The high pitched, beta-voice of Ghost crackles to life.
"Dear reader, I must warn you. Before you continue on, do not expect a tale of adventure and bravery. Of heroes and a struggle between good and evil. This is not that kind of story. Brace yourselves, prepare your constitutions against a more harrowing tale. You are about to stare into the void, to reach into the howling dark and fall. Just as I have suffered, so will you suffer.
This is not the tale of the Guardian, slayer of Oryx, raider of the Leviathan. In fact, by the time of these events the Hive god was already slain along with his kin, and many of the horrors which plagued the Last City were already vanquished. This is not a story of the legendary Guardians, of heroes of nobility. Oh Traveler, no. I wish it was. This is the tale of a Guardian. My Guardian.
The Bungie Logo Appears
"I've found you. Against the impossible odds, as a little Light shining in a universe-spanning ocean of darkness, alone and after thousands of years of searching. I've found you.
I whirred in excitement. You were below me, your corpse lay supinated in rusted armor permeated with brown tigra grass. A desiccated flower flowed from your empty eye socket "Well, we can fix that." I sang happily, staring at your skull.
That damned flower… If only I had known.
I summoned the paracausal Light from deep within my mechanical soul. I was alone, all alone. I burst with Light. Now, I would have a friend. My own Guardian. The Light flooded into the suit of armor, and your blood, your nerves and flesh knit back to life. It was a miracle of the Traveler, the first time I had ever performed a resurrection. Like with all Guardians however, I knew it would be the first of many.
An alarm pinged through the human battlenet. Fallen, incoming. For just a second... One measly second. No, for less than a millisecond I was distracted from your resurrection. I didn't mean to, I swear. I pray to the Traveler every night since I learned the horrible truth. The ironic way in which my failure of attention threw us both into perdition. I pray for forgiveness. You weren't meant to be this way. I wasn't meant to see the things you've shown me, and the universe was never meant to be subjected to the things you've done.
It was only a small error. A tiny mistake in reformatting your neurology. I'm a foolish, sinful Ghost.
You rose from your crypt between cars near the Cosmodrome. I couldn't have been happier. I had begun to wonder if I would ever find you. I spent years fantasizing about who you might be. Would you be a boy? A lady? Someone in between? I would love you no matter who you were. Oh, the adventures we would have! We would serve together, friends until the end. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had already put you on a pedestal by the time you were awakened. That too, is my fault.
The Guardian blinked, his new eyes adjusted to the daylight. He was standing in an unknown place, without a clue to who he was.
The Ghost had waited for so long, of course he had prepared a speech. In all his time searching the void, he'd come up with something magnanimous, something clever and mysterious. He was very proud of his introduction.
"I never knew you in life. Your first life, anyway. You died on a battlefield long before my time. Something special brought us together. They called it "the Traveler", and when it arrived, it changed your world forever. It was a Golden Age, and for centuries, humanity thrived... until it didn't. An ancient enemy pursued the Traveler across the universe. Humanity faced extinction. But the Traveler made a choice. It's sacrifice destroyed its ancient enemy, and brought life to the Ghosts. And you are one of the Traveler's chosen. You are a Guardian. This is your destiny!"
The Guardian sat back down.
The Ghost sighed. Of course this would be too much for you, too much for anyone to take in all at once, he thought.
Wait! The Guardian laid back down and put his hands beneath his head as if trying to go back to sleep. The Ghost was unsure of what to make of this, but the threat was escalating on the battlenet. The Fallen were already here.
The Ghost spoke with intensity "Guardian. Guardian? Eyes up, Guardian!"
The Guardian looked at the Ghost without an ounce of comprehension. It was probably best to give him a shorter, more manageable introduction.
"It worked. You're alive! You don't know how long I've been looking for you. I'm a Ghost. Actually, now I'm your Ghost. And you... well, you've been dead a long time. So you're going to see a lot of things you won't understand."
A Fallen Captain shrieked in the background. The Ghost turned to look and then spun back to the Guardian. "This is Fallen territory. We aren't safe here. I have to get you to The City. Hold still."
The Ghost disappeared into the Guardian's inventory. "Don't worry, I'm still with you. We need to move. Fast."
The Guardian struggled to get up, rolling back and forth like a turtle until he righted himself. It must be hard getting back on your feet after death, Ghost thought, forgetting that only moments before the man had stood with no problem at all. The unnamed Guardian shook his head and began a light jog towards a dilapidated structure.
He jogged with odd precision, as if trained in the art of jogging by a master marathoner. He took tiny steps to ensure minimal stress on the knees and he pumped his arms in small, perfect arcs. What a strange man, Ghost thought. Although I'm glad he has some eccentricities! It's going to be so fun, learning about this person. What would he like? What could we bond over?
"This place is the Cosmodrome, an ancient Russian space-port." He said, excited. So, this is where our adventure will begin! "It's quarantined now - and quite dangerous, but our only way forward is through that wall."
The Guardian hoofed it through a convenient pathway between rusted Honda civics. He scrambled through a hole in the Cosmodrome and into a great maze of scaffolding. It was lit by harsh orange light that streamed through frosted windows. Wiring and broken pipe hung from the ceilings.
"I need to get you back to the City. To do that, we'll need a ship."
The Guardian nodded like a newly born baby fighting against gravity, again understanding none of what was being said. He was reborn with no memories and knowledge of the world. His life was a buzzing, bubbling confusion. His Ghost couldn't even tell if he could speak, although he seemed… mildly responsive, so the Guardian must understand English.
"But first… I need to find you a weapon. Let's keep moving." The silence was getting awkward. But the Ghost pressed on. I won't mess up this first impression!
The Guardian crept through the Cosmodrome until it was pitch black. They heard a loud scattering sound like giant cockroaches moving through the ductwork.
"Caaarreeefulll." He said, adding to the ominous tone. Tee hee, this is fun! The radar was flaring at their unseen foes. "They're all around us."
The Guardian stopped moving, unable to feel his way through the dark.
"It's a risk, but I'll get us more light."
The tiny machine emitted a wave of blue which cut through the darkness. He floated around the open space of the Cosmodrome inspecting the military base. "Hardened military system: Check. Frayed wires and rust: Check. When I flip this switch, expect trouble." The Guardian was unsure of what 'switch' his Ghost had turned on, but the ball of paracausal Light sped back to him. Followed closely by two orange, buzzing drones.
"Not good! Not good! They're definitely not happy to see us!" As power was restored to the facility, the Guardian heard a door unlatch. The Ghost came closer and saw a rifle laying conveniently on the ground.
"There's a rifle. Grab it!" The Guardian had already grabbed, loaded, and cocked the weapon. He ducked under the door as it slammed shut behind him, leaving the drones in the dust.
"I brought you back for a reason, Guardian." The little Ghost could sense the Guardian's capabilities, he now had a good picture of the man's combat style. He was smooth, agile and calculated.
"You're a Hunter, that means you're not afraid to take risks." The Ghost had no idea how horribly true this statement would turn out to be. "So keep moving and be ready for a fight."
The Guardian swept the hallway with the gun barrel. The ancient Khvostav was cracked along the stock and covered in dust. But in the Guardian's hand it looked slick. The practiced arcs he drew in the air with the auto-rifle filled his Ghost with confidence and pride. Slow, methodical, precise. He would be a legendary Hunter.
The Ghost kept up his internal monologue since his Guardian wasn't talking. My Guardian might be the quiet type, which is a bit disappointing. But he knows how to handle a weapon. His actions will speak louder than his words. If the Ghost could, he would be smiling.
The lights flickered on and off. The strobe effect added to the air of tension and the Ghost was on the edge of his seat in excitement. Red blips lit up the Guardians radar, just around the corner. This was it. Their first battle.
The Guardian peaked around the corner and two blue aliens burst from the walls and clambered to the floor. The Guardian backed up as far as he could and rested the gunbarrel against his fist which was pinned against the wall. He exposed almost none of himself while maintaining a perfect firing position. The Ghost bristled, this would be a good Guardian - no, he would be a great hero.
The aliens shook their spears and cackled their warcries.
Eight shots rang out. One for each of the aliens' limbs.
They fell to the floor, their feet shot out from under them. They flailed their arms but could not hold their spears. The tendons and ligaments of the hand were blown through gaping stigmata. The Guardian was perfectly accurate. Perfectly cruel.
It took the Ghost a minute to process what had happened. It was an inhuman feat of marksmanship. But the action was unnecessary, it was odd. The Ghost puzzled over his Guardian's motives for incapacitating the Fallen Vandals rather than just doing away with them.
Perhaps he's the gentle sort? The Ghost was a being of Light and favored this idea. Although, he pitied the Guardian whose soft heart would need to be hardened in the battles to come.
The Ghost was wrong. His wishful thinking was diametrically opposed to the bitter truth. The Guardian licked his lips and approached the floundering aliens. They squealed.
He rubbed his hands together, then pointed the weapon at his true target. His greatest boon, his greatest prize.
Sweet, sweet kneecaps.
The Guardian quivered with pleasure. He took a knife from one of the aliens, and then stripped and claimed their patellas as his own. The squealing increased until it rivaled that of branded hogs.
He slipped the caps in his pocket, stepped over the tormented aliens and left their impotent screaming behind.
The Ghost did not understand. He did not want to understand. But he had to. He needed to understand his Guardian. He ran subprocess after subprocess, regressing cognitions and behavior on actions, building models that might somehow predict why his Guardian had committed this war crime. How many thousands of times would he run these analyses again in the future? Not even the Traveler could know.
The Guardian sprinted over the grated floor with renewed vigor. He ran forth through the hallway when another Fallen dropped from overhead almost on top of him.
The Guardian withdrew his knife as the world ran in slow motion. In a fluid slice worthy of the greatest Iaido samurai masters, he slashed both kneecaps from the Fallen Dreg. The knife returned to its sheath before the pitiful alien even hit the ground. With no kneecaps to support its weight, the alien unexpectedly crumpled to the floor. Confusion hit before the pain, but oh when the pain hit the sound of a third hog echoed into the Cosmodrome. The Guardian stuffed the caps in his paracausal inventory. He left the alien behind, alive.
He had what he wanted.
The Ghost emitted a tiny burst of Light. His equivalent of throwing up. What monster have I awakened? What demon of the dark ages have I given immortality to? More red hit the motion tracker and the Ghost snapped back to reality.
"S...s..stay fo...focused." He stuttered. "If your tracker blinks, there's... trouble nearby."
The Ghost prayed that they'd encounter no more Fallen. For the aliens' sake.
But alas, the Dregs dropped from the ceiling. In the whole sad history of their cuckold race, the Fallen had never been loved by luck or fate. These toy soldiers would be no exception.
The Guardian summoned the light from within himself and a flaming solar grenade appeared in his hand. The fire did not burn him as it whisked itself between his fingers. He lobbed it gently. The aliens were the product of neglect and poor training. The Fallen had little mercy for their lowest ranks. The grenade had even less mercy. It bounced softly off the ether mask of one unfortunate Dreg, causing it to flinch. Then the grenade exploded and the bits of Fallen gore rained down on its companions. They'd known their brother for it's entire life, and the two sisters roared in anguish.
But a knife had already left the Guardian's hand and implanted itself squarely between the eyes of one of the sisters. The remaining Fallen had just enough time to bare its razored fangs before being pinned to the wall from gunfire.
Amazing, the Ghost thought.
He had heard tell of the talents of legendary Guardians. As a whole the defenders of humanity were talented, but their greatest skill was their ability to respawn. Aside from a select few outliers, Guardians would need a fire-team to invade a Hive nest or stop a Fallen offensive. He had known his Guardian only for the past few minutes, but he knew that on talent alone he stood near the top, with heroes like Saint-14. He was crude, and his behavior was disgusting. But his talent for combat was beneath only the greatest of Guardians. One day he may be powerful enough to challenge Shaxx, or even the Guardian. The Wolf of Fire, killer of Oryx and his kin. The legendary Jabes.
The Guardian went about his grizzley business and collected the precious kneecaps. He sighed in frustration at the ruined state of the kneecaps belonging to the Dreg blown to bits by the grenade and tossed them to the side. He had standards after all.
The Ghost retroactively hid these memories behind a firewall. He may need to access them later, but dear Traveler he did not want these memories to haunt him in moments of quiet.
The Ghost dialed back his ethics functions. He pulled from deep within him his residual dislike of the Fallen. They were his enemies after all. He hoped he could stop empathizing with them.
"The Fallen are scavengers — alien pirates picking at humanity's remains."
The Guardian paid him no heed, he ran and gunned down aliens as they appeared. Thank god he wasn't stopping to collect every kneecap. He did stretch his hand out towards the knee of one Fallen and pulled his hand back forlorn. Even he knew this was not the time.
"Speaking of pirates there's a loot cache. Let's take what's inside."
The Guardian kicked the cache and it popped open. The Ghost hadn't expected much from the Cosmodrome, but even still. Inside was one of the worst guns ever made. The Stubborn Oak. It must have been stubborn to survive so long. At least it will give us more options…
The Guardian switched to his energy shotgun as the rusted hallways narrowed in around them. Several Fallen Dregs were there in CQC range.
The Guardian ripped the ether mask off one Fallen, then stuffed the Stubborn Oak into its maw and pulled the trigger. He yanked the weapon free and thrust the butt into the gut of another Dreg before bashing its head in from above. The gun fired three more times until only the Guardian was left in the room. He stared at the Fallen and tried to step forward, but couldn't.
Something's holding him back.
The Ghost saw his Guardian, and felt through their connection something resembling turmoil inside his mind. It was… strong. Not unlike the feelings experienced from the loss of a loved one. But the Guardian has just woken. What could have possibly given him such a sense of loss? Unfortunately, the Ghost could guess at what it was that was tearing his Guardian apart.
"Ok… you can take one. JUST ONE!"
The Guardian literally skipped over to the Fallen and took his patella prize.
They came to an open room, and the Guardian switched again to his auto-rifle.
Inside was a host of Fallen and a resilient Captain. This would be a challenge for any new Guardian. But despite his personality, the Ghost knew his Guardian would chew them up and spit them out.
"More Fallen! Hit 'em with everything you've got!" He said, his Light filled his brain damaged companion.
The Guardian ripped through the lower ranked aliens with a staccato of gunfire. They were nothing but additionals to the Captain who towered over them. Nothing but kneecaps for collection.
He ducked and dived through the few bolts of energy that flew from the rapidly diminishing number of Dregs. It seemed like nothing could touch him.
His absorption shield took an unexpected dip. A canister of shrapnel grazed the Guardian, causing the shield to crackle. The Captain shot another trio of exploding metal hunks precisely towards the Guardian's head. A headshot would force a death, force a reset. The Ghost was worried, he'd heard through the grapevine that plenty of Guardians with amazing potential just couldn't handle dying. They would respawn of course, but their minds collapsed. Incapable of handling the existential stress of death. The Ghost just hoped his Guardian would be stronger.
But this wouldn't be his first death. The Guardian harnessed the Light and propelled himself in a fanciful pirouette away from the projectiles. Solar energy flowed through his veins, a cloak of raging fire enveloped him and clothed him in the Traveler's immense primordial power.
An ethereal Golden Gun manifested in his palm.
The Captain paused, he knew well the threat of Guardian magic. He turned to flee. The Guardian aimed, and fired. At the last second the Captain teleported away, just a few meters. It wasn't enough to compete with the razor sharp instincts of the psychopath before him.
One bullet from a Golden Gun could eviscerate all but the most sturdy of opponents. Six would turn anything outside a Hive God, Ahamkara or Vex Mind to atomized powder.
Six bullets entered the Resilient Captain.
"Your Light is strong Guardian," the Ghost said, his pride managing to burgeon through his horror and disgust.
After some training all Guardians could manifest a super ability, but it took an innate talent, a fundamentally close relationship with the Light to just pull a 'Super' out of thin air within an hour of being woken. Generally, the closer a Guardian is to the Light the more they reflect the true nature of the Light. Great Guardians may be rough around the edges but they are also brave, noble, altruistic. There were a few exceptions, but the Light brought goodness to its contractors' souls.
Except for his Guardian. Still, the Ghost was proud. At least some of the Guardians' features matched with the fantasies he'd held for nearly a thousand years.
"Keep pushing forward, I'll try to locate a ship we can use to fly home."
The Guardian silently entered an enormous air duct to his right. The few poor Dregs and Vandals which challenged him died unceremoniously. The Guardian must have been in a hurry, for he only stopped for a single kneecap.
They came outdoors.
"A Fallen raiding party! We're in more trouble than I thought."
A Skiff hovered in the near distance, the Hunter shot at it for a few seconds, and after observing no visible damage continued towards the sound of gunfire beneath the aircraft.
The Skiff dropped it's load, a Fallen Walker. The tank was immediately under attack by three other Guardians. Some were armored in powerful shining gear. The Ghost could only feel a bit insecure at his Guardian's ragged wear.
Trace rifles, rockets and hand-cannon rounds punched into the insectoid machine. The Guardian lept into combat, jumping not once, not twice in the air. But a full triple jump.
So this is your build. The Guardian was optimized for pure mobility.
The brazen Hunter landed on the Walker, pointed the Stubborn Oak to the metal plate at his feet and fired. The tank hissed and steamed as an exhaust panel was forced open. The orange-hot inner workings were exposed.
The Guardian placed a solar grenade in the port and dodged off the Walker.
It exploded and crumpled to the floor.
But they weren't out of the woods yet. They may have crippled the raiding party by taking out their armor, but the Fallen were tenacious.
"Keep fighting! I'm scanning for nearby ships." The Guardian only acknowledged his Ghost by shooting a floating shank out of the air. "You're doing great. Focus on the Fallen."
A large Captain was keeping the other Guardians busy. The Hunter stalked behind him and crouched in a bush.
A Captain of the house of Dusk. This is a named enemy, why are they sending big-guns out to the forgotten side of the Cosmodrome? The Ghost thought.
The Captain slew a Guardian, the man must have been a rookie. Arc fire had punched through his shields and eventually lay waist to his belly, coating his intestines in high voltage electricity.
The man screamed and blinked out of existence as his Ghost picked up the pieces of causality and tried to put them back together.
An unknown Guardian yelled to the Hunter "Help us! You in the bushes!" The man pointed to the Ghosts' hunkered down Guardian. The Hunter made a 'tsk' sound, annoyed. His position was exposed.
The Captain wheeled around to fire upon him, and the Ghost thought it would be their first death.
But it was not.
The Captain of the House of Dusk had never faced cowardice this powerful before.
The Hunter had already fled, demonstrating an ability to flee that rivaled any in the system.
He was hidden behind another bush in a matter of milliseconds.
The Captain turned to the other Guardians and continued to pound into them. They were just average Guardians, fighting for their lives out on the tundra plains of Earth. For humanity.
They fell one by one, screaming in agony. The first Guardian to respawn yelled in terror then fled. As the last Guardian lost his balance and dropped to a knee, blood streamed from a cut on his forehead and dribbled over his blinking eyes.
"Eat shit, bastard!"
He threw a void grenade at the Captain's feet. It would not be enough. Arc energy put the man down and all the while, the Hunter did not stir.
The grenade blew, and the Captain blinked away as his shields fell. Now was the time for action. The Guardian accelerated into combat at impossible speed. He held his knife backwards, and rolled underneath the Captain. A flurry of cuts befell the alien and it tumbled over and died, with the knife buried in its chest and its knees devoid of caps.
The Ghost brought himself back to reality. He had never been so grateful not to possess legs, and the kneecaps which came with them. "No... no ships. But I'm detecting another friendly signal nearby. They may be able to help!"
He hoped that the Guardian would evacuate the area quickly. Before the others respawned….
The radio buzzed. "I repeat, this is Shaw Han. My Vanguard operation is compromised; I'm separated from my strike team." The Ghost could have sworn through biometrics that his Guardian rolled his eyes.
The Ghost called back. "Vanguard! They're from the Last City! Shaw, where are you? We can help!" This could be our ticket to a ship! He thought.
The man through the radio called to teammates who would not answer him. "Cas, Maeve, if you're hearing this, rendezvous at the following coordinates…"
It appears as though the Hunter wasn't the only one to ignore the pitiful Ghost.
It must be that's it. Nobody could possibly be this rude.
"Something's interfering." The Ghost said. "I don't think he heard us, but I've got a lock on his location." The Ghost fell silent as he kept triangulating, but couldn't shake his frustration. He pouted a tiny machine pout.
The Ghost placed white diamond markers on the Guardian's HUD, leading him into another complex. It was, like the rest of the Cosmodrome, barely lit and covered in rust and chipped red paint.
More Dregs, more Vandals. But this didn't stop the Guardian's momentum. He slid with the Stubborn Oak and ended their lives in quick succession.
As they entered what must have been in its day a warehouse, they saw another Hunter in an expensive vestige. Decorative bones armored his left shoulder and arm guard. The man twitched at the sound of their approach and aimed an auto-rifle at the Hunter. The Hunter aimed back.
"Don't shoot!" The Ghost whispered to his Guardian. The Hunter clicked the safety off and put his finger through the trigger guard. Dear Light no, please for just a second listen to me!
The veteran Guardian, clearly Shaw, realized who the man approaching him was, and put down his weapon.
"Oh thank the Light," Shaw said, "I didn't think we had other Guardians on patrol here."
He paused, disappointed. "Oh… you're fresh out of the grave, aren't you?"
Rude! The Ghost thought. "We heard your distress call. We're here to help."
The Hunter sighed and put his head in his hands in exasperation. The Ghost had a sneaking suspicion that his Guardian was no philanthropist.
The seasoned Guardian ignored his theatrics. "Ha! Brave. I like it. Tall order for your first day, though."
That's more like it! Inspirational but realistic. The Ghost got over his initial dislike of Shaw Han. The Hunter nodded in agreement, he wanted no part in the conflict. This was not his problem.
"Eh, doesn't help that I rushed the perimeter scans, and now…" Shaw Han sighed. "I need to locate my team before there's nothing left to find. Sit tight. I'll get you to the City soon enough."
The Ghost waited for his Guardian to speak up. Sure it was his first day, but the Hunter was definitely strong enough to help out!
….Utter silence.
The Hunter nodded again and sat down. He began playing with the grass.
What! No! This is not how our adventure is supposed to start out! The tiny machine decided to take the lead. "We've made it this far. Let us help!"
Shaw put his foot up on a dead Fallen, hands at his hips as if posing for a photographer, "I get it. Nobody likes to be sidelined—-"
"Guardians are stronger together, isn't that right?" The Ghost said. Shaw smirked, pleased.
"Huh, you sound like Commander Zavala. All right then. Load up! This is gonna get dicey, but do what I say and we'll get through it."
The Hunter threw a small tantrum at being signed up for this shit. He slammed his fist on the ground, threw the grass he was playing with to the side and pulled his head back and exhaled explosively.
Shaw stared at this display from a grown man, an immortal being of paracausal power.
The Ghost broke the awkward silence, "We won't let you down."
"Al - alight? Follow my signal." His voice did not exude confidence. "There's a weapon in that locker, probably an upgrade for you. Grab it and head to my location."
The Guardian walked to the locker at an unreasonably slow pace. His head down, each foot shuffled in deliberate protest. He opened the locker.
Well this is better! It was a rare Ballyhoo hand-cannon. Not the greatest gun, but it would do in a pinch! The Guardian tilted the gun in his hand, questioning the powder blue floral pattern printed on the handle and cylinder.
They passed through the building, though Shaw had ran ahead and left them behind for an unknown reason. Well it's clear he is an irresponsible Guardian, he failed the perimeter check, got his team in a thorny situation and left a new Guardian behind!
Shaw called over the radio. "I'll scan for signals from my jumpship. I need you to be my eyes on the ground."
The Hunter came to a large clearing. Dilapidated scaffolding rose into the distance and an ancient, unused rocket pierced the sky. Old, old earth tech. Why is old Earth tech here, if humanity lived for hundreds of years in a golden age? Wasn't Soviet Russia disbanded before even then? Why is this tech still lying around…? The Ghost thought. Questions that could never be answered.
"Something's causing interference, my scanner's shot. We might be doing this the old fashioned way," said Shaw from a safe distance away in his Jumpship. "Analyzing… I've got a source for the interference. Let's check it out."
They hoofed it through small valleys and over a slowly moving creek, running towards an objective marker the Ghost had placed for the Hunter. It was a Fallen antenna. That's what was blocking the signal.
Shaw yelled. "Get the Fallen off that thing!" The Ghost wondered how Shaw could see them from low orbit. A shiver ran through his carapace as he could not think of any possible answers.
"Get me closer to that antenna." The Ghost knew he could fix it, tech was his specialty!
The Ghost had, at this point, spaced out during the slaughter. He needed to focus on things he could do to help, without focusing on the carnage before him. The Guardian was killing and killing and killing. At this point, he might as well be operating on auto-pilot. No 'additionals' could hope to challenge him.
"Stolen City tech has been spliced in here. That's scrambling your scans." Classic Fallen, those thieves can't come up with good tech or weaponry on their own. He began scanning the antenna, sending mild electric pulses here and there and soldering the wires back to working order.
"Fallen can't resist tinkering with old scrap." Shaw said. How does he know? The Ghost scanned his Hunter for any hidden cameras that the veteran may have slipped on the new Guardian. He found nothing.
"They're certainly skilled at it." The robot admitted reluctantly. "This will take a minute to fix." The drone of Fallen Skiffs blared overhead. "Hold them off while I work on it."
The Guardian stood under a landing Skiff, threw his grenade upwards and blew all of the tethered Dregs to bits. The second Skiff was more problematic, it took him a frustrating number of bullets to finish off the swarm of Shanks that poured from it's hangar. After a few embarrassing missed shots, he finally landed the bullets he needed to. No Fallen or Fallen machines remained.
"Signal restored." The Ghost said, pleased he could contribute literally anything. At least he was better than Shaw.
"Damn, fireteam signals are missing, and last known locations are nowhere near each other." Shaw responded, but his voice soon dropped. "They wouldn't split up unless things got real bad. I'll track Cas, you find Maeve. Sending coordinates now." The Ghost became frustrated at the human anchor that was Shaw Han, dragging his new Guardian down into a sea of his incompetence.
A new marker appeared on the Hunter's HUD. It was on the far side of the river, over a broken bridge. Few Fallen pestered them on the way, and those who did became corpses.
The journey was silent.
Unbearably silent! The Ghost thought. Well, my Guardian still doesn't know who he is, where he is, or even who he's fighting! I should get him up to date as soon as possible!
"Myths say the Fallen once lived in the Traveler's grace."
The Ghost had not realized that the Guardian had not listened to his opening spiel, and not only did not know what the Traveler was, but frankly did not even know who the Ghost was.
"But something happened. The Traveler left them, and that brought ruin to their civilization. They've come all this way chasing what they lost, hoping to get it back. Or… take it from us."
The Ghost spoke in fear. It was true that the Fallen were not a powerhouse, but they had threatened the Last City more than once. It was not inconceivable that they could do enough damage for one of the greater powers to finally snuff out the sparks of remaining humanity. If it weren't for the Guardian… the Ghost did not want to think about it.
The marker lay behind a purple energy field, which blocked off the entrance to another facility. "Looks like the Fallen want to keep us out."
"Or keep something in. There's worse than Fallen Dregs in old Russia." Shaw foreshadowed.
The Hunter tilted his head, concerned. The Ghost paid him no mind, he was good, good enough to handle whatever might be thrown at him. Given his Guardian's stubborn nature, it might even be a good thing for him to learn through trial by fire.
"Let's check out the control unit."
The Guardian touched the unit, and the Ghost flew from his fingers to inspect it. "This is locked down with adaptive encryption. Well need access keys to bypass it. The Fallen salvagers might have some."
The Guardian got the gist. Kill the Fallen, collect the mcguffin. But he had a better idea. He stuck the Stubborn Oak up to the control unit's keypad.
"No! You troglodyte that's not how lock systems work!" He pulled the trigger and ruined the device.
"Now we'll be locked out forever!"
The Guardian walked forwards, the Ghost kept nagging but the blue barrier dropped. "But.. but the encryption… that's not how it works…" This was the Ghost's only job, and now it was robbed from him. Just like the many dreams he'd built for the past millennia.
The Guardian had left the Ghost behind, it zoomed forwards to catch up.
Oh, oh no. The Ghost sensed the Darkness inside the building… This might be too much, but I have to trust in my Guardian. If only Shaw were here to help!
"Shaw, you were right about this barrier. The Fallen were keeping the Hive at bay!"
"Then Maeve is in more trouble than I thought. You need to hurry!" Shaw's voice was panicked, he had failed to properly secure the perimeter. Whatever happened to Maeve was on his clumsy hands.
The Guardian crept up a set of ruined steel stairs, the passageway grew ever darker as they drew closer to the Hive. Then he stopped.
"Didn't you hear Shaw? We have to hurry!" The Ghost said emphatically.
The Guardian stared slack-jawed at the walls. They were covered with barnacles. Hive worms. He was struck with childlike wonder and stroked the walls tenderly. A worm wriggled out of its coral shell. He scratched it where one might assume a worm's chin would be. It bit him with it's tiny maw, then recoiled back inside.
The Ghost had no idea what possessed the Guardian to touch the walls. Hive worms made his steel shell crawl! He was… an odd duck to say the least. But his obsessions would need to be put on hold.
"We need to go! This is a powerful surge of Arc energy. Whatever's causing it, even Transmats won't get through right now."
The Guardian begrudgingly left the worms to their business.
The Ghost was frightened. This much Darkness, this much Arc energy. The Hive were an existential threat, even to the Light. They were as close to direct agents of Darkness that humanity had to fight. And they were known for draining Ghosts dry. He shuddered.
"Hive contact!"
Horrendous, mottled and lurching. The Hive Thralls descended upon the Guardian.
"Guardian?"
But the Hunter did not move. He stood there, shivering.
The Ghost ran biometrics on his Guardian. He must be terrified, the Hive were not like the Cabal and Fallen. They may be more comprehensible than the Vex, but even so they fell right between eldritch abominations and rotting corpses on the scale of horror. Many Guardians chose specifically to deal with the other factions so as not to see the Hive in person.
Biometrics scanning… his pulse is up, pupils are dilated. No doubt about it, the Guardian must be stressed.
The Hive kept coming, they were inching closer to the Guardian.
Skin conductance is up, but his neurology is… what? The Ghost rechecked the numbers. Desperately. A neurological cascade in the parietal lobe, dopaminergic systems are firing through the…. nucleus accumbens? That can't be right. And what's this? A surge of oxytocin?!
The pleasure centers of his brain were firing, his eyes were dilated, his heart rate was up, and oxytocin was being released in enormous, abnormal amounts.
The Guardian was exhibiting signs of love.
He opened his arms up wide to accept the Hive Thralls. They smashed into him, throwing their limbs into his face and scratching against his skin. "Guardian? Guardian! You need to move!"
As he was being flayed by the sharp nails of the Hive, the Guardian grasped a hold of one Thrall. It was writhing in his arms, squealing blindly and thrashing about like a prematurely born infant. Something is really, really wrong with him. The Ghost wondered why he was being punished by this union.
The Ghost watched in horror as his Guardian stroked the Hive monster's head. It sank its teeth into his neck, but the Guardian did not flinch. No, he squeezed the Thrall into a tighter embrace.
The Thralls covered him in a mound of violent flesh. The Guardian took the pain, and did nothing.
Until he was just a smattering of gore on the floor.
This was his first death. Not induced by getting in over his head, freezing up, or by a powerful foe. No. He died by his own tragic inability to hurt what he loved. Which was apparently the Hive.
Hours. It took them hours of slogging through the Hive, dying. Dying again and again and again and again—-
The Ghost's mind was properly shattered. His Guardian would not slay the Hive. He wouldn't even push them back. He made his way piecemeal between deaths through the door.
He was mauled by Thralls, crushed repeatedly under the foot of an Ogre. But eventually, somehow, they made it through the horde. The Hive had exhausted themselves on the killing, and lay in a puddle sleeping, calorically drained and pleased with their slaughter.
At this point the Ghost was so relieved to have left the Hive behind that he didn't even comment on the absurdity of the past few hours. "Maeve's signal was just ahead." He had a sneaking suspicion they were too late.
By this time Maeve was long dead. They had spent too much time 'playing' with the Hive. She was dead dead. The Ghost scanned her residual signal, only a pile of Darkness and ashes. "No…"
Her incompetence as a Guardian was punished brutally by the power of a named Hive Wizard. It loomed overhead, the ornate robes which danced in the breeze mirrored the hearts that danced in the Hunter's eyes.
Navota, spawn of Eir.
"Guardian, I can't revive you if you die here!"
The Ghost warned him, he needed to fight. Or he'd end up like Maeve. The Hunter ran forwards with his arms wide in an attempt to hug the Wizard.
Navota felt something she had never felt before. The man before her ran arms extended, tongue lolling out, squealing in pleasure. She felt fear.
Navota fled before the Guardian's love. His princess disappeared into the night in a poof of smoke. The Hunter fell to his knees and raised his hands to the sky, clutching feebly at the wisps of fading Darkness.
"There may be Light in her Ghost." The small robot said without much hope.
The Guardian stepped forwards. *Crunch* He bent his knee to look at the bottom of his shoe. Bits of Maeve's Ghost were stuck on the muddy boots.
"Shaw, I'm sorry. We were too late…"
"It's been hours!" Shaw belted out over the radio.
The Guardian hopped one legged over to a nearby stick. He grimaced in disgust then used it to flick pieces of Ghost off the sole.
"But I can't blame you." Shaw said, his melodrama knew no bounds. "I was too. Cas, I… I couldn't get to him in time."
"There was a Hive Wizard," the Ghost said, "a powerful one. We... tried."
"That explains why it took so long, I'm sorry I snapped at you." Shaw was penitent.
The Ghost paused, unable to correct him.
"This isn't on you. You did what you could." Shaw sighed.
"We have the... remains of her Ghost —- Stop that!" He yelled at his Guardian, who was busy flicking the Ghost's corpse into a corner so others wouldn't step on it and ruin their shoes. He was just being a good citizen!
"What was that?" Shaw asked.
"Nothing! Nothing at all!"
"You should just… just head back to camp before that Wizard comes back."
That's exactly what the Hunter did. He skedaddled through waves of Hive and Fallen, paying them no heed. He had exhausted his brain's reserves of oxytocin, physically unable to produce more. Due to his neurological… abnormalities, the amount of hormone released was roughly equivalent to being covered in puppies for an entire year.
Shaw was standing forlorn in camp. The Guardian approached him and handed him a doggy bag filled with Ghost bits.
"Even the light has limits. Sometimes, you don't come back. That Hive you saw was a powerful Wizard named Navota. Didn't expect to run into something that strong. I wasn't prepared. Now it's too late. Maeve and Cas knew the risks. Best way to honor them is to finish the job."
Shaw waited for the Guardian to say anything in agreement. After an awkward silence, Shaw continued. Just assuming, for some unknown reason, that the Guardian who had expressed displeasure with helping him at every opportunity would be invested in avenging the honor of his failure of a team.
He continued. "There's a golden age relic, a superconductor, in a sealed chamber nearby. Vanguard says we can make a weapon out of it."
The Guardian sat down and once again diddled with the dirt.
"Problem is, the superconductor is overflowing with Arc energy. Can't even get near the place, much less break the lock." The Guardian's piles of sand were starting to take the shape of small castles.
"We need to find a solution, and something tells me our Fallen neighbors know a thing or two about the infrastructure here."
At this point the Guardian was burning ants with small spurts of solar energy. He began guiding the ants into miniature formations.
"These were my fireteam's assignments. They're yours now. Go shake the tree; we'll see what falls out." The Guardian pumped his fist in excitement as the ants waged war on each other.
Shaw took this as enthusiasm towards his request. He handed the Guardian a Damiette-LR2 sniper rifle. The Guardian promptly used the barrel to divide up the tiny battlefield into trench lines.
"Thanks for the assist, Guardians are stronger together, right? After all this is over, you can use Maeve's jumpship to get to the Tower. She'd want you to have it since you're leading the charge against Navota." He gestured to a triangular ship parked near the camp. The Guardian's eyes perked up, he began walking towards the ship.
"It's a beauty isn't it," he took a closer look at the dogshit spacecraft, "Well, she took care of it at least. Go get that superconductor, and it's yours."
The Guardian blew open the hatch with Golden Gun. He sat at the controls and fidgeted around in the cockpit for a toolbox.
"What are you doing? I'll give you the keys after you get the conductor—- "
The Guardian pulled the hatch shut, unwound a spool of duct tape he found in the toolbox, and patchworked the hatch together. His Ghost doubted it would withstand the vacuum of space. It was a fair suspicion.
Shaw called impotently over the coms. "Wait, wait! I can't do this on my own, they died because of me! The perimeter, I… THE PERIMETER! Guardian the guilt is crushing me— "
The Guardian clicked off the speakers, and when he judged the duct-taping sufficient, he nodded and started the engines.
"Don't leave me! Everyone leaves me behind… they all, Cas… MAEVE."
The ship pulled into the sky. The Ghost said nothing, he was only pleased that he would no longer be subjected to watching the Guardian commit atrocity after atrocity. In the City, there would be no combat. Surely.
As the atmosphere thinned, the Guardian selected auto-pilot that would take him to the tower. They got into loose orbit, the air was too thin. The duct tape, wily a plan as it was, did not hold.
He died, and his Ghost was forced to respawn him over and over in the vacuum of the stratosphere as the ship completed its hour long trip to the tower. It was a cycle of gasping for breath, death, post-mortem priapism, and resurrection.
And thus their adventure began!