[b]GRAY GOO[/b] Chapter 1 of a Comic Fanfiction Series by Oddish Formerly titled "The Gray Goo Incident" [b]Dramatis Personae[/b] MAGLEV-6 - Male Exo Defender Titan. Gray skin, yellow eyes. Walkabout shader. Served as a railway security guard before the Darkness came. 80 years experience as a Guardian, and a regular mentor for newborn Guardians. Intelligent, rational, and very patient. His Ghost has Douglas Rain's voice (HAL 9000) KIARA PEL - Female Awoken Bladedancer Hunter. Red hair, purple skin, blue eyes. Cleopatra AK shader. Part of an Awoken salvage party searching Terran ruins on Mars, killed by Vex. Reborn as Guardian 16 years ago. Usually angry about something. Her Ghost uses Peter Dinklage's voice. TIBERIUS FROST - Male Human Striker Titan. Caucasian, blond hair with blue streaks, blue eyes. Refraction Melt shader. Killed when the Darkness hit, right in the middle of his ninth birthday party. Reborn as Guardian five months ago. Above average as newbies go, but prone to acting his age. His Ghost talks in Nolan North's voice. [b]THE GUARDIAN DINING HALL - 0704 hours, April 17, 2718 AD [/b] It's morning in the Last City, and the Guardians are eating breakfast in the Tower's mess hall. It's standard fare: mycoprotein porridge combined with kelp-based carbohydrate, organic fiber, and assorted vitamins and minerals. Same thing Guardians, and everyone else in the Last City, have dined on since the Fallen overran the last of the arable land in Ukraine. Grown in underground hydroponics chambers, it provides 100% of a person's nutritional needs, but it tastes like those paste sticks kids use in school instead of Elmer's glue. A three-Guardian fireteam is chowing down. It consists of a veteran Defender Titan by the name of Maglev-6 (Mags for short); his trainee, newborn Striker Tiberius Frost (Ty for short); and Awoken Bladedancer Kiara Pel (whose name is already short enough). Being a cyborg, Mags doesn't eat normally; he simply injects liquid nutrients for his organic parts. Looking at the grayish-yellow glop the non-Exo Guardians are consuming, he is rather glad. He is here to make sure his protegee gets some food in his belly. Ty was nine years old when the Darkness overran most of Earth, killing him and untold billions of other human beings. Upon finding and resurrecting him, his Ghost generated an adult-sized body, but was not able to give him another decade or two of experience. Hence, he acts his age a lot, including a tendency not to eat food he hates. He takes a spoonful of his meal and lets it drip back into his bowl, with a classic preteen, grossed-out, "I can't believe they're making me eat this crap" look on his face. MAGS (impatiently): "Ty, quit playing with your food and eat it already." TY: "Do I have to?" MAGS: "Technically you don't, but it's all you're going to get to eat until lunchtime. You know what's on the menu then, right?" TY (resignedly): "Liquid protein infused into water, so we can drink it without taking our helmets off." MAGS: "Correct." TY: "That stuff tastes like weasel piss." MAGS: "Did you habitually consume mustelid urine prior to the involuntary termination of your pre-Guardian existence?" TY: "Uhhh... huh?" KIARA: "Did you regularly drink weasel piss before you died?" TY:" It's an expression, OK?" (he sighs) "I remember what we did eat, though." KIARA: "Oh, for the Traveler's sake, don't start this again." TY (remininsces): "Strawberries, grown on Mercury. All the apples and grapes and carrot sticks we could eat. Grapefruit and tangerines. Roasted veggies. Fresh baked whole-grain bread with vegetable stew. Frozen yogurt or sorbet for dessert." Kiara grits her teeth. Several other Guardians shake their heads irritatedly as they shovel down their tasteless glop; they don't like being reminded of what got lost with the Golden Age. And if Mags had actual eyeballs instead of glowing yellow lights, he'd be rolling them right now. MAGS: "We know, Ty. It was all delicious and nutritious. But Mercury's now a Vex machine. Our Terran farms have been overrun by the Fallen. This is what we eat now. This is what [i]everyone [/i]eats now." TY: "Yeah, yeah... being a Guardian's great and all, but the food sucks." KIARA: "You get used to it after awhile. Give yourself a year or two." Sulkily, gagging repeatedly, Ty sets to eating his repast. Glad that the daily conflict over food has ended (but all too aware that it will start all over again in a few short hours), Kiara turns to Mags. KIARA: "So, where are we going today?" MAGS: "Zavala wants us to patrol Mars." KIARA: "MARS?! He can't be serious! Sending a new Guardian up against Cabal? They'll eat him for lunch." MAGS: "Well, maybe he'll give them indigestion. He's done it to me often enough, and I don't even have a stomach." TY: "I heard that." KIARA: "Like we care." TY: "You sure it's me and not breakfast? This gunk would make a maggot barf." KIARA: "Seriously, Mags. You need to request another assignment. Or replace Ty with an experienced Guardian. Better yet, fill out our team with a warlock. All the other teams are one of each, so how come we're not?" MAGS: "I'd say there's two possibilities, Kiara. One, the Vanguard feels that a Guardian as young and inexperienced as this one shouldn't be sent out without a mentor in his own class to show him the ropes. Two, the idiot who's writing this stupid-ass story modeled all of us after his Guardians, and didn't have a warlock he liked." KIARA: "Not sure I want to think about that one." TY: "I know I don't." MAGS: "Agreed. Anyway, most of our experienced Guardians are off in the Plaguelands shooting at spliced Fallen and becoming Iron Lords, so there's too few of us on Mars. Since we can't go into the Plaguelands, we've been sent to fill the vacuum." KIARA: "Why can't we go into the Plaguelands?" MAGS: "Because the writer of this idiotic story is still using a Playstation 3, that's why." KIARA: "OK, I get it. Can you stop breaking the fourth wall already? It's getting very aggravating." MAGS: "That I can do. Get us reassigned, not possible." KIARA: "Well, fine. If he gets killed, we won't have to listen to him complaining about the food anymore." TY: "Well, if I do get killed, I won't have to eat it." [i]End Chapter 1. Chapters will be short, due to 10,000-character limit.[/i] Chapter 2: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/219000493?sort=0&page=0