Chapter 1 - Herodotus
He awoke to darkness. His head pounded in his skull, and the rest of his body tingled with pins and needles. His eyelids felt glued shut, and his eyes sat like rough stones in their sockets. Then, he heard a voice. "Hello?" it asked. It echoed faintly, out of focus. He tried opening his eyes slowly, the dim light around him blinding. "Hello?" the voice came again, "Ghost to Risen!" As his eyes adjusted, the sounds around him came into greater focus. The voice was a woman's voice, chipper and friendly. Was Ghost her name? As the world finally came into focus, he shook his head, working stiff muscles in his neck. Then he finally noticed the strange thing floating in front of him. A single blue eye stared at him between four diamonds, four more rotating curiously behind them. It swooped through the air, and he heard the woman's voice laughing.
"Haha! Finally!" the voice came, and he realized that the voice belonged to the thing floating through the air, "You're alive! I found you! Finally!" He tried standing up shakily. He clenched his fists, the pins and needles fading slowly, and the thing stopped her celebration, saying, "Sorry, I'm just excited to finally meet you. I'm a Ghost. Or... I guess now I'm your Ghost." He faced the Ghost and gave her a curious look. "Now, I know this is going to sound crazy," she said, "but you've been dead for a very long time. You're gonna see a lot of things you don't understand, but don't worry! I'm here to answer any questions you may have!"
He slowly nodded his thanks to the strange construct hovering before him. After a few moments of staring, he peeled his eyes from the Ghost to scan his surroundings. Concrete pillars and bare walls yellowed with age surrounded him. Numberless rows of seats filled massive alcoves within the walls, and the few screens that weren't cracked or fallen off the walls displayed warning messages. Finally, he noticed the bones. Hundreds of skeletons sprawled about the entire area, occupying the seats, scattered upon the ground, half buried in sand or encased in dust. He spoke, finally, turning to his Ghost, "Where am I?"
"Old Phoenix!" came her response, chipper and seemingly oblivious to the macabre environment, "An ancient megacity on Earth's North American continent."
He silently tried to process everything she said. None of the terms were familiar to him, but somehow, his mind filled in the blanks. This only left him more confused. "Who am I?" he asked his Ghost, "and who are you?"
"Well," she began, "you're a lightbearer, one of the chosen few of the Traveler among Humanity and its splinter species blessed with the Light to guide and protect everyone! As for who I am, I'm your Ghost! Meant to guide, heal, and revive you whenever the need may arise."
"How do you do that when you're so small?" he asked politely.
She laughed, her iris flashing merrily, and then responded, "Why, through the Light!"
"What's the Light?" he asked, his mind not filling in the blank for the first time.
"Well-" she began before being interrupted by a distant screech. "That could be a problem," she said, her volume dropping a few degrees, "We should move."
"Why?"
"The Fallen. Alien pirates, scavengers, and, most importantly, murderers. Unless you want to be impaled or shot, we should get going and find a weapon."
She swooped towards him and disappeared in a strange, bright blue mist. "Don't worry, still here," came her voice, echoing in his head through a radio, "I'll mark where you need to go, so let's get moving!" Before he could ask what she meant, a heads-up display flared to life in his vision, a marker appearing at the bottom of his field of view, an arrow under it pointing behind him, and he began to follow it. He trod unsteadily for a few feet, his legs weak underneath him. As feeling began to blossom through them, he sped up to a jog before finally breaking into a run. He felt clunky as he moved, finally noticing the light armor that girdled him, colored in shades of grey and white, a knife in its sheath strapped to his chest.
Drawing the small blade, he gripped it tight and asked his Ghost, "Why are we running? I have a weapon already."
She laughed at the statement, "Sorry, but a knife as small as that isn't going to work except as a last resort- Stop!"
He quickly came to a stop, gripping the knife tighter. "Check your radar..." she muttered, her voice low, cautious, and, to his ear, tinted with excitement. He didn't know what she meant until a circle in his HUD pulsed, drawing his vision to it. It was segmented into several pieces, with an arrow in the middle, the outer edge of one of the pieces glowing with a dull, threatening red. "Go slowly towards it," she muttered again, "Stay against the wall. Be careful." He did exactly as she said, creeping along the wall towards the red spot on his radar.
As he crept closer, the red edge filled its segment, and he peeked around the wall. A strange, bipedal creature with two arms stood there, clad in orange and gold fabric over thin, grey armor, a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other; its back turned to him. "That's a Fallen…" his Ghost whispered, "Lucky for us, just a Dreg. Sneak up behind him with that knife." He did as she said, crouching low and taking slight steps toward the Dreg. A few feet away, he stepped on something hard. time seemed to slow down as the sound of the object snapping underfoot reverberated through the abandoned halls, and he glanced at his foot.
As his eyes fell downwards to see the bone he had stepped on, the Dreg turned to find the noise's source, spotting him. In a split-second decision, he threw the knife. The Dreg began to cry out, raising its pistol to take a shot until the knife flying through the air plunged to the handle into its face. With a screech and a hiss, strange white gas burst from the Dreg in a long stream as it collapsed, dead. "Wow, nice throw!" the Ghost complimented as he pulled his knife from the Dreg's skull, then took its gun from its limp claws. "Thanks..." he said, somewhat shaken as he stared at the alien corpse on the floor, thin, faint streams of white mist still curling from the wound he made.
"C'mon," she insisted, "We've gotta keep moving." It took a moment to shake himself from his trance, but he began to move again, a strange pit in his stomach. His footsteps echoed along the halls, crowded with rubble, dust, and bones, only interrupted by distant, chattering cries. They sounded eerily similar to the death rattle of the Dreg he had killed moments before. His mind's eye was still transfixed on the corpse of the Dreg until his thoughts were disturbed by his Ghost calling, "Eyes up!" He was torn back into reality as two more Dregs came around the corner, these very much alive. One raised its pistol in a battle cry, and the other fired several shots, bolts of blue-white energy cutting through the air toward him.
He instinctively fell into an agile dodge roll, jarring his shoulder as he avoided the fire from the Dreg. Lifting the pistol he had appropriated, the lightbearer quickly aimed. He unleashed several shots of his own into the Dreg, sending it tumbling backward as electricity discharged along its chest and shoulders. Now the other Dreg and the larger, four-armed Fallen had their weapons up, the Dreg with a pistol and the other with a rifle. With a few more rounds, the other Dreg fell before getting a shot off, but the taller Fallen's weapon spat its bolts at him. He tried to dodge again, falling into the same acrobatic roll when the electric bolts curved in midair, careening in an unavoidable course directly to him.
Pain flared up on his shoulder, and he quickly whipped around to return fire on the four-armed alien. As the shots from his pistol hit hard into its chest, it still stood, drawing twin blades in its lower sets of arms and charging him in a rage. Out of instinct, he pulled his knife out with his free hand and drove it into the alien's stomach before its blades could touch his armor. A rattling cry of pain directly next to his ear nearly deafened him before he put the pistol in his other hand against the bottom of the gutted alien's helmet, pulling the trigger and sending a bolt of energy straight through its head.
As soon as its corpse dropped to the ground, white gas hissing from the hole in its helmet, he gripped his wounded shoulder, the ache penetrating down to his stomach and up to his jaw. Miraculously, however, even as his hand clutched his shoulder, the pain slowly faded until it disappeared. He stared at his gloved palm in amazement, wondering if that was his doing, until his Ghost's voice echoed in his helmet, saying, "You're welcome."
He began to ask, "How did you-" before being interrupted by his Ghost.
"Look out!" she shouted, a moment too late.
Pain erupted throughout his whole body before he had time to react as two blades pierced through his chest and stomach. He was lifted into the air, falling further down until his back hit their hilts. He clutched weakly at the blades, and the world faded around him into a dull nothingness.
Almost like waking up from a dream, he found himself on his feet again, phantom pains in his chest and abdomen. He rubbed where the pain was the most defined, wondering if it really was just a dream, until he saw his murderer a few feet ahead, its blades still covered in blood and viscera. Shock locked his whole body until the Fallen swordsman, confused, looked around and turned to face him with an angry cry.
His shock turned to rage, and he found the alien pistol on his hip, gripping it tight. He didn't know how it got there, nor did he question it. He drew it and channeled his rage through it, shouting as he pulled the trigger. The weapon ignited in ethereal orange fire, and as the alien sidearm fired, a single blast of impossible heat erupted from its barrel, vaporizing his murderer in blazing orange light. Not even ash was left behind.
He stood in stunned silence for a few short moments, staring at the pistol in his hands. "How did I..." he asked under his breath.
"Like I've been saying," his Ghost's voice answered, "I'll explain everything once we're not being hunted by Fallen. Now let's get going again."
He did as she said and started following the markers she had set for him again. After a few moments of quiet running, he asked, "So, the shorter ones are Dregs, but what are the taller ones?"
"Vandals," his Ghost said, "And while you haven't met them yet, there are even bigger ones called Captains, as well as drones built of spare parts called Shanks and massive floating spheres called Servitors."
The lightbearer nodded, returning to silence as he continued his pace forward, alien shouts and chattering echoing down the sandy corridors around him.
Several minutes of uneventful walking slipped by, the distant chatter of the Fallen echoing down the halls, his footsteps the only answer. He was beginning to relax again until the outer ring of his HUD's radar pinged once. His heart started thundering in his ears, and he stopped, raising the weapon in his hands, tracking what he thought were the movements of the nearby threat. After a few moments of silence, he started to move again, only for one of the inner segments to light up, briefly revealing danger nearby before dimming again. He held his breath. He tried to steady his heartbeat as he strained his ears and listened. The sounds of distant skittering and chattering were deafening, the wind blowing through the ruins cacophonous. The radar revealed nothing, but a deep, primal instinct advised him otherwise. He took a slow step forward, his eyes flitting from place to place, his heart pounding.
Dim sunlight reflected off of dust that hung in the air, alien footprints marring the mounds of sand around him, half destroyed by the faint winds. Movement caught his eye, a soft flicker like a mirage. He whipped around, firing multiple shots at that spot, all of them pounding into the wall. His radar pinged again, and he turned and pulled the trigger once more. Once more, the energy bolts drove into a wall, sending a starburst of crackling blue-white energy across its surface. He reloaded the pistol quickly, and then something heavy and unseen slammed into him, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him to the ground.
The air shimmered before his eyes, parting to reveal a Vandal on top of him, two of its arms gripping his and holding him in place, the other two carrying blades raised high, about to strike. One came down at his head, and he barely managed to twist his head and avoid it. The other came down, and he avoided that one, too. Letting out what he assumed to be a cry of rage, the Vandal gripped his face with one of its arms and raised its swords once again to strike true.
Unfortunately for the Vandal, that action released the lighbearer's arm. Three bolts spat from the alien weapon in the human's freed hand. The first was into the Vandal's stomach, causing it to recoil in pain, dropping the blades to clutch its stomach. The second was into its chest, sending it stumbling backward off of him, letting go of its prey. The last shot dug into its head, sending white mist spiraling out into the air, and it fell backward heavily onto his legs with a shriek. He pushed the Vandal's corpse off of himself, stood shakily, and shot it a few more times, both for good measure and out of anger.
"Temper, temper," his Ghost said, a slight teasing edge to her voice, "We don't want to draw more of them over here. Come on, we're almost home free." He wanted to yell at her. He wanted to ask her what was wrong with her and how she could remain so cheerful in this place. He wanted to return to where he had woken up and stay there until he died again. Instead, he bit his tongue and pressed forward.
His mind wandered as he half marched and half jogged through the ruins. These... things that he had fought had no desire to spare him, and yet, why did it all weigh on him so heavily? A distant alien's roar jerked him from his thoughts, causing his whole body to tense up involuntarily. When he tried to go back to thinking, he found it impossible. His heart pounded, his mind racing, eyes flitting between the ground before him and his radar constantly. Even though no danger was nearby, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming. Each step felt like it was slower than the last. With each corner he turned, he involuntarily gripped the pistol in his hand tightly.
After many long minutes, they came to a large open area, its ceiling climbing high into the sky and a dilapidated staircase in front of them. "And there's the finish line!" his Ghost said, "Just need to link up to the Sparrow system first, then we can be out of here pronto."
The destination beacon showed up in his HUD, and he took the stairs up to it. The massive landing they came to was flanked by two long tubes, an ancient, rusted train stuck inside the leftmost one. Over the abandoned tracks, he saw a vast expanse of desert filled with rusted cars, cracked asphalt, and crumbling buildings and warehouses. In the distance, he could make out corroded skyscrapers extending to far-off mountains shrouded in the dust, sand, and ancient smog that hung in the air.
His Ghost rematerialized and floated off toward his left. His eyes followed her, and she floated up towards a raised platform littered with boxes, with an ancient console backed against a wall. "Hop up here!" she called down to him.
"That's too high," he replied, walking up to the platform's edge, "There's no way I could make it up."
She just laughed in response and said, "Well, you're one of the Traveler's chosen now. One of its most basic blessings is increased athleticism. Just try it!"
Skeptically, he made a half-hearted effort to jump up.
He leaped and went much higher than he thought, reaching halfway up the platform. "One try again," his Ghost encouraged, "With a little more oomph!" He tried again, jumping as high as he could. He almost managed to grip the platform's edge, but his fingers slipped before he could. He tried once more, to the same result. Before he tried a third time, he thought for a moment. His mind wandered back to the strange energy that obliterated the Vandal, the burst of vibrant, fiery energy that came to him. He wondered if he could harness that energy for purposes other than that destructive act. He slowly recalled how it felt, the energy channeling from his chest, up his arm, and into his hand. He closed his eyes and focused inward for a moment.
He tried to feel that energy inside of him, and after a few moments of meditation, he found it! It was bright and vibrant, waiting for him to mold its power however he may need to. He focused it into his leg and made a second jump, this time off of one foot. As he reached the apex of his leap, he pushed the energy inside him down into his opposite foot, then outward. He felt the energy discharge, and, for a brief moment, it felt as though he was standing on solid ground.
That moment was all he needed to make a second jump, clearing the platform's top with plenty of room to spare.
"See?" his Ghost said with evident pride, "I knew you could do it. Now, I'm gonna link us up to the Sparrow network. You just make sure no Fallen sneak up on us." Smiling under his helmet, he nodded, moving between what he now saw was a semicircle of crates around the console, each box about the height of his waist. Then he noticed the pair of skeletons huddled behind the boxes, both wearing tattered, old uniforms, all identifying marks worn away by time and sand. Resting on the floor beside them were rifles. They were aged and scratched, but the cracked holo sights seemed workable. He picked one up and pulled the bolt back. It still cycled cleanly, a relatively pristine bullet leaping from the chamber. He took the magazine out to inspect it, and it still slid out smoothly. He marveled at the sturdy craftsmanship of the weapon when, suddenly, the magazine in his hand disappeared.
He stared at his hand as the same blue-white mist his Ghost disappeared into floated off of it. The moment before he could question what happened, the magazine reappeared, materializing in an azure mesh. He turned to his Ghost, working away at an old console. Beams of energy and data manifested from her iris as the screen flickered to life.
"What just happened?" he asked, bewildered.
She paused momentarily, glancing over to him, and giggled as she returned to work.
"Transmat," she stated, "Converting matter to data and back again. I collected spare ammunition from both the Fallen and these long-dead humans here, and they were automatically converted into ammunition for that rifle when you reloaded. I thought you noticed when you reloaded that Fallen pistol earlier?" He shook his head in response, but her mention of the pistol reminded him that he had set the gun down somewhere.
He slipped the magazine into the rifle, cycled a new round into the chamber, and set the long weapon down, looking for the pistol. It was not where he placed it atop the barricade of crates. He looked on the floor beside the skeleton he took the rifle from, and it was not there either. He patted down his waist and even glanced back over the edge of the dias to see if he had dropped it down there. It was nowhere to be found.
His Ghost noticed this, pausing her work for a moment, and suddenly, the pistol materialized in his hand, not unlike the magazine had earlier. He glanced back at the rifle, only for it to disappear.
"You're... "transmatting" them?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yup," his Ghost replied, still working diligently at the console ahead of her, "It doesn't take much for me to do. I can transmat anything up to around the size of a Sparrow." He dropped the pistol, which disappeared, the rifle materializing in his hand a quarter second later.
"How many of these can you juggle?" he asked, pulling back the bolt slightly to see that the rifle was still loaded.
"Easily? Up to three," she answered, "With moderate effort, up to ten. Theoretically, I can juggle as many as our transmat storage has capacity. Some lightbearers don't even use guns and rely purely on abilities."
"Abilities?" he queried, "Like what I did to that Vandal? Or the double jump?".
"Oh, right," she replied, "haven't explained everything to you yet, but yes, like those. Abilities-" A loud war cry from a Fallen warrior at the top of the staircase cut her off, which was swiftly answered by a gunshot from her lightbearer's rifle. "I'll explain later," she continued, her voice echoing in his helmet through an unseen radio, "Just keep the Fallen off me while I get you a Sparrow."
"Not sure how a bird will help here!" he replied over the gunfire.
"Not a bird, a hoverbike," his Ghost replied evenly, "You'll see in a second."
Before his Ghost had finished speaking, he had slain two more Fallen. By the time he had emptied his first magazine, fifteen were dead. He rained armor-piercing hell upon the aliens, pieces of armor and cloth filling the air alongside the slowly growing haze of white mist. He kept on firing, but for each Dreg or Vandal he put down, more followed behind to take their place. Strange, boxy drones floated into the open room on twin thrusters, small turrets unloading potent energy rounds toward him. These were Shanks, he assumed. He prioritized the machines, which could float to get a better vantage point on him and his Ghost. Shanks careened into walls or spun to the ground atop their Fallen handlers with holes punched in their hulls. Raining down continuous fire on the flood of Fallen forces, two thoughts began to occupy his mind. The first was sorrow at the carnage beneath him, as necessary as it was to save not only his life but the life of the strange little automaton that brought him back to life. The second thought was about what had taken that same automaton so long. After a few minutes of a constant storm of lead and answering chords of blue-white energy, he tried to reload his magazine again, only for none to appear in his hand. Out of ammo, and the Fallen just kept coming.
He hunkered down behind the crates, praying they would hold against the onslaught long enough to let him get an idea. He thought about the Light powers he had been discovering. He remembered that strange, firey aura covering his pistol and fancied using it again before deciding against it, deducing that it was better suited for single targets. Glancing at the skeletons beside him, he noticed one with an old grenade in hand, the pin already pulled but undetonated. That was clearly a dud, but it gave him an idea.
He recalled what it felt like to conjure the power to make that flaming gun and called on it again. This time, however, instead of having a weapon to channel the energy into, he focused it in his palm, pooling it into a small orb for him to throw. He lobbed this energy grenade at the Fallen underneath him, drawing his pistol to gun down a few Shanks who tried to use the opportunity to take potshots at him.
The grenade dulled as it left his hand, taking an almost material form. It bounced once as it hit the ground and began to glow violently in midair. With a thundering boom, it detonated, killing many of the Fallen close to it and igniting those who weren't far enough away to avoid it entirely. He leaped down after it and drew his knife in the other hand, cutting and firing his way through the leftover Fallen forces as the remainder burned to death.
A wild slash took one Dreg, a gash in its armor leaking dark blood and pale gas. Driving the knife into a Vandal's stomach, he fired two rounds from his pistol into the Dreg immediately beside it, finishing his work with a single round through the stuck alien's mask. He took a deep, shuddering breath after sending a few bolts of energy through one last Vandal with the sidearm, the acrid scent of scorched flesh and burning cloth filling his helmet. He sheathed his blade and gripped a wounded shoulder, feeling the glancing blows and occasional fire he took starting to heal rapidly, solemnly surveying the petrifying scene he had created. As his flesh and armor patched themselves through Ashe's power, his pistol clattered to the floor from numb fingers. A scuttle behind him dragged him from his stupor, and he whipped around.
There was a single, massive Fallen behind him, a thin, tangled cloak draped over its massive shoulders, a spiked mask over its face, twin blades in its lower limbs making colossal, overhead slashes down towards his head, another weapon in its upper arms that he didn't get a chance to see. Instinctually, he fell into a deft roll, using the time he had bought to draw and reload his scavenged rifle.
"Is this a Captain?" he shouted to his Ghost, on the backfoot against the Captain's torrent of slashes and strikes against him.
"That it is!" she replied as he barely sidestepped a rapid stab and narrowly avoided a horizontal slice, "Careful for its Shrapnel Launcher."
"Its what?" he said before turning around to see the barrel of what looked to be a flaming shotgun in his face. With quick thinking, he swiftly drew and threw the knife at the Captain, then followed it with a barrage of fire from his rifle.
The impact knife sent the Captain staggering backward just a step or two, and combined with the effect of his quick flurry of rounds, and it was just enough to throw off the Captain's aim before his strange weapon outpoured molten metal just over his shoulder, rather than directly into his face. A field of energy appeared around the Captain as the knife and bullets hit him, looking vaguely like the rounds fired from the lightbearer's pistol. As the Captain recovered, the lightbearer stowed the rifle and found the alien pistol at his hip, transmatted diligently by his Ghost. He drew it and shot at the Captain, three blue-white bolts cutting towards it. At the last moment, it disappeared into a blue fog. It teleported, rematerializing a few feet away, its Shrapnel Launcher already shooting more bolts of liquid slag at him.
Sidestepping these shots, he tried again, two rounds from his pistol knifing for the Captain, only for him to once again miss at the last moment as the Captain blinked away. On the third attempt, he only fired one round before the Captain could even shoot and waited to see where it would teleport. As the Captain finished its blink, he unloaded his pistol's magazine into it. The shield had begun to fade but violently flared to life once more as the bolts of energy from the sidearm slammed against it. The Captain staggered backward under the fire, and as the fourth bolt hit its shield, it exploded in light blue energy, and the Captain was knocked off its feet. Out of ammo with the pistol, he tossed it to the side and changed to his rifle to finish the job, shooting the Captain thrice in its horned mask as it shouted at him in a language he could not even begin to decipher.
His Ghost finally finished her work as hoary mist leaked from the new openings in the fallen Fallen's mask. "Got it!" she said, "Had to get the entire Sparrow Network around here back online to uplink, but I got it." Her lightbearer nodded silently, and she transmatted the Sparrow.
"Definitely not fancy," she said, matter-of-factly, "But it beats walking." As he admired the sleek, simple hoverbike, they heard more Fallen chattering near them. "Alright, get on the Sparrow," she ordered, "You need a crash course in Sparrow piloting before the next wave of Fallen comes." He nodded his response, mounting the Sparrow as she flitted rapidly about him, briefly explaining everything.
"Clutch, gear shift, boost," she pointed out, floating next to each of the parts of the Sparrow she was labeling, "Feet go here, lean across here, keep arms and legs inside the vehicle as much as you can. Now, let's go!"
They heard a few shots ring behind them as his Ghost dematerialized, and he stepped on the gas, sending himself rocketing out towards the opening in the train platform. Landing was hard to control, but he recovered, hearing a deafening alien cry from above them as he sped off towards the decrepit roads. Glancing over his shoulder towards where they came, he saw what he could only describe as a vastly overgrown Fallen dominating the ragged opening.
"That's an Archon," his Ghost said over his helmet-mounted radio, her voice a mixture of fear and awe, "They're much bigger than I thought." Her lightbearer said nothing as he turned back ahead and kept speeding along the road.
She put markers on his HUD as he drove, and the late afternoon light slowly became evening and then fell away into night before he reached his destination. Sporadic streetlights flickered with ancient yellow lights. Rusted traffic signs stood eternal watch over corroded cars, piles of dirt and dust barricading the doors of abandoned skyscrapers towering into the air. Glares of billboards flickering to and from life high above his head cast rays of multicolored light through the dust-laden air. "Turn here," his Ghost advised in his ear. The next marker appeared near an alleyway, spilling sand, half-corroded trash, and an assortment of bones into the street. He turned carefully and maneuvered slowly forward until he reached a jagged hole in the wall on his right, to which the marker moved. He swung his leg over his Sparrow, and the bike dematerialized. He slowly made his way over to the hole, careful not to scratch or gouge his armor as he did so. The interior was pitch black, the faint moonlight and glow of flickering streetlights and billboards barely spilling in a few feet. Before he could ask her about her solution, his Ghost materialized over his shoulder, projecting a broad flashlight from her iris. He turned his head to her and nodded his appreciation. "You're welcome," she chirped, "Now let's keep going." He picked his way through overturned tables and plants and into a long hallway of tarnished granite that was relatively clear of debris, the darkness and dust hanging in the air pierced only by the Ghost's cone of luminescence and the barest light that trickled in behind them, licking faintly at their heels. Another marker appeared on a door, which swung open with surprising ease as he twisted the handle. His Ghost flitted in ahead of him and transmitted a few data beams to a panel in the wall beside the door.
The room was filled with a warm radiance emanating from a bar of lights in the center of the ceiling, revealing shattered tables and chairs strewn about the room. Alongside the debris, the light showed a metallic tarp with a thick sleeping bag laid atop it, a long rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher leaning against the adjacent wall. "Welcome home!" his Ghost said, hovering over the center of the tarp, "Well, home for now, anyway."
"You made this?" he asked, stepping into the room and slowly closing the door behind him.
"Yup!" she replied, bobbing up and down in a gesture that resembled a nod, "I've been looking for quite a while for you. All around the world, in fact." He grabbed one of the less decrepit-looking chairs and tested his weight on it. Finding it sturdy, he sat heavily in it, and the chair held.
"Do you have these kinds of... safe houses around the world, then?" he asked curiously, removing his helmet, his short-cut brown hair matted to his scalp with sweat.
"Kind of," she replied, "Most of the nooks and crannies I used to set these little base camps up are still undiscovered, but I only had the one set of gear, so that got moved with me." He nodded, and his eyes drifted to the weapons leaning against the wall. At first, he wanted to inspect them, but his muscles ached as he tried to stand, forcing him back to his seat. "Oh, yeah!" his Ghost piped up, "You wanted to know about the Light, right?" He nodded, stretching sore muscles and relaxing into the old chair. She spun excitedly and began to explain.
"The Light is what brought you back to life, of course. It's a fundamental force of the universe, like gravity, except, instead of just defining natural laws, the Light can bend them." He nodded in understanding, though truthfully, he had no idea what she meant. His Ghost continued, "The Traveler created me to gift someone worthy of the Light with its power."
"The Traveler?" he asked, the name sounding distantly familiar.
His Ghost bobbed up and down in a nod again. "Yup!" she confirmed, "The Traveller. A giant white orb in the sky that brought Humanity to its Golden Age and saved its last vestiges from the Collapse-"
He was starting to get a mild headache and held a hand up to stop her from saying more, sitting up. "Start back at the Golden Age."
She nodded again, "Alright. The Golden Age was the most prosperous stage of Humanity. Under the Traveler's guidance, Humanity united in an age of progression and exploration. Human lifespan tripled, space expeditions became commonplace, and as the Traveler went and terraformed the terrestrial worlds and moons of the solar system, Humanity followed in its wake, colonizing everything from Mercury to Pluto." She paused, looking at her lightbearer, who nodded, appearing to be following along. "After a few hundred years of this, the Darkness came, trying to wipe out Humanity. For reasons we don't know, the Traveler expended all its energy to push the Darkness out of the solar system, sacrificing itself to save the last of Humanity, and with its last breath, it created me and all the other Ghosts."
"Darkness?" he asked, puzzled, before perking up, "Wait, other Ghosts? Meaning there's other people like me?"
"You mean other lightbearers?" she clarified, "Yes. Humanity was tens of billions strong, and the Traveler created thousands of Ghosts. Many have even raised Exos or Awoken instead of humans. Of course, many of us have yet to find the people we're destined to bond with, but several thousand still have, last I checked."
"Exos and Awoken?" he questioned, "Exos sound distantly familiar, but I have no idea what an Awoken is."
"Oh, I wouldn't be surprised that Exos are familiar if your first life was during the Golden Age," she commented, "They were first born around that time as humans whose minds were transferred into mechanical bodies. As for Awoken, they're very new, and there are a lot of theories and stories on how they came to be. It's tough to say that just one of them is correct."
He nodded, hoping silently that he could remember all of this information. "Well, are there any big groups around?" he asked, "Of humans, Exos, or Awoken?"
"Well, kind of," was his Ghost's answer, "Supposedly, the Awoken have a place called the Reef, way out in the Asteroid Belt. Exo's don't really have a place to call home, but all have a collective dream of the Deep Stone Crypt, whatever that might be. As for humans, the rumor is that there's a camp of refugees gathering under the Traveler halfway around the world from here. The problem is all the different threats that make it hard to build a major Human settlement."
He nodded, "Such as?"
"Well, mostly the Fallen, obviously. They burned down the entirety of London and still scour the planet's surface to find Golden Age scrap to build more servitors with." His Ghost's following words were tinged with a mixture of emotions that he couldn't piece through, "Then there's some of the Warlords…"
He said nothing for several moments to let her elaborate on her volition. After a full minute of silence, he finally broached, "'Warlords?'"
"Warlords are other lightbearers," she answered bluntly, undertones of disgust evident in her modulated voice, "People who use the Traveler's gift to dominate the few survivors of Humanity that are left and rule like immortal kings and queens. Some of them treat their subjects well. Most don't."
He sat in silence, processing this for a few moments. Deep down, he knew it made sense that people would choose to act as tyrants if they were given immortality and unmatched power. Still, he also had a glimmer of hope, shining through as the question, "Aren't there… good lightbearers out there? People who don't try to reign but genuinely try to help and protect? Like you told me we're supposed to do?"
His Ghost bobbed up and down in a nod, her voice brightening again as she replied, "Actually, yes! There are rumors about a group that calls themselves the Iron Lords. Supposedly, they do their best to push back against the Warlords, acting more like guardians than marauders, and try not to permanently kill any other lightbearers they fight."
"What do you mean?" he questioned, "Can't Ghosts revive their lightbearers?"
"Well..." she began, her chipper voice growing hesitant, "There's some limits to it. We have to have something we can base your revival on, and then we can do it. It doesn't have to be much, but it has to be something."
"So, if I'm disintegrated, I'm dead forever?"
"Actually, no, if there's nothing left of you at all, I can bring you back, but if there's even a finger left around, I would need to find that to revive you."
"I see... any other conditions I should be aware of?"
"Yeah, actually. There are areas dense with Darkness, but I won't need to warn you there. In those places, it will just be a base instinct, like a horrible chill running down your spine, a massive pit in your stomach, or a constant feeling that something is stalking you. And, of course, if I'm destroyed, you're cut off from all of the Light, no healing, no resurrections, no double jumps or grenades or flaming sidearms."
He nodded in understanding, then paused. "What's Darkness?"
She thought for a moment and then timidly replied, "Well... I don't really know. It's the natural enemy of the Traveler, but beyond that, we don't know much else about it."
He nodded again, unsatisfied but understanding she couldn't tell him anything more.
"Anything else?" she asked, her cheery cadence returning.
He thought for a moment before asking, "What's your name? And, for that matter, what's my name?"
"Well, I've had a few names in times past," she answered, "but I'm your Ghost now, so my name is for you to decide. Same for your second question. A lightbearer chooses their own name."
He thought momentarily, trying to come up with something but not finding anything suitable. "What's the name of this place, again?" he asked his Ghost.
"This place?" she answered, "I would have to go and che- Wait, you mean this city! It's called Phoenix."
He nodded and asked, "How about we go with that? 'Phoenix'."
"You want to be called 'Phoenix'?"
He nodded, and she laughed after a moment.
"Is that a bad name?" he asked, chagrined.
"No, no, no," his Ghost reassured, "It's just that this city was named after a mythical creature, the phoenix, that turned to ash upon its death and was reborn from the remains."
He thought for a moment and slowly smiled and laughed as well as he realized the irony. "Well, how about that for your name then?" he suggested.
"'Remains?'" His Ghost asked, appalled.
"No, no: 'Ashe,'" he clarified.
"That... would work, actually," she replied, relieved. "'Phoenix' and 'Ashe,'" she said ponderously, as though rolling the names along her equivalent of a tongue, "It feels a bit cliché, but I like it.
He smiled at his Ghost and yawned before asking, "Well then, Ashe, what's our next step?"
"Well, Phoenix," she replied, "I think you should get some rest first. You might not get much of a chance to later. After that, it's up to you, but I'd suggest we try to find some other humans to stay with." He nodded, standing up slowly, only to move to the sleeping bag and plant himself heavily on top of it. He distantly heard his Ghost say something about getting inside it. He would never remember what she said, as he fell asleep a second later.