The Steppes
Old Russia, The Cosmodrome
The Guardian was re-materialized, her feet crunching against the cold snow of Old Russia as her ship flew across the sky. It felt good to be back here, and also, it brought up a few memories for the Guardian.
Most of them not very positive, but she had some fond moments with her Ghost, like when she had found a safe spot with a good view to set up a camp for herself and her Ghost; She had even brought wine along with her that time. They both certainly had... unique moments of respite. Not that she was complaining about it, though.
Twirling Ace of Spades, the last gift from her mentor and a friend; Cayde-6, she began making her way to the abandoned buildings that lead to the Divide. She'd have to pass through Dock 13, a small place she had killed her first Archon.
The place where her journey first began, and the place where a new one was about to begin.
Symphony of a Young Rose
~A story of roses and blood~
Chapter 2: Familiar Nightmares
"Hah... huh... ugh, I feel... so tired." She croaked out as she propped herself up on a wall, she just felt so tired, and she wanted to go to sleep so badly. Ghost woke her up every time she tried to, though.
"Hold on tight, Guardian. We've got some rescue team on their way. It'll be okay once they arrive here." Ghost mumbled out, slowly scanning her Guardian and soon figuring out that her light was depleted, almost to the very bottom of the line. Considering that this was the first time for her Guardian to use the Light, though... It made sense.
"Severe Light depletion. It's going to be fine once we reach the tower and take a break. Do you mind if I turn off the lights again?" Ghost added. "For your safety, of course. We're less likely to be seen in the dark."
"...Okay..." The young lightborn let out, her posture slowly relaxing as her eyes slid close again. She took in a deep breath, then exhaled. Her muscles, tensed up from the life-or-death situation she was in mere minutes ago, slowly relaxed.
Looking at her Guardian in such state, Ghost felt miserable by just looking at her. She just hoped that the rescue would come any sooner, looking around in the dark nervously as she watched over the young Lightbearer who fell asleep soon enough.
"Come on, I don't want my Guardian to die here..."
Crunch... Crunch... Crunch...
"Signal's getting stronger, we're on the right trail." The Ghost mumbled out as the Guardian's footsteps rang throughout the empty buildings. Occasionally, sharp crunching noises rang out as she stepped on some glass shards. "You know... this is the first time we've done rescue missions on a newly resurrected Guardian. Don't get any funny ideas, I know you liked doing that on other Guardians."Her shoulders drooped when she heard the Ghost declared that there would be absolutely no pranks.
But her speed didn't falter in the slightest as she ran through the hallways, soon coming into a large yard with several buildings and oil tanks. The Fallen tanks that used to be here were nowhere to be seen, and neither were the dropships. How strange.
But that didn't matter, at least not yet.
She quickly travelled across the rest of the distance with a sparrow she summoned with a snap of her fingers, hopping off once she reached the maintenance tube's entrance.
It was shut off unlike usually... Were the Fallen running from something? They usually kept this door open for easier transports. Maybe she'd have to look at that later.
She'd just have to improvise. She looked at a smaller vent that was currently shut off with a tough-looking fence. "Don't tell me you're..." She just smugly looked back at the Ghost, a rocket launcher in her off-hand as she shrugged with the other.
The Ghost sighed. "Fine, blow it up!"
The rocket launcher blared to life as she took aim, her finger slowly wrapping around the trigger.
"Light it up, Guardian!"
KA-BOOOOOOM! A deafening explosion went off in the facility, waking up a certain young Lightbearer as she screamed like a child in distress.
"Aah! What the heck was that?!" She shouted out. The entire place shook from that explosion! Just what kind of a gun made an explosion that big?
The lights flickered back on, blinding her for a brief moment. She covered her eyes with her hands until her eyes adjusted to the bright light. The room hadn't changed much at all.
Her eyes narrowed, the young Lightbearer stood up and raised her shotgun, slowly looking around the room and making sure that nothing was here to kill her. Of course, she flinched when a vent cover was ripped off from the wall. She fixed her aim on the ventilation system, ready to fill whatever came out of the vent with lead.
There was somebody that came out of the vent. She couldn't see their face due to the helmet they were wearing, and a hooded cloak surrounded even the helmet in shadows. It was hard to tell who it was exactly.
"Woah, woah! Calm down, Guardian! Their signatures signal that they're friendly. It's our backup!" Her Ghost pushed her arms and weapon out of the way with her body, letting her slowly lower the weapon. Thank god... Any more fights and I wouldn't have lasted long. The young Lightbearer thought to herself.
The person who had entered through the vents dropped on the floor, raising both hands to show that they meant no harm. Their Ghost was visible floating next to them. So it was true... I'm not the only one! At least I won't be lonely. Not that I don't like being lonely, though. She thought to herself, her shoulders drooping as she sighed out in relief.
"The Cavalry's here! Let's get you two outside." Their Ghost spoke out in a male voice, quickly flying close and inspecting her face as if it was curious. "...Huh... Erm... Cool outfit. Though it's missing a helmet... I guess your Ghost didn't have enough spinmetal to get you some proper armor... We can help with that once we reach the city. What's your name?" She simply shrugged. She didn't have one. "Then, does your Ghost have a name?" She shook her head at that. Her Ghost didn't have any names, too.
"We don't really have anything to call a name. We're sorry." Her Ghost spoke as she floated next to her shoulder. The other Ghost seemed... somewhat happy, actually. "Two 'Guardian's and two 'Ghost's. Well, this promises to be fun, at least... Right, Guardian?" The room went silent for a brief moment, no answers coming out of the hooded Guardian aside from a gesture. They waved their hands back and forth in a 'so-so' gesture.
Huh, looks like they aren't much of a talker. I wonder if... The younger Lightborn thought to herself before the other Guardian snapped their fingers in realization, cutting their question off short.
"...Oh. Got any good ideas, Guardian?" The Guardian put a hand to their chin before they raised their index finger.
"Red." She spoke out in a female voice, pointing at her as she gave red a simple name. Red it was, then... Though she did like it. The color red was cool! And she could change her name anytime sooner.
"I like it!" The younger Guardian, now dubbed Red, exclaimed as she raised one hand and gave a 'thumbs-up'. She then giggled. "I think you should get a name too." Her Ghost groaned, then suggested: "Okay, then... got any good ideas? I surely won't like "White" as my name." The other Ghost seemed to be thoughtful, before they perked up and suggested something wonderful: "How does Rubrum sound?"
"I think it sounds wonderful, thank you for naming her like me!" Red quickly took the chance to speak, cheering as she looked at the Ghost, who was now dubbed Rubrum.
"Okay! Red and Rubrum it is. Sound okay, Guardian?" He quickly flew back to his Guardian who shrugged before they began leading the pair out of the building. "Let's go before any more of those Fallen come by." He added. "Red, you and your Ghost can use our ship, we'll carry you two back to the tower." The other Guardian's Ghost finished.
Red nodded before she and Rubrum followed the pair of the veteran Guardian and her Ghost. Both of the Guardians climbed into the vent, slowly but surely.
"God, it's so cramped up in here. I wanna get out..." Red mumbled to herself as she gawked at the amounts of webs inside the vent. How did the Guardian even crawl through here? It was disgusting! She just wished there weren't any alive spiders...
To see one crawling on her would make her yell louder than anything else she had seen before. Well, not that she had seen much, though. Whatever. Louder than anything in the world, then!
"We're almost outside. Just a little bit further, Red!" The other Ghost and Rubrum cheered her on, though she doubted crawling through a vent was something so hard that she had to be cheered on. She didn't care much at the moment.
To her relief, the dark vent ended soon enough, letting her taste some outside air as the pair of Guardians dropped into a large courtyard surrounded by large buildings and walls. Well, it did live up to its name, it was a cosmodrome indeed.
In fact, she could see several towers that scraped the blue sky, and a massive spaceship that seemed like it was ready to be launched any second now. But she already knew it wouldn't be.
"Guardian, no time to be gawking at a destroyed space shuttle. We've got contact!" Her head snapped away from the space shuttle owing to Rubrum's warning. her hands quickly snatched the revolver from her waist, which looked a lot cleaner than her shotgun, so she just wished it worked.
"Several Fallen dropships inbound. Get ready for a fight." The Ghost alerted to his Guardian, who whipped out an unique-looking revolver in response. Red's eyes locked onto her weapon, studying the beautiful spade symbol on the barrel and the grip with barely contained glee. She couldn't wait to see that thing in action!
Just when the pair of Guardians armed themselves, several dropships appeared over the courtyard, dropping several Fallen combatants and... wait, was that a six-legged tank? The entire playing field had changed now. She wasn't so sure if she could take that on...
Music: Professional Execution - José Pavil (Project Wingman Soundtrack)
BANG! BANG! The older Guardian opened fire first, easily knocking down two Fallen combatants with each shot before moving onto the bigger targets. The Guardian rushed forward, a knife drawn in her other hand as the handgun fired off several accurate shots.
Red watched the scene in awe before returning to reality, dodging a blue streak of light that almost blew her head off with a grunt. The snipers were hiding behind the tank... Either way, if she wanted to take care of them, she'd need to take care of the tank first. Speaking of which, the tank was aiming its main cannon at her.
She didn't know if it was pure instinct or herself gaining control over her abilities, but the cannon completely missed her as Red vanished into a burst of rose petals, only to reappear moments later, now a good distance away from where she once was.
Seizing the opportunity of confusion, she raised the shotgun and rammed the barrel into one of the the tank's legs, then fired a buckshot point blank into the tough armor plates. Again, again and again. The shotgun was almost overheating at this point.
Just as she could hear the armor plates groan and crack under constant trauma, a loud sound rang throughout the courtyard. "Watch out! It's charging an-" Rubrum's warning was cut off by the tank releasing a electric pulse that both shocked her and knocked her away. "-Electromagnetic Pulse." Red screamed, her arms twitching on its own with her back to the floor. She forcefully ripped the control of her own arm back, then rolled away. She didn't want to be an easy target.
Now without the shotgun in her arms, Red quickly dove behind a cover; A building as large as a garage, with some tough walls and doors enough to be used as a cover. She groaned in pain as her body recovered from the shock.
"Ugh, how's the Guardian doing...?" She slightly peeked out of the cover just to see the Guardian clear most of the Fallen group out in a beautiful dance of death and bullets. Well, aside from the fact that her body was also on fire. Is she fine?! Her body's set aflame! Her gun is, too! She watched the fight in absolute awe. It was fantastic!
The Guardian evaded a few energy bolts with a roll, then returned fire as she fanned the hammer three times, each shot landing on a Fallen combatant's head. the agile movement of the Guardian seemed so fluid that she could've called it a dance routine.
The two-armed Fallen enemy received a knife to the face when it had tried to sneak up behind her. Ooh, that wasn't too pretty...
"Guardian, I know she's good, really good. But we have to help her out!" Red returned to reality with Rubrum's warning. She hurriedly reached for the hand cannon from her waist, drawing it and firing at a Fallen combatant that was trying to attack the Guardian. It had received a bullet right into the face, killing it relatively quickly and painlessly. Or so she hoped.
She flinched as some blue streaks of light missed her head by a hair's breadth, leaving another cut on her face. Red covered her head with her arms, lowered her stance and ran as she grunted. The Guardian noticed that as three knives seemingly made from pure flames formed in her hand, which were flicked at the Fallen tank.
One of its legs blew up as the knives embedded to it exploded in a beautiful explosion that flung heated shrapnel everywhere.
Seizing the opportunity, Red dove behind the disabled tank before she returned fire at the snipers, forcing them to take cover before she realized the Guardian was rushing at the tank with a sword drawn.
The gleaming blade embedded itself into the tank's neck, which was exposed from the damage it took, and the Guardian twisted the blade before she pulled the blades outward before slamming it down again.
Red covered her face instinctively. BOOM! And she was glad that she did, because the tank exploded with a deafening "boom" ringing through her ears.
Music is now off.
The entire courtyard was now devoid of any resistance, all of the enemies either running off, or incapacitated and lying on the floor. Red gawked at the total destruction the Guardian had made alone dumbly. Just how strong is she?
Red was broken out of her trance when the Guardian waved at her, then pointed up. A split moment later, a beautiful silver ship flew across the courtyard before touching down in the middle.
It was pretty large, with an elegant design all over the body of the plane with some engravings of feathers. It looked really cool, and shiny. It was lovely, and Red gawked at the ship in awe when it had landed on the ground. "Come on in." The Ghost's call broke her out of her trance again, and she walked around the ship, looking for-
She was inside the ship. Huh? What just happened? Red thought to herself. Now that she was looking at it, the inside of the ship looked pretty cozy. Though she was left confused at the quick change of scenery. "Oh, right. You're still not used to transmat, are you?" Rubrum mumbled from her sides as the Guardian and Ghost was... wait, since when were they behind her? "Wait, transmat? What's that?" A question slipped out of Red's mouth.
"It's complicated, let's just say... it's similar to teleporting, yes. You know what teleporters are, right?" Red nodded in reponse to Rubrum's explanation. Well, teleporters? That is something. "Anyway, make yourselves at home. You two can use anything you'd like to." Ghost stated plainly, looking at Rubrum when she flew in close. "Hey! I saw your Guardian back there, I wanted to ask something... Er, Red! I guess you can take a nap now while I talk with Ghost." Red shrugged in response, letting the two Ghosts chatter with each other.
Red then looked around the interior of the ship. There was a comfortable looking bed in the corner, and a few cushioned chairs here and there to take a seat in. The Guardian was sitting in one of it, so she decided to sit next to her. "Hi! Uhm, I-I wanted you tell you... Thank you for saving me back there. I don't know where I would've ended up if you weren't there. So really, thanks." The Guardian stared back at her in silence before she gave a small pat on her shoulder. Oh, right. Not much of a talker. I guess I'll have to do the talking... If I can.
"Uhm, I also wanted to ask some more about things like... that fire thing, but I guess you won't answer me... Sorry, not that I'm saying that you would like to ignore me or something." Ugh, I messed up... I really messed that up. Red thought to herself as she buried her face in her hands. The Guardian didn't answer again.
"Um, okay... Sorry for the awkward thing and all... I think I'll go take a nap. Bye!" She quickly bolted off to the bed, away from the Guardian's presence. Instead of laying down on it, she just sat on the bed and leaned her back against the wall. Red sighed. I really messed that up, didn't I?
Her shoulders slacked, and strength slowly left her body as she closed her eyes. Maybe it's better to take a nap for now...
She slowly fell into the land of lost memories and thoughts.
Soft snoring and the quiet chatters of a pair of Ghosts were the only sounds filling the silent ship. The Guardian sighed, setting the ship to auto-pilot mode and looking outside through the window. There was nothing but the calm skies and clouds passing by, no storm, no rain. Nothing.
She reached for her helmet, fidgeting with the mechanisms on her neck for a bit before she released the locks, allowing her to take it off. She looked at the visor of the helmet.
A reflection of a person with silver eyes and black and red hair stared back at her with a frown. There were dark spots beneath her eyes, hinting that she had received too much stress nowadays, and needed a break.
And indeed she did. First, it was Cayde's death. Second, it was her memories of her old life. And now? Now, she had to see her own daughter resurrected as a Guardian.
The Guardian always had a name, though she never did tell anyone about it, or try to remember it. But, it was unforgettable. How could she forget? Nobody could forget such memories branded into the back of their mind.
Her name was Summer Rose.
When she had seen Ruby, back alive as a Guardian, the first emotion she felt was fear. How could she have forgotten about her own daughter?
The name she had quickly thought of didn't help, either. It just made her heart ache more.
The next emotion she felt was anger. Anger against fate, the Traveler, for giving her daughter such a cruel fate to live. Being a Guardian wasn't a blessing; It was nothing like being a hero.
It meant conjoining the eternal cycles of fighting, suffering, dying, and coming back to feel it all over again. With horrible memories to keep in the back of your head. It was enough to drive someone insane.
That's why Guardians always suffered a "Burnout" whenever their sanity would reach the brink of snapping. And she herself had experienced it many times. Over, and over and over again. It wasn't very pleasant. And once she got over the burnout, it was back to killing and dying again. A dance with death and fate.
And to see her daughter join the constant dance with death... it pained her.
She thought it would be better for Ruby if she didn't remember. Maybe then, she wouldn't get assaulted by the storm of nightmares formed by her memories every night like Summer. Maybe it would be better if she suffered alone. Summer wanted her daughter to not experience such horrifying things.
Summer Rose dropped her helmet, her wall against any and all social interactions, and buried her face within her hands. A sob escaped her mouth.
Why did it have to be you? The thought that passed her mind was a silent plea, a resentment to the cruel fates, and a fearful cry against the future.
How was she going to do this now?
However, Summer, being too deep in thought and sadness, didn't notice the Ghosts floating behind her, or a now-awake Ruby beneath the blankets, listening to the painful sobbings Summer let out.
Ruby neither did realize who Summer was or catch a glimpse of her face, but she was filled with sadness regardless of why.
The silence took ahold of the ship for a while, as the auto-pilot slowly found its path to the Last City of mankind.
"Hey, wake up. We're almost at the City, and you don't wanna miss the view." Red slowly blinked, raising her body and looking around as she rubbed an eye with her hand. Nothing had changed, just the clean interior of the ship and Rubrum staring into her silver eyes. "...Oh, right, the view from up here! Can I look at it?" Red quickly perked up from excitement and rushed towards the pilot seat, where the Guardian was seated, staring at her.
And the view was really good. Like, really, really good! There was an entire magnificent city below her, shining with beautiful artificial lights and lights shone on it from the rising sun. She gasped at the beautiful sight, moving closer to the window as her excited silver eyes scanned the city.
There were even huge towers and walls that surrounded the large city, guarding it from any outside threats that might threaten it. The walls had massive cannons and anti-air guns attached to it, suggesting that they would protect the city from nearly anything that attacked it.
But she soon noticed that there were still ruins and wounds of war that had not healed yet inside the city. Some buildings looked damaged. Nothing but remnants of what they once were remained standing.
Paired up with the notable damage on walls, it was obvious what had once happened to this city. A war.
But that wasn't the point here, so she shook her head and smiled. "It's so cool! Look at all those glowing signs and things! It kinda reminds me of..." Wait, what was she trying to say? It had to be something... Maybe it started with a V? Er, V... V... Va... Ugh, whatever. Red shrugged. "Nevermind, I forgot what I was trying to say."
"It happens when you're a newborn Guardian. We'll land soon, so be patient." The Ghost enlightened her, and Red giggled in response and nodded. She couldn't wait to see what's down there!
The Guardian, who was out of her notice, frowned beneath her helmet.
Oooh, big plot twist.
Anyway, The Guardian's identity is revealed! Her name is Summer Rose, one of the veteran Guardians of the Tower.
Now, before you get confused a little, allow me to do a little bit of explaining. If you don't want any, you can skip this section, as the next chapter is going to contain some backstories of Summer.
Summer didn't have her memories when she was first reborn as a Guardian. In fact, her memories only came back quite recently, right after Cayde's death. (Before you ask, this story takes in place right after Forsaken's ending.)
Similarly, Ruby doesn't have her memories either.
And why did Summer act this way? Well, knowing that she herself suffered from retrieving her memories, she doesn't want the same to happen to Ruby. We'll name this "Burnout" for the rest of the story.
As stated above, burnout is a horrible thing to experience, especially since you're brought to the brink of insanity, thanks to your old memories constantly threatening to pop out here and there, until you can't tell what is real and what is an illusion made from your memories.
Summer just doesn't want her daughter to go through such a terrible experience. And so, she decided to keep her face hidden... Not like she usually doesn't keep it hidden.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed reading this.