What We Fight For

Corrin's sleep was surprisingly restful for someone who had been whisked away to a strange, advanced world mere hours before.Perhaps it was security she felt with Grey, or simply exhaustion, but the princess didn't stir.

She awoke the next morning to sunlight filtering through the open window, lighting up the apartment that was normally kept dark from the drawn curtains. A groan emanated from the mound curled under the covers.

"Five more minutes, Felicia," she muttered softly to herself. Corrin was never one for early rising. She groaned, the light coming in through the window would not let her be. Hazily, the princess rose from bed rubbing at her eyes.

It took her a moment to realise that she wasn't safe in her bed, and her well meaning but clumsy maid wasn't there with an icy wake up call.

Instead, she awoke to the sight of Grey, sitting at a table with his weapon in front of him, laid out in all of its component pieces. He seemed to run through them, before swiftly putting them back together so quickly that Corrin had trouble keeping up. Within several seconds, it was back in one piece.

"Uh, good morning," she called a little uncertainly with another yawn.

For his part, Grey merely glanced over to Corrin as she awoke. "Well, took you long enough," he said. "Been waiting the past few hours for you to wake up."

He cocked his head towards the cheap clock on the wall. The time was half past nine, and the sun was shining fully outside. Down below, people were already milling around on the streets, going about their daily business.

"Went out like a light last night," the Hunter continued, loading a new magazine into his gun. "Slept longer than I thought you would."

Corrin blushed at the criticism.

"I've never been one for early rising," she chuckled as she crawled out of bed. "Back home, my maids have to shock me out of bed sometimes. If you find I'm over sleeping your welcome to try and wake me."

Grey simply grunted at that. "I gotta feeling that you'll be waking up on your own soon enough," he told her, a little cryptically, leaving Corrin to wonder what he meant by that.

She didn't get to dwell on that for much longer, however, as with a flick of his wrist Grey snapped his hand cannon's cylinder back into place.

Then he stood, twirling his gun on his finger. "Anyway, I think it's time you got to know a little more about the City, and us Guardians. Don't want you asking questions every five seconds, might raise a few eyebrows," Grey stopped twirling, and then placed Austringer back into its holster by his side and patted it. "We'll head over to the museum over at the old Tower after breakfast. After that, it's Val."

"Alright," Corrin stretched her arms over her head. "I don't suppose you have a toothbrush I could use?" she looked to the Hunter curiously.

Given how she'd slept in her armor, getting dressed was taken care of. Normally, Corrin would've liked a chance to freshen up and comb her hair, but she wouldn't hassle Grey over such matters. Though brushing her teeth was something she'd rather not skip.

"Here," Grey said, reaching behind him and pulling out a small pouch and tossing it over to her. She scrambled to catch it, still not yet fully awake. "Bought this last night."

She opened it up, and her eyes lit up at its contents. It was filled with basic toiletries, such as tubes of soap and shampoo, a comb and brush, toothpaste, and yes, a toothbrush. It wasn't much, but the small things in life were an absolute godsend, especially here in this new world without even her trusty Yato at her side.

"Thanks! Thought I wouldn't be able to brush my teeth here!" Corrin thanked the Hunter excitedly.

Grey simply crossed his arms and leaned back on the counter. "Bathroom's on the right. Don't take too long."

Corrin chuckled and headed to freshen up, but she stopped at the sorry sight before her.

The bathroom itself was just as sparse and basic as the rest of Grey's apartment. There were hardly any toiletries inside at all, other than a small comb and a toothbrush. Water dripped from a leak in the tap ever so slowly. The mirror seemed to be covered in a thin layer of grime, and there was a spiderweb of cracks at the edge. Their shower looked like it hadn't been used in a long time, as it was completely dry and there was a layer of dust covering the floor.

She was used to the immaculate halls of Castle Krakenburg, even the Northern Fortress had a small but dedicated staff who ensured Corrin need not worry about filth. If Flora could see it, Corrin knew the maid would have a heart attack.

She turned and fixed Grey with a deadpan expression. "We're uh… we're going to have to work on your housekeeping skills."

The Hunter glanced at the bathroom. He'd forgotten how dirty it really was. He mostly only came there to puke his guts out after a night of drinking, drink and smoke a bit more, pass out, and then repeat the process. He hadn't really bothered to clean it in ages.

Actually, scratch that. He couldn't even remember the last time he actually cleaned it, or if he'd even cleaned it at all before.

Still, it wasn't as if anyone was going to see the sad state of his apartment. Other than him, of course, and until he brought Corrin in. His fireteam had glimpses of it before, and neither one was happy. Val started yelling at him to clean up the filth, while Chance promptly got worried for him and offered to clean up, to which he declined of course.

Now that he thought about it, he probably had to clean it sooner or later. Coming back to a filthy apartment probably wasn't the best thing when completely wasted.

"...Maybe," he said after a moment. He watched as Corrin entered and shut the door behind her.

She opted not to shower, though she longed to, as she wanted to clean the shower properly before using it. Instead, she brushed her teeth, wet her hair and carefully brushed the loose silver waves. She hummed softly as she worked, the same song that Azura had once performed for her.

The tune helped to ground the princess, and reminded her to continue pushing forward, despite the complicated situation she faced.

She was not alone, and with any luck, soon she would have a way back home.

Outside, Grey was left alone, waiting for her to finish.

"You know," Saratoga said, appearing next to his head. "You really gotta clean this place up sometime."

Grey turned to him. "You know I only come here when I want to get a drink at the dens. Never really saw a reason to."

"Yeah, until now," the Ghost argued. "You got a guest. Best to clean up."

The Hunter scowled at him. "So what? She was only gonna stay one night."

"One night? Wait, you mean you're gonna..."

"Yeah," Grey flashed a small grin at him.

For a moment, the Ghost was silent. Then his plates shifted into what was a Ghost's version of a smile. "Guess you're taking up my advice, huh?"

"No, I'm not," Grey replied, simply.

The two went back to staring at the door and waiting for Corrin to finish. Grey could hear the tap running, mixed with Corrin herself humming softly. He let out a breath, turning around and retrieving a small curved metal flask and placing it on the counter. He then began to fill it up with some bourbon. Once it was full, he attached it to his belt.

He then turned back to the door, Corrin still inside. He tapped his fingers against the counter, growing a little impatient. Ten minutes later, he was getting annoyed. Fifteen minutes later and he was beginning to wonder if she'd ever come out. He knew she was still in there, of course. He could still hear the water and her moving around.

"Wow, she's taking a long time, ain't she?" Saratoga asked him.

Grey rolled his eyes. "You don't say. What is it with ladies taking such a long time in the bathroom? Val spends hours in there."

"It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it?"

They continued their conversation for a few minutes more, before they heard the water turn off, and the door finally opened a full twenty minutes after it closed and Corrin walked out. She looked much more awake now, and her hair was visibly cleaner. She'd brushed her hair over her shoulder, the silver waves seemed to glitter in the morning light.

"Right, to the museum then?" she asked.

"Well, took you long enough," Grey told her, sounding a little harsher than he'd intended.

Corrin frowned at his tone. "Yes, well, half the fun was cleaning the space before I used it," she rolled her eyes. Testy in the morning, wasn't he?

She hadn't even taken that long, she could've been in there for well over an hour. It helped that she lacked a proper change of clothes and wasn't comfortable bathing in that sorry excuse of a shower.

Grey cleared his throat. "Anyway, yeah. We'll head to the museum after breakfast. Oh, and here."

He pulled out a small box and passed it to her. She opened it, and was surprised to see a pair of black boots inside that also seemed to match up with the rest of her armour's colour scheme.

"Might wanna put on some actual shoes for one," Grey told her. "Trust me, you don't wanna step into a pool of Vex milk barefoot."

Corrin looked at the pair a little skeptically, but sat down and pulled them on. Much to her surprise, they fit perfectly. Rising to her feet, she tapped her toes as she adjusted the boots.

"Uh, thanks, I guess," she said. She wasn't really used to wearing shoes, or any sort of footwear for that matter.

"Had my Ghost take a scan of you, make sure I got the right size," said Grey.

Saratoga looked to him with a raise of his upper shell plating. "You know, when you put it that way, it sounds pretty damn creepy."

Grey rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he told his Ghost, before making his way over to the door and opening it. "Come on. Cafeteria's still serving breakfast. Should get some before it runs out."

"Uh… breakfast, right," Corrin gave a small, nervous laugh.

Perhaps a nice meal would distract from the nagging notion that Saratoga might've been able to see right through her armour.

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If there was one thing that the City had in plenty, it was fresh fruit. Breakfast was fairly light, consisting of a bowl of oat gruel and some fresh fruit. All things considered, it was still better than dinner the previous night. Truth be told, it didn't taste all that different from the gruel that she'd eaten while traveling with the army.

During her meal, she noticed that Grey just seemed to take sips from his flask which no doubt contained something strong with a rather vacant look in his eyes. It just looked like he was lost in thought the whole time, reminiscing about something.

It wasn't really her business, however. Still, Grey overall seemed to be rather mellow when he wasn't in combat. He'd lost someone, that she could tell.

After breakfast, the pair made their way to the base of the walls. Corrin was struck with how lively the city was. Merchants and shop owners peddled their wares, civilians went about their normal lives, and a group of children were playing with a Guardian in heavy armour.

Then there were the walls themselves. Aside from mountains that surrounded the City she'd never seen anything so tall before. Corrin's neck started to ache from all the looking up.

Next to her, Grey took a moment to reflect. He hardly came by this area, or to places in the City that weren't bars or Hunter dens.

Of course, with the Vanguard Dare still in place, he still had his reservations about walking around in public. Many of the more paranoid Hunters feared the position of Hunter Vanguard so much that they had taken to using the City's air ducts and sewers to move around. Others simply fled the City and never came back. Grey himself belonged to those who only returned to the City for a few days at most, and then promptly fleeing back to the safety of the wilds before anyone could track them down.

He would've left before the sun even rose this morning, and halfway across the system by now. He'd really only intended to return to get drunk and gamble away his earnings from the previous day's bounty. The same thing he'd been doing for years.

Instead, he was effectively stuck babysitting a princess from another dimension, who could also turn into a dragon.

Briefly, he wondered if the universe was messing with him for his constant drunkenness and other debauchery.

The Hunter shook his head and turned to Corrin. "The last few remnants of humanity live here," he said, passing by a statue depicting a Titan, one of the Heroes of Six Fronts. "Humanity used to number in the billions, spanning the entire Solar System. Now, after the Collapse, it's been reduced to only a few million, most in this one City."

"So… people once lived beyond this world?"Corrin looked up toward the sky, chuckling. "We've never even fathomed such a feat"

She doubted it would be possible in her home. "Nohr as a country is just finding its footing in a world where it can't hide behind conquest and trickery. But maybe one day."

"Earth was like that once," Grey told Corrin. "Before the Traveler, the world was divided into more than a hundred nation states. The arrival of the Traveler changed all that. Judging by the tech you seem to be familiar with, I'd say your world is mostly similar to Earth's own medieval age, over two thousand years ago."

"Nohr seems to be pretty similar to medieval Europe in fact," Saratoga chimed in. "What with all the knights and cavaliers and all that, and the whole thing with witches and mages. Like something out of an old fantasy novel before the existence of the Light was known."

"Right…" Corrin muttered. It seemed everything went back to the Traveler and this mysterious force known as Light. Could it be the same magical force found in her world?

Corrin had her doubts, even with the man she'd met in the depths of the Tower, the Drifter as Grey had told her, announcing that she apparently was full of Light. Was that something she ought to share with Grey? She shook her head.

No, it probably wasn't necessary. If Saratoga could get her shoe size then surely he could see something like that.

They kept walking, eventually reaching the base of the old Tower. The top area, the old headquarters of the Guardians, was still under repairs, but the base was remarkably unscathed. That was quite telling, given how the museum was located right at the bottom and built into the wall. It was fairly large and grand, with several fountains and trimmed bushes in front of it, and banners depicting the three Guardian classes hanging from pillars.

"Here it is," said Grey. "The Museum of Humanity and the Last City. You know, for some reason, the Red Legion left this place alone. Don't know why, given how they seemed to destroy everything else that represented humanity. I gotta feeling that it's because of Ghaul and his whole obsession with claiming the Light for himself. Didn't work out for him of course."

They entered. The interior was fairly spacious, with various artworks depicting the history of humanity, all the way back to even before the Golden Age decorating the walls. On pedestals were several artefacts from the early days of the City, such as a hand cannon from the Dark Age or a helmet that belonged to one of the first Guardians. A few visitors were milling around the place, and Grey spotted a Titan conducting a tour for a group of children. Corrin marveled at all the various artefacts from human history.

In the middle was a large screen, a video playing on it. Grey folded his arms as the video played.

It started off with darkness. Then came a flash of light, and a pair of glowing eyes shot open. Its owner gasped for air and sat upright, his Ghost floating by him. The man was bald, and wearing an old spacesuit. Notably, he was an Awoken, given by his blue-tinted skin. The man looked around him, dazed, seeing a skeleton in the seat next to his. He stumbled around the wreck of the ship he had woken up on, guided by the light of his Ghost. Finally, he managed to escape through a hole, stepping out into the real world. His ship had crashed on a forgotten shore, the sun slowly sinking past the horizon.

He was Commander Zavala, the current Vanguard Commander. His voice then began to narrate over the footage.

"What makes a Guardian a Guardian?"

It suddenly switched to him fighting a Fallen Vandal in a desert. The two fought, wrestling over a spear, Zavala flipping it over. It wasn't enough, however, and Zavala was slashed in the abdomen by the Vandal's Shock Blades, collapsing to the ground.

Then Light washed over him, and he was alive again. He sat upright, shocked.

Corrin herself was no less shocked. He'd died… and come back to life. Something that should have been impossible. She gulped and looked to Grey. As a Guardian, she imagined he'd gone through something similar.

"We take our first breath with no memory of who we were before."

Zavala got back to his feet, turning to see a Fallen Skiff deposit its crew into a rusted shipwreck on dry land. The Titan decided to leave them to it, turning away.

"Yet, we are inexorably drawn to the Light."

The scene changed to Zavala in combat once more, dressed in furs and battling more Fallen in a snowy region. A Vandal slashed him in the back with its Shock Blade.

"We fight..."

He continued wrestling with the Fallen, bringing several down. A dying Vandal managed to fire off a single shot from a scavenged weapon, hitting him in the chest and killing him.

"We die..."

And then he was brought back by his Ghost once more.

"And we live again."

Once more, he was back on his feet, grabbing the Vandal's weapon, an auto rifle from before the Golden Age. He pulled out the magazine and checked it, before slamming it back in and moving on.

Now it showed him making his way up the side of a snow-covered mountain, braving the cold and billowing wind. As he reached the top, he stopped, and stared in awe. The Traveler was floating in the air in front of him, much more intact than it was now, a collection of tents that would become the Last City beneath it.

"We know that we were chosen for a reason by something greater than ourselves."

Now he was making his way into the village. A much younger Shaxx carrying a sack on his shoulder stopping to watch.

"For as deep and wide as humanity's rivers have run, it is now been reduced to a precious few, needing something to believe in..."

A man wearing a mask and hood was stood in the middle, a young Saladin behind him. He was the Speaker, and he gestured outwards, speaking for the Traveler, to the people.

"...And a place to call home."

The scene had changed to several years later, the village now having grown into a town. Cranes in the background constructed buildings, while a bus transported a new batch of refugees to the City. Zavala gently carried a young boy off the bus, before turning to another group of refugees.

"This is what we've been called to. The future that we fight for."

An explosion suddenly rocked the scene, the City in flames. Civilians ran from the attacking Fallen. A Vandal landed from above, charging towards a woman. However, it was shot and taken down just in time by Zavala, now wearing a set of armour.

"The future we will protect."

He advanced forwards, firing his rifle. A Vandal suddenly crashed into him, pushing him against a wall. However, he punched it in the face and then proceeded to smash it against the wall. Then he went on, continuing to fire. Running out of ammo, he ejected the magazine, and brought it up to parry a Fallen Shock Blade. He reached behind him and slammed a new magazine into his rifle, bashing another Vandal and then ducking underneath a Shock Blade slash. He knocked the Vandal away and then finished it off with a burst from his gun.

Behind him, Shaxx punched a Fallen away, while Saladin took down several more with his gun.

"Shaped by the fires of each new battle..."

The scene changed to a group of civilians fleeing alongside Cayde-6, who was firing the Ace of Spades at pursuing Fallen. Zavala turned to them, and then channeled his Arc Light into his fist.

"...We are forged and sharpened into what we must become for the fight ahead."

He launched himself into the air, Arc Light coursing across his body. He brought his fist down onto the fallen in a Fist of Havoc, completely disintegrating them into nothing. He looked up, seeing more coming, and then repeated the action with a battle cry.

Then the scene transitioned into him pushing a massive stone block into place. All around him Guardians and civilians were constructing the City walls. Ikora Rey gently floated down from above, carrying a large stone block like it was nothing.

"What we have built is only the beginning..."

The walls were now taking shape, cranes hefting larger pieces into place, the earliest version of the Tower standing high above the rest.

"...A symbol of what we can achieve..."

The City was now well and truly a City, surrounded by protective walls. Zavala stepped forwards in his current set of armour, ahead of a group of civilians on the Tower's official opening. A young girl pushed past him arm excitedly, and he smiled down at her.

"...Of who we are, and our great purpose here."

Someone pointed at the air, and her eyes widened. Zavala turned, and they all saw a jumpship soaring into the sky and streaking past. The girl's eyes were wide with wonder.

"But, the day may come when we will be tested, when all we hold dear is threatened."

The scene changed to Zavala standing atop the old Tower, proudly overlooking the City and the Traveler.

"And then, we will see what each of us is truly made of."

The video ended with the camera panning towards the dormant form of the Traveler, before fading to black. The sigil of the Guardians then appeared, with words underneath reading, "Legends are carved across history by the brave"

The video ended. Despite the fact that it was no doubt meant to be inspirational, it left Corrin feeling hollow. She couldn't imagine rising from the dead over and over, throwing herself at a seemingly endless wave of enemies. Threats on all sides, humanity on its last legs. It was a terrifying prospect.

She hoped and prayed that her world was not related to this one, for she did not want her people to suffer such a fate. No one should have to be forced into a seemingly endless war to fight for her kingdom.

Grey suddenly gave a scoffing laugh, shaking his head. "Looks like they still haven't bothered to update it," he said. "They started showing that video as orientation to rookie Guardians twenty years ago. Obviously that day has already come."

Corrin looked to him with a somber expression. "A never ending war against the universe at large for the sake of humanity," she let out a shaky breath. "Rising from the dead over and over, with no memory of who you once were seems like a cruel fate."

She looked to the Hunter, her expression mixed. Pity, esteem, Corrin didn't know which one she ought to be feeling. Still, she flashed a small smile. "My world has never known such wide scale conflict, our wars cannot hold a candle to all… this," she gestured to the screen, which was replaying the video.

"I pray we never will. I… I cannot help but hope that the similarities between our realms are coincidence and nothing more."

Grey glanced at her, seeing her rather distraught expression.

Of course she didn't understand. Few civilians truly understood what it meant to be a Guardian. How could they? Mortals could never understand the feeling to dying and resurrecting over and over again in service to a machine god older than time itself. Many of the City's children aspired to be Guardians, and he knew for a fact that the Titans always encouraged them. He wasn't so sure. If he could truly wish that fate on anyone.

Guardians didn't choose to be Guardians; they were chosen, based purely on whether or not they were able to wield the Traveler's Light as a weapon, and occasionally their past deeds.

"I stopped counting my deaths a long time ago," Grey said. "But I do know for a fact that I've only died many a couple hundred times. Not a hundred thousand, like old Serenity."

Serenity-7 was an Exo Warlock who had even less regard for her lives than the Thanatonauts. Eventually, her repeated deaths degraded her mind, and she devolved into a shell of her former self barely aware of her surroundings.

The Vanguard was able to pull what information they could from her Ghost's shell. It was found dead in her room, but no one truly know what killed it. Some theorised that it was Serenity who killed it in a fit of madness when it refused to resurrect her, or that it killed itself out of despair at seeing its Guardian go insane. Some others say that it had simply run out of Light, which was rather unlikely.

Then again, that story was largely seen as apocryphal, there being no actual record of a Serenity-7 ever existing. The tale told of her being around when Saint-14 was still Vanguard Commander, but he didn't remember her either, and he never forgot anyone. Many Hunters, Grey included, saw it as a story made up by the Vanguard so that Guardians would stop killing themselves over every minor inconvenience, or out of boredom, such the ever-popular sport of recreational Tower jumping.

Corrin winced. To die over a hundred times, she couldn't fathom it. By all accounts, Corrin had died… once. In the aftermath of defeating Garon, she and her party had been ambushed by Takumi. Or at least what had once been Takumi.

She could still see the seething hatred in her brother's eyes. Of course that hadn't been him, not really. A deep seated hatred had taken hold in Takumi and twisted him into a monster.

It was not unlike what had happened to Garon, the monster that they'd rested the throne from that day was not human.

Corrin wasn't sure what it was, but with this world's tale of an ancient darkness pursing humanity well...

It worried her.

The Hunter shook his head. "Come on," He told her, moving on. They passed by a set of Dark Age-era Titan armour. It appeared to be fashioned after ancient plate armour worn by knights long before the Golden Age, albeit crafted out of scrap and ballistic plating. The Titan it once belonged to was still alive for one, given how he'd come around every so often to stare at it with a look of nostalgia in his eyes.

They eventually came to a mural on the wall. The images were animated, telling the story of humanity.

"This is where we begin," Said Grey, motioning to the image of Earth. "Hundreds of years ago, humanity was confined to Earth and fragmented into over a hundred nation states. Then, in the early twenty-first century, we discovered an object in the Solar System. A manned mission to the planet Mars was launched soon after, and its crew made contact with the object. We called it the Traveler."

The form of the Traveler was shown hovering over the red planet, terraforming it and bringing its first rain.

"It allowed humanity to spread across the Solar System, propelling us into a Golden Age that lasted centuries. Massive cities were built on Mars and Venus, and human lifespan tripled. It was a time of miracles and achievements never seen before. We knew that it was our destiny to walk among the stars, and humanity thrived..."

Colony ships were shown leaving Earth and settling on the planets, establishing cities on each of them as humanity spread across the Solar System, all with the Traveler in the background.

"Until it didn't."

The ships were suddenly snuffed out as massive pyramidal shapes were seen approaching the Solar System from all sides, the dark slowly engulfing the light.

"The Traveler had an enemy, one as old as itself. It had pursued the Traveler across the universe, a Darkness that snuffed out the Light. And when it found the Traveler, well, humanity was in the way."

A triangular shadow was cast on the Traveler, hovering above a human city and soon completely covering it.

"Humanity was faced with extinction, despite everything we did to fight back."

The city was now burning, the Darkness utterly annihilating all defences as they converged on the Traveler. Corrin shuddered to think on what might happen if such a force came to her world.

"But the Traveler made a choice. It decided to stay and fight, and sacrificed itself to save humanity from the Darkness."

A massive burst of Light was suddenly released from the Traveler. When it receded, the Darkness was gone, but it was crippled and broken.

"It would come at a price. The Traveler was left crippled by its actions, becoming dormant for centuries. But in its last breath, it shed many pieces of itself and brought life to the Ghosts."

Thousands of Ghosts were released by the Traveler, scattering across the system.

Saratoga decided that it was his turn to speak. "We Ghosts are all part of the Traveler in many ways. We're imbued with the Light, and each and every one of us has a mission: To find our Chosen who can wield the Light and resurrect them as Guardians to protect humanity, no matter how long it takes."

"So you seek out your chosen one and bring them into an endless war," Corrin said. She didn't bother to hide the concern in her voice.

The Guardian and Ghost glanced at her, then to each other, and then shrugged (at least Grey did, the Ghost simply bobbed in the air).

"When you put it that way, yeah," said the Ghost. "Ghosts seek out those who can wield the Light and bring them back to protect humanity from the Darkness. It's pretty much the only reason humanity's survived this long. Were it not for the Guardians, and the Traveler, it would've been wiped out by the Darkness like the other species the Traveler's visited before."

"Either that or we would've been reduced to a bunch of scavengers, like the Fallen," Grey added. "Hell, every kid in the City dreams of being a Guardian. Me? I wouldn't be too sure."

"I pray such conflict does not come to my world. We do not have the Traveler or Ghosts to rely on. Our warriors who choose to lay down their lives for the greater good cannot be revived," Corrin looked down to her hands. "At least… not normally."

Corrin shook her head. Her own experience didn't compare to what any Guardian went through. She doubted she could pull such a feat again. The spirits of her loved ones had saved her, such a feat could not be repeated.

"And if a Ghost is destroyed then it's Guardian can't be revived correct?" she glanced at Grey. "A delicate fate for those willingly marching into battle."

"Yeah, when a Guardian's Ghost is destroyed, he ain't coming back. Nothing left to revive him, after all. His Light goes with it, too. That don't mean he dies though. A Guardian who's lost his Ghost will still be able to live and fight, still ageless, but mortal," Grey answered.

"Mortal?" Corrin asked, curious.

"Yeah, mortal," said Grey. "The Light keeps us from ageing. You saw how Zavala in that video earlier looked the same over the past few hundred years."

"What about you? Did you die during the Collapse?"

"Not during the Collapse," Grey said, shaking his head. "I died long before the Golden Age even began. Hey, Toga?" He asked, gaining the attention of his Ghost. "How long had I been dead before you found me?"

"Well, according to radiocarbon dating..." Saratoga paused for a second. "You'd been dead for a little over seven hundred and eleven years."

The Hunter looked back to her. "I'd been dead that long, but I've only been a Guardian for seventy-four years."

"I see..." Corrin's expression fell. That was why he looked so young. He'd died years ago.

That bothered her more than she imagined it ought to. It certainly didn't seem to phase Grey any. But to think he'd died so young, he looked no older than she.

Grey continued. "Anyway, as I was saying, Ghosts convert themselves into data which is stored in their Guardian's equipment when in combat, and even then, their shells are largely immune to small arms fire. Only orbital bombardments or Darkness-infused weapons can destroy a Ghost."

He continued onward, passing by several other displays depicting various other major events in City history. "Hmm, Six Fronts, Twilight Gap, Taken War, SIVA Crisis, blah blah blah," he muttered, shaking his head and turning to Corrin. "Trust me kid, you ain't ready to learn this stuff yet."

The princess rolled her eyes. "Right, because my simple mind can't handle history."

"No, I'm just too lazy to explain this all. Besides, it ain't all that important."

Grey passed the exhibits, before stopping before a far more recent installation. This one showed the Last City in flames, with the Traveler in some sort of black cage.

"Here we have it. The Red War," Grey began, folding his arms. "Two years ago, the Cabal Red Legion launched a surprise attack on the City, destroying the Tower and breaching the walls. Then they put a cage or something on the Traveler... and drained us Guardians of our Light."

The Hunter glanced at his hands, and then clenched them. "All of us. Our Light, just gone like that. Many Guardians died their final deaths on the first day alone, and the rest of us were forced to retreat from the City, just reduced to stumbling around without a goal," he said. "As a Hunter, I'm used to surviving out in the wilds without using my Light, but the other classes ain't. Hell, when my fireteam managed to regroup in the EDZ Val had a breakdown and Chance just looked... I dunno, lost."

He sighed. "We spent the next few weeks just trying to survive, running from the Red Legion. I found it easier. I'm used to hiding in the shadows, after all. Anyway, we got word that the Vanguard was mustering up all remaining forces for a counterattack on the City. Val of course was skeptical—she don't trust the Vanguard at all. Chance wanted to hop onto his jumpship and lead the assault. I told them that we were gonna join the attack, and we did."

"We fought against the Cabal in the streets alongside the City's resistance. Now, in the sky above, the Young Wolf, the only Guardian who had managed to regain his Light, was squaring off against Dominus Ghaul. The asshole in charge of the whole Red Legion. Somehow he'd managed to steal the Light," Grey said. "I don't know what happened, but I'd just blasted a Cabal in the face when the Traveler just broke free of its cage, and then a flash. Next thing I knew I had my Light back. All of us did. We retook the City in a few days after that."

There was an image taken on the mountains surrounding the City by an unpaired Ghost, seemingly depicting the Traveler exploding into a blinding flash.

"Everyone says that the Traveler finally awoke after hundreds of years of dormancy. Well, I guess that's a good thing," he let out a loose chuckle, before stopping in front of another exhibit. This one was a glass display, and within it was the ceremonial armour Ghaul wore, cracked and scorched and broken from his defeat. It was massive, easily several times the size of even the largest Titans. Ghaul's body itself had been removed of course.

Corrin swallowed the lump in her throat. Whatever had worn that armour must've been a real monster.

"This was the armour Ghaul wore," said Grey. "Still keeps lots of us up at night. Best not to look at it too long."

Saratoga chirped suddenly. "Oh, hey. Chance is back."

Grey nodded. "Tell him to meet us as Val's place," he said, before turning to Corrin.

"Chance? A friend of yours?" Corrin looked to Grey curiously

The Hunter looked over to Corrin and nodded. "Yeah, he's a Titan," he told her. "He ain't exactly the smartest tool in the shed, but I'd say he's the most experienced out of all of us. Hell, he fought at Twilight Gap over a century ago."

Chance was fairly old even by Guardian standards, being over a century and a half. Yet he wasn't exactly the brightest Exo Grey knew when it came to matters outside combat. He largely attributed it to either the number of reboots Chance had, or the number of times he'd died in comparison to the other two members of the team. Either that or it was just because he was a Titan.

"I think we've spent enough time here," Grey cocked his head towards the way they came. "We're burning daylight here. Val lives in the inner City. Let's go."