Breathing heavily, a cloaked figure runs through the barren landscape of Old Russia. Not slowing down, the menacing clicks and growls sounding behind him instead force him to push harder. "Ice! Is the sparrow ready yet?!" A voice sounds inside his helmet, his Ghost, safe from the shots flying around. "If you wanted to have it right now, you should have listened to me!" In a mocking imitation of the Hunter's voice: 'Listen to me Mark, it's not a good idea to try and ram your sole medium of travel in a Captain, he's not gonna die from it! And what do you do?' Feeling a stitch building up in his side, Mark-4, the Guardian currently running for his life, gasped out: "Less sarcasm and more repairing Ice, I don't know if I can carry on much longer." "Okay, okay, just give me a few more seconds… done!" As Ice spoke these words, the familiar form of a sparrow appeared, powered up, next to Mark who gladly jumped on it and pushed the throttle at full power.
Feeling cocky, he lifted his arm to give the Eliksni pursuing him a few gestures and words of choice. However, the retort died on his lips as the familiar form of an arc blade flew and planted itself firmly in the offending arm. Letting out a curse, Mark cradled his injured arm and opted for simply getting the heck out of here. The engine zoomed off in the distance, leaving the group of Fallen frustrated at having let their prey go.
A few kilometres away, another Guardian was currently running for his life. This time however, there was no playful banter, just desperation. Shin, the newborn, still had trouble running and thus stumbled on every nook and cranny of the hard earth. His Ghost was frantically sending away signals for help to anyone who would listen, unable to fight off the four-armed creatures he heard circling them. Then, as in a dream, the familiar zoom of a sparrow made itself heard. The little automaton shifted its parts in the hopes of seeing if he had dreamt or if someone was indeed coming to their rescue. It saw the blessed engine come towards them before making… a sharp left and… leaving? Unable to speak or move out of shock, the Ghost simply watched the engine speed off into the distance before asking itself: "is this it?"
On said engine, we find a familiar Hunter trying to keep control of his sparrow while arguing with his ghost. "Ice, I swear to you I saw something back there!" "Yeah, something! A bunch of Fallen and may I remind you that you still have an arc blade stuck in your forearm?" "I know but…." Keeping silent for a bit, Mark wordlessly manoeuvred the sparrow to go back on their tracks. "Mark! What are you…?" "Just a minute Ice, we'll go back, take a look and if there's nothing, we'll leave, okay?" "Fine…" the Ghost mumbled.
A few seconds later, they were back on said site and of course, there was more than simply Fallen here. Settling in the cover of a downed aircraft, Mark looked down the sights of his sniper rifle and saw a fellow Guardian, the robes on his back indicating his status as a Warlock. However, its shortness and the apparent difficulty the latter seemed to have walking marked him undoubtedly as a newborn. A very circled-by-angry-Fallen newborn. Sighing, Mike aimed, blocked his breathing, and took a shot.
Shin was scared. He'd been alive for less than a day and already, the House of Devils, as his Ghost had called them, were on his tracks and apparently keen on killing him. He tried to carry on running but the pain in his abdomen distracted him and he ended up face down on the earth after having fallen again. This time however, Shin was simply too tired to get back up. He felt his Ghost hovering near his face and finally settling close to him. Shin held up his hand and let it fly over to it, then curled up and waited. The first thing that he saw was the shadow of a four-armed being, hand raised with what looked like a blade. Then, he saw it go rigid and fall, a enormous bang following instantly.
Forcing himself to look up, he saw a cloaked figure, wrapped in what seemed to be lightning, descending from the sky and engaging the Devils. His movements were fluid and each strike meant certain death for the Fallen attacking him. Finally, the last one fell to the ground. Shin tried to look up but the landscape was swimming and dark spots appeared at the edge of his vision. "Who're… you?" He managed to slur. "Don't worry kid" a cocky voice answered, "you're alright now. Everything's gonna…" The voice faded away as Shin slowly slipped into unconsciousness, feeling, for the first time in his short life, safe and sound.
The first sound that greeted Shin when he started to wake up was the low hum of an engine. He slowly blinked and tried to get on his elbows but a sudden bout of dizziness prevented him from any movement. The form of his ghost materialised in front of him and sagged in apparent relief. "Thank the Traveler you're okay, I've been monitoring your vitals since we got in the air but there was no sign you'd wake up anytime soon…" "You've got yourself a worrier, kid." The voice that just spoke up had some kind of metallic, or robotic tone to it. Shin finally succeeded on sitting up and looked to where the voice came. The sight that greeted the newborn had him do a double take.
The being in front of him was clothed in a light armour, coloured in mixes of white and brown. The hood of the white cloak it wore was down and allowed Shin to get a better look at its face. It was made from white and blue plates and accentuated by white glowing eyes, deeply set within the eye sockets. The look was completed by a black "-4" painted on the left side of its face. "What- who are you?" The being let out a quick laugh. "You hear that Ice? He must be older than we thought." Shaking its head, the robot (?) walked up to him and offered his hand to shake. When Shin hesitantly took it, he spoke up again. "My name's Mark-4, or Mark for short. I'm an exo and a Hunter of the Last City. From the look of you, I'd say you're a Warlock, and a newborn at that."
Shin frowned. "Warlock? Newborn? What does he mean? Where are we going? Where are you taking me?" Mark smiled and motioned for Shin to look through the observation bay. "To the last safe place on Earth, the Last City." As the Exo said this, he motioned to the ship's observation bay and Shin got up to shuffle towards it. He frowned when all he could see was an ocean of clouds and was about to make his puzzlement known to Mark when he saw it. Just like a theatre curtain, the clouds parted, revealing a gigantic sphere hovering over a wall-surrounded city. "Is that-?" The exo smiled. "It is, the Traveler and the Last Safe City on Earth. Your home now."
Shin gulped as he saw the ship get closer to a tower on the edge of the circular wall. He didn't remember much -barely his own name- and he knew even less about what was about to happen when they landed. But they'd be alright, him and Ghost.
Somehow, he felt as if things would finally go their way.
Soooooo... I'm back...?
Once again, I'm so sorry for this update being so late, but I have been working non-stop over the last two weeks because I have been INVITED FOR AN INTERVIEW AT CAMBRIDGE !
I've been busting my ass since september to try and get a good enough file and results for them to consider me, and now that they have, I have to at least look smart for a single afternoon, which demands a lot of work.
I have been gettimg back into Destiny lately though, and my mind has been bursting with ideas on where I want to take this story.
Until next time!
Dragon
