First off I want to say that this took longer to write than I had anticipated. I wanted this to come out two days ago but I was too busy with other things. I want to get back to a two chapters per week schedule. I will try to put out another chapter on friday.
Chapter 4
The hunter did not wake the next day, or the day after that, nor the next twelve days after that. On the thirteenth day she woke.
Marcus got the notification from North that she had finally woken up from her coma. It was morning and he had been eating breakfast at his favorite cafe in the city, The Little Light. He quickly finished his meal of egg on toast and hot tea and left a pile of glimmer on the table on his way out. The main mode of transportation in this part of the city was hovercar, but it was not the fastest. That was by sparrow, since Marcus' ship was in the hangar and would take a while to get it prepped for travel. North materialized the sparrow and Marcus threw his leg over and hit the accelerator. He made sure to stay on the roads that the hovercars used for two reasons: to avoid any pedestrians and because it was the most direct route to the Tower. Even so, it was a good twenty minutes before Marcus arrived at the base of the Tower.
The large doorway was open wide during the day to allow for high volumes of people entering and leaving the building. Marcus dismounted his sparrow and walked quickly to the elevators along the left wall. While most of the elevators were more traditional and had the capability to stop at each floor, a few were specially designed to go only between the ground floor and the roof and were restricted to Guardians. Marcus chose the closest Guardian only elevator and pressed the button. Even being an express elevator with only one possible stop it still took about five minutes to reach the roof.
The elevator doors opened to the a room adjacent to the Hall of Guardians and Marcus decided it would be a good idea to notify Cayde-6 of his new hunter's awakening, if he was not aware already. The hunter Vanguard was nowhere to be seen in the Hall so Marcus assumed that he had already gone to the hospital. Marcus returned to the elevator room and descended to the hospital just a few floors down. Somebody must have notified the front desk that he would be arriving because he was immediately escorted to a single patient room. The room number was 117 and Marcus couldn't help but think that the number was significant in some way, he just couldn't figure out why. Maybe it was an old memory stirring or just a gut feeling. He knocked on the door, trying to figure out what it was that the number signified. Whatever it was was forgotten when he entered the room.
Cayde-6 was indeed there already and sitting in a chair near the bed. He had been talking when Marcus knocked. Sitting in the bed was a young woman with deep auburn hair and bright green eyes. Her mouth opened and closed like she was trying to speak but couldn't find the words to say. Luckily for her, Cayde-6 spoke up.
"I'm surprised it took you this long to get here." the exo hunter said from his seat. "Though I am afraid she remembers little from before she passed out." his sigh sounded like the whine of an electric motor.
"Um. . . Hi." she said, summing up the courage to speak. "I'm Allison Ward, my friends call me Allie. Well I guess they used to, before I . . . died and was revived here." She was obviously uncomfortable thinking about her death.
"And no, before you ask she is not related in any way to Jaren Ward." Cayde-6 interrupted. "She says she was born at the very beginning of the Golden Age."
"Yeah, my grandfather was one of the astronauts that originally went to Mars and discovered the Traveler." Allison said. "Jacob Hardy. He became a celebrity when he got back apparently. This was all before I was born though so I only know what he told me about it. He said that the Mars mission was the most important moment in human history and the end of a age of human self-sufficiency."
Allison's Ghost chimed in and said "What a way to describe the beginning of the Golden Age." Her Ghost had a strangely distorted voice.
"I agree with the Ghost, strange but accurate." Cayde-6 said. "It seems he was more right than he knew. Look around you, everything you see is because of the Traveler. Where would humanity be without it? No one knows. Would the Darkness have wiped the Earth of all life or twisted humans into its pawns? Would exos and awoken have ever existed? Would the Darkness have even arrived if the Traveler hadn't? All questions for the warlocks, I say. Us hunters should stick to shooting things in the head, much easier." Cayde-6 put his feet up on the side of the bed and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head.
"What exactly is an exo and an awoken?" Allison asked, "They weren't around when I . . . died." She shuddered at mentioning her death.
"You're looking at them." Cayde-6 said. "I'm an exo, to put it simply, a robotic body with a soul similar to that of a human, except not bound to a bag of meat. An awoken is. . . well maybe you should ask one." he indicated Marcus who had just sat down in the other chair.
"Hello Allison, I'm Marcus Vol." Marcus began with introducing himself. "Awoken live out in the Reef mostly, though some have come back to Earth after the Collapse. We used to be humans but we were changed by the Darkness. Now we are something between Light and Dark. At least that is what our leading historians think, and what we are taught as children. Now that I am a Guardian I don't know think the Reef will accept me back."
"Were you recently revived like me?" Allison said, curious. "How much do you remember from before?" Marcus thought about it for a moment.
"The only things I don't remember are whatever happened just before I died. Maybe a day or two. I was revived only four days later so that could be a factor. Who knows how long you were dead for and that may affect how much you remember." He said. "I wonder if anyone has done research on this."
"You're lucky to remember as much as you do." Cayde-6 said to Allison. "I had no memory whatsoever when I was raised. Only a name scratched into my forearm."
"You're lucky you even had that." Cayde-6's Ghost said as it appeared. "The rest of your limbs were torn off and thrown more than a mile away in all directions. I had to fabricate new ones for you. You never did thank me for that." The Ghost dissolved into light and disappeared with a beep.
"Well, I should probably get back to work." Cayde-6 said as he stood. "I've got other hunters to train. Speaking of training, Allison, I will be too busy to visit you for the next few days so you should come see me when you are recovered. I will help you learn to control your new abilities as a hunter."
"Yes sir." Allison said. "Dr. Gray says I should be able to leave within the week."
"Good." Cayde-6 nodded. "But don't rush it. The last thing you want is to aggravate your wounds. See you in training." He exited the room, leaving Allison and Marcus alone, of which Marcus was painfully aware.
"You're a warlock, right?" Allison asked, preventing an awkward silence before it could start. "What can warlocks do that hunters can't?" Marcus began explaining the three classes of Guardian and the defining attributes of each. A hunter's agility, a titan's toughness, a warlock's recovery. He told her about the three known elemental types: arc, void, and solar and which types correlate with each class. Allison would ask questions and Marcus would answer them to the best of his ability.
"I'm sorry." Marcus said after a while. "I need to meet with Ikora Rey, the warlock Vanguard, for training in five minutes. It was nice to meet you Allison. I guess I'll see you later?" He stood and went to the door.
"Just call me Allie," She replied, smiling. "Can I call you Marc?"
"Sure." Marcus smiled back. "Bye Allie." He opened the door.
"See ya Marc." Allie said as he left the room, closing the door behind him. Marcus walked quickly to the more permanent suite that he was given after his first meeting with the Vanguard. He put on his armor and went to find Ikora for training.
Allison lay back and closed her eyes, too exhausted to keep them open. She had learned a lot about the world she had been brought back to from talking with Marcus. Strange robot people, people with glowing eyes, all things that hadn't existed when she had been alive the first time. It felt surreal, like a dream. Maybe it was the anesthetic, she thought. It made her head feel light and heavy at the same time. The world she was in now was drastically different from what she remembered. She wanted to do something. To move. To get out of the hospital bed and run. She had always been able to clear her head with a good run.
She sighed and a foggy memory rose to the surface. Predawn glow to the east. Snow underfoot. A bow in hand, arrow nocked. Tracking the deer all day. Then it vanished, back down to the murky depths of memory and try as she might, it would not come back. She decided that it would not be worth it to get frustrated. If she was going to remember then it would come to her whether she wanted it to or not. Her side began to ache then and she called a nurse who allowed her some painkillers. Allison took them and drifted off to sleep.
She dreamed of a spark of white light amidst a vast black ocean. The spark wavered but did not go out. From that spark came two other, smaller sparks. One blue and one orange. The blue was brighter and felt closer than the orange. She reached out to the sparks and took them into her hands. She cupped them before her, blue in the right and orange in the left. A third spark split from the white and floated towards her. The third she caught between the first two and they hovered there in her hands. She felt the power in the sparks. As she closed her hands on them the dream ended and she slept peacefully until morning.
A week later Allison was released from the hospital. Marcus had visited her every day that week and continued to explain concepts that she was confused about, which wasn't as much as he would have thought. It seemed that society had changed little in the few hundred years since Allison had died. Neither of them were sure if this was good or bad. Marcus shook himself from his reverie and stood straighter as the warlock Vanguard addressed him.
"Today is the day, young Guardian." Ikora said. "You have learned the basics from me, but now you must master your abilities on your own." She gestured to the holographic display above the table. "Your ship needs a warp drive if you are to leave the Earth's atmosphere. Right now we do not have the resources to build you one. Especially since your ship is non-standard, however, our scouts have reported that a warp drive may be located in the same complex where you found your ship." Ikora continued. "Unfortunately they have been unable to enter the complex to confirm it's exact location. We need you to go in and find that warp drive. This will also serve as a test, of sorts. You will be assigned a fireteam for this mission as well." At the mention of a fireteam the other two Vanguard entered the room, each with a Guardian in tow.
A titan marched behind Zavala while a hunter walked casually behind Cayde-6. Marcus looked to the titan first. He was surprised to find that it was Kat-3. He was even more surprised to see Allie behind Cayde-6. Before he could speak Commander Zavala began issuing orders.
"As of now you three are Fireteam Chimera." He said. "You have all just been briefed on your first mission together and leave in half an hour. Good luck, Guardians. Dismissed."
Finally, the first mission. It took a while to get here but there were critical things to set up beforehand. Like the Fireteam itself. Everybody hold on to your butts because this thing is just getting started. Thank you again for reading. Please favorite and leave a review, it helps a lot.