Royalty's Retribution

Chapter 11 - Preparations

"Alright, Guardians. Let's get to work." said Cayde with excitement. "I'm dying to get out of these halls..." he whispered to himself, but still loudly enough for everyone to hear.

We all began our mass exodus from the Vanguard Halls, excluding Ikora and the Commander. They remained with Eris to see to her well-being. 

"Cayde, what do you think that was all about?" Daman-8 asked the Hunter Vanguard.

"Ya know, I don't really know, and I don't really wanna know. At least not right now. Right now I just want to be as far away from here as I can be. This ole Ace is ready for some action again." Cayde replied smoothly.

"She actually looked possessed. How can that happen?" said Damn-8.

"That damn rock. I swear." Cayde said annoyed. "She puts that damn thing on my map again I'm gonna throw it off of the balcony in the Hangars."

"Ha! The rock was pretty bright when all of that happened too. I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with it either." said Domanic.

"What is that rock for anyway?" I asked curiously.

"Nobody knows." replied Cayde. "There are some guesses floating around for sure, but I honestly couldn't tell ya."

"Well it doesn't look like it's a good thing if you ask me. She never lets it go, and I'd put my glimmer down on it having to do with what happened right back there." said Kahvka.

"We'll be fine, Kahvka. Don't sweat it anymore for now. Ikora is with Eris, and will make sure that she is under control." replied Domanic confidently.

Alright, guys. Let's all split up take care of business. Whadd'ya say?" asked Cayde to the lot of us before him.

We all shouted in agreement, and prepared ourselves with the necessary weapons and gear for our respective missions. I stowed my Wolf in my vault, which I absolutely hated doing, but I don't have a choice. Remembering that we can't use any solar energy whatsoever, I assumed that any void weapons would do just fine. 

"Daman-8! Aziron! You fellas ready to have some fun?" asked Cayde with even more bravado than before.

"You know it!" replied Aziron without hesitation.

Daman-8 looked over at Domanic with a seemingly concerned look to his mechanical face, and Domanic replied with a reassuring nod. Cayde approached the fellow Exo and placed his arm around his shoulders. "You know, things will go a lot smoother if you just trust me and have some fun. That's what I plan to do anyway." said Cayde with an arrogant tone.

"Yeah yeah." replied Daman-8. "I just don't know how I feel about it yet. I was hoping to never have to go back there again."

"We'll be fine, bud! Trust me!" said Cayde.

I looked around to see the three fireteams all joined up with their respectives members, and took note of the overall relaxation among the Guardians. After what we had just seen in the Vanguard halls, I was surprised at how lax they all were. Even Gajec. Nobody seemed to even be curious about what he had said to Eris, or what opinions he had on the situation overall. I guess I wasn't asking if nobody else was either.

Gajec and Shado joined me at the terminal to the vault after their preparations were complete. Domanic, Greco, and Kahvka also gathered across from us to discuss their plans for their mission on Telesto. None of us had a clue what to expect other than, 'you see enemy, you shoot enemy, you analyze areas' or something of the sort. That's all I could really assume at this point anyway.

"Team Titan. Ha, sounds like an old 21st century super hero show or something." said Kahvka lamely poking fun at our fireteam.

All three of us glared at him wondering where in the hell that came from. "What?" we all asked in unison. Greco punched him in the arm and said "Good one!" with extreme sarcasm. "If that's how you 'won Efrideet over' then I'm really starting to doubt her standards now!" 

Everyone laughed at the retort to Kahvka as he blushed and crossed his arms. "Whatever, man!" 

"Hey is everyone going to take their swords and test them out?" asked Aziron refocusing on the matter at hand.

"Yeah for sure. I don't see why we wouldn't anyway." replied Domanic. 

"Sweet, I was hoping I'd get to try this baby out" Aziron said as he held his Wolf's Howl in his hands with an adoring stare toward the blade."Sucks you can't use yours though, Gajec! You'll blow the place up!" 

Gajec shrugged and replied, "Oh well. Doubt I'll need it anyway."

Aziron shook his head in laughter at the cocky Warlock. "Typical Gajec. Not a care in the world."

After we all spoke to our teams about the basic approach to the missions, Cayde asked our Titan team to accompany him to see Banshee-44. None of us knew why, but we followed the Hunter Vanguard to the Gunsmith. As we approached, the chatter between the two seem incredibly forced, but comfortable. It's like the two Exos always spoke this way to each other. It was pretty interesting to say the least.

"Heeeeeeey there, Banshee!"

"Whaddya want, Cayde?"

"Just checking in on that thing I asked you to do."

"I told you, my smuggling days are over..."

"No no shh no not that! The other thing..."

"What other thing?"

"The custom pieces! For—"

"Oh right. Right. Course I'm doing that."

"Yeah? How's it all looking?"

"Did all the designs myself. They're looking good."

"Wait, you designed that?"

"Yep."

Cayde looked back at us with the biggest mechanical grin on his face, turned back to thank Banshee, and began to walk away.

"Wait! What was that all about?" I asked him.

"Oh nothing! Should have some cool stuff for us when we get back here." replied Cayde slyly.

"Ugh, these guys don't ever make any damn sense to me." I said to Gajec. He replied with a grin as we followed Cayde back to the others.

"Alright, everybody! We ready to do this thing? I'm pretty excited if I do say so myself!" said Cayde to everyone.

"We've been waiting on you guys!" replied Greco. "Let's go!"

"Alright alright! Sheesh! Don't be so impatient!" replied Cayde.

We made our way back to the Hangars to board our ships, and travel to our destinations. 

"Guardians, it's been fun chatting and all but, I'm outta here." 

Clearly Cayde was ready to go for reasons other than just boredom from the Tower. But none of us asked any questions. The Hunter vanguard fizzled away into his ship, and began his ascent for takeoff. Each of us followed suit one by one, team by team, and headed to our respective locations. We were off. Again, we went into the unknown. We approached with confidence, awareness, and teamwork. I had no doubt in my mind that we would be successful.