Luminescence

Rating: T - M (Rating my increase in later chapters).

Disclaimer: Bungie, you own this, and stealing is wrong, but my little fireteam is too adorable to ignore so. . . this happened. Sorry, Bungie.

Summary:

Warnings: Mild gore, allusions to injuries.

Author's Notes: "Finish all your other stories!" The little voice in the back of my head whisper.s

"No, don't do it!" Whispers another. Oh boy.

So, I've been playing Destiny like, nonstop. I've gotten to Crota twice, and it's as insane and lovable as ever. I always love going in with the right fireteam, you know? Bummer I have to work on the weekends - or at all - because whenever I do, I just think, "Man, I wonder what my friends in Destiny are doing right now!" And the cycle begins anew.

But anyway, this story, Lumi, is all about my own personal fireteam. Consider it a backstory, if you will. I just couldn't help myself. I love Cyra too much to abandon her, so she gt transmitted here. Also, if you notice any errors in this, you have a few options - PM me, and I'll get back to you (eventually, but it will happen!), or just straight up leave a review and I'll reply.

But anyway, I'll shut up, now. On to the story!

Death was all-encompassing.

I was soft, like a blanket, and it wrapped around her mind witha tender, sweet embrace. It took the sharp edge of everything away - all of the pain, the fear, the desperation, sorrow, anger. . . everything. And she had to admit - she was actually kind of grateful for it. there was nothing after death. Just blackness. Darkness. An eternity of nothing that stretched on and on and on. And yet, somehow, it was as if she was just sleeping. She was at peace, completely fine with the arms of the end wrapping around her. . . and yet, she was aware.

She knew she'd died, and she was completely satisfied with it. She'd met her end. She'd fought the good fight. The war she'd battled had been gritty, dark, and unspeakable. Before she was even eight, she'd lost both her mother and father to the Fallen. Whether they were Dregs or Vandals, she couldn't remember. She simply recalled a time a scout had approached her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and told her they were gone.

And that was that. Her childhood ended with those words: "Your mother and father are gone." And she was no longer a child - she became a warrior. Granted, there were limitations on what she could and couldn't do: physically, she was not as strong or as capable as an adult, but she could hold a gun, and was therefore able - and expected - to hold her own in a firefight. It was was a necessity, actually. Any child over the age of six was given a gun - there was no way a person couldn't fight.

You either fought. . . or you died. You became one of the billions who had passed away over the course of the war.

She'd chosen to fight.

She'd picked life.

Sure, the guns could be heavy, the rifles bent or rusted, the ammo scarce. Her bones could break, her skin would bruise and crack, and she would bleed - but that was life. Life was survival. Life was making the hard choices to ensured that you lived, and those that sought to kill you died. Life was pain. It was horror, it was grit, darkness, and hope, and frailty. It was a precious gift, taken from so many, but granted only to those who had the fortitude to last. And she'd been one of those lucky few.

Until that day. The day of her death, when her life had been ripped form her, just like everything else. But she'd given it a good run, hadn't she? In death, there was no longer any need for her to worry. She was finally free of all of the pains and horrors that life had presented to her on a silver platter and expected her to enjoy. In living, she'd been forced to swallow misery and all its jagged edges, and life expected her to smile like she enjoyed the pain, to say she loved how it tore into the very fabric of her being.

The warmth of the darkness increased by several degrees, and somehow, impossibly, in death, she stirred. A gentle, blue light pierced through the veil, and she stared at it, transfixed. For all the time she'd been asleep, she had never seen any sort of color. And yet, there it was, creating large swatches back and forth, sweeping in a methodical pattern, as if it were looking for something. She watched as it approached, drawing closer, until finally it was shining right into her eyes.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, she felt emotion again. She felt anxiety. The light speared into her eyes, making her want to recoil, but that was impossible. Moving away from the light was beyond her abilities. Something feathered across her mind, touching her in an alien way.

"Found you." It said, speaking in a tongue she did not understand, but she did.

The light narrowed, becoming a fine laser point that scanned over her, and then it exploded.

She flinched backward, somehow, as the light came closer and closer, turning a vast array of colors. She moved, striving to get away from it, but the light simply expanded, leaving no place for her to run. And she watched as the darkness, her safety, her peace, retreated from it, leaving her with colors and warmth - things she hadn't experienced in an eternity. She screamed, the noise soundless, but her throat itched, and a strange, warbled sound came from her.

Hands reached into the light, securing her, roughly pulling her from the darkness. And then she was moving again, but she wasn't entirely how, and her the warbled keening that was her voice was stripped from her a second time. Another sensation came back to her: pain.

She heard her bones crack, the wet rasp of muscles as they slid over them, and felt pain as scarred, smooth skin encased it all, giving her form, capturing the essence that had been floating in the void. The hand restraining her left, but only for a moment, and then it reached inside of her, where it had no business going. Before, she felt light, and now, she felt heavy, as wet blobs of muscle slid into her. Her voice returned as she breathed for the first time in an eternity, and she could hear it. Agony ripped through her, hot and heavy, as she felt the last, most important part of her slide into place.

Electricity jolted through her, a brilliant shade of blue and gold, charging that last, precious organ, and it beat. Once, twice, stronger and stronger, feeling her muscles creak, her palm against her gloves. finally, she looked up, and what she saw made her confused.

It was. . . It was Exodus.

She was sure of that. With every blink, the darkness dissipated, and the world came into focus with a sharpness and clarity she didn't remember ever having. But there was the building that she'd gotten her ammo from, here was the high plain that she'd. . . she'd what? She shook her head, an ache already forming there. The plains. The ammo. The building. She remembered. . . A man. A man she'd known well, trusted well, blood dripping from a deep gash on his forehead.

". . . hold the defenses. . . ship needs time. . ."

What had he said before that, though?

Another voice peppered her thoughts, but she hardly paid it any attention. Something else, something important, was on the very tip of her tongue, just waiting for her to say it. . . She just needed to remember. She frowned, and focused. The man became clearer in her mind. A strong man, slightly hobbled on one leg from a lucky slug that had pegged him years prior, a man without fear, filled with bravery. He was speaking to her, and it was something very urgent.

". . . dian. . ." The other voice said, trying to distract her. She ignored it.

Something flitted in front of her face, blocking her view of their impromptu command post. She blinked as she stared into a bright blue light. That looked familiar, didn't it? Yeah, she realized, it did. She remembered running out into the field, a bandana cinched tight around her forehead, keeping the blood and sweat out of her eyes-

"Gu. . . an!"

". . . we have to hold the defenses. The ship needs time to recalibrate. . ."

-but that hadn't helped, in the end. She remembered hot, slicing pain as pulse shots tore though her legs and her stomach, forcing her to her knees-

"Guard. . . an!"

". . . we have to hold the defenses. The ship needs time to recalibrate after taking that blow."

-and with shaking hands, she'd pressed them against her stomach, and she remembered smiling. That was it. Two seconds, and she was out. There were no medics or medkits for her to turn to, nothing in her time of need. Her blood was quickly staining her legs and her hands, leeching warmth out of her body. Above her, she heard the sound of a skiff descending, and she'd craned her neck back right as a canon locked onto her, charged, and a bright blue blast screamed for her-

"Guardian!"

"Cyra, we have to hold the defenses!"

"GUARDIAN!

And boom.

Death.

Only when she blinked, she wasn't dead. She was alive, kneeling on the empty plain that was packed over with ice and snow.

Cyra stiffened with a gasp, blinking as the blue light made her eyes constrict and narrow painfully. She sucked in noisy gulps of air as her lungs struggled to function, and she felt her heart pounding in her chest as she snapped back to reality. Gone were the Fallen skiffs and Dregs and Vandals. Around her stretched a barren, lifeless husk of rusted metal and warped debris. A decaying skeleton, bony fingers reaching out to her, curled in death.

Where was everything? Where was the Captain? Where were the people, the colony ships? Where was the Fallen skiff that had been directly overhead, firing a pulse laser directly at her face? Her mind buzzed with a trillion unanswered questions, and she sucked in air as the world spun around her, a dizzying array of a thousand colors and distorted shapes. The only constant was the bright blue light that hovered directly in front of her face.

"Guardian! Guardian, get up, Guardian! You have to get up!" The mechanical, strangely female voice, implored her. It was begging, sounding on the edge of desperation as it continued, "Please, you must run! You must stand and run!"

Instead, Cyra tilted her head down, inspecting her stomach. Shaking hands, encased in threadbare gloves, pressed against her stomach. Where was her mortal wound, the blood? She died. She knew she died. She remembered feeling the pain, the heat, and then the nothing. But now she was here. She was alive, after so long, and she could feel her heart beating in her chest, the weight of her organs inside of her. She was no longer a shapeless, massless ghost floating around the abyss. She was alive. She was human again.

"Guardian, please! Please, you must listen! You have to run!" The mechanical voice cried, on the verge of screaming, its tone cracking as its volume grew. Maybe it was the distress that finally registered in her mind, the urgency that she heard. Before she died, the Captain had sounded the same way.

("But if we can't?" She said, breathlessly, "What will we do?"

His mouth was set in a grim line as he looked at her. "We save as many as we can.")

Cyra tilted her head up, and she stared at the curious ball of metal and technology that hovered in the air. The longer she stared, the more. . . connected she felt. It was difficult to describe, but there was something about the little ball that she couldn't shake. It was a part of her. She could feel it, in a way she couldn't feel her arms or her legs or her mind. It felt like it was an extension of her heartbeat, pulsing in the air in front of her.

It was important to her, whatever it was. She knew that much.

She moved her mouth, and at first, no words emerged. But then she felt the familiar sensation of her throat moving, of vibrations in her chest, and a raspy, hoarse voice escaped her. "What are you?" She murmured. The little ball shuddered, and angrily sped forward, ramming itself against her chest.

"Move! Move, run, do something, or you will die!"

With speed she didn't know she had, Cyra reached out and cupped the little mechanical wonder in her hands. "What are you talking about?" She rasped.

In the distance, she heard a strange noise. A wail. A scream. The sound of an animal in the throes of death. In her hands, the little machine shivered, and Cyra cupped it closer to her chest. It must be so cold. . . Maybe her body heat would help?

"Please," The tiny machine begged in a broken voice, "Please, I don't want to see you die a second time. They're coming. If you can get up, if you run, you can make it."

On the crest of a nearby hill, she could see blurry forms moving. On the wind, she could smell a terrible scent - something like rotting meat. She perked up, groggily staring out at the hill, where the blobs of color began to come into focus. Whatever they were, they sure as hell weren't human, that much she was positive of.

"Are you afraid of them?" She asked.

"Why aren't you running?" The machine sobbed, "I searched so long for you? Why? Why, why why. . ."

The rotting meat came closer, sprinting to her. The little metal ball shuddered in her hands, and wedged itself underneath her chestplate. She felt more whole with it there, right next to her heart. She heard a footstep next to her, and she craned her neck back, looking up, up, up, at something encased in red and black armor. It looked over her, one large hand reached down, each finger capped with a terrifying talon that would pierce her skin and break her bones with ease.

Another shriek sounded behind her, and as the hand wrapped around her throat, the dizzying haze that clouded Cyra's mind finally slipped away, and was replaced with something else, something more primal and basic. Cyra stiffened as it hefted her up with pathetic ease, dangling her like a small child, and automatically, her hands tried clawing at his throat, attempting to free herself. In her breastplate, she heard the small machine sob and whimper.

As the creature looked at her, pinning a glowing green eye to her own, Cyra finally felt an emotion break through the fog: fear.

It growled, hands tightened around her throat.

Cyra screamed.