Chapter 25
Shadows
The lights blinked in on top of a tree overlooking an impressive boulder. From there, they could see the Huntress eating some sort of pre-packaged meal.
"I still hate that," the small blue light said.
"You get used to it. It sure beats walking doesn't it?" the twin yellow lights said.
"Like that Huntress below us? I agree, but still, could you possibly consider blinking a little less?"
"Ah," he waved a shadowy hand. "you're no fun."
The small light floated to the edge of the shadow the tree created and looked the direction of the Huntress. The pair of lights followed suit and looked down at her as well. Her brown hair seemed to fly everywhere at once, while her eyes still kept the same intense glow but did look much wearier than when the journey began. "What do you think is going through her mind right now?" the light asked.
"Based on what she's doing right now, 'Let's eat!'"
"You saved the day once again Captain Obvious. Dare I ask again, what do you think she is pondering right now? She did get left by those 'Guardians,' if you could call them that."
"No I cannot call those two cowards Guardians. They left her to die and ran back to the Wall happy of all things. Speaking of, did you check on who those two were like I asked?"
"I did. The Hunter is an Exo named Kole. He was an AEA soldier like most Exo, but never really amounted to much more than a grunt. He died during the opening stages of that battle for the Cosmodrome. He's been a Guardian for a little over 4 years now."
"Anything on his fireteam?"
"Yes. Currently there's only two people in it due to the death of one of his teammates at that earthquake and Wall collapse about a week ago."
"About a week ago…!"
"Knock it off! You know that song has not been a thing in 200 perhaps 300 years. Back to my point, the living member of his fireteam is the Titan she embarrassed trying to gain access to the rubble."
The yellow lights sat down and pondered this for a moment. "So essentially this was a set up?"
"Precisely. They lured her out here to kill her."
"Doesn't seem to have worked so far," it said looking back at the Huntress eating what looked like a chicken dish.
"I don't know. Look at those Fallen over there."
The yellow lights looked the direction the blue one was. Just beyond the rock the tree overlooked, a squad of Fallen approached some sort of disguised passageway. One by one, the Dregs in the group descended and the Huntress took notice. She moved quietly to where the other side of the rock and looked over it.
The lone Vandal noticed her and proceeded around the rock. The Huntress went the other way and waited at the other end of the rock. Suddenly, the Vandal's form blurred and grew more humanoid. Its white and dark green armor shifted into silver and blue. The helmeted head of the Vadal shifted to the blue head of an Exo. It walked over to the other side of the rock and presented itself to the Huntress.
"You saw that right?!" the yellow lights exclaimed.
"The shifting or the fact that she just sank to her knees and seems to be crying."
"You know what I mean! We need to do something or she'll get killed, and our efforts will be for naught."
The blue light contemplated this for a moment. "I definitely see your point, but that would expose us, and discovery is not an option. She's tough, that's why we're watching her. Let's see what she does."
The disguised Vandal comforted the Huntress and continued to do this for several minutes. Then something changed. The Huntress moved for something on her person with one hand and pushed away the fake Exo's arm of comfort. She walked away.
"See?" the blue light said. "She handled herself quite nicely. Watch this knife throw."
As if on cue, the Huntress spun around and threw the knife at the imposter. The knife sailed end-over-end at the disguised Vandal and looked as though it was on line to hit it square in the face, but it never made it. With incredible speed, it snatched the knife out of the air and tossed it aside. It reached behind its back and pulled out two swords with electricity running up and down the blade.
The disguised Fallen went on a furious assault that kept the Huntress on her heels eventually backing her into the rock. The imposter went for the killing blow but she somehow wrenched one of the swords and ducked away from the Vandal. She lunged with the sword missed and stumbled until she dropped the sword and cancelled her momentum with a roll.
Four shots rang out through the trees as she drew her hand cannon and fired errantly. The Vandal looked like it was doing a goofy dance but evaded all of the bullets and pulled out its own weapon after dropping its other sword due to some sort of hand injury.
The stood completely still for a moment. The Huntress reloaded, but nobody fired. In one swift movement, both of them shot at one time, and both took hits. The Vandal took a shot directly to the face shile the Huntress stood still for several seconds before realizing her injury. She fell backwards and tried to put pressure on the wound.
Instead, the passageway opened and took her down.
The yellow lights had been getting increasingly antsy and angst-ridden. He could barely hold his position atop the tree. It watched in absolute horror as the Huntress plummeted, likely dead, into the Fallen tunnels. It turned to the blue light. "I'm not standing for this any longer. Someone needs to help her." He moved to the beginning of the limb closest to the tree and rushed forward intending to jump off. The shadow slammed into an invisible wall.
The blue light stepped forward. "As I've said before, we can't go out into the light, so I cannot permit you to go after her."
Pointing to the hole with a flat palm, the yellow lights yelled, "But we've been watching her for several days! You're just going to let all of that go to waste?"
The smaller shadow sighed. "It's not that I don't want to. It's that WE CAN'T! Remember?! We can look on from afar but not interact."
The large shadow just stared. "You're unbelieveable," it said, shaking its head.
"It's the rules."
The yellow lights were silent. 'No,' it decided. 'She can't die. Not like this.' The shadow moved to the invisible barrier the blue light set. It plunged its hands directly into it and started pulling open a hole.
"What are you doing? Stop that!"
"SHE CAN'T DIE! If you don't get that, have fun explaining it to her when she joins us and finds out that we could've done something but didn't." The hole wasn't quite big enough to step through yet, but it was getting harder to pull. The blue light was fighting him wholeheartedly.
"I will not let you dissipate in the light!" The barrier exerted even more force on the large shadows hands.
The yellow lights felt their grip falter and the wall push back in. After letting it shrink only slightly, they renewed their fight and quickly increased the size of the hole and jumped through it, plunging right into the open passageway and falling down the chute inside. Still connected to the other lights, the blue light disappeared and joined its companion in the fall.
The chute was narrow and slightly angled to prevent any injury to its users, but it didn't matter to the shadow. What did matter was saving the Huntress at the bottom of it.
Several minutes of falling later, the two shadows stood over the bloodied body of the Huntress. It was almost pitch black and echoed like a tunnel. There was no doubt about it; she was dead, killed by that Vandal.
The blue light hovered around the body but did not touch it. "Happy? She's dead. Now, let's leave before the Fallen find us."
The yellow lights leaned over the body and looked around for something. "What's there to worry about the Fallen finding us when we have an armed guard?"
"You're not suggesting?" The large shadow nodded. "How would you do it?"
"Let's worry about that when I find the Ghost. Ah, here she is." The Ghost was nestled between her arm and torso. The light in its eye was bright, but it said nothing. The large shadow picked it up and raised it to its eyes.
The Ghost looked dead at it without any fear whatsoever. "It's you. I can't believe that it's you."
Though the shadow couldn't smile, it knew that there would be a smirk on its face as it said, "Got that right. It's me. Now little light, if you'd be so kind," it directed the last statement towards the small blue light that just appeared where the shadow's right shoulder would be.
"No," it stated defiantly.
"Yeah well, I didn't necessarily ask." The shadow reached out and snatched the blue light out of the air and kept it from struggling its way out with a firm grip. The large shadow took both in its hands and brought them within inches of each other. A small spark formed between them that lasted for several seconds.
Once it was sure of its plan's success, he released the Ghost and the entity. The Ghost back away and started to separate into its individual pieces with a giant orb of energy surrounding the "eye." Suddenly, it slammed back together and separated with a blinding flash of light.
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The nothingness Arla sank into suddenly felt like a concrete floor. Everything was dark and slightly damp. She took in a deep breath and gagged immediately; it smelled extremely bad in whatever she was in, as if rotten eggs and livestock gave birth to a smell that seemed to make the olfactory senses go on strike immediately. 'Wait a minute,' she thought, becoming increasingly suspicious. She patted herself all over and found that her entire being was covered in armor except for her head. She couldn't see it, but she knew that her hair was an absolute mess. Stargazer sent a response immediately. 'Considering your revival, I don't think that your hair is that messed up. Also, that should be the least of your worries.'
"I'm alive!" Arla exclaimed.
"That you are," a voice said in the darkness. Two yellow lights appeared only a couple feet in front of her. They were extremely obvious in the pitch black of the room they were in. "And while you revel in that, let me explain what's happening.
"You are currently in one of the Fallen's underground tunnels that allows them quick travel between various places on Earth. They've input some sort of device that renders this entire complex invisible to radars, reconnaissance…basically everything that isn't looking at it with your own eyes. We've got two objectives: First, we need to get comms back online, so finding the room in charge of the device is key. Second and only if its feasible, we need to collapse these tunnels connecting the Fallen to the City otherwise they can exit and wreak havoc at any time they feel like…"
A small blue light appeared and hovered near the yellow lights. "You do realize that all of that is easier said than done right? And when exactly did you concoct this plan?"
"About five minutes ago," it said confidently. That certainly filled Arla with plenty of confidence. Halfway plans are exactly how you win wars.
"That's hardly a concept. There has to be several flaws with your plan," the smaller light commented.
"Got anything better? You've got thirty seconds."
"Hold up a minute! That's even less time than you got!"
Arla interrupted. "Could you two please stop arguing? You sound like a Guardian and Ghost I used to know. Who are you anyways?"
Without hesitation, the yellow lights responded, "Erebus. My name is Erebus."
The blue light took a second or two, leaving Arla suspicious. "My name is Nyx," it eventually answered.
"That's not what I meant. I meant: who are you? Are you alive? There are a million questions I could ask you, but I could not care less about your names."
"Feisty this one," the blue light said.
"We've been watching you…" Erebus began.
'That's not creepy at all,' Arla thought.
"...for the last couple of days. Heard that by the way. Technically we weren't allowed to intervene with any sort of activity, but the comms jam down here presented the perfect opportunity for us to break our silence. We're guardians if you will."
"Knock it off with the wordplay!" Nyx scolded. "Nobody appreciates it."
"You're darn right nobody appreciates it. Can we get back to the plan? I only have a little bit left to go."
"Proceed," Arla relented, giving up on her curiosity.
"So, we collapse the tunnels plain and simple. Generally speaking, there's an emergency 'hide-the-evidence' button in these types of Fallen establishments, but I don't think this one is rigged to blow everything to smithereens. Then again, I have been wrong before...Either way, it's likely guarded by a battalion of Fallen with little cover and little room for error on our part. This battalion is likely led by a Servitor in charge of maintaining this district of tunnels. When we reach it, the Servitor will either trigger that failsafe immediately, then keep us from exiting in time or kill us and then evacuate the tunnels and begin digging new ones."
"So we run the risk of dying either way?" Arla inquired.
"Don't we always," Erebus laughed. "It keeps life...interesting."
"Or results in the lack thereof," Nyx added.
"Well, we're in this situation right now, and I don't think those chutes go back up," Arla stated before the argument even started. She did not want to play referee until she got out of here. "So quick question: How do we know where we're going? You two have a map?"
Nyx and Erebus, judging by their lights, looked at each other. Erebus turned back around and looked at Arla. "Err no. That's why we're going to find a control room or emergency console that probably has another servitor guarding it, so we'll need to be quiet and take it out before we hack the systems or it puts us permanently underground." Silence pervaded for several awkward seconds. "So who's ready to kick some Fallen butt?"
"Anything to get me out of here. Let's get moving," Arla said with some authority. Without her asking, Stargazer spawned a repaired version of her helmet with improved night vision. Everything was still painted green, but she could at least see her surroundings.
The tunnel was barren except for footprints from Fallen footsoldiers. Larger prints indicated the presence of Walkers moving through the tunnels at one point or another. She looked at Erebus and Nyx. Their forms directly disregarded the night vision's color boundary as there eyes were still the yellow and blue they were without the helmet. Erebus had a humanoid form with definite arms, legs, and a torso, but there was a wispy, ghost-like quality to it. Nyx had a similar quality to himself but was nothing but a slightly misshapen dot, almost shaped like a Ghost but there was just something different about its form that made it seem different. Going back to Erebus, there was something different about him as well. His wispy form seemed to have a sort of white outline to it. This outline was far from weak; it was extremely definite but could not contain the wispy tendrils of black that extended off of his body.
Erebus reached at his back and drew something equally as shadowed but looked like a scout rifle. Arla drew her own hand cannon and followed him down the wide tunnel.
Nothing happened for the first half hour of walking. They were completely silent as they looked for a control room. Then they saw it, about five feet in front of them, a small flash of light that could've belonged to some sort of device. The group located the door and took cover on the adjacent walls, Arla on the right and Erebus on the left.
He held up a shadowy hand with three fingers raised. "On the count of three," he whispered. "We bust in there and clear the room. Arla, I want you to slide this door ever so slightly and toss in a grenade in. What are you class wise? Bladedancer or Gunslinger?"
Arla flashed the golden hand cannon placed in a holster strapped to her waist. It wasn't quite charged yet but was very close. She prepped an incendiary grenade in her left hand and prepared to activate it. Erebus nodded and counted down on his fingers 3...2...1...Arla slid the door just far enough to fit the grenade through. Just as she threw the grenade, the door forcefully moved to shut itself. The grenade glowed a bright yellow-orange and bounced back at the group. "Crap!" Arla shouted as she sprinted away from the grenade and the door. The grenade's light grew in intensity and exploded with a deafening BOOM! and harsh light. The BOOM echoed off the walls and traveled down the tunnel in both directions. There was no doubt in Arla's mind that there was a horde of Fallen moving their way from the left and right.
She ran back to the door. "Well, that's not quiet at all. Oh shoot!" the door suddenly opened and the servitor they sought floated out. It's spherical form moved right past them and looked about the area. Arla motioned them into the room to get the data and tapped her helmet. "I've got a plan," she whispered.
Crouched, she moved silently toward the Servitor. It looked left and right for the source of the explosion that it detected, but it did not detect the Huntress stalking it from behind. Arla put her gun in its holster and pulled out the close-quarters knife. She leapt on top of the seritor, and it immediately tried to spin her off. It circled left and right as Arla barely held on to its largely smooth surface. Somehow, despite being spun relentless, she stabbed her knife into its eye. It retaliated by increasing the speed of its spins. Arla gripped her knife harder but felt her feet beginning to lift into the air.
She couldn't hold on any longer. Arla let go of the knife and got flung several feet in the air and at least twelve feet away. The impact with the floor centered directly on her left shoulder and rolled her several feet after the first impact. Arla pushed herself onto her feet and broke into a determined sprint towards the Servitor. She snatched the Golden Gun out of its holster.
At first touch, it ignited with light and fire. The fire then spread to Arla's armor, but she felt none of it. Light surged throughout her entire being, and her anger burned with the flames. She fired once at the Servitor. The bright yellow shot streaked towards its target leaving a thin trail of light, striking it above the center and to the right. Some of its armor shattered on impact and dropped to the ground. She fired again, much closer this time, and took out the bottom center of its armor. At this point, Arla was only a few feet away from the floating eye. She lunged forward, grabbing her knife out of the Servitor and replaced it with the last shot in the Golden Gun. The shot tore straight through the eye and dissipated into the wall. The servitor's parts inside sparked furiously for several seconds before falling to the ground, the purple ring around the center of its eye just as dark as their surroundings.
Pleased with the outcome, Arla spun the Golden Gun on her finger a couple of times and placed it in the holster. She confidently proceeded into the control room that Erebus and Nyx were supposed to have entered.
The door opened before she entered and Erebus stood at the door. In his hand, he held some sort of cone-shaped device. "Ah, good. You dealt with it," he said pleased. "I've got the map right here."
He made a move to come outside the door. Arla held up a hand. "I don't think that's a bright idea. Let's study the map in here because that grenade set off a horde of Fallen rushing to our position."
Gesturing to the broken electrical equipment in the center of the tunnel, Erebus replied, "I don't think that helps."
"That being there serves two purposes. First, it shows that we killed a Servitor and will do the same to them. Second, it shows that we are likely in this room…"
"Which leaves us sitting ducks," Nyx said from across the room.
"That is true," Arla began. "But at least we're sitting ducks with cover. Out there, there is none. We'd be taking shot after shot and running the risk of being killed."
The two shadows stopped to think this over. Erebus placed the device in the center of the room. A gridded holomap each tunnel and those that branched out from the main ones. They seemed to be laid out in a square but the central area was actually on an outer corner rather than the direct center. They group currently stood just past one of the adjacent corners. If they went the opposite way they did, they would have found the central room within 15 minutes.
"So essentially, we went the opposite way we should have?" Arla observed.
"Seems to be that way," Nyx replied.
Arla folded her arms. "Well, I don't think we have any other choice. We need to get out of here."
Erebus stepped in. "We NEED to get these tunnels collapsed before they get a raiding party big enough to take down the City. The size of these tunnels speaks volumes about how long they've been building these. I'm amazed they haven't attacked from underground yet, or collapsed the City from beneath."
"I agree," Arla replied, mulling over Erebus' words. "The Fallen have attacked us without warning. What could be holding them back?"
"The Traveler maybe?"
"But that's their sworn enemy. They're minions of the Darkness. Their sole objective to life is to collapse all that the Light has built."
"Could it be that they are simply reclaiming what was once theirs?" Erebus suggested.
"Absurd!" Arla exclaimed.
Nyx floated over to Erebus. "Geez. She's stubborn," he whispered.
"She is an Awoken." Erebus turned to Arla.
"HEY!" Arla yelled indignantly. "I heard that."
"It is the truth," Nyx added. "Your people are very proud of their accomplishments and their abilities. Considering your closeness to the Queen…"
"I have no relation to her regime. I served a different queen before becoming a Guardian. Besides, this is not something we should be discussing right now. There are FALLEN surrounding us. Some of us living don't feel like dying today or anytime soon."
"I agree with you on that one, but what makes you so sure that we're not alive?"
"You're shadows. Ghosts probably."
"Point taken. Let's get moving."
Arla picked up the map device, but Erebus plucked it out of her hand and put it in his own shadowy pocket. Arla followed them down the tunnel. Nothing besides her movement disturbed the uncomfortable silence in the tunnel. The only shadow that looked like it was walking was Erebus, but despite his feet moving, he left no prints or evidence of having walked there at all.
Several minutes passed with relative quiet besides the splash of Arla's footsteps as she stepped into a shadow puddle of water that somehow leaked from the soil above. Once again there was that feeling that she was being watched. Though this time she knew it wasn't the shadows that hovered (?) in front of her. Arla trotted up to Erebus and opened her mouth to speak.
"I know," he said before she could say a word. "I feel it too. It's the Fallen. They've set up some sort of trap that'll be sprung any second now."
They broke into a steady jog just as the door to the main control room was in view. Unexpectedly, the sound of an explosion and rocks smashing against each other echoed down the tunnel. The group stopped momentarily and looked back. An avalanche of rocks was coming their way aided by massive explosions coming from the walls. Arla immediately broke into a sprint towards the central control room followed by Erebus and Nyx.
"They've activated the failsafe! Arla, how long did it take you to kill the Servitor?" Nyx asked as they ran towards the door. It was about 300 yards away.
"About 30 seconds give or take. I stabbed it with my knife but got flung off, but I retaliated with the Golden Gun and destroyed it."
"It relayed the signal," Nyx concluded while Arla's heart sunk. She messed up royally. "That moment when it flung you off was all it needed to tell the main Servitor. That's why we've felt like we're being watched, and now we need to get inside that control room before…"
Her night vision suddenly exploded with bright green as an explosion boomed right in front of her. The shockwave threw her onto her back and tossed her weapon out of her hand. Her head whipped backward with the force of the blast and colliding violently with the hard ground.
"Crap!" Erebus exclaimed, picking himself off the ground just like Arla.
But Arla couldn't. Everything was swirling and making her feel woozy. Her head exploded with a pain that seemed to burn everything about her consciousness and being. Through the pain, she managed to get to her hands and knees and try to stand up. She could hear the rocks, her ultimate death crashing closer and closer to her position. Her arms and legs rebelled against her and her balance refused to allow her to go past being on all fours. Her vision was nothing but a swirl of confused colors trying to sort themselves.
Very distantly, she could hear Nyx shout, "You're gonna have to."
Then there was a BOOM next to Arla, and she felt herself lift off the ground and fly through the air. She shut off her night vision and watched the darkness pass by instead of a swirl of colors. Strong hands suddenly grabbed her around the stomach and her vision immediately flashed from purple to a blinding white with an audible 'WHOOSH!' accompanying it.
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Everything stopped when the light subsided. The hands released her as quickly as they grabbed her as she skidded across something that felt much softer than the presumably concrete floor of the tunnel. Realizing she had closed her eyes, Arla opened them and daylight flooded into her helmet. She could see the jagged edges of broken smartglass along with frozen remnants of her HUD. Her vision continued to spin in a nauseating way, but a small prick followed by a tingling sensation steadily calmed it and many of the other symptoms of her moderate concussion over the course of several minutes as she lay on the ground.
Curious faces suddenly crowded her vision. The cacophony of voices amounted to: "Are you ok miss?" "How'd you get here?" "What's your name? Hey, hey! Look at me. Answer the question!" Arla couldn't answer all these questions and couldn't take the incoming claustrophobia. She stirred a little bit and everyone backed off except for a hand at her back helping her sit up.
Arla reached at her neck and took off the broken helmet, putting it in her lap. She rubbed her eyes and looked around at her surroundings. She sat smack dab in the middle of Traveler's Watch, the exact center of the City, while a ring of only a few people surrounded her trying to figure out what just happened. A second and much larger ring of civilians varying in age, species, and occupation looked on from afar. Her armor was blackened with soot from the blast, but she didn't care in the slightest.
She looked around her for any sign of Erebus and Nyx, but there was none. A commanding voice boomed from behind her. "Hey! Get away from her!" It was a distant voice, Arla still heard the dull clank of Titan armor. "I'm a doctor!" one of the civilians around her cried.
The Titan continued moving forward but said, "Then you stay. Everyone else CLEAR OUT!" Suddenly, three booms echoed in rapid succession, indicating the Titan shot into the air. Without needing any further prompting, everyone besides the supposed doctor ran back to the flinching outer circle.
The doctor, an Awoken with black hair pushed to one side and glowing orange eyes, held up a flashlight and a finger. "Follow the finger," he said with a flowing voice. He moved the finger from side to side and quietly chuckled. "You're needed in the Reef as soon as possible Guardian." The voice turned cold and mocking at the end of the sentence.
The Titan's footsteps stopped, and she stopped in front of Arla. "What's the news doc?" the Titan asked.
The Awoken doctor rose and looked at the Titan. "She's suffering from a concussion. I don't know its severity but she's going to be extremely disoriented when the medicine wears off."
"You got it. Miss, I'm going to help you up. Can you walk?" The Titan's strong hands picked her up gently under the arms. Just as she was being lifted, Arla grabbed the helmet and clutched it in her left hand. Once on her feet, she staggered some but was able to recover. She turned to look for the doctor, but he was gone. There was something familiar about him. She'd seen that face somewhere before, probably in a file she read. The name Uldren came to mind.
Looking at the helmet, Arla pushed the remnants of the helmet's smartglass. 'I can get another,' she thought as she did this. She moved towards the outer ring of people with the Titan following only a foot behind her. Arla spied a child no older than 10, his mother's arms draped around him as she approached, with bright eyes staring at her in admiration and wonder. The Titan grabbed her shoulder, "Tower's this way Guardian," she said concerned. "Are you sure you can walk?"
"Yes," Arla deflected. "I need to do something first. Stargazer, sever the connection to the helmet."
"Are you certain you want to do this?" Stargazer asked in astonishment.
"I can get another one. I think there's some atonement to be made for the rubble incident."
"As you wish," Stargazer relented. A few seconds later, "It's done," she relayed.
The section of the circle backed up the closer Arla approached. Noticing she meant no harm, the group stopped backing up. Arms suddenly extended to touch her and shake her hand.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could the the Titan trying to stem back her own flock of people seeking to be noticed. Arla graciously accepted the hands and shook all the ones she could as she made her way to the boy. She stopped in front of him and knelt down. Respectfully, the crowd stopped and gave her some space, but they stayed within earshot and studied every movement she made.
Arla slowly edged her way to the boy until he moved out of his mother's grasp and stood less than a foot from her. The boy's hair was brown and extremely messy but there was a curious organization to it that confounded her. "What's your name?" she asked earnestly.
The kid was speechless. His face said it all: he couldn't believe that she stopped right in front of him, and spoke to him. "J-John," he stammered with as much amazement in his voice as his face suggested.
"John," she said. "That's a wonderful name. It's got a nice ring to it wouldn't you say?"
"I-I guess it does." He stared into Arla's eyes for several seconds as if he suddenly realized something for himself. "Are y-you a Guardian?"
Arla gave a small chuckle. "Yes." She couldn't stop smiling.
"Where's your little floater thingy? I've seen many Guardians walking around with those things."
Arla saw Stargazer appear just above the boy's shoulder. "You mean my Ghost Stargazer? She's on your shoulder."
The boy's eyes turned as wide as table saucers as he looked to his right and saw a purple and black Ghost hovering only a few inches from his face. "Hello John," Stargazer said politely. She moved from his shoulder to his outstretched hand.
"Wow!" he exclaimed with excitement. "It's like I'm a Guardian!"
He put his arm down after it apparently got tired, and Stargazer relocated to Arla's shoulder. Arla put the helmet in both of her hands. "Every Guardian has a duty to uphold: protect the City and all those who live in it. Can I trust you protect the City?"
His voice gained a little more confidence. "Yes, I can do whatever is needed."
Arla laughed again and beamed. "Well to do that, you'll need a helmet to protect that bright mind of yours." She placed the helmet on his head. It was extremely loose, but that allowed her to see the a smile she never thought was possible on someone's face. "Now go protect our City," she said.
"I will," John said without hesitation. Without warning, he rushed forward and hugged her. "You protect it too."
Accepting the embrace, Arla said, "You can bet I will." She broke the embrace and stood up. Before she moved back to the Titan, Arla saw three lights glowing in an alleyway, two yellow and one blue.
Curious, she gently pushed her way through the remaining crowd. Something was pulling her towards the lights in the shadow of the alley, but she stopped just in front of the line between the light and the shadow. The crowd turned around to see what Arla was doing, no doubt they could see the lights as well.
"There's a reason you could revive me in that tunnel," Arla stated flatly. "There's a reason we worked so well together back there as well. But most of all, there's a reason you saved me just as it all collapsed."
"I'm sorry," Erebus replied. "We're only shadows and nothing more. Sometimes, you just have to forget the dead."
Arla smiled. "You're supposed to remember the dead. Besides, these shadows just so happen to be in the place with the highest concentration of the Traveler's light. Very tangible shadows I might add." Without any further hesitation, Arla grabbed Erebus' hand and yanked him out of the alley. His shadowy form stumbled forward before settling its balance. Nyx floated by reluctantly.
Small yellow-gold specks began to appear in the air, only a few at first but quickly grew in number. They flocked to the shadowy forms and surrounded them in a swirling vortex of light.
"Erebus," Arla declared as the lights began to disappear, "you're a…"
The words stopped there. Her mind overloaded and shock overtook everything. Tears streamed down her face. There was no doubting who was in front of her but she couldn't move despite her best efforts. Arla placed a hand over her mouth and just stared for several moments. The crowd looked equally astonished at the transformation that took place right in front of their eyes. John, still wearing the ill-fitting helmet, bounded to the front of the crowd.
Arla felt the connection pull her closer and closer. She overcame the initial shock and sprinted forward into the ex-Erebus. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as hard as she could, vowing that she would never let him disappear again.