Chapter Text
Three guardians were revived in a five day period, an exo, an awoken, and a human. The speaker and vanguard took it as some kind of sign that the world was about to change. The hope was that they would be at the center of it, hopefully using taking back more of earth for the city. It is with that hope that they are being trained. Unfortunately, the three of them don’t seem to work well together, and it doesn’t show signs of changing. The vanguard is desperately hoping that this surprise mission for the three of them will bring them closer together.
There was a small knock at Dros’s door. He put down the paper he was reading, recommended supplies for their mission the following day, and rose from his chair to let in one of his companions. A small thin awoken was standing at the door.
“Antzuamaren, welcome to my tiny living space!” Dros said clapping the smaller man on the shoulder.
“Please don’t you call me that.” He said stepping into the room. “Just call me Antzu. It sounds better. Less feminine anyway.” The smaller guy, was about 8 inches shorter than Dros’s mildly intimidating 6’3” frame. But despite his slighter frame, he was nearly as strong as Dros, who was training to be a titan. His “of age” tattoo was a small stylized curve around his left eye and seemed to match his vibrant green eyes very nicely.
“Whatever you say, Antzu! Please, have a seat, you are a little early, so we should have some time to-” another light rapping on the door cut Dros off mid-sentence. “Kill. Come on in Gossamer-12.”
“Thank you Dros, I hope that you don’t mind me being early, I was hoping that we could get an early start on our planning! And you know I like it when you call me Goss!” she practically glided past him on her way in, as he mumbled something about there being an exo named gauze which she ignored. Gossamer was only about an inch shorter than Dros, but just as tough. “And I see Antzuamaren is here as well. Lovely. Well, let’s get started, Dros!”
“It’s great so see you too Goss!” Antzu chimed in.
“Ok.” Dros pulled three small transmat packs out from under his bed. “As you know, we’re supposed to be investigating a town about 30 miles east of here, and we’re supposed to walk for some reason. The whole way. Once there, we’re to scout the city for anything Golden Age that we don’t already have here, make a list, and bring it back to the vanguard. Dead orbit will go and retrieve it when we get back. We have approximately 8 days, and the vanguard will send someone to come and get us if we’re not back in 10. I asked around and one of the more experienced titans gave me a list of things that we should probably take with us. I have a few reservations but I want to see what you think.” He handed the list to Antzu, who looked it over for a moment before handing it to Gossamer, who started off the debate.
“I for one think there’s far too little food. We could be gone for 9 whole days! You guys have to eat something!”
“There are no rivers or streams on the way there. We don’t have enough water for the trip there and back. Besides, we can hunt if we start to run short on food.” Antzu said shaking his head. “I think we should leave some of the food out to make room for water bottles.”
“I asked for orbital scans too,” said Dros pulling out a map. “If we ration our water right, we can use this” he pointed at a small circle in the middle of the town, “to refill our water for the trip back. And I do think we could hunt if we needed to so food is less of an issue, but I want to know what we should do about ammo. The list recommends that we only bring a total of three synth packs each. If we get into trouble, we could use a lot more than that.”
“This close to the City? I doubt that any fallen would be bold enough to attack three guardians without back up.” Goss pointed out.
“Field reports show that fallen are beginning to scavenge closer to the City. We’ll almost certainly get into a fight.” pointed out Antzu. She sighed.
“fine, we’ll leave out some food, and replace it with a couple ammo synths. But like you said, we’ll probably end up fighting at some point. If it’s while we’re in town, we should have a decent base of operations. Someplace we can defend well. Let me see those scans…” she studied it for a moment. “ok, this place here,” she pointed to a relatively small boxy building, “is close to the well, and what looks like a crossroads for the city. It also looks like it only has windows on one side, and should be pretty easy to protect. Any complaints?”
“How do you figure the windows thing?” Dros asked.
“The shadows of the building around it are longer, so the architecture of the time wouldn’t have windows on the sides that are blocked by taller buildings. No one wants to stare at some wall all day.” She answered. “Anything else? No? then let’s get these things filled, and get some rest!”
They spent the next 20 minutes packing the supplies provided to them by the vanguard into the packs, and making small talk.
Finishing, Goss stood and shouldered her pack. “Well, I’m gonna go get some sleep, see you guys in the morning!” she waved and walked out.
Dros turned to Antzu. “so, just you and-”
“Night.” Antzu interrupted, taking his pack with him on his way to his room.
Dros let out a puff of air before getting up and closing the door behind Antzu. He stretched out his hand and his ghost materialized there.
“That was an experience.” It said, bemused.
“Oh hush. Do you think we made the right decision? With the ammo?”
“I think there’s a good chance you’ll be hunting, and that you’ll get shot at more than once, so it’s probably not a terrible decision.”
In her own room, Goss was also talking with her ghost.
“Well, if we don’t get to eat, we can just. Shoot each other and rez?” said Gossamer.
“I mean, I don’t think it’s the best solution, but it certainly is one.” The ghost pointed out. “Maybe if you let Antzu hunt for a day in the middle, you’ll be able to feed everyone?.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that i don’t think he can do it, it’s just. It’s just a lot of time and energy and we already don’t have a lot of time to search the town.”
“He probably just wants to show his support for the group, dear.”
A few doors down, Antzu’s ghost materialized a few feet above his head on the bed.
“Are you ok? Your chem patterns are pretty irregular. More than normal.” It asked.
“I hate that I think we’re gonna die a few times, and also, I think goss might hate me?” he asked instead.
“That’s fair, it’s gonna be a rough trip so you might. Still sucks though. Goss might find something about you annoying, but I don’t think they hate you.”
“I suppose there’s a lot she could find annoying. Got anything more specific?”
“Well, it could be that you just assume that they’re female. Exos are technically AI with bodies.”
“Oh. I should ask her- I mean them tomorrow then?”
“That’s probably a good idea. Now go to sleep. No telling how much you’ll get starting tomorrow.”