Pearl was worried, more so than the other gems, as they jumped a mile at a time, making a break for the Grand Canyon, where Steven and Connie were.
Greg had shown up at their door, saying he got a text from Connie, that they were in trouble, and to send the gems. Needless to say, everyone was freaking out, but Pearl was borderline having an anxiety attack. She knew both of them, and knew Connie better than the other gems, over the past year, she had trained both of them, separately and together. She genuinely care for both of them, and while the others did also, she was taking it to the extreme, like she usually did.
"We have to hurry! Who knows what trouble they're in!" she shouted over the winds to her comrades. Garnet gave her a nod, and looked at Amethyst, who in turn nodded. They landed in a field, where Amethyst displayed her complete mastery of shapeshifting, by turning into a helicopter, and the other to gems rose into her cockpit. They were off again, only this time, making much better time, they would save their friends, no matter what it took.
-back at the canyon-
Steven watched in awe as the armored man was locked in combat with the large machine beast. The sword he had drawn was powerful, he could feel the power washing off it in waves. It was terrifying, but the way this man put himself in harm's way, to protect him and Connie, it was kind of comforting, like this power was solely devoted to protecting them. The beast pushed down, with his massive arm on the blade, which began to lower, but with a flash, the arm was severed, it's weapon dropping behind the hulking monster. It turned it's head to see it's severed mechanism, then grunted, holding its intact arm out, the hand open, waiting for something.
An orb began to form, mimicking the orbs that spawned then mechanical heathens, then the patterns formed, stretching out to form a massive blade. It resembled something out of a videogame. It seemed too large for the body of the vex, which truly described how massive this thing was, as the vex towered at well above Garnet. The vex barred his sword at the man,
"Now, Guardian… You face extinction" It said, malice oozing off it's metallic voice.
The man chuckled, and turned the palm of his free hand up. A spark of energy signaled something was coming, and out popped a small machine, the size of a grapefruit, the man spoke to the machine, "Ghost, see to it that the children and their pet have no injuries." the newly dubbed 'Ghost' nodded and approached the children. Steven stood in front of Connie, ready to protect her, but the Ghost spoke to him, "easy human, i don't want to fight you. I'm just going to check if you have any wounds . No need to be brash." Steven looked at ghost for a second, before nodding and stepping back. Ghost gave his thanks, and got to work. His scans were brief, but relayed to him more than enough.
"I see, so you are pure human, and you are a hybrid, alright, it looks like you have no injuries, besides a bit of shock, but that's normal. Your both healthy." Ghost nodded at his handiwork, "now if you don't mind, may i check your….. Pink lion?" to which said pink lion merely grunted, before curling up around Steven and Connie, his eyes never leaving the Ghost.
-Sword fight-
The vex swung his sword down, hoping to take out the guardian in one blow, for where there was one guardian, there is usually a whole fireteam. But the guardian was expecting this, and rolled to the side, his sword already prepared to strike, which he did. The slash didn't do too much damage, as the android was made of durable metal, and the vex moved out of way as the slash came, only about half of the attack landed. The guardian grunted, clearly not amused that his attack didn't do what he planned, and began to let the energy of the sword rise. When this had finished, he swung it forward, unleashing a wave of purple energy in all directions. The wave blasted the robot, knocking it backwards, tearing pieces of its armored body off. Taking the initiative, the guardian began to strike maddly, the sporadic blows taking their toll on the vex. It's shell cracked, as the assault on it's defences would not cease. The guardian took one final thrust at the mechanism, aiming for it's chest, piercing its body. Changing his positioning, the man placed his foot on the robot's chest, underneath the sword.
"This is for Fireteam Nyle, you son of a bitch!" and with that, he kicked the corpse of the vex off his sword.
With the threat out of the way, the man turned to the children,
"Are you two ok?" The man turned to the little machine that he spawned out of his hand, looking for an answer. "Physically, they are unharmed, but i am unable to determine if our presence here has affected them mentally… i am sorry, Guardian." The Ghost looked down in what could only be shame. The guardian simply sighed, "it's ok, my friend. Your best is all i can ask for." He turned to the children, "i suppose you want an explanation, don't you?"
The pair nodded. "Y-yes we would, mr?"
The guardian gave a hearty laugh at what the little girl had called him, "HAHAHAHA! Thank you kid, i haven't had a laugh like that in centuries!" Connie looked at him, puzzled, Steven, however looked ecstatic, "Are you a Gem?" he asked, almost shouting. The guardian chuckled at his enthusiasm, "no i am not. I am a guardian. Defender of the Last City, herald of the Traveler."
The children looked at him funny, "what?" he asked.
The children looked at each other, then back at him, before Connie asked, "what do you mean, last City?" The guardian looked at them, then turned to the ghost, then back,
"What continent are we on?" he asked, almost demanding.
"North America." Connie said, to witch the Guardian, removed his helmet, revealing blue skin, and purple eyes.
"North. America?" The two nodded, "no. that's impossible. There is no way that this is the north america!"
Steven was about to ask why, but then he heard the sound of a helicopter. Turning, Steven saw a purple helicopter…. With a face… The chopper landed, and jettisoned two passengers, then began to shapeshift, switching back into it's true form, a squat little woman, with lavender skin, and white hair. The other two consisted of a tall and buff woman with a cubed afro, and a tall lanky female with ivory skin, the most interesting thing about all three, was that they had stone like attachments, not unlike the vex mind cores, on parts of their bodies, the tall lanky one, had it on her forehead, the largest, had one on each hand, and the short one had one on her chest.
The three quickly made the distance between them and the children, the smaller of the two embracing the children, while the largest on simply stared at the guardian, who had put his helmet back on, which was very intimidating.
"Who are you?" The large one asked, her magenta skin clearly visible. The Guardian chuckled, "I am Anubis, a Titan class Guardian of the Last City, Sun breaker, and Herald of the Traveler." he spoke his title, hoping it would mean something to these adults, surely the children's ignorance could be written off, but the adults would definitely know the truth.
But to Anubis's dismay, the shortest turned her head, "Is that supposed to mean something to us?"
Anubis took a step back, his mind reeling with this new information, could there be other safe havens from the Darkness? Turning to his trusty Ghost, "Ghost, scan the planet. Look for any traces of Light." The machine nodded, before disassembling itself. The small pyramids circling around the main body. It stayed like that for a few seconds, before reverting to it's normal state. "I'm sorry, but i can't detect any traces, besides you and me…. I don't know what happened, but it's as if…. The Traveler never came to Earth…." The Ghost never lied to him, so Anubis took everything he said for gospel, "So we have nothing? No command? No Speaker? No Light? No….. Traveler?" The tension coming of the Guardian was palpable, he was clearly stressed, and so the gems backed away, to give him space. But then the gems took notice to the mass of corpses, the bodies were littered everywhere, some torn in half, others piles of ashes.
The gems looked at the panicking man, "S-Steven? Did…. did he do this?" Pearl asked, gesturing to the mass of bodies surrounding them.
Steven simply nodded. To which Pearl promptly pulled her spear from her gem, and threw it at the man.
…
…
…
"WHAT?!" Pearl shouted, he caught it. This human CAUGHT her spear.
Anubis chuckled, and snapped the spear in half. "It would appear that i'm no longer wanted here. I bid you good-day" With that, he disappeared. A few seconds later, the engines of his ship started up. As the ship was taking off, pearl materialized another spear, "oh no. You don't get away that easily." Pearl shouted, and Steven was shouting at her to stop, but it was too late, the spear was already flying through the air, piercing right through the hull of the ship.
- Aboard the High and Flighty-
Anubis was at the helm, preparing to fire up the warp drive. But just as he was he was activating it, a spear ripped through the hull, right through the warp drive.
"Guardian, Quick! Disengage the warp drive!" Ghost shouted, clearly worried about the possible repercussions, of using a damaged warp drive.
"I can't, it's already engaged it…. If this is where it ends…. It been an honor, Ghost…"
"The same to you, my guardian."
With nothing left to say, Guardian and Ghost awaited what came next. As the Warp drive fully charged up, it began to spark, and pulse periodically.
Then an explosion occurred, knocking the ship off course, spiralling out of control.
"Ghost, status report!" Anubis shouted. The Ghost did a quick scan of the controls, before responding, "We've lost power to three of our engines, and the controls are slightly shot, we can't change course, and we are slowly going down…" Anubis sighed, "at least we didn't blow up, right?" his companion nodded, "like Cayde said, any crash you can walk away from." Anubis chuckled, the hunter mentor was quite the personality, much more than the strict titan leader, Commander Zavala.
"Ok ghost, on a scale of 1 to Crota, how dead are we?" Anubis always did have a way of bringing out the funny side in a situation.
"I'd say Crota" Ghost replied.
They both shared a chuckle at that. Then Anubis turned to Ghost, "Does anything work right now?" Ghost replied, "well…. We still have life support, communications, and your…. Music player? Wow, that is something i didn't ever really notice that you installed…. When did you?"
Right around the time…. When Nyle fell apart… it was a gift… from…." Ghost immediately noticed his guardian's new mood, and decided to change the subject.
"Do you want me to turn it on?" He asked, to which Anubis nodded, so Ghost activated the music player, selecting a random song, and hitting play.
The device came to life, blaring the song:
You say that i'm near extinction,
But i'm not even close,
If you want to talk about survival,
It's the goddamn book i wrote,
Now the golden age is over,
But that don't make me broke,
The moment you hope i'm at my lowest point,
I'm at your throat,
Won't miss another sunset,
Until the day we fall into the darkness,
Creeping out of every little corner out the galaxy,
We can't even stop this,
I don't wanna be the one
That's gotta knock the final nail in my fallen brother's coffin,
Pick up all the weapons and apparel so we don't run out of options
Ghost shut off the music, "Guardian! I have an update! We are set on a collision course! A human settlement." This got Anubis's full attention, humans? As in actual humans? Not Ferals… he couldn't let his ship kill innocent humans, no matter what.
"Ghost! Try and get the controls back online. We need to be able to at least angle ourselves, also, get that com unit online. We need to warn them… by the way, what is the name of the city?"
Ghost replied, "Beach City."
Well… that's a wrap. I hope you all have enjoyed this chapter, and i look forward to seeing you all in the next chapter, Endario, signing out.