The opening for Book 1 is "Again" by Yui(yes the FMAB one)
Again
He woke with a start, gasping desperately for breath. His heart felt like it was trying to get out of his chest and run away in a panic. Every nerve firing on full throttle and every muscle seemed to be shocked to life.
"Calm down and breathe. You're alright. " a slightly buzzing disembodied voice said to him. But he was too busy trying to bring his heart rate down to investigate.
Once he finally did, he sat up in the dry scratchy grass and used the edge of a rusty metal object to shakily pick himself up. When his head reached a window, he looked inside and looking back at him was a corpse picked clean to the bone and its jaw was wide open in an eternally silent scream. He jumped back, startled by the gruesome sight, his heart picking up again. Only then did he notice that the rusty object was a car. And then only after that did he notice that the area was littered with them.
In the way they were arranged, he deduced that they were trying to get far away from something and whatever it was, it found them way too quickly. They died on the spot.
"How are you feeling?"
Again, that same voice. Suddenly a white ball flew in front of his face, jerking him from his shock at the scenery. "Feeling better?" The voice again. But this time, it came from the four pointed floating object with a glowing blue blinking "eye" in front of him.
"Um. Y-yeah." He answered in a dry raspy voice.
"Good to know. C'mon we need to move. I didn't bring you back to life just for you to die again." it said.
His still racing mind took a few seconds to register what the object just said. "Wait, wha-?"
"No time." the object interrupted. "We need to move now. I have to get you back to the City. Let's head for the wall." and with that, the object disappeared in a small blink of light.
"Wait!" he yelled, reaching out for it. That's when he noticed his hands wrapped in gloves, black leather like but somehow he knew they weren't. The rest of his body was covered in a simple white garment and he noticed his head inside some sort of helmet. He hadn't the slightest idea where the outfit came from or what happened to his original clothes.
"You see that wall over there?" he heard the voice again. This time it seemed like it was inside his head. "Well head there. I've located a small transport ship still giving off a signal. Maybe we can use it to get you out of here."
"Where are you?" he asked. "
Run and talk, my friend." it replied. He did as he was told, breaking into a jog. "And I'm a Ghost. You've been gone for a long time and I've spent almost as long looking for you. Any question you have, I can answer when we get you to safety."
After about a minute of running, he made it into the small hole inside the wall and up a staircase into a room that was pitch black. In the same blink of light from before, the Ghost reappeared, wrapped in a bubble of light. "Let's find a light source for you before you fall over a ledge." the Ghost said and it flew off. After a few seconds in silence, darkness and lack of movement to avoid ledges, he heard a loud crack and blinding overhead lights started to come on one by one.
But even louder than the lights was another sound, a sort of growl. He didn't know what it was but whatever it was, it was alive, it was getting closer and it had friends.
"THE FALLEN!" he heard the Ghost yell as it flew back towards him.
"THE WHAT?!" he asked in panic. Suddenly a door behind him opened, revealing a small room with some sort of rifle leaning against a large metal box.
"Grab the gun. Looks like we're fighting our way outta here. Hope you know how to use that thing." The Ghost said. Hesitantly he aimed the gun and with that, finally got a good look at "The Fallen" as the Ghost called them.
There were about 5 of them. 3 of them were slightly shorter than him, covered in patchy black metal armor with a red helmet. Two arms holding 3 fingers each, with two stubs wrapped in dirty white bandages under them. The other two were a bit more frightening. They were hunched over but he could tell they were easily taller and stronger than him. White and red armor with horns on their heads and unlike the other three, 4 long arms each with its own set of wickedly sharp claws. All of the Fallen equipped with rifles. All of the rifles aimed at him. He ducked behind a metal crate just as a bolt of light came from one of the rifles, barely missing his head and splashing against the wall behind him.
"What the hell are those things?!" he yelled.
"Fallen. Nasty motherfuckers. They've taken this entire area for themselves. We're sort of trespassing." The Ghost replied. "The two armed ones are called Dregs and their much bigger friends are called Vandals. If we want to get out, we gotta break through them." And after another moment's hesitation, he started to fire back. Squeezing the trigger, the old rifle sprung to life. One lucky shot hit the closest Dreg in the head, leaving on a steaming, bubbling hole behind with a misty light escaping from said hole. He had cleared the room of all but one Dreg. He aimed the gun and pulled the trigger and the gun clicked empty. And to make matters worse, the Dreg heard the click.
Unsheathing a glowing dagger and with a loud screech, it charged and swiped at him. He jumped away just narrowly and fell over on his back. The Dreg started to move slowly toward him while he scrambled backwards. "No." he barely whispered as the creature picked up speed. "Get away!" he said a little louder, barely able to breathe out of fear.
Naturally, it didn't listen. The Dreg jumped at him, knife aimed for his throat, victory screech already building up in its throat.
"I said GET BACK!" he yelled more defiantly, sticking his hand out to try and hold the murderous creature back. There was a sudden, small rush of wind, a flash of violet light and the sound of a hard impact.
The Dreg suddenly flew backwards, glowing violet and fading before it could hit the ground. "That was Void energy. How did you know how to do that?" his Ghost said surprised.
The man, frozen in the same position with his hand still out, snapped out of his shock and yelled, "What just happened?! What did I do?" trying to calm down.
"Never mind. C'mon, keep moving. Pick up your gun." the Ghost said dismissively.
"Hate to say it but, its empty." he told the Ghost. "
Oh yeah." it replied. With that, it flew over corpses and returned back to him in a blink of light. "Check your hand." he heard inside his helmet. Incredulously, he obeyed, visibly surprised even through his masked face to find a full magazine inside his hand.
"How did you do that?" he asked his Ghost as he refilled his gun. "I took what available ammo the Fallen had and transmuted it to match your weapon." it explained in a slightly annoyed tone of voice as if it had to explain one plus one to a grown, able minded man. Slightly irritated at the machine's tone, they continued on.
The journey took about 15 minutes with small patrols of Fallen in the way, each who were quickly cut down, until they reached their destination, a room with a ship hanging from the ceiling. "Damn they really picked it apart." the man said.
"Let's hope it'll fly, this was the only plan I could put together to get us out. Why and how did this even get here? It slightly predates the Collapse." At this point, the Ghost was talking to itself as it appeared in a blink and started firing some kind of light from its eye into the ship's wiring.
"Even if it does fly, do I want to be in it?" The young man asked. After a few minutes of the Ghost doing...whatever, he heard the ship start to power on.
"Got it! It won't break orbit but for right now, but it doesn't need to. Let's get the hell out." With that, there was a loud roar. "Fallen!" his Ghost said, "Pulling you in. Let's go." Suddenly and for a small second, he felt himself go weightless and the world around him disappeared. Replacing it were dusty computer screens and other mechanisms to work the ship. He looked through the window, seeing what looked like a Vandal, only much, much bigger, dwarfing the actual Vandals that had accompanied the monster. To his relief, it didn't get any closer to the moving ship. The monster got smaller as the ship moved higher into the air and soon disappeared from sight as the ship took off. Despite their increasing distance from it, he could still hear its roar, daring him to come back.
After a few minutes, his Ghost told him, "It should take us about a couple of hours to reach the city. I can answer any question you want me too. But before we do, we both need names." interrupting him as he opened his mouth.
"Alright then." he replied. Not the strangest thing he's heard all day. "Got anything in mind?" he asked the Ghost.
"Well actually, yes. When I found your body, there was a piece of cloth wrapped around your femur. The ink had faded but I scanned it and the writing came out into 2 names. Arochukwu and Kain. Maybe I'm just being suspicious but it looked like it was put there deliberately. But even then, its been there for a very long time." In a blink of light, a dirty white piece of cloth appeared in front of the man, falling into his open hand.
The Ghost was right. It looked pretty old and most of the writing had faded. But he could just make out certain letters that corresponded with the names the Ghost had discovered. "How about I be Arochukwu?" The man said, "Yeah. That sounds perfect. Rolls off the tongue too. Arochukwu. Aro for short. It's from a West African language, called Igbo. "Aro" means Spear and "Chukwu" means God. Arochukwu. Spear of God." his Ghost explained, "So I guess it fits. That ability you used back there takes most Guardians weeks of training. So you're obviously pretty naturally talented. But what I don't understand is why that cloth was tied to you or who put it there. What do does two names mean to you?" the Ghost wondered.
"Something about both names does seem extremely familiar. Especially Arochukwu. Is it possible that it might have been my name before…whatever happened to me?" the man asked.
"If it was, you should have no memory of it," was the Ghost's answer. Aro looked down at his hands, disappointed. "I don't get it either." The Ghost continued. "But I just brought you back to life. We're long past wondering what is or isn't possible. Now you give me a name." his Ghost said.
"How about Kain?" Aro said.
"That's the second name. Why Kain though? Does it also seem familiar too?" the Ghost asked.
"Just like Arochukwu. It's like I knew a "Kain". If you don't like it, we can think of something else."
"No its fine. I kind of like it. Sounds intimidating." it said, causing Aro down expression to brighten a bit. "Well then it's nice to finally meet you. I'm your Ghost, Kain." His Ghost mock formally introducing itself. "Arochukwu but please call me Aro." Aro chuckled, "Now that we have names out of the way, let's talk..."
This is my first story so I'd really appreciate the feedback. Thanks for reading!
