were the ones he wanted watching his back when he marched headfirst into the Prison of Elders to help Petra reclaim it from chaos.

After all, it had been Spartan, Alex, and Mad who'd saved him back on Nessus when he'd gotten himself stuck in a teleporter, AND it had been the three of them who killed Oryx, why wouldn't they be able to save him again this time...?

[moffkyng]

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..."

[moffkyng]

I’m Coming Home, Ace - Part 5: Eye of the Storm

Part One: Gunslinger’s Ode

Part Two: The Tower

Part Three: Sweet Business

Part Four: You Know How This Ends, Guardian

"Uldren Sov, is mine." Spartan clenches his fists tightly, turning and walking away from the two remaining Vanguard, and his fireteam.  Mad and Alex shared a glance, they both knew he wasn't going to leave unprepared.  He'd stop by banshee to pick up some ammunition synths, he'd stop by the ramen shop to collect those little "just pour water" rations that were discounted for Guardians going off-planet, and after a day like today...  

Hell, Spartan wasn't the only one who would need to head into the city for a drink.

"Guardians,"  Zavala spoke to them as they started to walk away.  Mad and Alex turned around to see Zavala holding what looked like an expired ramen coupon, he didn't make eye contact with them, "I cannot condone sending a fireteam after Uldren Sov, even after everything he's done...  If you choose to do this, you will not have the support of the vanguard, or the resources thereof."

Alex nods, Mad looks over at Ikora for confirmation.  Ikora closes her eyes, holding back tears to the best of her abilities.

"I'm sorry, Guardians."  Ikora nods at them, "As much as I truly wish I could support you, the tower needs to know that the Vanguard are united.  Or... What's left of it."

Alex and Mad share another glance, both knowing what the other is thinking, before they turn and make their way back to the tower.

 "Well... That was a load of bullshit."  Alex remarks after they're out of earshot, and Mad sighs in response.

"Zavala really, really gives you Titans a bad name.  You know that?" Mad hisses at him, and Alex nods understandingly.

"I'd assumed that Zavala was the reason everyone hates Titans, but, hey, at least we still have Shaxx and Saladin, right?"  Alex replies, sliding his hand across the door's panel to swing it open.

"I mean, I guess.  Shaxx is always busy boasting about himself and Saladin only shows up for like three days out of the year, but..."  Mad replies, and Alex shrugs his shoulders in agreement.

"Fair point," He says, and the two of them step into the elevator to take them back up to the wall.

They both ride the elevator upwards in silence, neither of them really having anything to say.  They were both grieving, they could feel the solemnity in the small box.  They were all processing their grief differently, it seemed.  Spartan was relying on his anger to get the job done, Mad was simply trying to keep himself occupied(Alex could hear the gears in his exo brain shifting, and assumed he was either thinking of an unfinished bounty he had left or was wondering which exotic he'd get his hands on next), and Alex was simply sulking in the grief;   Not enough so that it would overcome him, but enough so that he could make sure he wasn't dreaming.

So..."  Alex starts again as the elevator door swings open to reveal the top of the wall, "What are we going to do about Spartan?"

"What do you mean?" Mad asks, stepping out of the elevator and looking in the direction of Eververse and the Post Office.

"I mean that once he sets his sights on someone, he typically doesn't back off until they're dead.  He literally chased the house of wolves across the system to get to Skolas, remember?  And we went through hell and back so that he could rip Sepiks Prime into scrap metal."

"Twice."  Mad adds.

"Yeah.  Twice." Alex nods, and the two of them chuckle softly.

"Well you said it yourself, Alex, he's not going to stop until Uldren Sov is a bullet-ridden corpse.  So as far as I'm concerned, there's only one thing left we can do..."

"I was afraid you were going to say that.  We barely survived with an army against Ghaul, but now you want us to go after Uldren with just three of us?"  He asks, looking up at the now-awoken Traveler as the pieces and fragments hover around it majestically.

"Alex, when we went up against Ghaul, we didn't have our light. Remember?  It wasn't until you singlehandedly punched the fucker in the throat that we got our light back."

"I didn't kill him, remember?  The Traveler woke up and demanded it's light back, he killed Ghaul from the inside out." Alex replied defensively.

"Yea, Alex, we were there.  We were focusing on his soldiers, remember?  You still got your light back, and tracked him down, and kicked his ass even when he had the light himself.  Whether you killed him or not, you still played a big part in that battle."

Alex nods, a handful of workers at the tower wave at him, he waves back politely, though that doesn't make him any more comfortable.  He wasn't fighting for fame or fortune, and he certainly wasn't fighting for vengeance, he was fighting for survival.  He watches as Mad walks off a ways.

"So, where are we meeting up?" Alex asks, Mad turns around and stops walking.

"Oh, you're coming with us?"  Mad questions in a somewhat insulting manner, and Alex stares silently at him.  "Right.  That was kind of dickish.  Meet us at The Guardian Clown, that's usually where Spartan goes after a long day.  Make sure you grab whatever you need, first, when we're done drinking we're heading straight to The Reef."

Alex nods, turning and walking back towards the hangars in silence.  The journey ahead was going to be fraught with danger, and if Uldren had someone precise enough to kill a ghost?  That made him very uneasy, and he was certain his ghost felt it too.  They'd just gotten through half of the storm, and now they were in the eye, the peace that temporarily followed in between nightmares. 

The rest of the storm was yet to come.

[moffkyng]

I’m Coming Home, Ace - Part 7: Four-Horn Gulch

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]

"So, how are we doing this?"  They transmat down in Four-Horn Gulch,  looking between each other.  

A few of them were wearing new gear, some of which looked ugly and some of which actually looked fairly decent.  Tobey was wearing what looked like last season's Iron Banner armor, and while it wasn't necessarily appealing to everybody that didn't mean it was awful.  It looked like Commie and Mad were both wearing Future War Cult gear, though they were both different uniforms.  Spartan was wearing an almost full set of gambit armor, and Alex was wearing his traditional Woodlands armor(he'd painted over the Dead Orbit logos, he no longer wished to associate himself with them after their shortcomings during the war on the Red Legion).

"First I think we should set up some kind of footing in the area.  These... Houses?  Tents? What are these?"  Alex asks, looking over at the buildings adorned with the banners of the Fallen's House of Dusk.  Everyone shrugs. "Let's just call them tents, then.  I say we clear those out first, take Four-Horn Gulch for ourselves and push our way ahead."

Everyone nods in agreement, loading their weapons and moving ahead.

"Hey, anyone else notice that these Fallen aren't from the prison?"  Mad asks, punching a Fallen Vandal firmly in the front of the helm, shattering it and killing the bastard.

"Are they?"  Alex asks, slamming his knee into one Vandal's skull while firing his Crimson at a handful of Dregs trying to get at him with daggers, "I didn't notice, was too busy watching them miss their shots."

They make quick work of the fallen, reloading their weapons and letting their abilities recharge.

"Hey, uh, guys, can y'all come over here?" Alex asks over the speakers, and the fireteam looks over to see him standing in front of a large ball sticking out of the ground.  They walked closer to see that it was a damaged servitor, and that Alex's ghost was already promptly scanning it.

"This servitor... It wasn't just drained of it's ether, it looks like it was injected with some kind of... Dark ether." His ghost states, continuing the scan as everyone arrives.

"That doesn't make any sense, though," Mad states matter-of-factly, "there's no such thing as dark ether... Is there?"

"Hey, what were those things we fought back at the Prison of Elders?  They were like Fallen, but uglier?"  Alex asks, Spartan and Mad both shrug, and his ghost makes an odd sound.

"Why don't we just ask Petra?"  Sean asks, and the group nods in unison.

"Alright, one sec."  Alex's ghost opens a channel, connecting all of the other ghosts in the fireteam as well.

"Guardian?  What is it?"  Petra asks, "Having some trouble at the Tangled Shore?"

"The Fallen we can handle, but we had some questions.  What exactly were those... Fallen... That helped Uldren Sov escape?"  Alex asks, and as he does so his Fireteam scatters to do some post-combat recon.

"You've never heard of the Scorn?" Petra asks, sounding shocked for a moment before the tone changes again, "I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.  The Scorn were Fallen, once.  The Fanatic, he's a necromancer of sorts.  The Scorn are his subjects."

"So... We're... Fighting dead Fallen?  Or.. Undead fallen?" Commie asks over the comms, Alex sees him a short distance away picking through the corpses for glimmer.

"Of sorts."  There's a pause, and Alex almost assumes she ended the call before she replies, "Guardians, please hold on for a moment. I've got another call incoming.  Hold tight."

"Gotcha." Alex pauses, his ghost fades and he turns to see Spartan and his ghost trying to hack through a door.  Somewhere to his right, Vanilla and Sean are fighting a Fallen Captain, Mad fires a couple of pot shots at it as he scans something, perhaps it's a dead shank, Alex can't really tell.  He turns to see Tobey standing on top of a large rocky cliff, looking at something through his scope.

"Guys, another Fallen Ketch incoming.  This one looks... Different." Toby points in the direction of the Ketch as everyone turns towards him, they all raise their weapons.

Before they're prepared, the Ketch starts dropping pods all over the place, and Scorn storm out of the pods and start raining hell down on the Guardians, who promptly find cover and start firing.  A Scorn monstrosity reaching up to ten feet tall, built of pure muscle with some kind of mask covering their head, slams both of his fists down on Vanilla and Mad in a fashion similar to that of the Hive's ogres.  Mad's ghost revives him as Tobey fires a bullet through the monster's helm, ether explodes from the wound as the corpse falls over and disintegrates.

"Damn,"  Mad hisses, picking up Vanilla before bolting over a portruding rock for cover, "That thing hurts."

"We've got a lot more incoming, guys!"  Alex turns to see the ketch is still dropping pods.  A larger Scorn warrior holding two torches starts screaming in a language that none of them recognize, and a weird blue mist fills the air as creatures start appearing from thin air.

"Watch out! These assholes explode if they get too close!"  Alex shouts, leaping into the air with his thrusters as a group of screebs try to wrap themselves around him.  he fires twice with the crimson, setting off a chain reaction that kills the ones nearby him.  He turns, seeing Spartan holding them off by the door as his ghost hacks the door still.  Alex fires promptly, but not before they get in reach of Spartan.  His body explodes against the door and vanishes, his ghost opens up and hovers over the death spot as Alex bolts towards him. "Damnit."

As he revives Spartan, spartan punches him promptly in the stomach.

"Goddamnit Alex!" He shouts, and Alex stumbles backwards clutching his stomach and laughing.

"Sorry." Alex laughs, turning and firing off one last burst from the crimson at another scorn soldier nearby.

"Guys, that dude with the big torches is calling more."  Mad shouts, fighting off a group of Scorn Raiders.

"I got this, don't worry,"  Alex smirks beneath his helmet, holstering his hand cannon and charging at full speed towards the monster.

"Alex! Wait!"  Spartan shouts, Alex doesn't hear him.

He charges up his solar energy, and the minute that his shoulder impacts the Scorn Wrath its shields shatter.  He doesn't have time to slow himself down, and the scorn wraps his bottom two arms around Alex's throat as they both topple over the cliff.

"Oh shit!" Alex shouts, before they hear the all too familiar sound of a ghost popping up and beeping.

Spartan sighs, walking towards the cliff.  "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, STOP TACKLING PEOPLE NEAR CLIFFS."

He looks over the edge and shudders, Alex and the Scorn were both impaled on a sharpened rock sticking out of the canyon wall.  Spartan revives him, pulling his corpse back onto solid ground irritably.

"ACK!" Alex shouts as his ghost brings him back to life, "Is it over?  Is the sonuvabitch dead?"

Everyone rolls their eyes, some of them chuckle, Tobey is off in the distance muttering curse words at Alex jokingly.

"Damned titans," Spartan hisses beneath his breath, extending an arm to help Alex off of the ground.  Alex takes Crimson out of its holster and starts reloading it as they regroup, and Petra calls the Guardians back.

"Guardians.  Everything okay?"  Petra asks, the concern in her voice is hardly noticeable.

"Yeah, we're doin' just peachy, hon'.  How about you?"  Alex replies, the accent in his voice - which came and went constantly - making it's debut for the first time during this whole ordeal.

"I've gotten in contact with an old acquaintance, make your way down the tower from Four-Horn Gulch, I'll give you further instructions as you get nearer."  Petra replies, sounding like she's in the middle of running a marathon.

"On our way."  Alex replies, and the door that Spartan's ghost couldn't hack through slides open automatically.

"It was as easy as calling Petra?  I went through all that effort for nothing?" Spartan's ghost grumbles, disappearing as they start walking towards the doorway.  Mad, Tobey, and Noob cover their six as they walk through the doorway.

[moffkyng]

I’m Coming Home, Ace - Part 6: Guardian Clown

[Part 1]  [Part 2]  [Part 3]  [Part 4]  [Part 5]

It was hardly a surprise that the entire group was at the bar getting shitfaced.  In total there were 7 of them there, 8 if you included Alex;  Vanilla was arguing with Tobey over who even cared what, Sean was playing some old tablet game with Commie-3, Noob was arguing over Sparrow Racing with one of the other inhabitants of the bar, Mad was reading something on his datatablet and Spartan was sitting there in silence, simply holding his glass.

"I never had you pegged as a scotch man," Alex jokes as he walks over to Mad and Spartan, patting Tobey on the shoulder and fist-bumping Commie-3 as he walks by.  The bar was crowded tonight, and he wondered how many people there were drinking a toast to Cayde, and how many people just wanted to get drunk.

Spartan didn't respond, so Alex grabbed a chair from a nearby table, swirling it around and placing it in between the Warlock and the Hunter

"You two mind if I cockblock?  Doesn't seem like you two are in a 'hold hands and cuddle' mood at the moment."  When neither of them responds, Alex waves his hand in front of Mad. "Hey, jackass.  Are you alive?"

"Huh?" The exo looks up, his eyes whir slightly and focus on him, "Oh. Hey Alex."

"Head in the clouds, much?  Transferring data to the cloud or something?"

"I.. What?"  Mad inquires, and Alex shakes his head with a scoff.

"Nevermind.  What are you doing on that tablet that takes so much attention?"

"Oh, I'm going through all of my files.  I have a lot of unnecessary documents that random people from the tower keep sending me.  I have a few older files that the Speaker had sent from a few years back, mostly digital sermons and excerpts of old texts. But I-"  He pauses, clicking something on his tablet, Alex leans in to look, "I just got a new file. It's in Eliksni."

"You can read that, can't you?  What's it say?"  Alex inquires.

"Fuck no I can't read the language of the Fallen.  Do I look like I'm an educated person??"  Mad asks, before holding up a hand towards Alex, "Don't answer that Alex I swear I'll kick your ass."

Alex laughs as Mad's ghost starts decrypting the file, and after he's done the tablet itself seems to change the texts of the letter to match the decryption.

"It says 'I am an Eliksni Archon Priest with a huge pile of glimmer, and I'd like to send you some because I have too much of it to put to good use..."  He trails off, deleting the file before he finishes reading it.

"Wow." Alex replies, smiling at the bartender as she walks towards them with drinks.

"Can I get you something, big guy?"  She asks, looking politely at Alex, who smiles back as his eyes start to wander.

"A whole bottle of whatever my friend there is having," he points at Spartan, "And a plate of... What kind of meat do you have?"

"We have some beef, we have a lot of turkey, we might have a little chicken," the waitress starts, but as she gets to chicken, Colonel starts clucking loudly beneath Spartan's feet.  Alex looks at the cock between Spartan's legs.

Yikes, Alex sits back up and rubs his forehead, That's a thought I never want running through my head again...

"I'll just take some steak, if you have it."  He replies, looking back up at the waitress and smiling politely.  She nods, placing a glass full of ice and a large pitcher full of water in front of Mad on the table as he continues looking down at his tablet.

"Comin' right up," She smiles and walks off.

Commie punches Alex's shoulder, "You know if Holliday saw you doin' that she'd tan your hide for sure."

Alex rolls his eyes as everyone laughs, Spartan chuckles slightly, though the sorrow in his eyes doesn't leave.  Alex turns back and punches Commie in retaliation, accidentally punching harder than he'd intended.

"For the last damned time, we are not a thing."  He replies, hissing.

"That's a goddamned lie and you know it," Mad pipes in, looking at Alex with a malicious smirk, "Every time you show up at the tower she's all smiles and laughs.  Whenever anyone else shows up she's polite but she doesn't waste time with chit-chat.  Just ask her out already damnit."

"I don't even think Guardians are allowed to date," Alex replies defensively, "but even if we could, I'm telling you, there's nothing going on."

"Mmhmm," Toby chuckles, taking a swig from his drink, "sure.  Whatever helps you sleep at night Alex."

The bartender drops off Alex's food and his bottle of scotch, and before he has time to dig in Spartan hands his glass to Alex.

"Here," he says as Alex takes it cautiously, "I'm not very thirsty."

"Err... Okay..." Alex looks over at Mad, they share a look and then Mad puts his tablet down and looks at Spartan.

"So, do we have a plan? Other than just charging in headfirst like a generic Titan that we know would do?"  Mad gives Alex some side-eye, Alex looks back at him in confusion.

"What? When have I ever..." He sighs, remembering how many times he's charged in headfirst, "Okay.  Fair."

They look at Spartan, Spartan sighs and crosses his arms dramatically, "I don't need babysitters, you guys.  I can handle this."

"Okay, first of all - No, you can't."  Mad hisses, leaning in towards Spartan from across the table, "second of all, we're not your babysitters.  We're your fireteam.  We killed Crota together, we killed a literal GOD together.  We've got your back now more than ever."

Everyone in the group nods.

"Besides, dude, Cayde was our friend too.  We all need some justice."

Spartan nods.

"First we need to find out where they went, my ghost doesn't have any idea where they'd be." Spartan looks over at Commie, "You need better gear.

"I'll hang back and find gear along the way. I'm not just gonna stay behind."  Commie protests, Spartan nods.

Spartan stands up, grabbing his helmet off the table as Alex chugs the bottle in front of him, Mad is putting his data-tablet back in his satchel.

"Well then, guys, we all need to start looking for clues.  Alex?"

"Hmm?"  Alex looks up, putting down the bottle that's now a quarter empty, Spartan sighs.

"First of all, I'm not about to carry your ass into combat,  so you'd better be sobered up by the time we get there.  Second of all, I need you to get in touch with Petra again.  She has it out for Uldren, she'll want to help if we're going after him."

"Not so fast, Guardians."  They hear a familiar voice walk through the door, and everyone turns to see Ikora walking in with a slip of paper in her hands.  Every Guardian in the bar stands up, and Alex does his best to conceal the bottle on the table behind him.  His face is flushing red from the alcohol, however, so hiding the bottle was pointless.

"Ikora," Commie and Mad stand tall, not saluting but showing respect, "Is there something you need?"

"At ease, Guardians.  I've got something that might be of use to you.  She holds out the small, folded slip of paper towards Spartan, who takes it in his hands, "I know that the Vanguard can't officially help you, but I've got resources of my own.  Spies and allies, people to keep me informed when something like this is going on."

Spartan unfolds the slip of paper gently, making sure he doesn't tear it on accident with the sharp talons on his gloves.  He glares down at it for a moment before looking up at Ikora and nodding, he then turns back to face his 7-man fireteam.

"All of the barons fled to the Tangled Shore after escaping from the Prison of Elders."

"The... The Tangled Shore?  Seriously?" Alex's jaw drops.

"You've been there before, Guardian?"  Ikora inquires, preparing to chastise him if the answer was yes.

"No, ma'am, but... I've heard stories.  Skolas used to have a huge presence there, and I know that a hive dreadnaught that had followed Oryx during the Taken War was shot down and crash-landed there." Alex replies, getting himself out of trouble before anyone else got him in trouble.

"Alright, you guys, suit up.  Let's go."  Spartan clasps his helmet back on, throwing his hood on over it as everyone else grabs their gear and pays for their drinks.  Alex grabs his plate of steak and takes it with him, causing Ikora to chuckle slightly.

"Are you always so food oriented, Guardian?"

"Yesth mab" He replies, his mouth full, and she shivers in disgust at him as he closes the door behind him.