Eyes Up, Guardian

Chapter 8

The warlock and I ran multiple missions together after out first one. We'd defeated Sepiks flawlessly together, our fighting mixing together well, like thunder and lighting. We hung out at the Tower, my friends had understood when I'd explained to them I wouldn't be able to hang out with them as often. They were fine with anything, so long as it kept me from getting killed.

We had exchanged names and some Ghost information at the end of the mission. It turns out, her name was Nina, and her call sign- forty-ninars, was a reference to an ancient team that played the old game american football, the forty-niners. She'd learned about it in some ancient sport book and had picked her call sign that way. She'd offered to help me figure out one for myself, and we had brainstormed in our free time, but nothing had stuck. While hanging out with her I'd learned that she too was young for a Guardian, a year or so older than me, but still. She'd said she was glad to find someone her age.

Working with Nina, seeing her skills, fighting alongside her, made me realize I needed to brush up on my skills on my own, there was only so much that I could do with Cayde and Ikora. They must have realized this too, because they started working with me less in the Tower and more out in the field through the comms. They sent me out on tons of missions, killing enemies, recovering intelligence. Ikora told me sometimes I scared Cayde half to death. She'd said he was protective over his good hunters.

But it wasn't just Cayde getting scared, I'd gone on some dangerous missions that resulted in multiple bad panic attacks. Not only that, but there were nightmares that came with it, sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. One time, I'd been on a mission under Eris Morn's watch, inside some hive tomb with Cayde and Ikora monitoring the comm channels. Static had held the comms, but though it, I'd heard Eris saying I was going to die, she must've not known I was listening. When I'd gotten out of that pit, I'd gone straight back to my ship and thrown up and passed out. Echo had freaked out, nearly bringing the ship straight back to the Tower to get me to the hospital. I'd woken up and stopped him before it came to that.

Despite the struggles, I kept going, I kept fighting, I kept taking missions. I started blazing a trail, a fire that was my light. More people noticed me in the Tower, they knew my name. Cayde and Ikora weren't only giving me missions, they were having me lead them, I was pushing back the darkness. I was at the front of the lines. I fell into, yet another rhythm of life as a Guardian, until one day.

~*~*~*~

Damian sat on a hard chair in the cramped waiting room in the little hospital on the lower levels of the Tower. Waiting to see the girl he'd just crashed into with his sparrow. She'd cracked her head open. He'd messed up. Big time. Ikora was going to kill him.

He was halfway through wondering why things like this always happened to him when Cayde, the Hunter vanguard leader in his full, armored glory, set his glowing eyes on him. Fury practically dripped from his lanky, but muscled figure, and his eyes seemed to be glowing in anger. Damian stumbled to his feet as the Exo stalked towards him, glaring daggers at him. The thought of Cayde being angry at anyone made him want to run in the other direction before the explosions hit. The thought of the Exo being angry at Damian himself made him wish it was him who'd gotten his head cracked open, not that he hadn't been wishing that before.

"Cayde-" Damian stammered, on his feet, hands up.

"Save it." Cayde snapped, his metal joints moving silently as he stalked past the warlock. Everything about him was different from his usual self, sarcastic and cheerful, and it was terrifying. "I just got word that the medics are done with her. Echo-" he corrected himself, "Her ghost healed up all her head injuries. She's resting now."