It's not about the size of the... Ghost... but the size of the light in the Ghost?
A Leaf on the Wind
Ghost shot out into the open and Nicole barely kept up.
"This way!" he called. "Hurry."
She. Was. Hurrying. But she had legs that needed to hit the ground while he— well, he didn't. He was just a low flying blip in her vision darting into the shadows between two buildings, impossibly fast. To her left, mangled laughter-howling broke through the trees. Branches snapped. Sounded like bones, not wood. She didn't look. No time for that. Instead, she ran. Slipped between the walls after Ghost — and tripped over something. Heavy. Stiff. A pale arm flopped against the ground under her, the fingers on its hand twisted like claws.
OhGod—
She hit the wall with her shoulder, the shock of the impact driving sharp pain through her. Dragged herself forward. Up. Into the dark woods beyond the dead village, chasing after a faint blue light leading the way between tree trunks. Nicole stumbled from one to the other, pushed off their cold, coarse bark, her breathing sharp and painful.
She'd never run for her life before.
Who did that? Running for their life? Not her. She'd run from it, yeah. Fallen into lockstep with a suffocating need to outpace it while everyone else carried on. But this was new and she couldn't fathom it. The running with nothing but a thin shirt on while a constant threat pulled on her spine and her stomach. An anticipation wanting to fill her legs with concrete and anchor them to the ground, because no matter how fast she ran, they'd catch her anyway. Whoever— whatever —they were.
Especially when the forest floor began to slant up.
"Oh you've— you've got to be joking."
A bunch of steps up and her side flared with a fierce sting. Another one and her toes dug into the detritus made of leaves and needles and dead bugs and soon dead her. Her foot snagged on a root or some other bullshit and she hit the ground knees first, her lungs sucking in air one painful whistle at a time.
"I can't," she managed between gasps. "I can't."
Ghost darted back to her. Hovered close, his eye swaying from her back into the direction they'd come. The forest swallowed every noise around them, muffled even his electronic chirps down to a mere whisper. And maybe if they didn't make a sound, this'd work out? She tried not to breathe too hard, since even that was too loud, though there was no stopping her heart going way past the allowed pace.
"Okay," he said after a moment of sticking too close to her shoulder. "I think we, ah, lost them?" He sounded convinced.
Click. Whirr.
zap-CRACK
Something slammed into the tree next to her. Bark and hot splinters stung her cheeks.
"Nevermind! We didn't!" Ghost turned on the spot. And vanished in a shower of pale blue light. Vanished. He'd just been here and now he was gone and Nicole was losing her mind again, wasn't she?
"Where— Ghost?!"
She pulled herself up. Crawl-ran up the slope, her knees bumping into rocks and roots and her fingers clawing at gritty earth, until two heavy shots tore up the forest floor around her. Nicole yelped. She twisted to the side until her ass hit the ground and she kicked herself up the slope with her feet.
Down below, melting from the shadows between trees, three figures approached the slope. They weren't running. Didn't have to. Not with how she was sitting there, staring.
At their four arms. Each.
Four arms.
They stood slightly hunched, were covered in cloth and armour that stuck out every way like spikes — and try as she might, Nicole couldn't call them human. People. One, the shortest of them, held a rifle-looking-thing raised into her direction. Hot ice filled her lungs. If she moved, it'd shoot.
It'd shoot.
Shoot. Her.
Small, beady blue eyes glowed behind the rifle-thing and out from under a thick, purple hood. Not two eyes. Not four. Six.
It was going to shoot anyway. And it wasn't going to miss.
A puff of blue light winked to her left. Like bright dust swirling in a tight vortex — and out of it popped Ghost.
"Hey!" he shouted, his shell blown out wide. Ruffled. "Psakiks sacks!"
Without hesitation, the barrel snapped to the side. Fired. A red bolt struck another tree, barely missing Ghost as he rolled from its trajectory.
… and vanished again, dissipating in another wink of light.
The four-armed creatures hollered. Raised all their rifles, and when Ghost reappeared in a blink on the far side of the tree, they all opened up. Right at him. Not her. He swung behind the trunk. Two bolts cracked into the bark and the third buried into the ground. Embers bloomed where they'd struck. The tree groaned, its wood tearing as fire ate it up from the inside.
It was going to fall.
And the creatures were coming up the slope. Not after them, no. Just him. The little Ghost.
Close. That'd been close. Hehehe. Twice. So close, he'd felt the lick of heat against his core where the first shot had missed him by almost nothing. But, close or not, it hadn't been a hard decision to make. Hadn't taken a lot of calculating back and forth between who stood a better chance of not getting blasted by an arc bolt or a fat, heavy and very explosive slug.
Ghost materialised again, popping into view some ways further up. A deafening (and almost mournful) groan of wood bending and splintering filled the forest — and the tree he'd used for cover fell. Thankfully, it didn't land on his Guardian but it did convince her to get on her feet and run. Unfortunately it didn't flatten the Fallen either though. It came down in a flurry of leaves, crashed into the forest floor with a loud, hollow smack, and slid/rolled down the slope.
Ghost twisted to throw a look at his fleeing Guardian— and dropped an inch, right as a bolt of arc energy licked through the air above him. It sent sparks dancing across his shell.
Another close one. Very. Close.
So he did the only reasonable thing: He twirled once and— poof —was gone again.
Except the moment he hid, the Fallen switched targets. It didn't take a second and they opened up on his Guardian, sending her staggering between bursts of red and blue, debris kicking up around her feet.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
They were going to gun her down and how was he going to get her back if they dragged her off? With his processing core wheeling, ghost reappeared again. Closer to the Fallen, this time.
"Wow," he called, the front and back of his shell twisting into different directions. "You're not very good at this, are you?"
They forgot about his Guardian. Snapped their weapons at him. Fired. Missed. He vanished. Whisked further down the slope. Reappeared to their left.
"Hi."
They whirled around. Weapons up and—
Poof.
One stomped a foot down, another smacked the butt of his rifle against his friend's shoulder, and Ghost popped into view at their backs. He could see his Guardian stumbling towards the crest of the hill from here.
Come on, come on, just a little further.
He harrumphed. Quite convincingly if he may just say so, considering he didn't have a throat.
"This is kind of fun, guys." They rounded on him. "You know, I think I could do this all day."
Their mouths twisted, baring needle-sharp teeth. One looked a bit like he was grinning. Wait. Why was he—
Ghost spun on the spot. And not a second too late. Another Fallen, this one about twice his buddies' size, with thickly padded shoulders sprouting all sorts of scavenged material, stood behind him. He wore a tarnished helmet with a set of jagged horns and narrow slits alight with the glint of a row of small, greedy eyes.
How in the Traveller's name had he (and the other two Fallen at his heels) snuck up on him?!
"Ah. Crap."
The Fallen swung at him. With a sword. Yep. A sword. A serrated sword, lined with thin, sharp teeth. Ghost dipped under it. Then he rolled over the second sword (because of course there was a second one), except this time he wasn't fast enough. It snagged on his shell. He spun. Wildly. Fell through a world turning so fast he didn't know which way was up and down.
Not until he hit a pile of leaves, scattering them like… ah… leaves.
This was going great.
Right?
. . .
Right.