"Guardian? Guardian? Eyes up Guardian."
Whose voice is that? What's going on? What's happened? These thoughts were racing through his mind, as he opened his eyes for what seemed to be the first time in a very very long time. As his vision cleared, his stomach dropped, and his eyes widened. Rusted husks of old cars were scattered all around him, plant life had grown around many, and what horrified him the most was that there were skeletons in all of the rusted husks.
"It worked. You're alive!" The voice got his attention, but he was shocked to find a small floating spiked ball.
"Where am I? And what are you?" He asked the small ball.
"You're in Old Russia. And I'm a Ghost … Actually now I'm your Ghost. You don't know how long I've been looking for you. And you … Well you've been dead a long time. So you're gonna see a lot of things you won't understand."
"Dead!? What!?-" He was cut off as a loud strange roar echoed from all around them.
"We aren't safe here. This is Fallen territory." The Ghost said. "I need to get you to the City." The Ghost vanished in a small flash of light, but a second later he heard the spiked ball's voice inside his head. "Don't worry I'm still here. We need to get moving."
Whatever the Fallen were, he doubted they were going to allow him to waltz through their territory and into whatever this City was. So he headed for what looked like the remnants of a dam. Just in front of him was an opening, and he ran inside. Up an old flight of stairs, until he came to a stop along an old metal walkway.
"Okay we need to find you a weapon, and we need more light. Falen thrive in the dark we won't." Ghost said as he materialized and headed into the darkness. "Another one of these hardened military systems … And a hundred years of entropy working against me."
A hundred years!? His mind was racing again, and this time he began to remember. He was heading somewhere, trying to get someplace safe. He remembered that six orders of warriors … Titans if his memory was correct, were gathering in the Twilight Gap in order to fend off the darkness. If that was a hundred years ago, then the Titans had failed, and the Darkness had taken the Twilight Gap. He was snapped out of his thoughts when the lights in the old dam came on, and he took a few steps back as there were hostiles right across from him on an opposite walkway.
"Fallen! They've found us!" Ghost exclaimed, as he flew towards a slowly opening door way. "Here I found you a rifle!" Dodging the weapons fire from the Fallen, he ran towards the open door, grabbing the rifle and bringing it to bear. "I hope you know how to use that thing."
"I'm pretty sure I used to be a soldier before I … Died." He said, his voice dying slightly as he finished his sentence. Sighing softly, and with Ghost back inside his head, he made his way forward. His Ghost gave him a slight warning about laser mines that the Fallen had set up, however they weren't the problem. the trouble was dealing with the Fallen when they actually popped up, as they would constantly duck around corners every time he would fire at them.
"Oh the hell with this!" He growled, as he charged at the Fallen hiding around the corner. Sliding around the corner, he grabbed the smallest Fallen, what Ghost called a Dreg and slammed it headfirst into the wall. He smirked as he felt its skull crack, and watched it drop to the ground. He then brought his rifle to bear at a taller Fallen. A Vandal, and put a burst of bullets into the creature's skull.
Making his way forward after aquiring a new weapon, a shotgun this time, he ran into more Fallen. While only Dregs and Vandals, there were quite a lot of them. He ducked around a corner avoiding taking any hits from the Fallen weapons at the last moment.
"Damnit I really could use a good explosive." He growled to himself.
"Hold on one second." Ghost said inside his head. "There we go. you're all set."
He felt something materialize in the palm of his left hand, and glancing down, he did indeed see a grenade. Deciding he didn't want to know how Ghost had done that, he pulled the pin on the explosive and lobbed it into the middle of the Fallen. What happened after was astonishing. Instead of a large explosion and hundreds of pieces of shrapnel, a large dome of fire enveloped a four foot radius from where the grenade had detonated, incinerating a good portion of the Fallen aggressors.
"Okay that was cool." He said before mopping up the Fallen that hadn't been incinerated by his grenade. Although while he did admit the Fallen did put up a good fight, their field tactics left a lot to be desired.
"Nice work." Ghost said in his head. "Come on. Way to the Cosmodrome is through here. Maybe we can get find a ship that can get us to the City."
"Just so long as we're out of here." He said to his Ghost as he made his way outside. On the other side of the old wall, was the old Cosmodrome, and it was perfectly clear that it had been abandoned for quite some time. He barely made it two steps into the Cosmodrome, when a flare rose up from one of the abandoned buildings. At the same time, there was a loud bang, and several ships descended upon the Cosmodrome.
"Fallen ships!? In orbit!?" Ghost exclaimed, as the ships unloaded several Fallen soldiers.
"Well this is going to be fun." He groaned to himself, as he made his way towards the Fallen soldiers. As he engaged them, he noticed another type of enemy. This one floated in the air, and its built in weapon fired one shot at a time. Ghost referred to them as Shanks. They weren't very durable, as they could be destroyed with one to two shots from his rifle.
"Well that takes care of the Fallen here." He said after decapitating the Vandal he had pinned under his boot with a single blast of his shotgun. "Now lets find a ship."
The interior of the next building wasn't much to look at, since it was just the same as the abandoned wall, he had came from an hour ago. However, after making their way through a set of old rusted double doors, Guardian and Ghost found exactly what they were looking for. Held down in the middle of the large room was an old ship. An Archadian Class if he remembered correctly, these were the new model when he was alive. It wasn't much to look at now though. The Fallen must have stripped the ship for parts. A sentiment that was shared with his Ghost.
"Will it fly?" He asked, as Ghost materialized.
"We're about to find out." The little ball replied, as he vanished inside the ship. A moment later, the Archadian jump ship's engines roared to life. The same time, as Fallen war cries reached his ears, and a large four armed Fallen commander emerged from a giant hole in the wall.
"A Barron!" Ghost exclaimed. "We can't fight it now, I'm bringing you in."
In a the same shimmer of light that surrounded Ghost when he appeared or vanished, he was brought inside the stripped Archadian ship, as it ripped away its moorings and flew away from the abandoned Cosmodrome. As the new Guardian's ship flew off, they did not notice the hooded figure watching them depart.
As the small ship made its way through a large and nasty storm, Guardian and Ghost had a chance to talk.
"So I've been dead a hundred years? That means we lost the battle at Twilight Gap." He said.
"That's right. Six orders of Titans, and several Warlocks held the Gap for weeks. It wasn't enough though, and that was the same battle that wounded the Traveler."
He sighed, and removed the helmet, that Ghost had placed on his head when he brought him back to life. The new Guardian wasn't all that bad to look at. His features were kind, but also strong, his skin was somewhere in the middle between fair and dark, and his very light brown hair had a slight military style to it as the lower portion seemed shortened, while at the front it tuffed out and up.
"Do you remember your name Guardian?" Ghost asked.
"Yeah. It's Rex." He said as their ship cleared the storm, and Rex got his first look at the City that Ghost had mentioned. Standing near the mountains was a large tower, that stood watch over the City. And hovering over the center of the last metropolis of humanity, was the large sphere that was called the Traveler. As Rex set foot on the large open balcony of the tower, his Ghost began speaking.
"Welcome to the last safe city on Earth. The only place the Traveler can still protect. It took centuries to build. Now we're counting every day it stands. And this tower is where the Guardians live."
