The Hidden Truth (A Destiny Fanfiction)

Chapter 6: A New Beginning

I woke up feeling strange. My body felt stiff, as if I had been sleeping for awhile. Strange... I hardly remembered what I was doing before.

There was a voice calling out to me. "Guardian? Guardian! Eyes up, Guardian!" It kept saying. I finally managed to open my heavy eyelids to find a small, strange machine hovering over me. "It worked. You're alive! You don't know how long I've been looking for you!"

"Excuse me?" I managed to croak. What was wrong with me? "Do I know you?"

"I'm a Ghost. Actually, now I'm your Ghost." It replied.

"Must be some kind of dream..." I told myself quietly as I flexed my fingers. "Why can't I remember anything?"

"Well... you've actually been dead for a very long time..." It said bluntly.

"Dead?!" Everything suddenly came back to me. The invasion. My journey. Maya... "Maya!" I started looking frantically around, but there was nothing around but old cars. "Where is she?!" I demanded the 'Ghost'.

"You've been dead for centuries. Her body must have decomposed by now." It replied somberly. "In any case, we aren't safe here. We're in Fallen territory; we have to get you into the city."

"I'm not going anywhere with you unless I get some answers." I exclaimed defiantly.

"Look, I didn't bring you back to life just so you could die again." It retorted in a very condescending tone. "You're going to see a lot of things you won't understand, but we cannot stay here as I explain every little detail to you. Once we get into the city, I'll answer any questions you might have."

I didn't like the tone in its voice, but I guess it had a fair point. I heard a screech coming from behind, and was not interested in finding out what it was.

"We won't survive long out in the open like this. Let's get inside The Wall." I guess I had no choice...

The Ghost lead me into an enormous wall. I entered through the door to the left and into complete darkness.

"Okay, I need to find you a weapon before the Fallen find us." It whispered to me.

"A weapon? What for? And what are the Fallen?" I asked, still not entirely convinced whether this thing could be trusted. "And what do you mean you brought me back? That's impossible, isn't it?"

"Quiet. They're right above us." It whispered again, trying to shut me up, I supposed. "Fallen thrive in the dark. We won't. We need more light. I'll see what I can do." Then it just disappeared.

Did it just leave me here?! What was I supposed to do? I was about to start yelling for it when it reappeared above me, scanning some sort of contraption that hung from the ceiling.

"Another one of these hardened military systems and a few centuries of entropy working against me." It muttered impatiently as it continued to scan the machine.

The lights suddenly turned on, and an enormous door nearby began to opening slowly. In the distance, I saw several figures staring at us. I realized that they were the same creatures that had invaded Russia before.

"They're coming for us!" The Ghost cried. "Here! I found a rifle! Grab it!" It was referring to a rusted auto rifle beyond the door, which was taking its sweet time opening. I rolled under the door in panic and grabbed it. "I hope you know how to use that thing..." The Ghost sighed.

Honestly, I had never handled a weapon before. So I had absolutely no idea how to use this, besides pulling the trigger to shoot.

I ran through a few corridors before confronting a Fallen. I shot at it in panic, but my accuracy was horrible and I couldn't land a single hit on it. In frustration, I grabbed the other end of the rifle and whammed it into the Fallen's skull, killing it instantly.

The Ghost stared at me oddly. "Well, I guess that's one way to use it. Anyways, there's more up ahead. Keep it up!"

There's more?! Sheesh! I simply continued through the maze that was this building, bashing through the Fallen in a desperate attempt to make it out of there alive.

"The Fallen have a tighter hold on this place than I thought." The Ghost mused. "Just a little bit further. Let's hope there's something left out there..."

"'Something left out there'? You mean you're just blindly leading me through Fallen territory with no form of escape plan whatsoever?" I asked angrily.

"This was an old Cosmodrome. There's got to be something we can fly out of here." It replied.

"You mean like a ship?"

"Yes, a ship."

"I had a ship before... er, dying. But it's miles from here." I sighed.

"Well, Guardians have set up a vehicle grid here. We sync to that, we can summon ground transport and make it to your ship in a matter or minutes." It replied enthusiastically.

"Lead the way then."

It lead me into an old building with yet another strange machine.

"Here's the Sparrow link!" It exclaimed as it began scanning the machine. "What are the coordinates of your ship?" It asked me. I told it the coordinates, and it continued to scan through the machine. "Encoding superposed states.... entangling ket vectors, and... we're linked."

A strange type of hover bike appeared before me. I mounted it, a bit uneasy.

"Have you ever driven a motorcycle before?" It asked, as if sensing my tension.

"Once..." I nodded.

"This is the same thing, except you don't have to worry about swerving or riding off cliffs." That made me chuckle a bit, as I powered it on and took off.

I was impressed with its speed. Just as the Ghost had predicted, we managed to find my ship in minutes.

"It's been here awhile. Hasn't made a jump in centuries." The Ghost sighed tiredly. "We're lucky the Fallen haven't completely picked it clean." It mused as it started scanning my ship.

"Will it fly?" I ask uncertainly. If I've been dead for centuries as the Ghost had said, the batteries must have been horribly dead by now.

"I can make it work." It replied confidently. I've gotta see this...

The ship's engines suddenly powered on and started hovering in the air, to my astonishment.

"Okay, it's not going to break orbit, but it just might get us to The City. Now, about that transmat..." I heard a roar from behind, and saw Fallen enemies approaching. Shit. I had thrown away that battered up rifle halfway through the trip here by sparrow.

"Ghost, let me in!" I cried desperately as the Fallen approached.

"Bringing you in!" It exclaimed as I suddenly found myself inside the ship.

"What the...?" I looked around in surprise, not remembering having this kind of technology while I was alive... hundreds of years ago...

The ship took off, leaving those Fallen in the dust.

"Wait, who's driving this?" I asked the Ghost.

"I am, of course." It sighed. "But only this once. From now on, you'll be the one navigating us through our missions, Guardian."

"Missions? Guardian? You still need to explain to me what all this is about!" I yelled angrily.

"The reason I've resurrected you is because you have the power to wield light, just like the Traveler." It replied calmly. "You are a Guardian, destined to protect the Tower, the last city safe from the Darkness."

"The Tower?"

"We're here." I looked out the window to find that we were approaching an enormous tower. Suddenly, I was out of  the ship and standing on firm ground.

"Welcome to the last safe city on Earth--the only place The Traveler can still protect. It took centuries to build. Now, we're counting every day it stands. And this Tower is where the Guardians live."