Chapter 1: Eyes Up, Guardian
-Earth, Old Russia Cosmodrome Outskirts-
On the snowy ground of the planet Earth, a Ghost with a shell that seemed to burn with flaming solar energy floated around scanning everything it could find, looking for a person from the noble dead that could become her guardian.
This search continued for several hours, even allowing her to scan some rusted old ships and cars and other such areas, before coming upon the mummified remains of an Awoken man.
"Is it possible?" The Ghost asked itself in a very kindly voice. It then opened its body as a wave of light flowed over the corpse. "There you are."
Life quickly returned to the body of the newly rezzed guardian, a set of newly made makeshift Titan armor forming around his body as he rose his hands to the sky in the direction of the dimly shining sun as the snow around him started melting and the ground started burning—a flaming hammer in the shape of an eagle's head materializing in his newly clenched fist as fire engulfed the new Titan's newly reformed body, burning away the wrappings covering him.
As he stood, it became abundantly clear just how tall and ripped he really was. He stood at an imposing eight feet tall and had a body that didn't look physically obtainable for most organic races, and the impossible twelve pack he sported under his armor was proof of that. He also stood at an imposing ten feet tall. His features were currently hidden behind his helmet as he looked at himself, flexing his arms and fingers to rid them of stiffness.
"Guardian? Guardian!" The Ghost said as the man tried to shake what little deadness was in his head, his eyes focusing on his new surroundings. "Eyes up, Guardian!" She said loudly, getting his attention. "It worked! You're alive! Oh you have no idea how long I've been looking for you." She continued.
"Who… What are you?" He asked in a voice that sounded like his throat was in pain from not being used in… Who knows how long.
"Oh, my name is Sentry. I'm a Ghost. Well, now I'm your Ghost. And you—." Sentry said as the man looked at his hands. "Well you've been dead for a really long time." She continued.
Feeling something hanging in his pocket, he grabbed it so he could get a good look at it. It was a black locket, and it had a symbol of a diamond figure with wings on the front. Flipping it over, he saw the name "Vulcan Sol" on the back, and figured that was his name. Opening it, he saw an inscription that read "Remember Mars."
To be quite perfectly honest, the man wasn't at all sure what that meant. But he made a mental note to try and figure it out on his own time. However, before he could really commit this to memory, a loud guttural roar suddenly sounded off in the distance. The noise startled Sentry and irritated Vulcan as the heat he seemed to be exuding flared up, making the Ghost note that he seemed to be growing in size as the sun moved along.
"It's not safe here, this Fallen territory. We need to move." The Ghost said before she disappeared. "Don't worry. I'm still here." She told him.
"Where to?" The Titan asked as he started jogging, wincing a bit as his muscles protested to being used after so long before the aches vanished.
"Head for the waypoint I set up for you. I'll patch up your muscles as we go." Sentry told him as she worked on repairing the disuse throughout his body. As they ran into the building, the Awoken Titan entered a large area of the Cosmodrome that was run down and shrouded in darkness, the only light being the light he was emitting as his solar power grew and grew as the minutes passed—in tandem with his constant size changes.
This also caused the metal around him to start melting as well, which surprised and unnerved Sentry to a degree.
"How are you melting the metal around us like this?" She asked as Vulcan kept walking.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I do feel like I'm going to need something to contain it later, though." He replied before his motion tracker lit up in red, indicating that some very hostile presences were close by as they entered a more open area.
"The Fallen thrive in the dark, we won't. What we need is more light." The Ghost said as she flew to some breaker boxes. "Some more of these hardened military systems, and a few centuries of entropy working against me…" She trailed off. After a bit, she managed to get the lights on… and exposed the aliens that were lurking in the shadows. Said creatures let out screeches as they retreated out of sight.
"Disgusting." Vulcan shuddered before bolting into a corridor, his boots melting the metal under his feet as he ran. As he was running, he came to a stop upon spotting an old auto rifle leaning against a crate. He didn't hesitate to grab it and make sure it was loaded.
"I hope you know how to use that thing." Sentry said nervously as they proceeded further into the complex. Right as they came on the end of the hall, two dual armed Fallen known as Dregs dropped down to the ground from the ceiling. This prompted Vulcan to start blasting one with bullets and then grabbing the second by the face and melting through its mask—causing it to burst into flames.
The alien screeched in agony as it fell to the ground, clawing at its face. Vulcan just walked on forward, leaving it to burn to death via facial incineration. After fighting through what looked like a meeting room, Vulcan exited the wall to a new area outside it. It was truly a ruin of a great civilization with an old colony ship acting as a rusted spire. As he looked around, the sky suddenly darkened as a light formed in the distance before a ship came screaming out and knocked down another colony ship off in the distance.
"Fallen Ships, this close to the surface?!" Sentry gasped in shock. "Move!" She yelled as her Guardian started moving, melting and burning everything around him and causing the Fallen that tried to attack him to back away.
As he ran into a building on the far end of the area, he soon came across some more Fallen scavenging a ship that was held in the air by cables. Seeing that he had a way of getting out of here and it was being threatened, Vulcan didn't hesitate to shoot the Vandals around it before chucking a solar grenade at a cluster of Dregs and blowing them up before bashing the Captain with his shoulder and knocking him down.
The Titan then raised his foot—which was now as large as the Captain's since they were basically the same size now—and stomped on the alien's chest, burning a hole through it as his boot started melting things on contact due to the unbelievable amount of heat he was emitting.
"I'll have a look at it." Sentry said as she appeared before doing a scan of the ship. "Hm… The Warp Drive is missing." She noted with an audible frown.
"Will it fly?" Vulcan asked. Sentry gave the ship a once over again before turning back to him.
"I can make it work." She replied before vanishing into the ship. A few moments later, the ship's systems started powering up as the engines roared to life before the ship freed itself of the cables holding it. "It's not going to break orbit, but it should be enough to get us to the City. Now, about that transmat—." She continued.
As Vulcan watched the sight, he heard another roar, this one louder than the rest. This made him turn around and widen his eyes as a massive Fallen came out of a pipe in the wall.
"Bringing you in!" The ghost said before she brought him into the ship and allowed them to fly away. "Don't worry, we'll deal with them later, but for now—let's get you home." She added as they flew away, oblivious to the fact that a cloaked fighter was watching them from a cliff in the distance.
(On the flight)
Vulcan let out a sigh as he removed his helmet, revealing that he had sky blue skin, smoothly angled facial features and navy blue hair that was swept back with a warrior's ponytail in the back, his eyes were a golden color that glowed and had some golden war markings around his eyes.
"We should be coming up on the Last City soon." Sentry told him as the man pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it, seeing that it had stopped working on the day and time of the Collapse. "Don't worry, we can get it fixed when we get there. I'm sure Banshee will be able to help you fix it." She assured him as he started swapping his pauldrons out for stronger ones he found in a loot cache and repositioning the shotgun he found.
"I hope so." He sighed before they went into some storm clouds. After a bit of turbulent flying, they emerged and were greeted by a large city surrounded by walls, which had about eight towers in total standing above them. The most noticeable thing was the gargantuan white sphere floating above it, like a protector of sorts.
"Welcome to the last city, the one place the Traveler can still protect." Sentry told him. "It took centuries to build, now, we're counting every day it stands." She added as Vulcan transmatted to the ground in front of the Tower. "And this Tower is where the Guardians live." She continued.
"And now it's where I live." He mused as he looked around, seeing the various Guardians going about their day. "Where do I go first?" He asked his Ghost.
"Commander Zavala, over in the Vanguard Hall. He's in charge of all Titans." Sentry replied. As Vulcan did so, he seemed to turn quite a few heads as he walked by, mainly because now that it was eleven o'clock, he was currently over nine and a half feet tall and there were several humans and Awoken who almost got sunburn from being within too close a proximity to the hulking mass of Titan muscle.
As he approached the Vanguard table, a map the Hunter Vanguard, Cayde-6, was looking over suddenly erupted into flames. This got a rather comical yelp from him as he scrambled away from it.
"Oh, what the hell?!" He complained. He then looked over at the source of the sudden heatwave and had to cover his face as the Exo thought he was looking directly at the sun. "Hey Titan! Mind turning your internal heater down? You're burning my maps!" He called.
"Hmph. You say that like it's my problem." Vulcan shot back. Turning away from the man, he then walked over to another Awoken man dressed in what looked to be red and silver armor with a Byzantine double Phoenix on the chest plate. He was bald and had white markings on his face and seemed older than the newly risen Titan.
"So you made it to the City. Welcome, Guardian." The Commander said, his voice conveying the experience he had in his life.
"I was told to come meet you first before anything else. Is there anything I should know?" Vulcan asked.
"Just that you will need to obtain yourself better gear and do your best to improve your ship. We will need you out there as often as possible to help protect our city." Zavala told him, covering his eyes slightly with his hand. "And perhaps gaining some armor that can…contain your exuberant power?" He suggested.
"Yeah, I've been thinking about getting some blueprints for that made." Sentry spoke up. "I'll let you know when I come up with something." She added. With that, Vulcan took and equipped the better chest piece that Zavala gave him and then went to the gunsmith next: Banshee-44.
Banshee was a blue and yellow Exo with multiple antennas all over his head and yellow eyes. He was a kindly, straightforward and frank soul who regrettably had horrible lapses in memory and slight short term memory loss. It honestly made Vulcan pity the poor man.
"Excuse me." The large Titan spoke up, getting the Exo's attention as he looked up at him.
"Huh. Fresh light, right?" He asked, getting a nod in return. "Hang on. I've got some starting weapons in reserve for new lights. Pick whichever one interests you." He told him as he laid an auto rifle, scout rifle and hand cannon in front of the towering Titan in front of him.
The blue-skinned and haired man looked at the weapons in front of him and settled on the scout rifle, dismantling his old one and giving the parts to Banshee. However before he left, the man noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
It was a gray hammer that had an eagle's head on the pointed end, and had leather wrappings on the handle. The blunt end also looked to have grooves in it, though the reasons for this were unclear.
"Would I be able to take that hammer?" The man questioned the gunsmith.
"You want it? Take it. Nobody else shows any interest in it anyway." Banshee shrugged. The Titan then took the weapon in his hand, and almost immediately all of the power he'd been exuding started flowing right into it. This caused his glow and heat to slowly die down, until it eventually receded entirely.
Seconds later, a notification appeared that read: Grenade, Melee, Super active. However, he still seemed to be growing taller with every passing minute though. Sentry looked at the hammer and blinked.
"Huh. All we needed was that hammer." She said more to herself, though Vulcan still looked a bit surprised by what the hammer just did.
"I must admit, I didn't expect that to happen." He confessed before putting the hammer on his belt. "Anyway, who's next?" He asked as he walked away from the gunsmith after giving him his pocket watch to get it fixed.
"The shipwright Amanda Holliday, I had our ship go to her so she could take a look at it." His Ghost told him.
"I bet she's having a field day patching it up." Vulcan mused as he headed toward the hanger bay.
"Oh you don't know the half of it…" Sentry muttered in agreement.
(Later)
Stepping onto the tower hangar, Vulcan quickly made his way to the work spot of the shipwright. Amanda Holliday was a Caucasian woman in her mid to late thirties with blonde hair, a beautiful C-cup rack and a figure to better fill it out. She was clothed in an orange shirt, gray overalls, boots, brown work gloves and had a red bandana around her neck. Her face was also slightly covered in grease.
"Damn… Fallen did a number on that thing…" She sighed, having finished working on Vulcan's ship for the day. As she looked up, she spotted the Titan in question walking her way. "Oh, hey. Sentry told me about what the Fallen did to your ship before you brought it here. It's gonna take a bit for me to patch it up." He told him.
"How long will it take?" Vulcan questioned.
"At the rate repairs are goin', it should be ready by tomorrow. Can't do anything about the Warp Drive, though." She replied with a sigh. "You're gonna have to find it and take it back, provided that it's still in one piece when you find it." She added.
"Well isn't that just grand." Sentry sighed as she looked at her guardian. "Well, nothing we can do now. Let's see how Banshee's doing with your watch and head to our quarters, it's getting late anyway." She offered.
"Fair enough." The living heat emitter shrugged as he left the hanger.
(Later)
After picking up his watch from Banshee, who had done quite a remarkable job in fixing it and getting it caught up with the present, Vulcan was now sitting in his quarters. It was pretty simple, having a kitchen, dining room and living room with a bathroom off to the side.
"Well, this is home for me now." He said to himself as he took off his armor. As he redressed himself in a pair of sweatpants and a normal white t-shirt, he sat down on the couch in the middle of his room and continued to look at the object which he had on his person when he was dead.
It was engraved with star chart patterns along the curvature and borders, surrounding the CB symbol that was on the front of it, embossed and raised to give it texture.
"I recognize that logo." His Ghost stated. "It's the symbol of Clovis Bray, the company that ran the Cosmodrome during the Golden Age." She continued.
"They did?" Vulcan asked with a blink. "Hm. Looks like I have a bit of reading to do." He mused.
"That can wait for some other time. Right now, you need to get some shut eye." The burning Ghost told him.
"Fine, fine." The man sighed as he set the pocket clock on the coffee table and went to his bed and laid down, finally deciding to go to sleep as he returned to normal size with the rise of the moon.
(Elsewhere)
-Clovis Bray Exo Science, Europa-
In the outer half of the Sol System, on Jupiter's moon Europa, there was a facility buried in ice. A lone Ghost flew through the halls of this facility, which was Clovis Bray Exoscience.
The Ghost looked to be a single blue orb which was coiled up in a silver serpent as a shell, which constantly slithered around him. As it went deeper, it found an Exo half buried in the ice and scanned it.
"Could it be?" It said in a kind male voice as the scan came back positive. "Found you." He said before opening his shell and sending out a revive pulse. Not a moment later, the Exo shot up, gasping for breath on instinct.
"What the hell?! Where's…" The Exo shouted in a male voice, trailing off as he looked around and saw the damage. "What happened…?" He wondered.
"Well, you kinda died." The Ghost said, getting his attention. This caused the Exo to instinctively grab his Hunter knife and point it at the odd drone.
"What the hell're you?" He questioned. The robotic man had a jet black metallic body underneath a set of rookie Hunter armor, and his face looked similar to Ultron in a way. His audio sensors were in the form of a pair of flat antennas colored blue, had blue optics, a #7 on his forehead as a decal, and had a blue voicelight that lit up as he spoke.
"Whoa, hey! Chill! My name's Snake Eyes, and I'm the one that revived you!" The Ghost exclaimed, not expecting to be at knife point. "I'm a Ghost, well, actually I'm your Ghost now." He continued, before turning his attention to a hand cannon on the ground next to his Guardian. "I think that's yours." He added.
The Exo turned his attention to the hand cannon near him and perked up a bit as he grabbed it. Aiming at a wall, he pulled the trigger and was pleased when a bullet was fired. "Oh yeah, even after probably centuries of me being dead, my piece still sings." He said, obviously pleased.
"You remember your old life?" Snake Eyes asked with a blink.
"Hm… Only small pieces of it. This thing had a significant presence back then, so I've got a lot of memories of it." The male Exo replied after thinking for a moment as he looked his gun over. It was black in color, had a blue grip and the number 7 on both sides of the barrel.
"Oh, right. I forgot that Exos can have memory flashes if given the right triggers." The Ghost nodded, before a deep rumbling suddenly shook the room and caused ice sickles to drop from the ceiling. "What in the name of…?" The drone said as the rumbling subsided.
"We should probably get moving. I don't think it's safe to stay here." The Exo said as he got to his feet and brushed the ice and snow off himself. He stood at a solid six feet tall. As they started running towards the back of the building, they soon heard the deep growling and chittering of the Fallen coming behind them and then were just barely able to avoid the sight of the aliens of the House of Winter before slipping into another area.
This soon led them to what looked like a hangar of some sort. The Exo quickly took a look around before his optics landed on a ship that he recognized. It was a brown ship that had two triangular thrusters on the side, a rather strange looking body and what he was pretty sure was a makeshift tail rudder. This ship was the Eon Trespass, and overall, it looked like it was in good condition, enough to get him off the moon. The Exo didn't hesitate and dashed over to it.
"Snake, can you fly this thing?" He asked as the Ghost scanned the ship. After a moment, the drone turned back to him.
"Yep. It's in good enough shape to get us to Earth." He said before they heard the Fallen roaring from the way they came. "Pulling you into the ship!" He exclaimed as the two transmatted aboard the ship. Snake Eyes then hacked the hanger door controls and opened them, and much to their relief, there was no ice blocking the way. They blasted out of the hanger right as the Fallen entered and roared as they spotted the fleeing ship.
"Whew. Glad to be out of there." He said as he took his helmet off. "By the way, name's Alex-7." He added.
"Well Alex, hope you're ready to go to a new home, cuz we're setting a course for the Last Safe City. The Hunter Vanguard is probably gonna want to meet you as soon as we get there." Snake nodded as they broke out of the atmosphere and entered orbit.
"Right…" Alex nodded before he noticed something around his neck. It was a key of some sort, which was in the shape of the CB of Clovis Bray. 'I wonder where this came from?' He thought to himself.
Meanwhile on the ground, a female Exo watched them as they flew away, her hand clenching on her chest tightly… and in her hand—was a locket, with a key hole that matched Alex's key.
'Alex… You're actually back.' She thought, containing the joy of her old friend returning… along with the fear of him possibly not remembering her.
But she decided to push that thought out of her mind for the time being, she had work to do—and events to put in motion.
Dragon Emperor0: And done, finally, I'm able to repost my Destiny story after discontinuing it to rewrite it over… eight years ago. Damn, have I been procrastinating that much with other stories?
ThermalsniperN7: You're not the only one procrastinating about stories. I still can't get back into writing Hurricane Reaper. Speaking of which, my OC, Alex-7, his piece, the Lucky No. 7, and his Ghost, Snake Eyes, will be here as the Lancer to Vulcan and Sentry.
Dragon Emperor0: And the primary ships in this story will be Alex x Elsie Bray (Exo Stranger), Amanda Holiday and Ada-1. As well as Vulcan x Ana Bray and possibly either Eris Morn, or Petra Venj. Or possibly all of the above.
ThermalsniperN7: I'm a little curious about how their ladies will react to their futures with their respective men… Eh. They'll probably be ecstatic, unless I'm proven wrong. Anyway, see you next time!