Our Forgotten Heroes

Prologue

Many years ago, we fought a war that spanned the Orion Arm of the galaxy, and our ancestors fought a war to prevent their extinction. We survived…barely. A civil war amongst our enemies saved us at our darkest hour. Our former enemies splintered, many became our allies, and we fought back with renewed vigor. We won the war, and lived prosperously alongside our new allies. And yet…humanity wouldn't accept the blessing it had.

A shadow organization, whose name has been lost in time, continuously sought to keep our allies down, a ploy that could only go unnoticed for so long, and our allies retaliated. We fought a war we were unprepared for, still licking our wounds from the last, and fought them to a standstill. Both sides, weakened from the last war, beat each other back to their home worlds and the war…stopped. Neither side won, neither side could amount an attack that would end the other.

We were left alone. Scholars suspect that an agreement was made by our ancestors and our enemies. We would leave each other alone, let our descendants meet when they were able, and stop the foolish wars. Unfortunately, we lost our stance in the galaxy, and suffered a technological dark ages. Many of our technological marvels were lost to time.

Centuries passed us by, wars amongst ourselves were fought over resources and money, and we slowly began to recover…

When the Traveler came, Humanity prospered once more. We grew, beyond our borders and into the other worlds, and many of the moons, of our solar system. Our lifespan tripled, we were gifted powers through the essence of Light, technology boomed forth with reckless abandon, the Exo were created, and our species expanded in number manifold in our second Golden Age.

And then…the Darkness found us, following the Traveler. The very being that had uplifted us…had also caused our fall. Maybe this was planned; maybe when the Traveler found us, it decided to shape us into its personal guard, for that is what we became. When the Darkness found us, we fought back; the Fallen, the Hive, the Vex, and the Cabal, all minions of the Darkness, met resistance every step of the way through our domain.

And yet…we still fell. Our fighting back was not enough against the combined, yet at times fragmented, might of the alien species stacked against us. The Fallen, weakest of our enemies, pressed us back hard as the first invaders, and still try to take our planet entirely. The Hive, with their massive hordes, took our moon, dear Luna. The Vex, those cold machines of evil, took Venus. And the Cabal, those creatures of war, stole Mars from our grasp.

Our soldiers fought them at every turn, at times granting us victories despite the overwhelming odds, alongside the Traveler; until that horrid day came…and the Traveler was mortally wounded. The hordes of our enemies pressed at us, our men and women fought with the Light of the Traveler at their backs, before…the ships of the darkness wounded our greatest ally mortally, causing it to flee to Earth, where the fighting had yet to start. Our warriors fell by the hundreds as we retreated from our worlds, millions dying by the ravenous hordes pursuing them.

Our Golden Age was at an end, and there was nothing we could do.

In its last acts, before going into hibernation, the Traveler did one thing, one last effort to help us fight back against its enemies: it gave us the Ghosts, small constructs crafted in Light with the ability to search for those amongst the dead that hold the potential to wield light as a weapon and become the Guardians of Light and bring them back from the clutches of the Void to fight once more. Our Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks fight everyday against those that wish to finish us off.

Now we fight from our last stronghold, The Last City on Earth, hiding beneath the Traveler and waiting for the time when it awakens once more, for we can no longer stand alone. Our leaders, though none will admit it, know that we won't last much longer…maybe only a few more years, unless the Guardians can find a way to beat back our foes. We need more Ghosts out there to find Guardians, for if we don't…we all shall perish.

~ Vanguard Ikora Rey, addressing the Council of the Ghosts.

Four Ghosts jolted, their bodies expanding and showcasing a portion of the Light that gave them life in the form of a blue sphere; their bodies were reacting to something… Not many things could cause such a reaction, that were not of their control anyway, and this felt…special. The Traveler was doing something, something that was causing shockwaves amongst the sources of Light inside every Ghost from the Tower in to Mars, something that yet beckoned only the four and brought about the intense need to…move. To abandon their search for a Guardian and head to one specific place, a place deep inside Fallen territory on Earth. The territory that was once the Vancouver in Old Canada called to them. Then…all went black for them as they fell to the ground.

A form, undistinguishable as a member of any race or gender to any that saw it due to a large, brown coat, seemingly materialized at the location of one of the four Ghosts in a small explosion of light, the figure then grabbed the unconscious form of the Ghost, only to then vanish a moment later, then to appear at the location of the next, then the next and then finally. Worlds apart they were: one in Old America on Earth, one on the Moon, another at Venus, and the last at Mars, and yet in only a few moments the four were gathered by the unknown individual.

The mysterious figure reappeared once more, atop of a ruined structure that was in Old Canada, the four Ghosts cradled like infants in its arms as it stood, head tilted to the heavens. Glowing blue eyes peaked out from under its clothed face and scanned the sky expectantly, seemingly watching for any change as it waited for whatever it was expecting to come. Time crawled by, what felt like hours to the figure was only a few minutes to others, and then…the figure smiled beneath its concealing robes. Miles above land, four forms streaked through the air, the flames of their entry into the upper atmosphere concealing their true shape to spectators as anything beyond that of debris falling from orbit. Their trajectory would place them nearby. Perfect.

"Little Ghosts, wake up." A soft voice spoke out, male in origin and pointing to at least the gender of the clothed form, the small beings in its, rather now identified as a 'his', arms stirred about, beginning their waking sequence. First to activate, was their auditory receptors and what they heard brought about great excitement. "It is time to work, your Guardians are coming and they have been missing in action for many, many years. After all…"

He paused and, as the four constructs began to move, their bodies floating up into the air, tossed them forward with a lift of his arms. His form began to slowly vanish, a bright light starting at the core of his being and spreading to consume him as he said his parting words.

"Spartans never die."