~I don't own Mass Effect or Destiny, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners~
"You are not the victim of the world, but rather the master of your own destiny. It is your choices and decisions that determine your destiny." – Roy T. Bennett
Arc I - Chapter 1
New Beginnings
In the void of space, she watched as her cycle fought. Starships of every colour and size. Of every configuration and nation. In the undying light of Sol, Commander Shepard stood alone. A choice made and accepted.
The intelligence that had been by her side to present her its options had long gone. Its purpose fulfilled and for all its flaws, Shepard couldn't help but feel pity for it. From her short conversations with it, Shepard couldn't help but get the impression that it never truly understood that which it had thought it was saving.
In her last moments, before the bright white light of the Crucible overtook her, Shepard could only feel relief. For her longest battle was won, and she could now rest knowing that the galaxy was in safe hands, to decide its own fate.
As the light consumed her, Shepard felt her feet leave the floor. Her body being thrown, the confusion that followed after losing her sense of up and down. Pain was fleeting, being replaced with a familiar feeling of nothing.
Finally, the motion stopped.
And Commander Shepard took her last, shuddering breath.
Somewhere Else – Some Other Time
It was getting close to midnight, the moon rising high into the dark night sky. For most creatures of the planet, that would mean it was time to sleep, for the Ghost however, it meant it was time to wake up.
Light glimmering from its singular eye, blinking blearily as it began to survey its immediate surroundings. Taking in the rusted out car that had served for shelter, and the sandy planes that stretched on out for miles around.
Its shell rotated lazily, removing dust and sand. Revealing a myriad of scratches and dents. Scars.
Checking for land marks, the Ghost noted the towering pyramid that rose over the east horizon. Monuments made by man long ago that the Ghost knew would long outlive creations built even in the Golden Age.
The heavy storm that had forced it into hibernation for forty eight cycles had finally abated, and the Ghost concluded that it was safe to continue its mission.
Staying low to the ground, the Ghost once again began scanning the surrounding areas, checking the skeletal remains of cars and the broken monoliths of buildings long forgotten.
Continuing north-east on its long journey. Days passing by without notice, the unending sand eventually turning to earth and broken cities. Buildings, large palaces that would have once been teeming with life and culture long turned to dust and ruin. And still the Ghost searched.
Scans after scans. Corpse after corpse. Building after building. City after city and country after country, the Ghost continued its search for the one it would call Guardian. With each failure, each time the Light inside of it failed to respond, the Ghost grew despondent.
Eventually crossing a large body of water, one that it believed had once been called the Black Sea. The Ghost found itself encountering rocky terrain, and a more unhospitable climate than it had hoped, but the Ghost still persisted, eventually coming to a road built into the side of a small mountain top.
The roads themselves most likely millennia old, the Ghost noticed something odd. For one stretch of road ahead was gone, replaced with a crater the size of a small football pitch. Indeed, it looked as if a large sphere had been removed from the rock, and replaced with wreckage it did not recognise.
Cataloguing the anomaly, the Ghost moved to wander on… only to pause in curiosity. The wreckage was mainly comprised of some sort of metal, but something within the mechanical shell filled with Light felt drawn to it.
Floating down, the Ghost scanned a piece of the wreckage, and if it could frown, the Ghost would have. There was something odd about the composition of the metal.
Moving further into the wreckage, the Ghost continued to scan. Raw metal slowing giving way to computing equipment unlike anything filed in its database. Deciding this was something to investigate, the Ghost searched for some sort of terminal or interface.
Instead, it found some kind of chamber, large structural supports and a smooth floor. Running its beam of light over everything it could, the Ghost almost overlooked a small pile of debris. Except for a flicker of colour caught in the reflection of its scan.
Interested, the Ghost scanned the pile, and came across organic tissue, DNA. Human DNA.
Almost instinctively, the Ghost ran it through its processes, offered it to the Light, and for the first time, after untold cycles of searching, the Light accepted.
The Ghost floated silently for a moment, before the digital wall of emotion that the Ghost had long held back broke free.
"By the Travelers Light…"
"After so long, I've finally found you…"
Spinning in place, the Ghost danced in the air, letting emotion long buried fill the void. In the rush of emotions that the Ghost had long held away, protocol asserted itself.
"Oh yes. Right, clothing and shelter. This climate is rather hostile…"
Rushing back up to the road above, the Ghost was quick in its search, breaking down the materials it would need, such as fabric rubber and plastic from long dead car seats. Viable armour would also be necessary, but the strange metal that had lead it to its Guardian would useable.
Returning to the chamber, the Ghost almost quivered in excitement. Scanning the rather mangled looking corpse, the Ghost felt a rush of digital information as it once again confirmed the Lights choosing.
Calling the Light forth, the Ghost expanded its shell, allowing the Light to flow out and into the body. With a flare of bright white light, the Guardian was reborn.
The first thing she realised, upon waking, was that she could think.
The second thing she realised was that she her eyes were closed.
Opening them, the confused woman peered up at some sort of strange metal architecture. Lifting her hand, she stared at it uncomprehendingly. Who was she? Where was she?
A sudden chattering startled the woman, and she reacted on reflex. Reaching for something at her waist that wasn't there, her other hand shot out at a startling speed, grabbing the object that had been coming at her.
A voice cried out, and the woman felt confusion. Trying to shake off her grogginess, the woman looked around trying to find the origin of the voice.
The voice spoke up again, this time sounding as if it was almost standing in front of her. Jerking her head to look at the object she had caught, the woman stared back at a diamond shaped eye, nestled inside a metal shell made up of triangular pieces. She was holding it in her hand.
There was a beat of sudden silence, which was then followed with a feminine shriek of fear, the rather sharp sound echoing in the large chamber, and the strange talking object was instinctively thrown, landing with a loud crash on the other side of the room.
Afraid and confused, the woman attempted to scramble to her feet, ostensibly to run, but the sudden feeling of exhaustion turned it into awkward lurch that had her collapsing almost as soon as she had arisen.
More cries from the strange and incomprehensible floating thing, already flying back and hovering in front of her, blocking the only exit she could see. For the first time, the woman realises she could speak.
"What the hell are you?" Belatedly realising that she was at its mercy, she shrunk in on herself, "Please don't hurt me!"
The strange machine in front of her blinks its diamond shaped eye at her. At least, she thinks that it was a blink, since she assumes the diamond shaped icon in the center of its body is an eye, she can't really tell.
The floating thing stated something else that she still couldn't understand, before it seemed to rattle off a bunch of different languages. At least, she thinks they're different, some of the accents and words seemed more familiar than others.
"What about this one?"
Something on her face must have shown she understood, because the glowing floating thing did a little twirl and suddenly started making sense to her.
"Oh thank the Traveller. I'm glad we got that sorted out, at least."
Lifting a hand, she managed to get the things attention.
"What are you, or… who are you?" She asked again, cautiously peering at it.
"Oh, I'm a Ghost… well actually, now I'm your Ghost."
"Ghost?" She asked, she didn't recognise the name. Or now that she thought about it, her own name. Although before she could ask the thing, err… Ghost, it started talking again.
"Well, from what I can tell, you've been dead a while, and the first resurrection process doesn't include memories soooo… there may be some confusion."
Dead? I've been dead?
For how long, and how am I alive now? Resurrection process?
Is it telling the truth? I can't even remember my own name!
"Yeah, you wouldn't happen to know my name, would you?"
The Ghost blinked, and now she was definitely sure that light in the center is an eye.
"Nope."
Very informative.
"How about where we are?"
Instead of answering with sass like she had expected, the Ghost lit up, literally, and projected a holographic rendition of a planet in front of her.
Startled, she backed away. The planet was rotating, and several markers with different colours appeared on different continents. Curiosity temporarily overriding her paranoia, the woman moved closer, eying the scrolling information that appeared in text form whenever she focused on a specific point.
A large red dot appeared on the globe, and the planet stopped moving. Allowing for the Ghost to move to float over her shoulder, and while she continued to eye it warily, the woman made no further moves to distance herself.
"We're… here." The Ghost claimed, a small laser pointer projecting from its eye connected with the dot. "On the border for the old countries of Georgia and Russia."
The woman shivered slightly, a cold breeze that she had previously managed to ignore making itself known, and she clutched the clothes that she only now realised she had on tighter to herself.
"So what now?"
Humming, the Ghost gave a few digital chirps, before a red line began tracing its way north of the red dot, following some unknown trail, before abruptly turning east into what the map claimed was 'Kazakhstan'.
"We will need to get to The Last City… it's one of the only safe places left on Earth, and other Guardians will be located there."
Tracing the map with her finger, the woman nodded slowly, accepting that if she wanted to survive the next few weeks, she was going to need the floating thing.
"So this 'Last City' is somewhere here in 'Kaz-ac-stan'?"
Shaking itself in what the woman recognised as a similar motion to a human shaking its head, the Ghost corrected her.
"No, the Last City is located over here, on another continent. But Guardians used to frequent this area in Kazakhstan, and there should be several Cosmodromes we can scavenge from if not."
Nodding in understanding, the woman shivered again, her teeth clacking together noisily as the cold gained a more uncomfortable quality.
The bright blue globe winked out of existence, "Oh my! Your body temperature is dropping!"
Whizzing around to face her again, the Ghost seemed alarmed, which for some reason made the woman feel horrible, the emotion coming out of absolutely nowhere.
"Here, come quickly. I scouted out an alcove that should keep the elements at bay."
Floating off towards the exit, the woman once again tried to stand, this time managing, before setting off at a slow hobble after the annoying Ghost.
Authors Note:
Random crossover idea I've had in my head a while. Read a few other Destiny and Mass Effect crossovers, but none of them really filled the niche. Usually because Shepard isn't the only one getting pulled over, or the authors sticking a little too close to the game story line.
I took most of my inspiration from Melaradark, whose own Destiny series is something I would definitely recommend you give a read.
In a final note, I'm afraid I am a Mass Effect fan, and I only ever played the original destiny on my old Xbox 360 years ago, so I'm not going to bother too much with serious lore. I'll look up references, watch YouTube videos of the two games, and I might end up getting Destiny 2 sometime in the future. But don't expect anything drastic or specific.
Other than that, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter, and any others I write in the future…
Thank you for your continual support everyone, and thank you to those who Review, Please do read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not as much. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off it motivates me to write more.
~ JunkMail