(Took this as a chance to finally start writing again. Didn't really take any time to edit it, and I'm not super happy with it, but I hope someone out there enjoys it, even if for a moment.) A Guardian stands alone in the Tower, leaning on the railing overlooking Earth’s final city. A second approaches him, surveying him curiously. “You waiting on word of new bounties, too?” The first Guardian tilts his head slightly to his left, just enough to register the approaching Titan in his periphery. He then returns his gaze to the city below and nods. “What’s a Guardian without a mission, right?” The Titan laughs and joins him at the railing, following the lone Warlock’s gaze out over the twinkling lights in the distance. “You ever think about how weird it is that none of us ever go down there? I mean, one city left on Earth, and we never leave this tower to explore it. Feels weird.” The Warlock’s gaze doesn’t leave the city as the Titan speaks. His voice remains measured and even as he responds. “We never go down there because we can’t.” This draws a look of confusion from the Titan. “And why is that?” “We’re in this Tower… and only this Tower, so that the people down there can forget about us. The second we leave this place and join them there, we become real. The second we become real, the Darkness does. As long as we stay locked up in this Tower, they can forget about us, and forget about the Darkness, and live. Live like people are supposed to. Smile. Laugh. Love each other, have kids. Keep humanity alive. We’re brought back from death, to a time removed from our own by god knows how many years, and baptized by blood and bullets as we crash against endless waves of nightmares. We kill creatures we barely understand with weapons we understand less so that they can stay down there, separate from us. Safe and oblivious.” Both the Warlock and Titan are silent for a moment. Then the Titan nods. “I guess you’re right.” He spits over the railing down at the city. “-blam!- ‘em.” The Titan returns his gaze to the Warlock, who is still gazing out over the City with a faint smile on his face. “If you’re right, and that’s why things are the way they are, why bother looking down at them? Why not ignore them like they do us? Give ourselves a chance to forget that someone out there has the normal lives we can’t have?” The Warlock’s gaze leaves the City for the first time during the two Guardians’ brief conversation as he locks eyes with the Titan. He shakes his head and smiles. “I don’t want to forget. I come here to remember. I come here to remember why I fight. Why day after day I go where no normal man or woman would; why I run into the Darkness head first and I fight.” The Guardians are interrupted by a crackling in the background as Xander 99-40’s robotic vocals break the Tower’s relative silence. “ATTENTION GUARDIANS, NEW BOUNTIES ARE NOW AVAILABLE.” The Warlock pushes himself back from the railing and picks up the helmet that had been perched on the railing next to him. He turns to back to the Titan and smiles. He uses his free hand to pat the stranger on the shoulder. “Back to work.” The Titan nods to the Warlock as the latter departs, headed back up the steps behind them. The Titan does not move, however. Instead he returns his gaze to the City, where he looks out over the twinkling lights below.