Pristine Future: The Guardian of None

Chapter 3: Mayhem

I awoke in the morning with little to no sleep had. I grudgingly put some clothes on that had been left on a wooden table next to my bed. I drank straight from a pitcher of water left on the same table. Then I walked to the back of the tent to see what I could find-I had been tired last night, and it was too dark to go back here, but in the day it didn’t seem like a bad idea. I got back there and the first thing that caught my eye in the otherwise bland tent was a helmet with several “eyes”, looking like a spider’s head, if it had about two or three dozen more. They glowed orange. I put it on and discovered thermal imaging technology was infused into the helmet, making seeing things in this somewhat dark tent no problem. I found the rest of the armor and put it on, all of it glowing the same orange the helmet displayed. After this I walked outside into the daylight and met Shaxx in the middle of the camp. “Okay, Guardian, it’s time for you to get a Ghost.”

“How?” I asked.

“I know somewhere. Follow me. And you should probably get a gun.”

“But I don’t know how, nor where any are.” I had dropped the wire rifle back a long time ago, maybe a day after leaving the Fallen.

“Pick one up.” I chuckled, thinking this man was insane, but I picked one up off a crate.

He spoke to me without turning around. “Not that one.”

“Why not?”

“That’s Blaze’s gun.” A strong hand ripped the rifle from my grasp. I looked to see a Titan with her helmet off, red hair flowing down from her scalp. “Yeah, It’s mine,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me. I picked up a nearby weapon. “This one is mine,” I said firmly. It was a shotgun with little ‘personality’ other than having a scope and a laser sight.I looked back over at Blaze, sizing this somewhat arrogant Titan up. Her helmet and armor was like her name: filled with the prospect of fire. I turned back toward Shaxx and began walking with him. About two minutes into the walk, he tossed me a small spherical object with a circular screen on one side of it, if I could even call it that.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Your Ghost, Hunter.”

“I’m not a Hunter.”

“You chose the armor set, didn’t you?” I silenced myself at this juncture: there was no point in arguing with him. I looked thoughtfully at the sphere in my hands. It looked almost ready to come alive.

“Of course, your Ghost is only dead without it’s shell.”

“I’ve seen dead Ghosts before. They only die with a shell.” I had found many on my travels on scout missions with Fallen.

“When the Light is gone. That one’s Light isn’t. Don’t know how I found one that rare, actually. They usually come out of the Traveler with a shell.”

“And how would you know that?”
“Just trust me…. Hunter.” We arrived at a gate attached to a stone wall. It encompassed an arena about half the size of a normal Fallen base. I was surprised. I didn’t see the point in building structures like this. I could already tell it was an arena. “Well, Guardian,” Shaxx started. He lifted up a lever on the door. It swung open with no squeaks and a mighty clang. “Go in. You beat my champion, you get your Ghost shell. You don’t, you fight them again.” A Ghost appeared beside him. “You, rez him when he dies,” Shaxx said, as if indicating that I was going to die. I muttered a “Whatever” before walking in to the arena. After walking in, I took note of my surroundings. The wall that I had seen outside encircled the whole arena, giving no escape-other than climbing over the wall.
   
A huge gate identical the the one I had already walked through opened at the side of the arena opposite me as the gate behind me closed.The arena had overhead lanterns fixed onto ropes that crisscrossed the arena. Moss grew on the edges of the arena. And to my surprise, at the other end of the arena, someone I had seen before walked through. Blaze. “Mayhem,” Shaxx’s voice boomed from speakers on the sides of the arena. Blaze stepped to the center, helmet now on. I reciprocated her actions, putting my helmet on as I walked to the center. We shook hands once there. “Don’t die, newb,” she mocked, before going to her side of the arena, one that seemed to be painted with blue. I took my place at the red position. I checked my gun and switched the safety off. “Now, Guardians,” Shaxx began. Blaze tensed, knowing of what to come. She readied a sniper rifle, a rocket launcher on her back and hand cannon in a holster on her left side.
    “Begin!” Shaxx yelled. In the first two seconds, a high impact 50 millimeter sniper rifle round ripped through my helmet. The pain was unbearable. I felt a numbness in almost a split second after receiving this pain and everything went black. A few minutes of pitch black later, along with feeling nothing whatsoever, I ‘woke up’. I can only describe it as a waking up, though I suppose this was what Shaxx meant by ‘rez’ me. All of a sudden, I could see and feel my limbs again. This lasted not very long, however, as another bullet ended my second life. Forty-five resurrections later, I had learned almost nothing. After this next rez, I looked around, and realized that Blaze was gone. Then I heard crackling above, like a great fire, and looked up. With a fiery hammer in hand, Blaze was crashing down, engulfed by Solar energy. I dived out of the way at the last second, got up quickly, and looked over to where Blaze touched down. She stood up, a huge crater having been formed around her feet. Trails of fire reached for the air behind her.
    She ran for me, causing scorch marks on the ground where she stepped. A wild grab made my instincts kick in. I ducked, keeping full stance, and performed a heatbutt to her stomach. She grunted, stumbling back. Her hammer now disappeared. She quickly unholstered her hand cannon and began shooting at me. I ran in a zigzag formation. Stupid as it looked, it threw off her accuracy, causing all her shots to, unfortunately, miss. She threw the hand cannon of to the side, most likely thinking she could outmatch me in hand-to-hand combat. We would see about that. The flames emerged again. How does she keep doing that? I wondered. She rushed me, a punch coming, steam emanating from Blaze’s fist. NO! I won’t lose again! I thought, readying a defense so crazy most professional attackers wouldn’t attempt it, in this case crazy because I was going to grab a flaming fist. Dedonee’s signature move. In what felt like slow motion, I grabbed the fist hurtling toward my face and stopped it completely, using an open-handed technique for more control and power.
   
My hand tingled. I glanced at it and discovered ice growing from my hand up Blaze’s arm and putting out her flames. This had caught her attention too, and she looked over in surprise to see her arm completely frozen. I released her arm and threw a right hook with my now-free hand and punched her across the face. She staggered back once again, her head tilted to the left, her body about to tip over. Exactly what I was looking for. I closed our distance and delivered an uppercut to her cheek with my left hand. She regained posture again, but didn’t fight back, instead going into a defensive stance, hands covering her neck so I couldn’t hit it. Exactly what I wanted. The two shots to the face were only to disorient and confuse her, and it worked, as I hoped. I jumped up and brought both my fists down on Blaze’s head. It evidently hurt, but did not bring her fully down, as I had done this attack at only about half power, as to get her body in the right place.
   
Lastly, I delivered a flying knee upwards unto her face. She fell over backwards after taking this hit. I picked her up at last, pulling her staggered body into place, now just standing up barely. Though, now I noticed I was still freezing everything I touched. Blaze’s whole body froze standing up in a matter of seconds, a look of pure shock visible through her visor.  To end this fight, I took Dedonee’s knife out, holding it in a reverse knife grip. I then slashed across Blaze’s neck with the knife, completing Dedonee’s signature move, and decapitating my opponent. Her whole body disintegrated. “Red team wins!” Shaxx exclaimed, voice coming from behind me. I looked back to see him inside the arena now. A strong hand on my shoulder caused me to look to my left. Blaze now stood there, helmet removed. “Great job. You didn’t die for once.” She grinned. I just nodded and took my helmet off, clipping it to my belt.
   
Shaxx tossed me a blue Ghost shell with blue spikes almost covering it. Under further inspection, I discovered that they were made from a type of permafrost that didn’t melt. I had only encountered this ice once. “How… did you get this?” I asked, confounded by my inability to explain the phenomenon of this particular frost. “Well,” Shaxx began, “This ice was created by a scientist in the Tower. A whole ship of it got dumped over a mountain once, so I just climbed the mountain and got it.” I was stunned. I had had no idea that the Tower would have made something so complex yet also simple. And the fact that this Titan had such an easy time getting it. Four Dregs were instantly killed just touching it, freezing their inner organs in the time of three seconds. Somehow, despite my body being in contact with the ice, I wasn’t brought to harm or even bothered by it. Shaxx must have had to use steel of some kind just to pick it up, but I was having no problem touching it.