Chapter 1
The sun rose painfully slowly on the horizon, the weather beautifully perfect for a day he knew was the one. Ghost blipped along at a nervous pace, having been separated and left alone to search. Some hours before, Funst had set off to find her own risen, silent as always. He usually ended up carrying conversation for the both of them, her endless vow of nonverbalism forcing him to fill the gaps that would normally be filled with another's input.
The sun was also, unfortunately, very good at casting large shadows for a fragile and vulnerable being like himself. The Fallen prowled this area like vultures, waiting for even the slightest thing out of line to pounce on. Nearby, the massive walls of the Russian Cosmodrome loomed. Somewhere, either within them or behind them, Funst was looking for her own Guardian. Hopefully they found theirs together, because they'd both been looking for oh so very long.
She silently drifted from spot to spot, each withered corpse or newly slain body presenting yet another failure. She flexed and splayed her small wings, the smooth metallic edges fluttering with distaste as she finished scanning another unworthy candidate. Too eager, this one. She'd long spoken with Ophiucus, or rather, Ophiucus had spoken to her about how it was that ghosts could tell the personality of their guardian. A poorly understood science at best was all she'd learned about it from the much wiser ghost. She'd spent a majority of the night before searching, again finding little.
The further she got into the Cosmodrome, the more and more she became convinced that her destined one was not here. Bodies became more sparse as Fallen picked them apart for any meat or raw materials. Shreds of clothing became her means of scanning for her chosen.
Wind was sparse, thankfully, so she didn't have to fight any breezes. It reminded her of Ghost, and how he'd always carry their mood together. Often she wished she was better at talking just so he didn't have to do all of it for her. She just…didn't ever know what to say or how to say it. Hopefully her guardian would know. That way Ghost wouldn't ever have to feel alone in talking again. Unless he got a talkative guardian.
Hopefully her guardian wasn't as silent as herself. That would be simply the worst.
Pushing that morbid thought aside, she continued to search quietly and as unobtrusively as possible. The sunlight was only growing, which made it easier to hide her scanning beams, but even a single Fallen vandal would spell the end of both her and whatever good her better half would be able to do. So she continued to hover close to the ground as sparse clouds passed overhead.
She thought about all the places and times she and Ghost had visited. Vex gates were almost second nature to her at this point thanks to how much time they spent together trawling through endless timelines to find their destined. Most ghosts found it off-putting how obsessive they'd been about it at times, their firm belief that maybe they'd find them amongst the endless corridors of simulated time.
But both she and Ghost had believed firmly, the entire time, that they would find their Guardians together. Their guardians would be friends as close as they, bonded at an insurmountable level with enough power between them to overcome any obstacle. At least, that was the dream.
Ghost himself had apparently found many candidates worthy of The Gift, but every time would nitpick the slightest issues so as to ensure that he and Funst would find their risen together. She found it charming, and quite touching, but at some point he'd have to accept that her partner had likely decayed to dust and rot long ago, forever depriving her of her purpose. Once she'd gotten so desperate she scanned a Fallen corpse, only to find a frightening level of compatibility there. She'd never done it again since.
And so she floated, investigating everything she could. Not a single spare inch of ground was left unscanned. Anything that could lead her to her risen. As such, her progress was agonizingly slow. The day wore on, morning turning to noon, and soon noon to afternoon. The sun was almost past the wall when she received a transmission from Ghost.
"It's him! I've found him!" Was the ecstatic message. Funst felt a surge of joy, pure elation filling her for a brief few moments as her greatest and oldest friend finally found the one who had no flaws for him to nitpick, no slight necessities in his forever-friend. But very quickly the jealousy and snarling anger set in. Of course he'd managed to find his risen here. Of course she wouldn't find hers. And she'd be relegated to forever wandering alone as the world changed around her. She sent a message of pure emotion to him, doing her best to convey her happiness for him.
"Oh…Funst I'm sorry." He said, any and all joy suddenly disappearing as he realized what it meant for her. "I…I don't know what to say." She replied with a pulse of alleviation, throwing pictures of a jumpship she'd found during her scans to him so he knew where his escape route was. "Thank you." Were his final words before he began tending to his new best friend. Funst sagged midair as she stared up into the massive engines of the dead colony ship. She'd scanned every pod to find nothing. The closest she'd ever felt was a person who'd been built rather large, but he'd been too angry. Too quick to judge.
So she continued to look.
It was only a few more minutes before she decided to call it there, the Cosmodrome practically empty of any life she could possibly resurrect for the good of humanity. She turned her single, deep red eye towards the sky, pleading silently.
'Please. If there is anything out there listening to me, please show me the one. Traveler, or anything else. Please.'
Kra-boom!
An explosion unlike anything she'd ever heard shook the Cosmodrome, simultaneously reverberating yet absorbing all echoes in the area, a vacuum of endless noise. Similar to the sound of a nova bomb exploding in a room full of sound shells, she startled and looked towards where it'd occurred. Smoke trailed into the sky in toxic black plumes, and every instinct she had told her to avoid the site. And yet….
She couldn't help feel drawn to it. As carefully as always, she kept low to the ground and hovered swiftly between broken and ruined vehicles, the edge of the crater caused by the massive detonation looming as she approached. The smoke had cleared somewhat, now a thin line instead of massive clouds of death.
She swept silently over the ridge to see a smaller, more pronounced crater belching the fumes into the sky. Like a second, less powerful explosive had been detonated after the first. She scanned the smoke to see what it was, heavy metal gases and strong perchlorates mostly. How, she didn't know, but they were also joined by a hefty amount of…promethium? There was more in the smoke than there likely was on the rest of Earth. There was another element present, but as far as she knew it wasn't anywhere on the table. Heavier than any of them, and preliminary analysis indicated it was unimaginably stronger than anything else. She filed away the atomic structure for later.
Because what she scanned at the center of the crater, in all of his glory, was her guardian. The smoke continued to clear, revealing his fallen majesty.
A perfectly preserved body lay on the ground, his arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed in an eternal peace. Each hand held a weapon, one a massive and blood-red sword, the other a spear the length of his own body with a teardrop-shaped head. His face was calm, in a serene acceptance of whatever had befallen him in the end. He'd clearly been laid away for some time. His body was covered in ornamental robes despite the surrounding devastation. The robes themselves were crafted from extremely fine cloth woven with that same element from before to create frighteningly hard clothing. Beautiful, intricate patterns and designs swirled across their surfaces, painting a life full of battle and honor.
His entire body rippled with power, ten feet tall and muscles still bulging with strength despite his state of death. She carbon-dated his body, again filing away the strange information of him somehow being over ten thousand years old. A sharp, chiseled face with kind brows set an imposing but soft and wise demeanor. He was framed by a long head of smooth, perfectly kept blonde hair that blazed with the orange glory of the setting sun. And then, there was the strangest and yet most beautiful aspect of him.
A pair of jet black wings that devoured the light around them, seemingly giving off their own otherworldly grace as the setting sun bounced across their fractalline surface. Every individual vane sparkled in the afternoon sun, absorbing and somehow emitting the same light as the brilliant life-giving star of the system. If she hadn't known any better, she'd have said she'd lain eyes on a god.
She continued to buzz around him, her wings spazzing with excitement. It was him! She'd found her guardian! She wouldn't have to leave Ghost! They were right! She'd finally found the one! Cutting her joy short, though, was the shrill cry of a Fallen approach. She had little time, and would need to refashion his robes to something more suitable. She decompiled his robes and got to work refashioning them, a thin but resilient battle-armor quickly woven across his still-dead body. Hopefully he'd take as well to combat as his robes had said he did.
His eyes fluttered open slowly, deep and calming orange light painting across the sky. The last he remembered he…he did not remember. Only waking to this glorious sunset filled his mind. He struggled to find something, anything to take hold of, but was found lacking. He uncrossed his arms, sitting up delicately from the hard and unforgiving earth beneath him.
As he did, a strange and shiny orb floated in front of him. It reflected the sun's rays miraculously, its deep sheen of metallic navy blue framing a delicate red eye. It spun midair, and the blue shell flexed outwards to reveal a dull silver core. He felt an influx of elation and joy, somehow knowing it came from the orb.
"Hello." He said. His own voice surprised him, melodious and reverberating. "Who are you?" The orb was silent, but bobbed up and down. The feeling of overwhelming happiness only swelled, but was quickly mixed with gut-wrenching fear as he heard a loud, rather unpleasant shrieking noise. He turned to face it, wondering what could make such an awful racket as he woke from whatever sleep he'd just been taking.
At the edge of the dirt pit in which he was sat stood a thin, lanky fourarmed creature with a mess of tubes running from its face. A set of six sapphire-blue eyes glowed as they stared hatefully at him, malice flowing from the creature in waves. He stood slowly, flexing his wings delicately to test their strength. Plenty strong, it seemed, as they effortlessly moved any loose dirt beneath him.
"And who are you?" He asked the rather hideous thing. Each set of arms on either side of its body held a large blade crackling with lightning, daring him to make a move with how tense the creature stood. Looking down at himself, he examined the situation. In each hand he held what looked to be a mighty weapon, both shining much like the sun. A sword that glowed a deep carmine and a lance capped with cerulean crystal. It took him only a fraction of a second to decide what the best course of action was and act on it.
His body blurred into a line of color as he seemingly materialized behind the strange, angry creature and rent it in two with his mighty red blade. Deep blue guts filled the air after he ceased his motion, the sword coming to a rest at his side before the torso had even moved a full foot from its separated legs.
The little orb had remained at the center of the pit, but upon dispatching the creature he felt further joy from the small metallic thing. He turned and smiled at it, beckoning it towards himself.
"Tell me, small one." He began. "Who are you? And who am I?" Several seconds of silence reigned as the thing bobbed up and down again, spinning in circles and full of confusion.
"I'm a ghost." It replied in a deep, effeminate voice. "Your ghost. I revived you to protect humanity from all manner of threats."
"Like a Castellan?" He asked further. The ghost quirked to the side, the rotating shell emulating a raised eyebrow.
"A what?" He thought about it. What was a Castellan? He shook his head.
"It is the first word that came to me. Apologies."
"Don't worry about it. You're a guardian, and I'm Funst."
"A pleasure, Funst. Thank you for reviving me. I don't suppose you have my memories lying around somewhere, do you?" She shook horizontally midair, sadness filling him in response. He shrugged and smiled at her. "Worry not, Funst. I seem perfectly capable of protecting those about me without the need of my memories." Relief flooded from her as he allayed any fears of dissatisfaction. He would be hard pressed to find any annoyance with being given the generous gift of a second life.
"Funst, Funst, come in!" A higher, male voice suddenly filled his mind. He looked to the sky, attempting to find the source. To no avail. It seemed to surround him from every angle, coming from everywhere and nowhere. He felt Funst pour her emotions of gratitude and elation across the link to the strange disembodied voice. "I heard an explosion. What happened?"
"I believe I happened." He replied to the strange voice. There was a moment's silence, but it was soon filled with an indescribable joy.
"You found your guardian!" The voice said. "Wow! We were right! Okay, perfect. Come to the southern wall, my guardian is making their way towards that jumpship now."
He looked where Funst suddenly turned her gaze, and indeed there was a massive wall that stood vigil over the distance. The sun was halfway disguised behind it, so he set out. Urgency flooded from Funst, mental images of hordes of the same creature as before screaming across his mind's eye.
'You have committed the worst of sins, brother!'
He came to a stop, forced to freeze as he filled with a sudden, burning hatred. Everything about him was to be rent to ash and blood. Not a thing left standing as he smote His ruin upon the wall of the voidship and-
No. He slammed the memories away. Now was not the time to reminisce on sufferings past. He had to rendezvous with the object of Funst's urgency. He set out again, this time at a dead sprint. The wall came up quickly. So quickly, in fact, that it was only a matter of seconds before he was up against its looming face. The memories clawed at the edge of his mind, demanding their bleak performance be heard. He pushed them away.
"Distant friend," he said aloud, hoping that they were still listening. "I have arrived at the wall. Where are you?" He was given a moment's silence before his ears were filled with short staccato bursts of noise accented with small, metallic clinking sounds.
Gunfire.
How he knew this, he did not know, but he responded immediately. The faraway voice was likely in danger, and he needed to help. He looked at his wings, flexing them slightly. A hefty current of air was thrown to the ground, but he was not lifted up. He flapped them harder, and he felt some outside force pull him upwards. Not his wings, but something.
More gunfire accommodated the Risen's effort, so he threw caution to the barely-present wind. With his full might, he shunted his wings downward with all the force he could muster, instantly rocketing several dozen feet into the air. He looped around, searching for any openings to the other side. Finding a small opening, the Risen dived forward, pushing back his wings to force himself into the hole. Unfortunately, he overcompensated and ended up flying directly into the wall above the hole, several bones cracking loudly in the process. Panic filled him through Funst, but as he fell he stabbed the wall with the massive spear he'd woken with. His other arm dangled freely, the massive blade hanging dangerously.
He heaved himself into the hole, taking a moment to analyze his wounds. Breathing was slightly painful, and his head hurt. Several joints also ached from the impact, and he scolded himself for his overzealous behavior. It would not do for him to waste this second gift of life from Funst.
Speaking of whom, the little blue orb appeared in front of him, her small grey core buzzing with energy. Light spilled off of her body and over him, peace and healing flooding his mind and body when it did. Ribs knit back together, joints repaired themselves. The dark memories also faded slightly, but still tugged at him. He shook his head again, pushing himself to his feet with the spear. Joy flowed between him and Funst, both of them reciprocating the other's emotions.
"Distant friend." He said again. "Where are you?" Another few moments of silence met him, but the gunfire had vanished. Had they been slain?
"Oh, great!" Their voice replied. "I've got your locations, sit still and we'll come to you! I can't believe that Funst managed to find a talkative guardian." The voice was chirpy and upbeat despite the gunfire that'd apparently surrounded them not moments earlier.
So he waited. It wasn't long, only a matter of minutes before the stranger came thundering into the hole in the wall that he'd been taking refuge in, widening the passage a bit in the process .
The newcomer was broad-shouldered and built for power, the Risen immediately noted. A face cast from moving metal, a pair of glowing blue eyes surrounded by an expressive steel frame. High-set metal cheekbones and a thick grey plate of metal for a brow. There were empty holes where the cheeks would normally be, instead showing windows into a metallic tongue.
The stranger stood at nearly seven feet and was covered in poor-quality, tattered cloth that was riddled with still-sizzling holes. The holes revealed black and smooth steel that shone under the last vestiges of sunlight. He could hear small whirring sounds underneath the armored exterior, flexing fibers indicating massive synthetic muscles.
"Greetings." He said to the guest. They nodded silently to him, a small white orb similar to Funst appearing at their shoulder. This one, however, had a shell composed of long and flat white faces, a tessellated shape around the central sphere.
"Woah." The ghost replied in a trailing voice. "You're…wow you're big." It looked him up and down several times before seeming to whisper something to its guardian.
"Thank you." He replied with a gentle smile. He looked down at the ghost's guardian to see a tattered old rifle in their hands, scarring and rust evident all across its length. He looked to his own hands, both filled with magnificent weapons that blazed with golden light. He held out the tremendous spear to the smaller guardian, the weapon seeming to hum jovially. "Would you like a weapon?"
The mechanical risen stared at the spear which was several feet longer than it was tall. It looked down at the gun in its hands, which it promptly released. Instead of clattering to the ground, though, it simply vanished in a puff of light. The guardian then took the massive spear, testing its weight.
Bewildered, he looked to his own shoulder to find Funst hovering there.
"Can you do that?" He held up his massive blade. Funst nodded, and he let go of his sword to see it disappear as well. He opened his palm, and the sword re-appeared. "That's rather useful." He said to no one.
"Well, I think we should probably get going." The other ghost said. "I'm Ghost, by the way. I know it's a bit confusing, but that's my name." He nodded to Ghost, smiling again. It was a simple name, and one he would have little difficulty remembering. He turned to the other guardian, who shrugged.
"Bracken-4. That's about all I know, though. I just woke up."
"As did I. Perhaps we should ponder names another time when we are not surrounded by the enemy."
Bracken nodded, looking out of the hole in which they both stood.
"Ghost said there's a jumpship not too far from here. We should move." Bracken twirled the spear experimentally, the vorpal crystalline blade effortlessly slicing through the ground beneath him. He agreed with the metal man, nodding and gesturing out the hole.
"I can fly you down." He offered. "My wings can carry us both." Bracken shook his head and held up a hand.
"I can float myself. Thanks for the offer, though." He then unceremoniously stepped out of the hole, Ghost following him down.
He looked at Funst, raising an eyebrow. She floated to the edge of the hole in the wall, bobbing downwards to indicate they should follow. He looked out to see that Bracken had indeed landed without harm, a strange wispy fog disappearing around him. Sighing, the giant guardian hopped out of the hole and to the ground. Wind whistled in his ears for a moment before he flexed his wings again, coming to an instant stop only a few feet from the ground.
He touched down lightly next to Bracken, nodding kindly to the shorter but domineering machine-man.
"It seems you can indeed float." He said to Bracken. "Though how you do is is quite the mystery."
"Something that Ghost calls Light." The smaller man replied. Bracken held out the hand not wielding the colossal spear. It filled with a caustic absence that burned his eyes, causing him to flinch away as the memories filled his head. Death and blood filled his mind's eye, forcing him to close his eyes and focus such things away. Funst appeared in front of him, a river of concern flowing out of her. He held up his hand to her, shutting out the new world around him as he attempted to quell the desire to destroy.
It was several moments before he rejoined the real world, taking deep breaths to stabilize his cursed mind.
"Are you alright?" Bracken asked up to him. He looked back down, smiling again.
"Yes, quite. Simply a fragment of whatever I was before. No longer who I am." Ghost and Funst also looked up at him, angling themselves to appear questioning.
"Guardians don't normally remember their past." Ghost said. Funst nodded in agreement. Ghost scanned him, Funst's emotions swelling with worry. "Your Light. It's….that's odd."
Before he could ask what was odd, though, a terrible shrieking noise not unlike the creature he'd killed before filled the air. Only louder, and they're mere more of them. He listened carefully, counting individual footsteps and singling out their weight and speed. Most of them were smaller than the one from before, many of them barely making any sound as they padded across the packed dirt of wherever they were. A quick count and he turned to Bracken.
"Roughly fifty of them, most bearing light weapons based on the sound of their footsteps." He looked down at the incarnadine damascus that decorated his sword. A small button embedded in the golden pommel glistened, begging him to press it. He looked at the spear in Bracken's hands, a strange emotional call from it dearly asking him to wield it once more.
"You want the spear back?" Bracken asked. "I'll be honest and say I prefer my Khvostov. Works pretty well with my Light. This thing feels unwieldy, even for me." The Risen —man, he really needed a name— gladly took the proffered stave, the head of the weapon pulsing as it entered his grasp. Another memory flashed, blood and death painting walls black as night. Traitors, all of them, his mind roared. He again shook his head away from the memory. He needed to be present.
Funst was again filled with worry. He threw back warm assurance, promising the memories would not get the best of him during the fight.
Quickly the enemy creatures were upon them, and immediately both he and Bracken sprang to action. Despite his own speed, Bracken kept pace as they both annihilated the distance between themselves and their assailants. Bracken disappeared into a puff of violet light, reappearing above the fallen with a fistful of that same energy from before. Several of them disappeared in a flash of nothingness.
He was upon them only a moment slower, his sword and spear carving vicious arcs through the air. Seven of the enemy vanished into bursts of dark blue, the force behind his spear popping them like balloons. Upon his blade he pressed the small button and the weapon screeched to life. Ultramarine lightning blazed across its surface, igniting bloodred flames from the blade and incinerating everything it touched. No form or finesse was present as he swung it in a wide sweep, decapitating and disintegrating all that were unfortunate enough to be near his first strike.
He spun about, annihilating yet more unfortunate enemies. Any he missed were annihilated by Bracken, a guardian who quickly proved himself to be a master of maneuvering.
In admiration of the smaller guardian's prowess, he attempted to call upon the same power. He felt it swell to his call, crossing his body in a-
'Join me, brother.'
Telesto speared through two of Horus' traitor sons, Encarmine decapitating six more as he spun in a flourish. Several more charged him, but were cast away like the betrayer sons they were by a flex of his wings. He was surrounded by his brother's once-noble sons, regret filling his soul with each passing execution. Necessary though it was, Horus had not deserved such a fate. Nor his sons.
He continued to dispatch the Astartes he had one seen as nephews, the sons of his most beloved brother. Until only one remained. Taller, mightier, and afraid. He stood before the Librarian, Encarmine held high.
"Die, traitor." Were his only words as the terror-stricken Librarian suddenly moved. Faster than any Astartes he had ever seen. The chaosinfected Luna Wolf flowed with almost mechanical grace, forcing him to swing his blade about with as much finesse as he could muster.
The Librarian did not strike with his mind, for clearly he knew better than to challenge the Angel himself to such a duel. He was not, however, going to humor such a strategy. His mind reached out towards the Librarian and suffocated his soul, but was stonewalled by a mind of incalculable strength.
Momentarily stunned by the strength of the resulting counterattack, the Librarian used the momentary distraction to seize him by the face and-
"Wake up!" A foreign, powerful, but surprisingly gentle force suddenly flooded his body. Immediately he became aware of his surroundings, Bracken's hands searing with burning orange energy on both sides of his skull. "Horus, wake up!"
He froze. The sword—Encarmine—was poised above Bracken, waiting for him to bring it down upon his first friend. The spear—Telesto—was buried in the side of his mechanical companion, the body leaking a strange black-and-white fluid. Immediately both weapons were dropped and he seized his friend, holding him aloft.
"What have I…done?" He whimpered. He looked around him to see himself at the center of an utter massacre, for no other word befit such carnage. Most of the enemy had been smeared into long blue pastes along the dirt, only the occasional limb proof that they'd even been there in the first place. Bracken gave him a stilted smile, clearly in unbearable pain.
"You-" Bracken coughed up some of the fluid onto his face. "You went a little nuts, there. Glad I could get you back." Before he could say anything else, his body went limp. His hands fell from their place, lifeless. Funst hovered next to him, Ghost flitting around the newly-made corpse animatedly.
"What was that?!" Ghost cried. "You…you attacked my guardian, Horus!" The behemoth of a man placed his slain comrade on the ground gingerly, stepping away.
"I…I am sorry." He pulled the spear from Bracken's side, watching the supernatural fluid drip from its blade. Ghost rolled midair and hovered over Bracken's body, pulsing with Light. A wave of energy exploded from the small orb, wounds on Bracken's lifeless corpse suddenly stitching together. Horus heard the mechanical life spring back into his friend, parts whirring and synthetic muscles twitching as he sat up and gasped.
"Wow!" Bracken remarked as he looked up at Horus. "You pack one helluva punch." Astonished, but not stunned, the giant lent a hand to his smaller companion and hoisted him to his feet. Bracken took the offered assistance with surprising willingness.
"I…why do you still trust me?" He asked meekly. It did not feel right, the emotion of vulnerability. He hated it. It tasted like a vile tar on his tongue, filling his mouth and stifling his speech. Bracken, however, shrugged.
"I dunno. Just feels right." He replied. His Khvostov, which had apparently fallen to the ground, was retrieved and placed in the strange place where their ghosts stored things. Horus released both of his weapons into the same mysterious space, flooding the bond between him and Funst with enough gratitude to make her own emotions flinch from the intensity.
He flinched physically away from her.
"Sorry." He said. Funst replied with comfort, pictures of peaceful glades and wind-loved plains filling his mind. He turned back to Bracken, who had finished dusting himself off. Ghost was nowhere to be found, and Funst decompiled herself as well.
"So, think we should go find that jumpship?" The smaller guardian asked. "Also, want to come up with a different name?" Horus sighed in thought, but nodded. Less than a day and he was already exhausted. "I don't imagine a name you yelled in a rage-stricken bloodlust is one you'd like to remember."
"Yes. On both accounts."
