To many the planet mercury was once a beautiful paradise, a garden world filled with green grassy plains and trees with sparkling pink leaves... that was, before the collapse, before the Vex. Within days of their arrival they undid this paradise and poisoned it into little more than a toxic desert to serve as one of their machine worlds. Humanity before the Traveller gave birth to Ghosts and they in turn found their guardians, were powerless to fight back. During their golden age of prosperity they knew no war, they knew no need for weapons of mass destruction, they lived blissfully ignorant of the wars to come, and their struggle to survive with their numbers reduced from billions to millions in such an unbelievable short time.
The Traveller would go on to release ghosts to give light to guardians, this tale is of one such guardian, but this guardian was different, for their origin did not reside with humanity from earth, no this individual hailed from another land another system far detached from the Travellers light, and at this very moment this individual found themselves running for their very life, spewing a long line of very un-ladylike curses that shall not be repeated.
Mercury - Surface
Louise for once in her life, actually regretted successfully pulling of a spell, never in her young life would she have ever predicted such and outcome. It was a summoning spell not un-summoning spell Brimir dammit! She had done everything properly, she even practiced the incantation a dozen time before she went to bed and another dozen when she woke up! So why, why, was she currently stuck running for her life from a bunch of bronze golems with magic muskets!
Quickly rounding yet another corner she pauses for a moment to catch her breath, she was a mage not a soldier she had no experience running long distances, and she certainly never entertained the thought of it, that's what horses and carriages are for! Taking a deep breath she decidedly takes a moment to gather her thoughts, she still has her wand and for the first time in her life thanked actually thanked her ability to only create explosions as she highly doubted a mere fireball would do little more than scorch bronze on the golems, much less melt them.
The sounds of heavy metal hitting the unusual stone floor, 'why did it look like solid grey sand with pebbles sticking out of it ' Louise thought to herself. Steeling herself she jumped around the corner intent on surprising her enemy she immediately began her chant, only for the pebble-sand to explode beneath her feet and give way to a chasm two stories deep. She screamed in the brief moment she had to realize she was falling. She managed bring her left arm out in order to break her fall, the only thing she succeeded in breaking was her own arm. A red hot lance of pain shot right up her arm and she barely had any air left in her lungs to choke out a scream. 'I can't die here, I refuse! I have to prove them wrong! I am a not a failure!' Trapped in her frenzied thoughts Louise desperately looked for a way out, rolling over she reached out with her good arm to drag herself towards the nearest doorway she could see, her legs having long since given out from over exhaustion due to a lack of fitness. She could barely move herself an inch at a time before the telltale sound of the golems footsteps reached her ears.
She didn't dare look back for she knew what approached but she could no longer bare to face it. She curled up into a ball as best she could and cried, trying to muffle her sobs on the cloak of her uniform. The pain of her broken arm and the fear of her approaching doom were just too much for her. She closed her eyes and prayed for it all to just end, for a brief moment their was nothing but silence and her muffled sobs and a low hum echoed out followed by a sharp crack, and Louise Francoise Le Blanc de la Vallierie was no more.
Earth - Old shipyard - 2 weeks later...
Every Ghost has their guardian, some found theirs mere moments after awakening others spend centuries aimlessly wandering with nothing to show for their efforts. This particular Ghost had only reticently awakened he knew his guardian was out there, only he got the distinct feeling his guardian was going to be, unusual...
Nevertheless he searched, unusual or not they were to be his guardian and he was to be their Ghost, their partner for an eternity to come, together he would guide them and they would fight. That being said they searches were not always aimless, not just barely two weeks ago a certain Ghost felt a surge of light call to him from the planet Mercury, his knowledge gifted to him from the Traveller informed him of the once garden world converted to a machine world. It's new inhabitants being less than welcoming hosts in the form of the vex. It could just be a wild goose chase, it could simply be false hope, but if there was a chance he had to take it.
He made use of a rusted Arcadia class jump-ship that had a "functional" jump drive, key word functional. He only really needed it to make a single round trip once he got back to earth with his guardian, if any, he could easily replace it with something much more permanent. Glancing about the interior he could only internally groan at the lack of commodities the ship held, 'definitely temporary' The Ghost deadpanned. He hummed to himself as he began the process of spooling up the drive for a quick jump to mercury. 'Wait for me guardian, I'm on my way, wherever you are' With his goal firmly in mind the Ghost activated the jump-drive and set course for the planet Mercury.
Planet Mercury - In orbit - minutes later...
"Okay, when I mentioned temporary I did not mean this temporary!" The Ghost cussed to himself. His trip had been going splendidly, his jump drive functioned and the ships hull held together perfectly when performing the jump, everything was going fine until he came up on approach to Mercury, his jump drive suddenly had simply had enough and decided to break down in a most spectacular fashion, by melting down and exploding, promptly blowing a hole in the center of the jump-ship and completely totaling any chance of return, hell at this point the best he could do was point the ship in a direction and pray to the Traveller their wasn't a volcano or bottomless pit where he crashed it.
As a Ghost he was very resilient to damage, his shell wasn't simply to express himself after all. Still he was not built to fall from orbit without piggybacking in his guardians head. Guardian or not gravity was not about to wait for him to gather himself, either he gathered himself in the air or somebody else will gather his fragments on the surface of Mercury. Quickly collecting himself he made a split second decision to angle the craft to begin its descent before burning all the remaining fuel in the ship to reduce the speed of the ship and angle it so it would glide the rest of the way down.
Pointing the ship down and with a slight push of the engines the Ghost began his rapid descent to the surface, rapidly picking up speed he was forced to make a second adjustment mid descent to reduce being turned into a molten fireball from all the heat generated upon his rapid and most certainly controlled entry into the planets atmosphere. 'If i had a heart-rate it would certainly be through the roof right now!' He internally cursed to himself as he desperately made calculations to re-adjust his cra-controlled descent. Quickly flaring the left engine he narrowly avoided slamming into an abandoned tower and losing the entire left side of what was left of his burning wreck. The Arcadia class mess could hardly be called a ship at this point, it more resembled something from a scrapyard the fallen had patched together and then promptly dumped off the side of a cliff into a pit of fire. The entire craft was currently burning as his attempts at course correction only served to reduce amount of fire generated, which was not really a lot as the only thing not currently on fire or too hot to touch was the Ghost himself.
As the ship neared the ground terrain the Ghost executed the last stage of his plan and burned the last of his fuel to angle the ship in a manner so when it hit the ground it would not roll and fling him about the cockpit. That being said the ship was still moving at an incredibly fast pace and when it touched the ground the sudden lurch from the loss of momentum flung the ghost to the front of the cockpit stunning him temporarily.
When the Ghost gathered himself he found himself surrounded by flames licking at his shell and trying to slowly roast him in to a crispy treat. Wasting no time in transmating himself outside of the wreck he did a quick once over of the heap of scrap before writing it off entirely. 'only temporary, so temporary it didn't even make the a round trip! By the Travellers light how am I supposed to get back now?' The Ghost furiously thought to himself.
Quickly scanning his surroundings he found nothing but machinery, without a trace of any biological activity in the area, 'As to be expected I suppose, this is a vex machine world after all. Wouldn't really expect to see any trees around here anymore' He mused, indeed it appeared as though he had crashed in the middle of what appeared to be once a forest, recently converted into a deserted wasteland, with the only signs of civilization being a small building directly east of his crash site. 'Well if the vex did not sense my approach the certainly heard my landing, no use sticking around to get caught out in the open, that building is my only option from here' Finishing this line of thought he made his way to the only building visible as far as his ocular sensor allowed him to see.
A quick journey across the desert later and the Ghost found himself in an abandoned temple? office? it was hard to tell, with the golden age humanity had taken a lot of liberties when it came to the new infrastructures. Whit how cheap building came humanity had done a lot of branching out over the years. Regardless once inside the Ghost did a quick scan all around, and came across something peculiar. There were scorch marks all over the walls, and they looked relatively fresh. 'Someone was here very recently, someone the vex did not want on this planet, a human maybe?' Quickly perking up at the prospect of a human being nearby he resumed scanning with renewed vigor, eager to find any more traces of this mystery guest.
His search led him down a corridor and eventually down a crater in the floor, using his optic to shine a light through he performs a quick scan and picks up an anomaly, there was something biological in this room, something human, or at the very least the remains of one. Zipping over he finds a small bundle of clothing with a rather ominous hole in the center of its mass, the wound cauterized instantly from the heat of the weapon used to put it there. A quick scan revealed that this small heap was to be his guardian, he'd done it. He'd found his guardian, opening his shell and preparing the resurrection process he gathered his light and in one concentrated blast Louise awoke once more, only this time forged in light.