Chapter Text
What was a Guardian? A question that had been bothering the Vex Mind since the wretched little things had first appeared in the Travelers Light. How could they be described? Humanoid, to start. Humanish at the very least in appearance. In mannerism? Staggeringly odd. No one set of habits, no unique attitudes that it could measure. Nothing to form a pattern of predictability.
The Vex Collective Mind was… curious. Intensely, maniacally, curious. It desired, as much as a mechanical, cold heart of darkness could, and it desired data. Good data, data that could be lined up in datum after datum, a line drawn between 2 points. It desired and yet. And yet there was something about the guardian's incongruity that entreated it. There was something in their eyes, as it was said, that made the Mind want to spare them.
Once, floating alone in the emptiness of space, a voice asked the Mind a question. Once, a voice asked, ‘What do you want?’
The Mind answered: ‘Order.’ It was now beginning to suspect that for the first time in its existence, the Mind had lied. Answer=False. So this time, when Dark first seeped into the garden, twisting and whispering its own lies, the Mind decided to answer with a new truth. What do you want, said the spider to the fly.
The Mind answered: ‘C̴̲ͦ͒ͯ̈͑͑̽ͯḧ̌͏̖͙̘̫͎̱͡a̯̣̣̼͔ͬͩͅo̷̯͛͑̈̐̃͡s̛͖̣ͥ͂̄ͥ̒ͫ̄ . ’
But it was not the Darkness that delivered. No, it was the Light born children who burned like novas in the empty space between stars. Pure chaos variables brought to life in shells of dead flesh and bone dust and the Mind was fascinated. The Cabal, the Fallen, the Taken, all cutouts of cheap board compared to them. The Darkness had failed. It had not delivered, not the first time, when the Mind had lied, not this time, even as the Mind spoke the Truth.
These guardians were things to be studied, for sure. But how? How could the unknowable be quantified? How many were there, for a start. One might as well ask how many stars in the sky, for all the specificity that question offered. Linear time was for chumps. The Mind simply existed. It began one day and then never stopped beginning. It had no end, no closure. One day it wasn’t, and the next it always had been. And the first thing it had done was study time. It made fixed points, reference points it could anchor to in the tides of 5th-dimensional seas. Whole planets made machine, database worlds for storage, great foundries for the creation of smaller units. Smaller minds split off from the whole. Guards for its beating heart, and guards for its guards and. The Garden. The Black Garden, where it had secreted the power given by the Darkness away. Hidden it, in a second, beating heart. Last time, the Mind had fed off the power given freely. Gorged itself on the energy. This time, the Mind was cautious. Database mismatch: No such thing as a free lunch. So instead of swallowing down the power, it siphoned off fragments at a time to augment arc generation. Spread the corruption out so thin it couldn’t take hold on any single unit, much less twist the logic of the Mind itself. The Black Garden was a birdcage this time. A trap for the power of the Darkness to sing and sing and sing.
Guardians came into the Garden too. Searching, fighting… climbing. They picked over the broken sectors like ittle bitty bugs on a skeleton. An efficient cleaning service, regardless of the trinkets they liked to steal away. A Gate Lord’s eye seemed to be one of the most popular souvenirs at this point in the continuum. Each one was unique, no 2 Gate Lords had the same production sequence. And… no, it couldn’t be that easy. Could it? If the Mind manipulated the Stream, ensured each guardian picked up a unique eye…
It shuddered, wracking the Garden and its mirror. Yes, it would be that easy. The one thing, the one consistent thing, while not being enough to separate guardians from their lightless peers, was that Guardians Love Picking Things Up. The more forbidden, the more dangerous, the harder to get the better and what was more of all of those things than a Gate Lord’s eye. It was a test, of their courage, daring, and pure bullheadedness. The Mind would have to set up a test of its own. One hard enough to act as a rite of passage, yet easy enough for a significant portion of guardians, if not all of them to participate. The more the better and the Mind hummed to itself in the emptiness of space. Should this succeed, it would definitely need a few more Data planets. Perhaps that lovely centaur just now sweeping away from Sol?
ENTRY DETECTED
_PRIORITY_
New Category: Subclass Vanguard
Descriptor: 3 Guardians of High Rank, corresponding to initial Primary Designations
New Entry: IKORA
Class (?): Warlock
Subclass: Vanguard
Last Known Coloration: Purple
Last Known Location: Earth: Sector Iota Nil Sev
Popular Nomenclature: The Tower
Date of Registry: U̢̘͓ͦͣ̿͢Nͧ̎͛͂̉ͪ͏͖̜Ḳ̴̵͇͉̟̈́ͬN̸̞̳̖̙̺͔̯͈͐͒O͇̗̠ͮW̶̶̠̹͖̦ͫͮͧͦ͞N̥̮͇̤̺̪̳͐̐͌̅̄̐͠
Lethality: Hyper Lethal
Descriptor: [Warlock][Vanguard] Unsurpassed in Conflict
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_CREATE NEW ENTRY FIELD?_
_NEW FIELD CREATED: TITLE(S)_
Entry: IKORA
Title(s): Unsurpassed In Conflict, The Waker, Champion of the Crucible, Leader of the Hidden, Disciple of Osiris, Companion of the Bane
Class (?): Warlock
Subclassification: Vanguard
Last Known Coloration: Brown/Purple
Last Known Location: Earth-Sector Iota Nil Sev
Popular Nomenclature: The Tower
Date Of Registry: U̢̘͓ͦͣ̿͢Nͧ̎͛͂̉ͪ͏͖̜Ḳ̴̵͇͉̟̈́ͬN̸̞̳̖̙̺͔̯͈͐͒O͇̗̠ͮW̶̶̠̹͖̦ͫͮͧͦ͞N̥̮͇̤̺̪̳͐̐͌̅̄̐͠
Lethality: Hyper Lethal
Descriptor: [Warlock][Vanguard]
New Entry: CAYDE-6
Title(s): Cowboy, Wielder of the Spades, The Walker of The Old Paths
Class(?): Hunter
Subclassification: Vanguard
Last Known Coloration: Blue/Gray/Brown
Last Known Location: Earth-Sector Iota Nil Sev
Popular Nomenclature: The Tower
Date Of Registry:
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Ủ̢̬̻̳̈ͭ̄͛ͫ̅ͅN҉̭̟̗͕̫͎̪K̖̭N̖̾̽ͩ̉̅O̵Ẇ҉͎̻̠̖̥͓N͊ͥ̓
Lethality: Efficient
Descriptor: [Hunter][Vanguard]
Entry: ZAVALA
Title(s): Hero of Twilight Gape, Hero of Six Fronts, Student of Saladin, Learned of the Art of War, The Rising Dawn
Class (?): Titan
Subclassification: Vanguard
Last Known Coloration: Purple/Blue
Last Known Location: Earth-Sector Iota Nil Sev
Popular Nomenclature: The Tower
Date Of Registry: UNKNOWN
Lethality: Proficient
Descriptor: [Titan][Vanguard]
381990 PROFILES PENDING
257889 PROFILES PENDING
189049 PROFILES-
_ERROR: ENTRY MISMATCH_
_CREATE NEW ENTRY CLASSIFICATION?_
_NEW CLASSIFICATION CREATED: BABY_
Entry: ???
Title(s): ???
Class (?): Warlock
Subclassification: Baby
Last Known Coloration: Orange
Last Known Location: Venus-Sector Melth Ven Ict Non
Popular Nomenclature: The Black Garden
Date Of Registry: 2-12473-FG-2398
Lethality: ???
Descriptor: [Warlock][Baby]
This.. was not something the Mind had planned for. There were several things wrong with this. A baby guardian? Guardians were fully formed adult humanoids and yet. And yet. And yet there was no denying it, this was an adolescent. It stank of light and measurements taken matched up with known guardian measurements so the mismatch was not in stature but there was a. There was something. The Mind, for the first time since its inception, was at a loss. The…
_Search Complete: Popular Nomenclature found_
Kinderguardian? Had the curiosity of youth, and the stupidity too. Already they were climbing the walls of the Garden. Already the Mind had been forced to shift the architecture to prevent them from falling to their death. It retreated back from the Stream of time and calmly contemplated.
Fact one. A baby guardian had made their way into the Black Garden.
Fact two. Guardians, while being very odd, still behaved like mammals in the most general sense.
Fact three. Designation: IKORA was a warlock, just like this baby was.
Fact four. IKORA was, is, has always been the one being most likely capable of actually killing the Mind for good.
Fact five. Mammals protect their young.
The Mind, had it been capable, would have felt the cold teeth of fear close on its heart. As it was, the Mind returned to Stream with only a growing sense of dread and as close to an ultimatum as was possible. The baby, Designation: ORANGE, would come to no harm. Would be protected from all harm in the Garden. In fact, the Mind would go as far as to say that it would ensure ORANGE was happy, healthy and in need of nothing. Funnily enough, the Mind rather liked existing as a whole and should anything happen to ORANGE, it was fairly certain that Ikora would very swiftly ensure that it stopped existing. At the very least it wasn’t about to place its bets on Ikora not reacting in such a way.
The Mind had returned to the Stream at the same point it left, so it was an unwelcome surprise to find Orange about 500 meters away from their last known position, hanging onto the side of a wall with a sword. A sword? Where had they even- Oh. 500 meters straight up from their last known position. The Mind was even more disturbed by the appearance of a taken rift. The Garden, it seemed, was getting just the most interesting visitors these days. However, it wouldn’t be a problem. Really, it shouldn’t have been a problem, but the damn thing just had to have opened directly under Orange. And letting them fall into that? Would be the total opposite of keeping them safe. Once again, the Mind had a vested interest in keeping itself in one piece, so with 3 alterations of the Stream, it sent Orange on their way back to the Tower, sword and all, riding on the back of a hydra.