Premise: This is an AU where the Barons betrayed Uldren after he freed them. The problems in the Dreaming City have remained unresolved, and the Barons are still at large. Five years have passed, and the Vanguard have been unable to spare the manpower to help with the problem after loses taken during the Red War, and because the Consensus don't see any reason to help the Reef when they didn't help with the Red Legion(Kind of a Rohan-Gondor relationship, but where Rohan is a jerk and does nothing).

It had been. So. Long.

Andromeda was a dark, midnight-blue ghost with a spine shell, who had, in attempt to give herself a more unique look, reprogrammed her eye to shine indigo instead of bright blue. She had spent almost seven centuries searching for her Guardian, and it had been so long, she was starting to think she'd never find him.

Him. She knew nothing about him, but she knew it was a 'him'. Just like she felt so certain he'd hate sushi for some reason, and he was right-handed. He had an odd laugh, and they'd take on the galaxy together. In a way, a Ghost knew their Guardian, even before they met. It was through the pre-Link, the call of one genetic code to it's mechanical match in the universe.

The Reef had been... well, forbidden since forever. Well, forbidden since the Queen said she didn't want Ghosts coming in and stealing 'the honored dead' from their graves. But, the queen had been dead for seven years now, Guardian numbers were still low from the Red War, and it was the one place in the system she hadn't searched yet.

Petra Venj could shoot her... if the Scorn didn't find her first, that was.

Ahhh, the Scorn! So lovable! So elegant! So traitor-y that they'd betrayed the guy who freed them! At least, if she were to believe what the last Ghost she'd met had said at face value(and Obsidian always had been a little cross-wired in the circuits). Story was, that a supposedly-dead Prince had come back, iced the Hunter Vanguard(Cayde, or something like that; she hadn't really been back in the city since Fairwind was Vanguard, there was no need), freed a bunch of scary murder-y Scorn hanchos...

Then proceeded to get his brain turned to mush by some guy they called 'The Mindbender'(what kind of super-villain name was that, anyway!?), and thrown into the void. Apparently, his insurance policy hadn't been favorable enough(that was the part she knew Obsidian was being an idiot about).

No body, but a lot of really graphic footage. And ever since then, the Scorn had been running rampant, and the Dreaming City had been letting loose all sorts of nightmare fuel.

Okay, so maybe the Reef was off-limits for a good reason(like, the stay away or you'll die reason), but at this point, she'd been searching for so long, she didn't really care if she lived or died.

So there she was, floating around, humming some nonsense or the other, when she felt it.

Like a tug on her soul.

Still humming, she veered away from the gaggle of Spider's lackeys that she'd been following(and teasing with 'haunted space rocks'-sounding stuff every now and then-she had to do SOMETHING for entertainment), and followed the feeling.

She came upon a rock fall. Sometime, somehow, this had been a victim of some serious explosions. Poor fellow. There was still gear scattered across the area; nothing recognizable, the body was under the rocks, she could sense, but there was a definitely-broken gun sticking out from under one boulder, an old boot, the remains of a heavy pike, and a twisted wreck of some kind of rifle sticking out of the mud.

"Okay, here we go." Andromeda took a few moments to prepare herself, shutting her eye. "Alright, please don't be fat, lesbian, vegan, dumb, or a second coming of Dredgen Yor. I don't need that in my life."

With that, she extended her shell, and started the process.

He gasped, sucking in air. It hurt, being alive.

One breath in, then let it out...

What was his name, again?

"OH MY GOSH!" his eyes snapped open. That hurt, too(but he was alive). Everything was blury.

"What!?" he gasped. Talking hurt, like needles scrapping his throat. He felt along his chest, his arms. Was he hurt. "Some'thin wrong?"

"No, you're just so-so-" the disembodied voice struggled for a moment. Something small and dark with a glowing center moved before him in time with the speech. "You!"

"I'm so... me?" he blinked in confusion. He tried to rub his eyes, but there was a helmet in his way.

"Yeah, I mean look at you! It's amazing!" the shape moved around, and as his vision cleared, he realized it was a small drone, made of polygonal shapes with four little spines on it. It was kind of cute, in a funny sort of way. "I thought I'd never find you and 'poof'! Here you are!"

He decided to try sitting up. Again, it hurt, every muscle in his body felt stiff. He looked at his hands, trying to open and close them, his fingers tingling and moving with slight difficulty.

"Who-what are you?" he asked the drone looking at her. Her indigo eye blinked at him, and her shell spun in a way that made her seem almost excited.

"I'm Andromeda! And I'm a Ghost-more specifically, I'm your Ghost!" she told him happily. "It means you're a Guardian now, and I'm sorry to say, that come along with a whole bunch of bat-shit crazy things that I should probably leave the experts to explain."

He laughed. It felt good, and now that the shock was wearing off, it didn't hurt as-

He cut himself off, frowning. "What... what happened. I... I can't remember my name... or anything..."

"I'm sorry, but... you were dead." he looked at her in shock. "I just chose you. As a Guardian, you posses control of the Light. You can weaponize it, and through the function of your Light, I, as you Ghost, can heal and... reconstruct you, if need be. This is your first time; nobody really remembers their past lives, it's perfectly normal."

He spent a few moments trying to remember. All that came back to him was a sensation like his head being ripped apart, and he quickly decided that his old life must have sucked, or something along those lines. There was also the memory of a voice... but he couldn't quite recall...

"Now, look; I know this is a lot for you to take in, but I need you to bear with me here." Andromeda urged, suddenly becoming quite serious. "This is Scorn territory. We're in the asteroid belt. We need to find a ship and get back to earth ASAP, or we're like, totally dead."

All these things rang as familiar for some reason. Maybe he still retained base information of his past life? Stuff like 'don't try to breath underwater' and 'don't lick poison dart frogs'.

What the heck was poison dart frog, anyway?

"Okay, say no more!" He tried to jump to his feet, and nearly fell over.

"Take it easy! Get your bearings and get used to being alive first." Andromeda advised as he caught himself. He took a deep breath, and tried standing again. His legs shook, but held up, and he used a nearby rock to steady himself. At full height, he decided he was actually quite tall. His body was covered in some plain, somewhat weak-looking field weave that Andromeda had constructed in black so as to help him blend in with the surroundings more.

He looked up. There were fields of debris, and rock dust had turned all visible sky to purple. He frowned.

"I can't see the stars." Why was that even significant?

"Trying to use them?" his Ghost asked. Use the stars to find your way; of course, that was why it mattered!

"I... I guess so." with a furrowed brow, he looked at her. "What's my name?"

"I don't know." her shell moved in what could have been a shrug. "You can pick one in your own time."

"I can't just run around without a name." he looked back up again. The names of constellations came floating back to him from his past life, like blood bleeding through a bandage. He picked one and ran with it. It was catchy, flashy, and charming. Perfect. "I'll just go with Orion."

"Just like that?" she asked skeptically. "You know once you register with the Vanguard, you can't change that right?"

"Why would I ever change it for!?" he brought one hand to his heart in mock hurt. "It's a handsome name that properly conveys how amazing I am!"

"You haven't known yourself for five minutes! And for all you know, you could be hideously scarred under that helmet!"

"I bet I'm amazing, and that I'm super hot under this helmet."

"YES! I GOT A HUNTER! WHOOOOOO!" Andromeda suddenly broke out in a happy, zipping flight pattern. "Thank the light! For a few moments I was worried you're be a Warlock-like, I'd still be glad I found you and all, but bleh, science is so boring."

"What's a Hunter, and how can you tell I'm one?" he asked, confused by the sudden outburst.

"Hunters are the way finders, scouts, and general go-toos of the Guardians. That delicious display of ego was totally in-line with typical Hunter personality. I had a feeling before, that you'd be one. But I'm glad to know I was right... Orion."

"See, told you it sounds good." it sounded right. Okay... my name is Orion, I'm a maybe-awesome super hot Hunter or something like that, and I have to escape an asteroid field before I die because of...

"Um... what are Scorn?" he asked. At that moment, an inhuman howl broke across the wind.

"Unless you want to find out, we should run or hide. Or do both. Yeah, both would be great." Andromeda said. He jumped when she disappeared. Then, her voice came again, but through his earpiece. "Don't worry, I'm still with you. This is called 'phasing'; I can condense my physical form into a dimensional pocket, but my personality data stays in a circuit in your helmet."

"Okay. Good to know." He didn't fancy being alone out here. Or alone in general. Alone sounded... well, lonely. He looked around for some kind of weapon; if those Scorn things caught him, he didn't want to be unarmed. There was a long, twisted piece of railing sticking out of the ground. He pulled it out of the mud with little difficulty. The point was sharp; it was better than nothing.

He took one last look at where he'd been... revived. He figured he must have been crushed in some sort of rock fall, by the looks of it. He blinked when he noticed something sticking out of one of the rocks; it was a gun. Quickly, he used the pole to levy the boulder it was trapped under, and freed it from it's dirt prison. It was a hand cannon, and when he brushed more dirt off it, he could make out some faint symbols. He squinted.

Two white lines on the barrel, maybe... and an ace on the grip.

"That thing doesn't work anymore." Andromeda told him, stating the obvious.

"I know. But it's mine... or, well, it belonged to past me. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me taking his stuff. Besides... it's all I got. Aside from you, I mean." he said. He didn't know for sure this gun had been his, but there was a high chance. If so, it was his only link to a life he didn't remember, a token of a forgotten time, and he wanted to take it with him.

So, with nothing but his Ghost, a sharp stick, and an old, broken gun, Orion the (probably)Hunter set out across the most lawless place in the system.

Just a plot bunny that wouldn't stay quiet while I was writing Losing Time. May or may not continue.

That being said, let me know what you think.

Fare Thee Well!