This is my first story on this site, so please leave constructive criticism. I will be working on another Destiny Project, so please look forward to that and let me know what you think! I will try to add a new chapter every few weeks at the latest (more frequently if possible). :D
Bold = Ghost Speech/Thought
Chapter 1: Scavenged
Death lay imposing over this place. Even though the setting sun shone along the far horizon, it couldn't beautify this. Above, the sky was beginning to bleed other colors as dusk began to settle. A single, solitary living thing floated around the massacre site. She was a small thing, a combination of the Traveler's Light and machinery. Almost like a mechanical star that the children of this place used to draw, she flew on. So many dead, but where are you? All that lay around her was debris. This crumbling highway of concrete in Russia, Earth had become her latest site. Despite an entire week of searching day and night, she had somehow remained resolute: she would find him. The Great Machine had gifted her this mission. It was an intuition, an internal absolute. Something in her circuits told her he was here. But I have to hurry. The other creatures will notice me! If they haven't already… Moving with a renewed sense of urgency, she hovered and looked with her single, digital eye through the wreckages. So many lives had suffered and been lost here. She wondered, of the few skeletons left, how many had actually died…Only to waste away into obscurity. It was a sad notion. Thousands of cars, once a variety of makes, models, and colors had now been reduced to decrepit metal and that sickening tint of rust. Organisms decomposed, machines rusted. Which one was worse? She wondered: I won't ever become like these machines, will I? The Traveler won't let me rust. Searching through the cars, this little light sauntered on. Ahead loomed the ominous Wall. She knew what it meant: she was close to Fallen territory, and they would be close too.
Even for a Ghost like her, she still felt something similar to discouragement. There had been billions of people on this planet alone before it fell to ruin, before the Collapse. Even after the colony ships had carried so many away, when the skies fell, there had been somewhere around seven billion of them. She paused, calculating. Even if eighty-five percent of them no longer exist, that leaves little over a billion skeletons that I need to analyze for compatibility. Thinking of the ridiculously low chance that her partner would be here, it made even her resolve weaken. With the Traveler crippled, with the Great Machine hovering dead only miles away, she didn't have time for that.
There! Somewhere during her wonderings, she had noticed a skeleton dead in the seat of a car she was passing by. The vehicle had lost its door, as if this person had tried to scramble out before it had died. Blue light emitted from her eye, scanning. Female. Era: Collapse. Cause of Death: Smog Inhalation. Compatibility…5%. Damn. She was reminded of this civilization's notions of soul mates. For them to believe that there was one person that they were one-hundred percent compatible with, it was a grandiose hallucination. She understood it from a necessity standpoint, but not a hopeful one. The later was only wishful thinking. Moving away from the car, the Ghost wandered on. Another one down. Another one I have to leave to rot. She flew closer to the Wall, weaving through the cars. Despite her musings, she was sure she would find him here. It was innate. She had no alternative. He was here…somewhere. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw another skeleton in the driver's seat of another car. It lay crushed sideways against the door frame.
Again her scanners analyzed the remains. Male. Era: Collapse. Cause of Death: Explosive round to the head that failed to detonate on impact. Compatibility…30%. Frustrated, she turned away. And froze. Something was watching her. It felt like pressure, as if her circuits were shivering with bursts of electricity. They are close. Suddenly nervous, she didn't want to know what the Fallen did to Ghosts they encountered. She was as useless as a defenseless infant without her Guardian. Her initiative was a support unit: recalibrating shields, healing minor wounds and a one-shot resurrection to help her Guardian avoid a second death. On top of that she gathered Intel, and could hack even the most complicated systems. But she had nothing for battle. I hope they haven't seen me yet, I have to hide! Darting frantically back and forth, she searched for anything. The snow was too shallow and dirty to adequately hide her white chasse. There were a lot of cars with glove boxes and trunks she could hide in. But most were rusted open, and she didn't know how close this patrol was.
Turning back to the car, she was dismayed. Her first instinct was to hide in the glove compartment, but it was missing. Did the Fallen scavenge parts recently? If so, then she was the most unlucky Ghost she knew. Something internal warned her that this group was getting closer. Desperate to break line of site, she dashed into the interior of the vehicle. The trunk was missing, as if the entire back of the car had been ripped away. Her third idea was to take cover under the seats, but without the leather and plastic, there was nothing to hide her adequately enough. Why me?! As the fear flooded through her like blood through veins, she trembled. There was nowhere safe here.
There was sound.
Looking through a gap in the metal of the seat frame, she saw them. It was a small group. This one was led by a Captain, as most Fallen groups were. Two Vandals flanked him on either side. The Captain walked over the tops of the cars all lined behind hers. The Vandals walked along either side, leaving no option for her to hide from one or the other. Clever aliens, she thought. Although, she was surprised to see a lack of Dregs, the lowest of their race. They were marked by having two of their four arms removed…publicly. A Captain had no qualms throwing Dregs in the pathway of bullets, even if it died by the next. Focus! Now was not the time to pull her core files on their hierarchy. They had moved to the back of the car behind her. Shivering, she looked for anything. In the end, she could only see one option: the only place she could hide.
I'm sorry, forgive me for desecrating your remains. She could see the hole in the back of his head, something that seemed large enough for only her core to fit into. Desperate times… She expanded her electromagnetic sphere outwards. The pyramid shaped star points around her spread out, leaving only the grey sphere of her core. Racing into his skull, she squeezed through the opening. Yet her mechanical body was built to reattach. When she retracted her field back to around her core, they flew through the eyes and wound she had entered. Like a swarm to their queen, the pieces scuttled and seemed to crawl back to her. As the last one snapped back into place against her core, she heard the Captain smash against the roof above as it caved behind her. Hearing how close he was made her shiver in freezing terror. Clink! The edge of her shivering body tapped against the inside of the skull.
The world around grew suddenly, eerily quiet. As if caught in the eye of a storm, the previous chaos had given way to a still silence. Glancing through the sockets of the skeleton, the Ghost tried to see where the Fallen had gone. I wonder if they heard that. A roar answered her question as the Captain smashed against the hood beside the skeleton. The metal frame groaned as it struggled to support his weight. Through a hairline fracture in the left side of the skull, she caught a glimpse of the creature. He was massive, even for a Fallen Captain. Even kneeling, he towered over her hiding place like a colossus. Four arms like steel girders grasped the hood. Rusted metal screeched and snapped in protest. With as much effort as to swat a fly, the Captain ripped the roof clean off. He threw it clattering away to smash against and warp around the shape of another car.
"Ir avaski, eyinaza akov!" The Ghost shrank back at the Captain's command. She was too scared to even shiver as she pressed against the right side of the skull. She wanted to fly away, get as far away from these aliens as possible. From the Traveler's time raising their civilization, her systems pulled from its archives and translated his words: "Retrieve Light, Punishment Dregs!" They wanted the Traveler back, after it left them to ruin in the wake of the Whirlwind. She knew enough of their culture to understand the threat. It only reinforced her fear as she tried not to tremble. That would make the Vandals look harder, more carefully than normal. This is bad. I'll need a miracle to escape this. Please see me through this Great One. Beside her, she heard the Vandals rip through the back of the car. Even with their lesser power, they managed to bend the doors outwards despite the rust. However, the state of the hinges made them snap off instead. They were getting closer.
"Siok Imakni!" They began to tear into the vehicle with ruthless and scary precision. Translated as: "Search hidden places," the Ghost realized they had done this before. If she had an eyelid, she would be clenching it closed in some futile attempt to hope they wouldn't see her. Instead she was forced to keep her shuddering as subdued as possible. How many Ghosts had tried to hide as she had, only to be found in those now obvious places? Though the trunk was gone, she could hear the Vandals still search as they bent the metal out of shape to make sure. All around her was the chaotic sound and noise of the car being dissected. Through it, there was one sound that sent spine-chilling reverberations through her systems. It was breath. Though she could not see the Captain, his animalistic, guttural breathing told her he was there. If she could shrink back any more, she would have broken through the side of the skull and out into the back seat. I have to keep still. Keep absolutely still. But it was a notion that was easier said than done. She was caught between hovering into the open space around and in view of the holes in her hiding place, and making noise by shaking against bone. Trying to swallow her fear, she simply waited.
The breathing, like gusts of wind, wrapped into her hiding place as visible smoke. If he wasn't searching the skull, then he was closer to her than she ever wanted to be again. Thank the Traveler I can't breathe…or cough. At least she had one advantage as a machine, in this situation. Another puff of air cut the thought as she wondered if the Captain was not just stronger and bigger, but smarter than his counterparts. Her thoughts began to race, imagining the Captain ripping the skull from the spine. She saw those blue, insectoid eyes staring at her through the sockets or through the other opening. She heard one hand wrap around the skull with the inevitable grasp of death. Its powerful grip crushed bone into shrapnel as that towering figure claimed and killed her. Before her seizing eye, she saw fingers wrap like spiders through the openings. They pulled with little effort, tearing her futile hiding place in two. The end result was the same. A third possibility saw the Captain accidentally knocking the skull from its fragile perch. She could hear her body clattering around inside the tumbling capsule. As it noticed her, the Fallen would converge and surround her. In the end, she didn't want to ever find out what they would do to her if they found her. But she still had her faith to keep her safe. The Great Machine will see me through. She had to believe it.
The next breath was cut off abruptly as the Captain turned away from where he was searching beside the skeleton. His subordinates' chattering seemed to be something along the lines of moving on since all the hiding places were empty. Angered, the Captain smashed his fist through the hood. The explosion of sound startled her as she instinctively jerked back against the bone. They heard that. She knew she was found. Even the Traveler couldn't protect her now. Like redwood trees falling to smash against the ground, the Ghost heard the Captain land against the ground next to her. She was sure the earth was trembling from the quake of his landing, but it could just have been her shuddering out of terror. If she had been caught outside the eye of the storm, something hoped that she had successfully made it through.
"Archon-Kell uzak turven! (Archon-Kell orders return!)" Heavy footsteps like collapsing buildings began to move away, followed by lighter ones like rubble strewn across pavement. Bobbing down as if sighing in relief, the Ghost sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Traveler – so far away but able to save her even here. Gradually the sounds of the patrol moved beyond even her acute hearing. A pause of silence. Even though she had heard all three Fallen leave, something told her to distrust the lack of sensory information.
Cautiously, she dared to glance out of one of the eye sockets. Fearing that they would see her eye in its place, she darted back out of reflex. Taking a moment to calm her nerves, the Ghost tried again. Hesitantly, she floated again before the socket. Moving around the circular edges, she tried to glimpse as much of her surroundings as she could. Unsure if their departure had been a rouse, the Ghost moved quickly to the other socket. Nothing. Her uneasiness diminished slightly. Turning around, she repeated the process around the bullet hole. When she saw no signs of the enemy, she expanded her electromagnetic field. As her parts clinked against the inside of the skull, she froze. If they were still lurking around, there would be no mistaking her hiding place this time. Almost like staccato notes, her pieces had rapidly crashed against the bone. All or nothing, maybe I can surprise them and dash away to safety…like that time before. She could weave through the cars to avoid the sniper fire of the Vandals' wire rifles. The Captain, a hulking brute, might be able to catch up to her using his short distance teleportation. But it was a risk she was willing to accept. As if taking a calming breath, the Ghost waited for her resolve to kick in. Then, with one last fearful image of being caught, she dashed out of the skull as her pieces followed.
Her core darted around in a disoriented and random pattern of quick spurts. As she retracted her field, her pieces reattached to her body as soon as they could catch up to her. She expected the electrical Arc energy of a wire rifle shot to come whizzing by her as she moved around erratically like a blind hummingbird. When nothing happened, she slowed and spun to take in her darkening surroundings. Click! Pressure pushed against her. A burst of speed and she skipped away. Yet the terror of the moment ended as she realized it was only her last point reattaching like her youngest pup coming to suckle. It took several minutes, but finally the Ghost managed to calm her shot nerves. Spinning around, she searched for anything. Acute vision, like a scope, zoomed into the various possible hiding places. Wind blew around, threatening pathetically to carry her away. But, it created movement in the tattered remains of trees and grass. Every movement became a potential threat, each whisper through the leaves instead the roaring of that Captain. When nothing jumped out at her, when nothing attacked, she tried to refocus.
I'm sure I'm close to you. I will find you before the next patrols pass by here. With renewed determination, the Ghost floated towards the Wall. At least the closest group had been called back to their House by their leader. Though the fact that an Archon had taken the mantle of Kell for House Devils might be a problem later. Discarding the thought, she floated on. Another three skeletons, tossed like rocks skipping across a pond, were scanned as failures. However, as she was finished scanning the last one, the sound of tortured metal drew her attention. Whipping around in an arc to avoid fire, she expected to see a Fallen patrol behind her. It turned out that rust had finally eaten enough of a car door that it finally had given up on staying attached.
Then she saw it. Another skeleton lay across the way, beyond the car and atop the hill behind it. This has to be you. Please Great One, let this be my Guardian. Could this be the one, could it be hers? Night began steadily creeping upon her, but she was determined to resurrect him before the moon rose. If this skeleton actually is my Guardian. Hope made her race towards it. She had found that, whether through chance or some design, that male skeletons had generally been far more compatible with her than female ones. Yet she had never found one within her preprogrammed margin for error. The closest hadn't even been close. Like a zealot meeting their god, she fanatically flew towards it. Something like faith gave her an assured attitude towards this potential Guardian. I have searched for years. This has to be the one. Not every one of you can be a failure. You have to be compatible with me! I need you now, in this moment, more than ever!
Out of the corner of her eye, the Ghost saw a brief streak of blue. There was an instant of pressure and pain, and then the world broke to black.