[b]PROLOGUE[/b] “[i]For every legend in history, there is a story untold.[/i]” —Enoch Woden, the Last Noble My name is Enoch, and over the course of my second life, I’ve found that the untold stories—the tales that have been buried beneath the sands of time, or lost in the shadows of the legends, myths, and fables—tend to be the best sort. They give you the truth, in all its inglorious actuality; come success or failure, for inspiration can be gained from even the most terrible of losses. What follows is one of those many untold memoirs, unearthed, so that you might draw courage from the grand victories, wisdom the humiliating defeats, and strength from the valorous sacrifices within its verses. But first, I must confess that I am no storyteller, no weaver of words and imagination. All that I have written will be skewed by my bias – sometimes, but not always; lightly, but also heavily. If my accounts transgress in your eyes, I humbly ask for your forgiveness. [b]CHAPTER I[/b] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/211364315?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]Chapter II[/url] The sky looked so different in the wild. The City was so bright—with the lights of the tower, the lights of the sprawling, a seemingly endless concrete jungle of spires, buildings, and roadways at its feet, and the steep wall of steel and iron and metal that rose up to protect it all—even during the latest hours of the night. But in the wild, on the frontier, beneath the spotted leafy canopy of the forests, or the debris-riddled plains, it was dark. It was a cloudless night. The full moon hung high above us, suspended in a dark, star-speckled ocean of midnight blues and jet, inky blacks. “Do you think we’ll ever take it back?” Andromeda asked with an unexpected longing in her voice. Andromeda was one of the older members of Noble Squad, one of the few survivors of the Great Disaster that still braved the disheveled, untamed lands of the system. I’d always been curious what the Battle for the Moon had been like—as were most that had not participated—but everyone knew the disastrous defeat we suffered, and the grotesque loss of life was a conversation better left untouched. Still, Andromeda carried herself well in spite of all she'd seen and endured. She had become a grim warrior, and looking back, it suited her. The Frontier was no place for smiles and laughter; very few places in the system were. I lifted my attention from the small campfire between us, following her gaze to the quiet, eerie graveyard above. It was dull, for being so full. The Darkness had slowly thickened around it after so many years, like a suffocating miasma, still feeding off the death of ancient Guardians and lending its strength to the Hive burrowed deep beneath its fragile crust. Just the thought of it was unsettling. I shrugged. “I doubt it.” Andromeda tilted her sleek helmet. She was looking at me. “Why not?” “You of all people know why.” Andromeda looked back to the moon. “Things would be different this time.” “You think so?” “Crota is dead.” “And we’re hardly an army of thousands anymore, either,” I countered. “Crota or no Crota, the Hive have infested that rock for how many years now? I don’t even want to think about how many of them are skulking about in those tunnels. Thousands, I’m sure. Maybe even millions.” Andromeda was silent for a moment—thinking, planning. She approached everything like it was a battle. “True,” she finally agreed. “But we have the Legends now. So, again, why [i]not[/i] reclaim the moon?” “Fair enough,” I conceded with another glance to the sky. “But what the Legends accomplished was a singular, focused assault. Reclaiming the moon would be a bloody campaign. We aren’t all Legends.” It could be done, but at what cost? “Besides, what’s the point? What’s left of the moon but a hollow, empty husk?” Andromeda shrugged. “Expansion,” she said flatly. “If we have any hope of reclaiming all that we’ve lost since the Collapse, we can’t stay holed up in the City forever. Our enemies actively conquer, expand, and every foot of territory they gain slowly dwindles away at our own. It’s only a matter of time before we’re facing another Twilight Gap incident. What then? Even Shaxx doesn’t believe we’ll survive a second onslaught of that magnitude. “The Vanguard devastated the Hive when the Legends slew Crota, and then challenged the foundation of their faith, and won when the Legends sent the Taken King’s rotting corpse scattering into Saturn. We are stronger than we have ever been, and the Hive is vulnerable. We should press the advantage while it remains—eliminate them from our immediate space, once and for all so that we might begin rebuilding.” “I never took Warlocks for the daydreaming sort,” a deep, smooth voice rolled out from beyond the reach of the campfire’s glow. Andromeda sighed. “No one was talking to you, Valence.” Valence stepped closer, standing tall, his dark armor shimmering like obsidian in the firelight. “Oryx and Crota weren’t the only ‘gods’ the Hive worship,” he continued, ignoring Andromeda’s invitation to silence. “I’ve heard Eris muttering in the Tower as she combs over those fragments. There are others, and they will come here, just as Oryx did.” Tirion Valence was the epitome of what all Titans aspired to be, a mountain of muscle and armor and unbreakable will that stood head and shoulder over the tallest of Guardians. A veteran of the Twilight Gap, personal protégé to Lord Shaxx and aspiring Iron Lord, Valence’s strength was matched only by his bravery and unrelenting dedication to the protection of his squadron. More than that, he was known to be unpleasantly blunt—even to his closest friends. “Let them come,” Andromeda snapped in her usual, challenging tone. “They can join their fellow deities.” “You put too much faith in the Legends,” Valence countered. On that, I agreed. The Legends were our champions, our ultimate weapons, but they would not win this war. This was a battle for survival, and everyone had to do their part. What could just six people do against the seemingly endless Hive, Fallen, and Cabal threat? If we placed all of our faith in the Legends, we’d be no better than our enemies when they fell—and they would fall. It was only a matter of how soon, in my eyes. No one—not even the Legends—could live forever. Not in a system like this. The Darkness possessed the strength to strike the Traveler into stillness. I had no doubt that somewhere, deep down in the bottomless pits of its abyss, there existed champions of the night so dark even the strongest of Lights could not survive. Andromeda’s postured stiffened. “It has nothing to do with faith. I’ve witnessed a Legend’s power first hand, on Venus, when first they tore open the Vault of Glass. It was unlike anything I’ve experienced—a hundred Vex lay lifeless on the stone steps leading to the Vault in the wake of a single burst of Light.” “Talk like that is how good Guardians get killed,” Valence replied dryly. “Everyone starts to think they’re a Legend—because why not ‘me,' they say. And then they storm a Vex stronghold, or ransack a Hive Temple, and end up butchered and strewn across the ground.” The conversation was getting thick—dark. “Where are the others?” I asked, directing the conversation elsewhere before either could edge it further. Arguments between Andromeda and Valence never ended well. Valence’s sturdy helmet shifted toward Andromeda, then swiveled to me. “Still scouting,” he said after a beat. He took a seat on the flat, smooth stump of rock beside me and gripped his helmet with both hands. The locks disengaged with a soft hiss and flush of hydraulic steam across his shoulders as he slid it off. He had a buzzed, faded cut, dark skin, like worn mahogany, and striking amber eyes, dim with experience, history—horrors that only a seasoned warrior could endure. “Shouldn’t you be scouting, as well?” I chuckled at the comment. “Arein will pick up any slack.” “Titans and Warlocks aren’t meant for scouting,” Valence said, his tone soft but firm. “I think Ikora would disagree,” I added with a wry smirk, hidden by my helmet. Andromeda snickered at the comment, always amused whenever her mentor’s achievements entered a conversation. There was no shortage of stories regarding the legendary Ikora Rey and her expeditions of the system during her younger days. Even as a Warlock, they were the stuff that inspired Hunters to do better, [i]be[/i] better. “Well, we all aren’t Ikora Rey,” Valence replied. “The way I see it, Lord Shaxx chose you and Arein for a reason—so, do what Hunters do.” And that was Valence, in a nutshell. Everything was clean cut, black and white; there was no middle ground. Hunters hunted, Titans fought, and Warlocks strategized. To him, Arein and I were there to track our prey, mark them, and then let the others do what they did best. Cleaning up any stragglers was in our job description, as well. I didn’t mind it, usually. His single-minded approach to our tasks made functioning as a unit simple, smooth. We operated like a well-oiled machine when individual pieces weren’t arguing philosophy or the future of the City. Rolling my shoulders, I stood—it had been a good rest. “I’ll send Paean back,” I said while walking off. “Midas should be returning within the hour.” Valence nodded. “When should we expect you?” I glanced at the sky. “Sunrise, unless I find trouble.” Valence tilted his head. "Trouble? How far out are you going?” “Not sure,” I replied, stepping into the dark. “We’ll see where the wind takes me.”