Resurrection
"Guardian?" said a soft mechanical voice. "Guardian?" The voice grew louder and more defined, "Eyes up, Guardian."
'What? Where am I?'
"It worked! You're alive!"
'Huh? Alive?'
"You don't know how long I've been looking for you!"
"Wait," stood the new man, "Who are you?" He pointed to the white orb with 8 triangular pyramids orbiting it. Strangely enough, the orb had an eye in the shape of a diamond.
The orb spoke, "I'm a Ghost. Well, I'm your Ghost now."
"Oh, cool. So who am I?"
The Ghost looked down, "I don't know who you are, or how long you've been dead, but I do this: You are a Guardian."
"And what is a Guardian?"
Then they heard a screech, a high-pitched screech that sounded like a mixture between a wolf's howl and a Xenomorph's scream. "The Fallen are coming!" It whispered. "I need to get you to the City." Then it disappeared. "I'm still with you, but we need to move quickly."
"Ok, ok." They ran along a path towards a giant wall that the Guardian had never seen before; rusted, like the cars. The Ghost said, "This was the Divide. It kept Old Russian secrets in, and it used to keep the Fallen out."
He lingered on the word 'kept', but couldn't help noticing the masses of old cars. "How many people were left to die?"
"About 7 to 8 billion in the year 3654. That's when It came."
I climbed a flight of stairs. "It?"
Another Fallen scream sent shivers down the new Guardian's spine. The Ghost said, "I'll explain later."
"And I'm a Guardian now, which is?"
Garbled voices flooded the room above them, no doubt the Fallen. "You'll find out soon enough," it said.
He climbed another flight of stairs into a pitch-black room. The Ghost lit itself up and said, "We need more light if we want to get past the Fallen. I'll see what I can do," and floated away to the apparent opposite corner of the room.
Then, the lights flickered and lit up the whole length of the room. From the far end of the wall, hundreds of thousands of Fallen were crawling on the walls, the bridges, the floor, and the ceiling. "Okay. We need to move!" shouted the Ghost. The Guardian began looking around for a weapon, any weapon. Then he found an old Russian assault rifle, labeled the Khvostov. "You know how to use that thing?" asked Ghost.
"No clue." Just then, two Fallen jumped out of nowhere, and the Guardian shot both without hesitation. 'I just killed a life, let alone two. Who am I?' They moved down the hallway, and another Fallen dropped from the ceiling, landing in front of the Guardian's face. Upon instinct, he thrust his palm into the Vandal's head, snapping it back, and crashing the body into the ground. "You're a warlock," The Ghost remarked.
"Yes?"
"Perhaps the Warlock from the prophecy?"
"Prophecy?" asked the Warlock, "What prophecy?"
The Ghost shook its head, "We'll talk about this when we get back to City." As he said his last word, three more Fallen dropped from the ceiling, all of them were decapitated from the Khovstov's bullets. Nearby stood a loot cache, later to be opened by the Warlock. He found a shotgun and sniper rifle inside, took both and some shiny blue cubes called Glimmer, and proceeded to the next room.
Four Vandals dropped, four Dregs burst through the floor, and four Shanks crawled out of the walls. He sniped the Vandals before they could charge, then whipped out the Khovstov to kill the remaining Fallen. "So those insectoid creatures were the Fallen? How did they get here?"
The Ghost paused, "No one knows. They appeared one day out of space, and just like that, they began tearing apart the ruins of humanity for their own gain."
After a long corridor, they finally reached the other side of the wall and breathed fresh air again. As they walked into the field, the Warlock asked, "What was this place?"
"An old Cosmodrome, fitted to send humans beyond Earth, and its Sun, using rockets, colony ships, and jumpships," said the Ghost.
A lot of the Cosmodrome looked very similar to Old Russia at night: snow on the ground, dark skies, and a lot of buildings that look like OKB-1 architecture: rectangular, lots of space between buildings, some higher or bigger than others. There was some grass, but only in small patches that poked through the snow. For most of the landscape, the ground was dry and cracked, though the cracks were barely visible.
After the new Warlock admired the scenery, he asked the Ghost, "Ok, so what's a Jumpship?"
Just then, a flare lit up the sky, which turned into a warp point for a giant ship and 13 other smaller ships. The Ghost was shocked, "Fallen Skiffs? This close to the surface!?"
"I know, MOVE!" But it was too late; a skiff dropped its Fallen passengers and left. The Guardian stood in awe of the massive ship, the Ketch. 'No time for sightseeing, you just got shot!' He turned, aimed the rifle at the encroaching Fallen, and pulled the trigger. The Dregs hissed, Vandals' ether leaking, and Shanks whizzing. He swapped to the shotgun, blew the Shanks away, shot half of the Fallen, then switched to the auto rifle to kill the remaining Dregs. Two snipers remained, guarding the entrance to a large building dubbed Dock 13. They sniped at the Warlock, only to miss, and spot him charging at them. He opened fire, and advanced into the dock, leaving two dead bodies in his wake.
Upon leaving The Divide, the Warlock looked down at his clothes, noticing that they were torn and battered from the fight. "When I get to this 'City,' they better have some durable threads." He noticed something else, something glistening against his skin; a small metal chain wrapped around his neck and holding a small metal slate close to his chest. "Hey, Ghost? What's this around my neck?"
The Ghost turned around and looked at it, "I don't know. Previous identification, perhaps?"
The Warlock looked at the slate which read:
|--------------------|
| Max Prodigy |
| Born: 6/18/1996 |
| ID: 000001 |
|--------------------|
He wondered, "Am I, Max? But what did he stand for? What do I stand for?" They wandered through Dock 13, and after a winding hallway, came across a pack of Fallen, one of which looked like it had 4 horns on his mask.
"Tres, a mus kii," said one, presumably their Captain. The Dregs began tearing into the ship for all kinds of parts they can scavenge.
Suddenly, a Vandal shouted, "Ba ma kre la!" The pack began encroaching near the far doorway, where Max and his Ghost were hiding.
Max could feel himself shake, 'Have they found me?' He jumped around the giant room with the Jumpship, then without blinking, he shot down 4 Vandals, threw a Vortex grenade at their Captain. The Captain dodged it, but 3 Dregs weren't so lucky. He shot 3 bullets into the chest, pulverizing the chest plate, then delivered 4 more to its mask, sending the Captain into the ground.
"Rahn akri no frili!" it said.
"If that means you can't die, then I've already busted that claim."
"Is there Darkness?" it asked with its dying breath.
"Only in you," said the Ghost.
The Captain laughed, "Skolas right, Skolas knew you're evil, just like Hive!"
Max shot the Captain dead. The Ghost floated over to the ship, hanging by some cables, and looming over the Captain's dead body. "It's old, possibly ancient. And almost torn apart. We'll be lucky if I can fly this thing."
"Or get to the City in one piece," remarked his Guardian.
"Right." Then the ghost disappeared, and the ship was activated. At that moment, 13 more Fallen began to crawl out of a hole in the wall behind them. One was carrying a weird-looking, 4 barreled shotgun. "RRAAAAAAA!" it shouted.
He raised the Khovstov, but his Ghost said, "No, you're not ready," and he was teleported inside the Jumpship. "I need to bring you to the City, remember? But we'll come back for them."
"No! I can take them out now!" But the ship was in the air and pointed west.
"No, you can't. We'll get you some new armor, and weapons. Then, we'll decide if you can go back."
"Oh alright, fine." As they departed, Max stared out one of the windows and found a robotic humanoid standing on the roof from where the ship emerged.
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The figure stared at the ship. She thought to herself, 'Is this Ghoul the Warlock from the Prophecy?' Will he save the universe from the coming Darkness? Then she vanished, into thin air.