Chiaroscuro

You died long ago. Time and reality had stopped for you. You don't know how long it had been since you died. You don't remember existence. For time immemorial, the void was all you knew. It wasn't peaceful; it was nothing. But, it was enough.

Until you felt a tug. A tug of color, a tug of something, a tug of life. A tug of Light.

And, suddenly, you are alive once more, looking into the eye of your savior, a Ghost. There you are, your Ghost says. You don't know how long I've been looking for you.

You are a Guardian

From the moment you were resurrected by your Ghost, you became a Guardian. Over the centuries since The Collapse, your kind have gone through many different names: The Risen, The Warlords, The Guardians, Lightbearers.

You have no memory of your past life when first ressurected. You don't know who you are, but you know of yourself. Perhaps you give yourself a name, or your Ghost does, or perhaps you find some tidbit of your past life. But, in this new life, you have been blessed by the gift of the Light.

As a Lightbearer, you have not only enhanced strength and stamina, but are nearly invincible and are effectively immortal in most situations. If you die, your Ghost can revive you. There are few exceptions to this, and if your Ghost is killed, your connection to the Light is severed.

In addition to this, your connection with your Ghost and the Light give you access to paracausal powers. Paracausality means that you have access to abilities that break the laws of reality and physics. These powers are intense manipulations of Light to produce explosive results.

I know everything's new, but before we get you out of here, I need to catch you up on some things...





As a Guardian, you now fight a war so much more than you.

Beyond your reality, the one of physics and logic, is Light and Darkness. We do not know much about either of the two paracausal forces. What little we do know is this: The Light is the cosmic force of the physical. The Darkness is the cosmic force of the immaterial.

As hypothesized with some Guardians, the Light seems to be connected to the physical while the Darkness seems to be connected to thought, emotion and consciousness more broadly. Both Light and Darkness are weaved into everything within the physical universe, and beings with the ability to manipulate either Light or Darkness have the power to manipulate the universe in unnatural ways, impossible to predict or replicate by those without.

Both Light and Darkness are thought to have existed before time and space itself, judging by our learnings. While Light and Darkness are opposing fundamental forces, they are not inherently good or evil. They are tools to be used.

The Light

The Light is a primordial concept revolved around physical space and life. Light can manipulate both the physical aspect of nature and the concept of a life. In its most basic concept, Light is all about encouraging complexity in the universe, in the form of cultivating life, sentience, and diversity.

The most prominent user of the Light, and a being almost synonymous with Light itself, is The Traveler. As far as we know, the Traveler is the only being with the ability to gift others the power of the Light.

The Traveler is a machine moon, and has gone by many names over the millenia. The Traveler is a sentient being far beyond our understanding. It goes from civilization to civilization, from system to system, to terraform planets and uplift the peoples. With the power of Light, it enhances beings, lengthening their lifespans and bringing abundance, washing away needs.

In Light, life spreads. As a Guardian, you are empowered by Light, and one of Light's defenders.

The Darkness

The Darkness is a primodial concept revolved around simplification, the unknown, and the unseen. There's much we don't know about Darkness, and for a long time it was thought that the Darkness was inherently evil, although recent understandings of the Darkness has both expanded our understandings and complicated them.

Because of our limited knowledge of the Darkness, much of our understanding of it is based off our understanding of the Light. The Darkness is the Light's juxtoposition; its shadow, if you will. While Light focuses on life and complexity within life, Darkness is about the deconstruction of life in all of its aspects.

We used to think that the Darkness caused humanity's Collapse and our first Dark Age, but it turns out it was just beings that wielded the Darkness.

The Golden Age

Where do we come into this? As humanity? Well, in 2014, the Traveler entered our solar system. It came to rest on Mars. Humanity banded together to create the first manned mission to Mars. This was a joint effort from The United States, China, and Russia. One astronaut, one taikonaut, and one cosmonaut reached Mars to inspect what had landed just above the planet. But, when they arrived on Mars, they found out it was raining.

This was just the beginning of what would become humanity's Golden Age. The Traveler terraformed planets and moons throughout the Solar System. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and two of Jupiter's moons. During this period of time, humanity prospered. Our lifespans tripled. Problems that were prevalent in humanity suddenly vanished, and scientific achievement and breakthroughs become the top priority as humanity colonized all of Sol System. We do not know how long this Golden Age lasted, but we know how it ended.

The Traveler had begun to terraform Io when something had brought it back to Earth. This was first thought to be the Darkness. We now know it as forces who wield the Darkness.








A fleet of large ships, as dark as the void of nothingness and pyramidal-shaped, invaded the Sol System, shattering humanity's Golden Age and bringing about humanity's near extinction. This was referred to as The Collapse.

It began as micro gravitational anomolies in the outer solar system, far past Neptune. First detected by humanity's AI, it was deduced that these affets were not ones of this causality; of this place in physics. Gravity itself was being morphed and altered by whatever this was.

Then, what we named The Black Fleet invaded Sol. Immediately, natural disasters swept over the system's planets, including gravitational anomolies so strong that the planet Titan's core was permanently altered. All that humanity had to offer in its defense did nothing to protect us from The Collapse. We would have died if it weren't for the Traveler. According to stories kept from The Collapse, the Traveler unleashed a wave of pure, intense light, and pushed the Darkness and the Black Fleet from Sol.

But, this came at a cost. The Traveler hung low over our last city on Earth and unleashed its last gift to humanity: The Ghosts. Flooding out at the hundreds, the Ghosts would then go to find their chosen ones and imbue them with the gift of Light, while the Traveler itself hung dormant over The Last City.








After The Collapse, Sol System was left in a state of constant near extinction and calamity. Not only that, but alien species invaded the system with various intentions, but none of them beneficial to humanity. We are not sure how long The Dark Age lasted, as not many records remain from this time. But, with the help of Ghosts, humanity began to recover and gathered enough forces to establish The Last City.





This is where you come in, Guardian. You see, you were found in Old Chicago, alongside five other Guardians. I must get you back to The Last City. I don't like it here. This wasn't where I wanted to find you. But, we make our own destiny, Guardian.

You're part of a group of six guardians, ressurected by ghosts who teamed up to find you while searching through the swamps of Old Chicago. Lost and with no memory, your ghost tells you that you six must make your way to The Last City, which is half a world away. However, you must get out of Old Chicago first. This swamp, lost to both time and the ravages of war, festers with deadly enemies, deadlier mysteries, and forces beyond your reckoning. Darkness lurks around every corner... will your Light burn bright enough?



As a Guardian, you a resurrected into one of three classes. Each of these classes embody certain aspects of the Light.



Titans are characterized by their strength, resilience, and being headstrong. Titans are often stubborn and face problems headfirst, but can be extremely loyal and reliable. Titans love thick pieces of armor and often use the Light both defensively, as bulwarks of protection, and offensively, like hammers or maces. Titans differentiate themselves with a Mark: a piece of cloth and band draped around their hips.



Hunters specialize in mobility, stealth, and marksmanship. Hunters are quick with a blade and quicker on the draw. Hunters have a reputation of thinking outside of the box and questioning law and order. It's not that Hunters are against rules; it's moreso that Hunters follow a law of their own making. Hunters differentiate themselves with a classic Cloak and hood.



Warlocks are often considered warrior-scholars, and can use the Light in more seemingly magical ways than their class counterparts. Warlocks are often the thinkers of their time, and can spend ages deep in thought. Warlocks also have a deeper connection to the Light and thus use the Light in many different ways. Warlocks differentiate themselves with a Bond: an armband around their upper left arm.



Guardians are able to wield Light in three major different ways. These ways are called a Guardian's Subclass. While all three Classes of Guardians wield the subclasses of Light in similar ways, there are also specific ways that each Class uses the Subclass.



Solar is the manipulation of heat, light, and combustion. Wielders of Solar can both harm and heal. To understand Solar, one must understand the duality of a star: both creation and destruction.

• Titans wield Solar hammers and maces, able to throw hammers and leave a wake of solar fire.
• Hunters wield Solar in the form of a Golden Gun, with one-three bullets that pierce and can light enemies ablaze in solar fire, or in the form of several solar knives, thrown in a barrage.
• Warlocks wield Solar in the form of a brilliant Solar sword, where they can slash flaming arcs of fire, or by slamming the sword into the ground to emit a powerful healing aura around the sword.

Arc is the manipulation of electricity, energy, and electromagnetism. It's not just lightning, but the ability to manipulate fission. To understand Arc, one must know the unknowable, and ride the storm into the unforeseen.

• Titans wield Arc by transforming themselves into a powerful Arc projectile, launching into the air and back into the ground.
• Hunters wield Arc through an Arc staff that they can toss around and teleport to.
• Warlocks wield Arc through lightning, striking multiple enemies at once.

Void is the manipulation of dark matter, dark energy, and gravity. To create spatial warps, touch magnetic fields, draw singularities from the quantum vacuum. Void itself can often be felt as the absence of Light; defying physics to enter a space beyond. To understand Void is to view cosmic distortion, the pull of gravity and the promise of entropy.

• Titans wield Void by using it as a massive shield to block projectiles and bullets.
• Hunters wield Void with a Void-bow that can shoot one-three projectiles on the ground that pull all enemies in a radius towards the center.
• Warlocks wield Void by unleashing a massive black hole that implodes on impact.

Guardian, you're from one of three allies of humanity.



Headstrong, tough, and stern? Check. Stubborn, reckless, and cocky? Yeah, pretty much. Humans have managed to fend off the Darkness throughout thick and thin, and, even near extinction, they still fight. Taking a no-nonsense attitude, the Humans are a Flicker of Light in the sea of Darkness, but they will not stop fighting until the cold grasp of death grabs them.



The Awoken are a humanoid race sharing common ancestry with Earth humans. Born from the beginning of The Collapse, the Awoken are a form of humans that were fused together in Darkness and Light. With bright, luminescent eyes and pale gray or blue skin, these people fight alone and are independent.



Exos are humanoid machines that were built during the Golden Age and infused with the consciousness of humans. Once a human mind was transferred into an Exo, they would retain their name with a number attached to the end, like Cayde-6. Exos are so incredibly complex that only Ghosts understand their inner machinations, and all Exos have some sort of memories of their past, even as a Guardian, although it will always be muddled.



Let's get you up to speed on the type of enemies you're going to encounter out there, Guardian.



The Fallen, known in their language as the Eliksni, are an insectoid alien species with six appendages, infamous for being notorious scavengers and raiders. The Fallen are remnants of a mighty civilization that was blessed by the Traveler much like Humanity was, until The Black Fleet found The Traveler once more and it fled its enemies, leaving The Eliksni behind in what they call The Great Whirlwind. Now, The Fallen struggle to follow the Traveler and reclaim their Great Machine, scavenging to survive as almost all aspects of their civilization were torn apart. The Fallen have four known sects of leadership: The House of Devils, House of Kings, House of Exile, and House of Winter.



The Vex are a cyber-organic species that are ancient as the Universe itself. Enigmatic and inscrutable, they work ceaselessly to convert planets and other celestial bodies into vast machines, and are hostile toward any life-form that gets in their way. Their technology is among the most advanced ever encountered by humanity, enabling incredible feats of material and spacetime engineering and even time travel. The Vex have been present in the Solar System for billions of years, and their sophisticated and watchfully guarded structures can be found on multiple planets, including Venus, Mars and Io.



The Hive, originally known as the Krill, are a macabre, incredibly ancient species of arthropod-like aliens with their signature three green, glowing eyes. Their entire culture is based around the Sword Logic: a supernatural, thanatological philosophy of competitive survivalism, which dictates that they must destroy other civilizations in order to accrue paracausal power and feed the Worms that live within their bodies. They are led by a pantheon of dark gods, who derive power and sustenance from the destruction wrought by the Hive.



The Cabal are an extremely tough species, willing to defend their territory until every last one of them is dead. Their culture revolves around war and glory. The Cabal Empire monarchy at heart with a meritocratic military; the better the soldier the higher the rank. Their architecture is very industrial, with an emphasis on burrowing into mountains for defense. They are a very industrious, militaristic species whose social structure and way of life revolves largely around conquest and expansion. It is thiought that the Cabal presence in the Sol System, while incredibly formidable, is just a scouting force.



As a Guardian, you are a defender of humanity. Thus, not only do you use your Light as a weapon against the enemies of humanity, you also use traditional weapons. You'll be able to carry up to three weapons: one Melee Weapon, one Ranged Weapon, and one Heavy Weapon. You'll start off your journey as a Guardian with your choice of a Melee weapon. The rest, you must find, or fight for.

Melee Weapons

• Vibro-blade: A short blade, like a knife, that vibrates at high frequencies, and can cut through armor.
• Electrosaber: A medium blade that pulses with electricity, can pierce through energy shields
• Razor Gauntlets: Gauntlets with sharp edges that will let punches pierce armor.
• Magnetic Throwing Knives: Multiple small knives that can be recalled with a button. Must be precise.

Ranged Weapons

• Scout Rifles: Semi-automatic rifles with high accuracy.
• Pulse Rifles: Burst-fire rifles designed for medium-range.
• Auto Rifles: Fully-automatic rifles with high recoil.
• Hand Cannons: Revolver handguns with short range and high impact.
• Sidearms: Pistols with a high fire rate, but low range and impact.
• Submachine Guns: Fully-automatic weapons designed for close-range.
• Bows: Medium to long-range bows with minimal falloff and high impact.

Heavy Weapons

• Rocket Launchers: Fires projectile that deals massive damage in a large radius.
• Swords: Can deal massive damage to a single target and can also be used to block damage.
• Grenade Launchers: Medium-range, multi-round drum-loaded explosive that deals high damage.
• Machine Guns: Short to medium-ranged fully automatic belt-fed weapons.
• Trace Rifles: Directed-energy rifles that fire a laser beam.
• Shotguns: Close-quarters, but high damage.
• Sniper Rifles: Long-range scope and high damage.
• Fusion Rifles: Short to mid-range directed-energy rifles that have charge cycles and a multi-bolt spread.

Code: Select all

[b]Guardian's Name: [/b] [Note: Unless your character has some sort of identification of their previous life, your guardian's name is not related to their life before resurrecting as a guardian.]

[b]Guardian's Gender: [/b]

[b]Race: [/b] [Note: Due to the location/setting, most of the fireteam (group of six) will either be Exo or Human. We should only have max one Awoken in the fireteam.)

[b]Guardian's Class: [/b]
[b]Guardian's Subclass: [/b]

[b]Guardian's Starting Melee Weapon: [/b]

[b]Guardian's Appearance: [/b]

[b]Guardian's Personality: [/b]

[b]Ghost's Name: [/b] [Note: your Ghost will have a name of their own before they ressurect you.]
[b]Ghost's Gender: [/b]
[b]Ghost's Appearance: [/b] [Note: Ghosts all have similar inner bodies: a metallic sphere with a digital diamond blue eye in the middle of the sphere, which can blink. A Ghost's outer shell is usually composed of another diamond like metallic casing that orbits around the inner sphere freely. While the sphere is core to the Ghost, the outer shell can be freely customized.]
[b]Ghost's Personality: [/b]


Fireteam

• Sasha-5 - Female Exo Warlock - Omni
• Ambus-13 - Male Exo Titan - JazzicusMaximus
• Atlas - Male Human Titan - snapshot
• Grey-8 - Male Exo Titan - winterwolf0100
• Jaksdo - Male Human Warlock - Spearmint
• Izora - Female Awoken Hunter - RangerofIthilien

At first, there was nothing. It wasn't a harmful nothing, or a painful loss of something. It was just the absence of being, for as long as nothing has been nothing. So, forever and perhaps never.

But, at some point in this nothingness in, something happened. And then all of a sudden, Everything happened, and she felt Light enter this world of nothingness. Light and... Life? Was this... new? Or something familiar? It felt like a calling that she had heard before. And then she realized that she was feeling. This, well this was new.

But Light and Life was old, far older than this nothingness she had inhabited, because now the former felt just so right, and the latter now felt like an intruder that had forced itself in.

And, with that invitation, light became tangible, and life flooded into existence. A world of life... no, no, an entire reality of life and she would soon be within that genial neighborhood once more. But, she still floated along like she had in the nothingness, with nothing to anchor her and pull her back in.

A bird crafted out of liquid light flew by, and she felt herself wanting to follow this being. And so she did.

There you are!

Lines of information flooded her vision for a brief moment, and then filtered itself back into darkness. She scrambled, her mind rattling in its newly crafted cage, and she felt streaks of anxiety pulse through her body. For just a moment, the body felt alien to her, only metal and wires and screams of death and loss.

"Whoa, whoa, you're okay! You're probably very confused! I would be, in your shoes. I'm Mortag, your Ghost!" Her eyes veered to the source of the voice, and she saw a floating machine with a singular diamond eye, blinking at her. It bobbed in the air. "Yep, that's me! You're probably wondering where you are, or how this happened, or a host of other questions. But, first things first, let's get you outta here, okay?" The eye, or Mortag? blinked and its crackly, slightly digitized voice felt reassuring to her.

"Now, let's see... I didn't really think this part through, heh... Didn't think I'd get this far, you know?" Mortag blinked, and its eyes lit up bright, like a flashlight. "Now you can see! Awesome, awesome. You can refer to me as Mortag, by the way, or Mort, or he. Whatever you prefer. You and I, we're gonna be working together now!"

She was more pre-occupied on getting out of this place than responding. Utilizing Mortag's light, she looked around and got a scan of her surroundings. She had clothes on, although they were dusty and, brushing a finger on the fabrics, likely extremely old. It was a wonder that they still even existed. How long had she been here, rotting away into nothingness?

She shoved that thought out of her mind and clasped the boundaries of her reach on either end. The walls crumpled under her touch, worn down by the unending passage of time. She grimaced and dug her hands into the rubble, feeling it crack under her gloved fingers, and she pushed herself up with all of her might.

The stone underneath her caved in and she felt it release her body. She clambered out of the hole she was once in, and both her and Mortage glanced back in. Mixed in within the stone was oil residue, a darker splatter amongst the matte gray. It almost looked like an impact crater. What had happened here? Was this where she had died?

More and more questions flooded her mind, but she shoved them aside. Questions would have to wait until she was somewhere not looking like it was about to collapse on top of her at any moment.

She peeled her eyes off of her crater and looked around. Her eyes could not adjust to the darkness, so she grabbed ahold of Mortag and twisted him and his flashlight eye around, scanning her surroundings.

"Oh, okay, this is what we're doing now. You could have just told me to look around, of course, but this works, too!"

"Sorry," she muttered, her focus on the situation at hand rather than Mortag's mumblings.

"Oh, she speaks! I was wondering if I was gonna get one of those silent warlocks, y'know? The ones who don't talk until they've meditated on the state of the universe for 1000 years. That would have been a biiiiig bummer."

"Mortag, focus," she interjected, and pointed to the extremely large steel beam that blocked her path. "Is that our exit?"

Mortag wiggled out of her grasp and floated over to the wreckage, using his eye to scan it. He then flitted in between a small gap that she hadn't even seen before, and his light vanished, drowning her back in darkness. She hobbled over to the beam and knelt down, staring through the gap. She saw nothing for aa moment. And then Mortag flashed through the gap, burning her vision and she gasped, turning away.

"Oop, sorry. Yeah, this looks like the way I went to get through to you."

She felt around on the steel beam, looking for any give on it being stuck. At first comb through, she felt nothing, so she proceeded to examine the surrounding concrete, iron, and wires that stuck out around it, looking for a weak spot she could take advantage of.

As she did so, Mortag continued his one-sided conversation. "You know, I never really thought I'd get this far, to be honest. This trek to Old Chicago was a desperate hope for a lot of us Ghosts, heh. I did not think the whole 'escape plan' through." She ripped some wires out of the exposed wall that were getting in her way, and some sparks shot out. So, the place still had electricity. "But, you know, you're doing great! I couldn't have asked for a better Guardian. Not that I know you yet, I mean, I don't even know your name. Not that I need to, or anything! I doubt you even know your name... I could give you a name!"

She found the purchase she needed, and lifted the steel beam up from its resting location. The entire area groaned in protest from being moved after countless years, and dust poured down from above, filtering around the light. She lifted the bar as high as she could, her metallic tendons clicking and screaming from the exertion, and she ducked under.

As she did, she got bathed in the softer glow of Mortag's light as dust and grime floated around the both of them. She sighed. "My name is Sasha-5."

"Oh! That's awesome. You know, usually Guardians don't know their past life, before they become a Guardian. What else do you know?"

Sasha-5 rammed her fist through a thicket of wires that blocked her passage. "I don't know much, but my name came to me, like a dream..."

"Now that you mention it, I've heard that Exos do tend to be a bit quirky."

Speaking of quirky, Sasha-5 thought. Instead, she just grimaced and ripped down a ball of wires tangled up so bad that she couldn't move past them. A broken, long light fell with them, and she tossed the whole pile to the side. She had so many thoughts buzzing through her head, so many questions and this little... Ghost was providing no answers, just more questions. Once she was in a position to breathe, she would drill this Mortag for all he knew.

Meanwhile, Mortag himself was hummed a robotic melody before he continued his stream of consciousness. "You know, it's good that you figured out your name before I could, heh." Sasha-5 grunted an acknowledgement that he was speaking. Thankfully, he took that empty gesture as signal for him to continue. He seemed to be more than willing to fill the silence by himself. "While I was looking for you, and getting closer, I started to come up with names. But, of course, none of them were as good as Sasha-5. But, you know, let me run them by you, just in case you'd wanna do, like, a nickname."

Sasha-5 resisted the immediate urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she just let Mortag continue with no objection and let her own focus be on the cracked... granite, or quartz? that had fallen in on itself in the hallway.

"So here me out. In no random order: Bucket head, Tortoise woman. That One Person I Finally Found In a Hole of Rubble -- and I quite like that one, but let's continue: Supposed Survivor, Somebody, Rubble Corpse, Person That Desperately Needs a Shower, and last but certainly not least, Stinky Rust Pile."

Sasha-5 breathed out slowly and painfully before squatting and lifting a particularly large piece of column that blocked her access forward. Mortag must have noticed her lack of recognition on his name suggestions, because he beeped a note of concern. "Obviously none of them are your name, of course. But, we could have like a name that we just use for each other."

Sasha-5 tossed the piece of fancy stone to the side, where it thudded deeply and turned to Mortag. "Let's just keep going for now." Before he could answer, she kept going. Visibility was low, even with Mortag's light. The air was thick and stuffy, and, although she could feel that her body didn't breathe the way normal humans did, she could still feel the difference. Even in areas where she could walk fully upright, dust clouded the air and the walls and ceilings had collapsed in on itself, revealing small blocks of metals, stones, and wires. Every time she cut her way through one obstacle, she came face to face to another one.

As they slowly made their way through the place, Sasha-5 found the first semblance of life in this strange place, or at least that life used to exist here. A neon violet light pulsed through the wall faintly, illuminating the broken down hallway in a twisted version of what once was. Leaning against a crafted corner of stone was a human carcass, a person long dead, judging by the dust covering the bones. Mortag scanned the skeleton, his little blue light going over it in a little line, up and down. He glanced back to Sasha-5. "The carbon dating for this skeleton is several hundred years old, but could be even older..."

Sasha-5 nodded and stored this information. So, that gave her a vague frame of reference. Her eyes drifted to the skeleton's ribcage. Stuck in between two of them was something darker. She tugged at it and pulled it out, brushing off soot. It was a blade, and there was a button on the hilt she missed on the first look. She pressed it, and the blade vibrated at a high frequency. Sasha-5 weighed the blade in her hand, and it felt light. It would do a lot of damage --if it needed to. She stashed it in her worn belt loop. With one last look, they moved on.

The two of them had not gotten much further than twenty yards or so from her spot of resurrection when Sasha-5 was presented with both an opportunity and an impasse --quite possibly the largest impasse so far. The hallway opened up into a fork, with two paths forward. However, the center of said fork had caved in, and Sasha-5 could only see hints of what lay beyond.

Mortag floated over to the hung chunk of debris and stammered out, "I'm sorry, Sasha-5. I didn't really think about getting you out of here... I went in pretty deep to find you."

"It's all right, Mortag. Really." Sasha-5 stepped up to the debris and gently moved Mortag out of the way. She studied the rubble, looking for a place to stick her fingers in. If she could lift the last steel beam, she could surely at least try the same on this concrete. Wrapping her hands around a shorter steel bar below most of the rubble, Sasha-5 lowered her body and heaved. The beam groaned and complained at her interference, and dust cascaded down in torrents. But the rock refused to move. Sasha-5 unclenched her knuckles and surveyed the obstacle, rubbing her chin as she looked for a new perspective, a new angle to approach this.

After a few moments, she glanced at Mortag for any form of wordless reassurance. Mortag shook his shell, having no ideas or thoughts of his own. Well, that was a first.

Sasha-5 rested her forehead against the rubble, placing a palm on each side of the debris as she let herself fall into deep thought. She had been given something of a second chance for a lease on life and it was literally filled with roadblock after roadblock. She had no answers and had to claw her way out to survive. What in this struggle was worth it?

As she closed her eyes, she dreamed instead of thought. Visions of the landscaped that flashed before her sight the moments prior to her revival once again showed itself to her. And the bird of pure, flowing light flapped its wings past her peripheral. The trail of purity it left felt like a bridge, beckoning Sasha-5 to cross over. The white of its trail was inviting and dripped in a cool purple. There was no fear, no apprehension in its appearance. Sasha-5 only felt welcomed, like she was coming home.

And, suddenly, the cool touch of the rock abandoned her touch as if it reluctantly left a loving embrace. Her head dipped now that there was nothing there for her to rest upon. She then opened her eyes, and her vision was met with brilliant purple that speckled her vision like a nebulous galaxy. Specks of glittering white, yellows, and blues dotted the edges of the purple. The debris had lifted off of the ground and was coated in the purple hue. As it reached the ceiling, the entirety of the rubble imploded in on itself in a shower of indigo sparks. Sasha-5 looked on in awe.

"You just tapped into the Light!" Mortage exclaimed gleefully.

Sasha-5 felt out of breath, like she had just exerted all of her strength and will. At the same time, she felt invigorated. "Wh-what was that?"

"You willed yourself over Light and used it to your whim with Void." Mortag wobbled with joy. "Don't wear yourself out, though. We gotta get you out of here in one piece."

Sasha-5 nodded wearily. The Light... was thaat the strange bird inher visions? Where had the debris gone? Mortag had mentioned Void. Was that intentionally the same kind of wordage that was used in something like the description of black holes? More and more questions. When they got out of there, she would drill Mortag for answers. If they got out in one piece, as Mortag said.

Wait...

"Is the path ahead dangerous, Mortag?"

"Oh, yeah. Lotsa enemies I had to sneak past to come get you."

"What kind of enemies, Mortag?" Sasha-5 asked, trying not to let her frustration become apparent.

"Big, scary ones?"

Sasha-5 sighed. "We need to work on your communication skills."

And she needed a gun.

The further higher Sasha-5 went, through climbing rubble and remnants of what used to be stairs or maybe empty shafts or vent systems, the wider everything became. The narrow corridors that were crushed underneath the test of time in the lower levels were instead almost structurally unbothered by the level of abandonment. There was the usual telltale signs that this building had not been kept after by whoever made it in the thick level of dust that had settled over most everything. Lights were either burnt out or flickering in places, and most of the controls that filled dormant screens in what must have been control panels or access panels were absent or glitched. Sasha-5 was surprised to discover that anything around this place worked. A total of one door access panel worked as she pressed a digital button to force the two sliding doors to stop their centuries-long embrace. Well, worked was a stretch. The thick glass-like doors groaned and screeched apart, and only one of the two opened fully. The right one hit a chunk on the floor and the bottom section chattered off its designed path and threw its bottom corner into the concrete floor, digging in with an excruciating sound. Sasha-5 had to punch through the glass door to make it stop making noise, and she and Mortag, her awkward new companion and reviver, both watched as a quarter of a door, shattered but still somehow hanging onto itself, slid into its sockets in the all. She could hear a bit of clinking as the old mechanism finally stopped, and both she and Mortag glanced at each other after it thankfully finished. Well, that was the last time she pressed a button in this place.

As she busted her way through doors that felt and looked more elegant than what she saw earlier. The corridors morphed into halls and then into wide, hollow walkways that caused her movements to echo as she walked, and the the stillness in between rocked against the insides of her ears. There were moments she couldn't tell the differences between her steps and the pounding of silence. But, she forged forward until she came across the first piece of anything legible. Well, not entirely legible, at least, not for her.

She knew it was writing, but it seemed like a language she wasn't familiar with. It came in the form of metal plating on a wall intersection, a cross-section with four different directions to go. She knew what arrows were, at least, and one pointed in each direction of the crossway, including the way she came from. Sasha-5 brushed a finger over the engravings, wishing she could make sense of them, they would be able to give her some kind of direction or a way out of there, she overheard Mortag humming some kind of tune right behind her ear. She tilted her head and glanced at him. His digital eye blinked at her twice as he realized she was paying him any attention --she had been trying her best to ignore him since he never really let go of some of his names for her-- and stopped his humming. "Oh, hi! Sorry, was I interrupting your train of thought?"

"No, no." Sasha-5 stifled a sigh and swallowed her pride --why did she need to feel prideful or ashamed in the presence of this floating mechanical eyeball?-- and tapped the metal sign. "Can you understand this?"

"Oh, that? Yes, that's Common!"

"Great, great. Maybe it'll point me in the right direction. Us. Us in the right direction. What does it say?" Mortag bobbed his head in his form of nodding and zoomed above her shoulder to look at the words. After a moment, Sasha-5 looked at him expectantly, but his eye continued to scan the sign. "Out loud, please," she clarified after a moment.

"Oh, right. Du-du-du... Reactor core, laboratoryyyy, libreh--, studio, staff chambers, dun-dun-dun," Mortag hummed, and Sasha-5 certainly hoped he wasn't skimming past important information. "Restrooms, cafeteh--, armory, pool--"

"Wait, armory," Sasha-5 stopped him before he could continue rambling any longer. "Where's that?"

Mortag focused a short beam of light to a laser and pointed it towards the bottom. An arrow next to it pointed left. "That's where we're going, then." Sasha-5 declared. Before she started off, she turned back to Mortag, who almost bumped into her chest. "Does it say how far away the armory is?"

"No... why?"

Sasha-5 tilted her head down as her ears picked up on the slight pings of noise, far away but no doubt getting closer. She pulled out the shoddy vibroblade she found in the skeleton earlier. She started her way to the armory, far more stealthy this time around so she didn't pick up her own footsteps. The blade shook in her hand, but this was because of her own fears this moment.

"We're going to have some friends, and soon."

He was tempted to stay in the nothingness forever. He imagined it wrapping around him like a powerful dream, whispering of faces not quite remembered and half-completed tasks, begging him not to leave. But something cut through the tendrils tethering him to the nothingness and he jolted awake.

"You," a metallic voice declared, "remind me of a yak."

He blinked at the floating diamond in front of him. Vines of green pulsed across its silvery surface, and a single blue eye stared at him.

"Y'know, the shaggy animals from the folk tales. I think it's the hair."

Was this yet another strange dream? He cleared his throat and found he could speak. "Oh. Kayyy?" Putting a hand to his head, he realized he did feel a scraggly mop of hair.

"I'll call you Jaksdo," the floating machine decided. "Unless you'd prefer another name?"

"N-no, I... I can't think of anything better." Jaksdo's perception gradually widened to encompass his surroundings. He was slumped in a corner where two metallic corridors met. There was an open panel a couple paces to his right, containing severed wires that sparked occasionally. On the side of a wall in front of him, he could barely make out the word fragments "Clov ray orp". That meant nothing to him right now. It sounded fun, though. Maybe. He realized he didn't quite know what he considered fun.

He turned his attention back to the machine. "Who--or what--are you, again?"

The blue eye blinked slowly at him. "I'm Tux, she/her. I'm a Ghost. How are you feeling? Would you like me to tell a joke?"

For a moment, Jaksdo simply stared at Tux. He felt as if some wires had been severed in his brain, just like in the panel next to him. "Is... is hearing a joke the most important thing to do right now?" Through the chaos that was his mind trying to make sense of this situation, some instinct was screaming at him to find a way to defend himself. And Jaksdo felt like he was missing something even beyond his memories. Perhaps those two things were related.

The Ghost bobbed up and down in the air. "If it cheers you up, then yes."

Jaksdo stood up. The world faded around him momentarily as his blood pressure dropped. As the moment of disorientation passed, he decided that even more than searching for a weapon, he needed to stick with the Ghost, who at least seemed to know more about this place than he did. "In that case, alright."

"What do you call a pumpkin who becomes a Guardian?"

"I don't know. What?"

"A Gourdian." Tux paused for a second, vines flashing gleefully across her surface. "Y'know, like a gourd? Because pumpkins are gourds?"

"Ah." Jaksdo smiled quizzically.

Tux made a sound almost like an exasperated sigh. "I'll get you to laugh someday. Anyways, that's what you are."

"A pumpkin?"

"A Guardian."

"And that means...?"

"It means you're super special and we don't want you to die again, so let's get moving."

With that, Tux was moving away down the right-hand corridor, before Jaksdo had even wrapped his mind around what she'd just said.

"Hold on a second! I died?"

"...Would it upset you if I said yes?"

Jaksdo nodded emphatically as he loped along next to Tux.

"Then nope! You're just as alive as you always were. Congrats on, er, living." The Ghost turned a corner into a corridor lined with rooms. Some had doors that were sagging on their hinges and others only had openings that yawned ominously.

"But you just said you didn't want me to die again."

"Did I? Must have been a slip of the tongue. Not that I have one, but you get the meaning. Aha, right in here!" Tux swerved into a room whose door had fallen inwards.

Jaksdo was rather befuddled, but his doubts disappeared when he saw what was jammed into the opposite wall.

An old electrosaber was buried deeply in the concrete of the wall. There were no stains around it, indicating that it'd either missed its target or been thrust there in a fit of fury. Jaksdo stepped over the door and approached the blade.

Vines curled over Tux's form, making shapes that almost, but not quite, seemed to have meaning. "I trust you know what to do with this?"

Without being fully aware of what he was doing, Jaksdo settled into a solid stance and reached up to grab the hilt of the electrosaber. He braced himself against the wall and tried to pull the blade out.

For a few moments, nothing happened. Jaksdo adjusted his grip. Finally, with a sharp sound, the blade slid out of the wall.

Jaksdo staggered backwards and held the blade aloft. Tux did a loop-de-loop. "Excellent work, Jaks!"

Jaksdo examined the blade. It wasn't quite as promising as it had first appeared--it looked like a practice saber with only a slight charge, and it had also been dulled by time--but it'd do in a pinch. He nodded. The nagging in his brain to defend himself lessened slightly, though he still stayed aware of every creak of this abandoned building.

"Onwards, then?"

"Onwards."

It was difficult to perceive the concept of existence, of light, of life, in a complete absence of it. It was difficult to perceive anything at all, in fact. It was only when he slammed suddenly into his body with a wreckless, painful force that he--at once--realized everything he had been missing, and everything he--by being back in his body--was now missing. The lack of consciousness had been freeing, thrilling, even. Nothing to worry over. Nothing to try his best on, and fail spectacularly. Nothing at all.

Now, there was everything. Too much of everything, he felt. He could feel the creaks and groans in his body, mechanical and rusted. The body which he had so meticulously cleaned and polished, to avoid this exact thing--he wanted to scream.

Powering on. Words flickered across his vision as his cameras adjusted one by one, trying to see in the dark and dusty atmosphere. 13% rust damage. Analyzing... Analyzing... Analyzing... As his systems processed the damages in question, the word "Analyzing..." floated across the screen from right to left. When it exited the screen, it appeared on the right again, like a shitty news broadcast.

"Hello!" A voice shouted, and he raised an arm to grab his electrosaber, which he instinctually knew should be beside him. He swung it at where the voice had come from, and it yelped. A small metal sphere with a blue diamond eye in the middle swerved in the air to avoid the blade. "Ah! Hello, I mean no harm!" The sphere yelled, then paused in mid-air, vibrating, the metal of its outside changing from orange to blue and back to orange again. "That is what I am meant to say, right? That is what the instruction manuals tell me to say. Hello, I mean no harm!"

For the last sentence, the sphere repeats the words with the exact same tone as the first time, so it almost sounds like a recording instead of a new sentence.

"Who are you?" The words, surprisingly, came to him easily. Using his free hand, he tried to push against the ground to sit up, but his whole body collapsed against--a wall? He must be leaning against a wall.

"Hello!" The sphere said again gleefully, zooming around in the air in little circles. "I am Ghost 32484, nickname Bash, pronouns they/them! Would you like to read my instruction manual for further knowledge of my workings?"

"Sure," he muttered, eyeing the ball warily. His systems were still flashing the word "Analyzing..." at him over and over, so it was difficult to see past the words to take in the sphere fully.

"Retrieving instruction manual now!" Bash zoomed towards him, then froze suddenly in the air. "Retrieval unsuccessful!" The sound of a kazoo played, like a celebration. Bash seemed to try to release a mini canon of confetti, but all it did was blow a faint puff of dust across the room.

"You said Ghost." He groaned a little as he put the saber down and forced both hands to slowly and painfully push him to sit up fully.

Analysis complete! Manual analysis required! Goodbye!

Great. That wasn't helpful at all.

"Ghost!" Bash repeated excitedly. "Retriever of the dead for the purpose of the living!" They zoomed forward again, hovering only a few inches away from his face. "You were dead," they intoned happily. "How does it feel being alive again?"

"Awful," he grumbled. "I wish you'd left me alone."

For a moment, these words actually seemed to finally affect Bash's spirit. Their lights stopped flashing between colors, and their entire body trembled. "Oh." Then, their colors began flashing again. "Well, we'll just have to make you wish I hadn't left you alone!"

They buzzed cheerfully as they settled on the ground next to his arm, conveniently on the opposite side of the saber. "I am Bash," they repeated. "Do you know your name, or shall I make one for you?"

A faint memory flashed across his mind, playing like a video on the mini screen behind his eyes--one of a woman with long, blonde hair bordering grey, discussing something muffled seriously with another woman. Both human. Both making something inside him churn unsettlingly. "Grey-8," he said.

"Grey-8!" Bash repeated. "It is nice to make your acquaintance, companion! I will ensure that you do not wish to die, so we may make it past the enemies in this building who want to kill you to reach our other companions!"

"What?" Grey said alarmedly, eyes scanning the dusty, dark room for any signs of life. He pushed himself up against the wall, using it to balance himself as he inched up enough to finally stand. He felt unbalanced and disoriented, but after several seconds, finally managed to stand steadily long enough to bend down and retrieve the electrosaber. "There are those who want to kill me?" He sighed, already wishing he could return to the nothingness of whatever he'd been in--death, or something in-between.

Bash, for their part, watched his struggle to his feet silently, then played an extremely creepy, distorted recording of a child laughing in response to Grey's question. "Of course!" He bobbed through the air towards what appeared to be the only viable exit to the room, a small crack filled with debris that Grey would undoubtedly have to move. "This way!" Bash weaved effortlessly through the debris cluttering the floor, leaving Grey to clumsily follow in their wake.

Sasha-5 inched down a wide hallway, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light as the power was out in this section of the long-abandoned building. She knew Mortag was by her side as she could hear his gentle hum, but his light was off as well. Her vision adapted to the night and turned to some kind of infrared, but it was still difficult to see. She was in the middle of the hallway because, although she would have preferred to be on the edges in case she needed to hide or find cover, the hallway had deteriorated too much for her to safely walk through it. And the bodies. She has suspected she was getting closer and closer to the armory due to the amount of corpses that lined the edges of the hall. The first few she stopped to inspect briefly to see if there was a weapon she could grab before she was caught unaware by whatever was in this building with her. But after the first few had nothing but bones and dust, she walked past the rest. There had been a battle here long ago, perhaps when she herself had died, but none of the weapons used were still with the dead.

The hallway widened and she heard the first noise that sent a chill down her back. It was some kind of chittering, definitely not in a language that she knew. She rushed over to the wall and glanced at Mortag, who was to her left. "Friends?" she whispered, already guessing the answer.

"No." Mortag shook. He wobbled and then vanished from sight. Some kind of camouflage. Good.

Sasha-5 directed her attention to the direction of the noise. It was a small room, possibly used for some storage at one point in the past. Huge crates were dotted around the room, and there was what seemed to be another entrance at the opposite end. She ducked behind the crate nearest her and fished out the vibroblade she had picked up earlier. It clicked on and vibrated haphazardly. At least it worked.

Sasha-5 sidestepped over to the left and peered over the side of the crate. In the darkness, she could make out moving figures that dodged in and out of view, behind crates and past them. She counted three, and they all seemed around the same height. By her estimations, they were only just taller than her.

As they moved closer, she was able to make them out better. They all had flashlights attached to their head, and when they looked to each other, she could get her first look at her to-be enemies. They were clearly not human.

They had four arms, all of them, and masks hooked up to where their mouths and noses were presumably at. Their bodies looked more like oblong giant insectoids than human-like. In one of the four hands, each of them held a long gun.

Sasha-5 ducked under one of the light beams and snuck over to the left of the room, where one of the three split off. Sasha-5 held herself close against the crate and stilled her breath. Light splashed on the wall in front of her, the beam getting smaller and smaller. It got close enough for Sasha-5 to hear its breathing through the mask. It came out as a rattle with each exhale, like it was forced or strained. The clicking from earlier might not have been their language or speaking, but rather their breathing. Sasha-5 didn't have time to pursue that line of thinking any further.

She waited as the enemy inched further forward, past the crate. The gun poked its way into her field of vision first, the flashlight bobbing to its movement. Sasha-5 was just far enough out of its way for it to not shine on her, and its light bobbed along the wall across from her, tightening its circle as the being stalked forth. It swinged its gun to the right, away from the crate. Sasha-5 waited as long as she could, until she could see its arms, and it began its tracking to the left. Just before it shined its light on her, she struck first.

Sasha-5 slashed at the arm nearest her, one of the top arms holding the gun. The blade skittered across tough skin, barely marking it. The being screeched out in alarm and surprise, and the gun pointed immediately in her direction. Sasha-5 grabbed the gun and thrusted it up as it shot. The shots fired wide, splattering the ceiling. She yanked at the weapon, but it was fully in the being's grip. She heard scattering from deeper in the room and lights flashed above the crates intermittently. They heard the commotion.

Sasha-5 wrapped her right arm around the base of the weapon and used her own weight to haul the enemy over her shoulder. It was surprisingly lightweight and she tossed it onto the floor with ease. She kicked it hard, straight in its midsection.

The enemy collided with the wall, visibly weakened from the impact. It raised the gun, but Sasha-5 ducked before it could pull the trigger. She landed on her knees, skidding across the short gap and she thrusted the vibroblade deep in the being's neck. It let out a guttural noise and purple blood popped and bubbled around the wound. The sound ringed in Sasha-5's ears as she fished for the weapon. It took a few tugs to loosen it from the being's death grip.

She inspected it, but the weapon didn't have any trigger that she could make out. The other two enemies were no doubt closing in. She didn't have the time to figure it out, so she dumped it, instead going back for the vibroblade that was still embedded in the being's neck. She ripped it out, causing blood to splatter all over her from the hooked edges on the blade. Stab, don't slash, she thought.

She didn't have time to think more on the blade before sizzling shots sounded behind her. Instinctively, she ducked and rolled to the side. Most of the bullets arced past her ears and landed against the wall. One shot grazed her shoulder. She hissed out in response, but only felt pain for a mere moment before something else surged through her... like an intense burst of adrenaline but so much more, as if the adrenaline both hit her physically and on a deeper level.

She turned, jumped forward, and rammed her non-shot shoulder into the crate closest to the origin of the shots. It was a column of double stacked crates. The top one toppled from the impact and fell behind Sasha-5 as the first absorbed most of the impact, surging forward and colliding with containers behind it. The two other enemies were to the right of the collision and jumped in surprise. Before they could react further, Sasha-5 grabbed the second crate and spun it around, tossing it clear off the ground. It impacted one of them solidly, so she focused her attention on the last of the group.

She ducked underneath the being's shots, hopping forward with two lopsided leaps to close the distance. Instead of trying to wrestle the gun away from it, this time she struck the joints of both gun-holding arms with open palm strikes. The joints gave way easily, bending their arms in a direction that they were not used to. The being dropped the gun with a squeal, but Sasha-5 did not relent. She grabbed the other two arms and bent them out beyond its sides, splintering the joints connected to their body. They went limp. The being screeched and let out blistering high whistles that echoed with breathily through the mask. It did not give up, though, and it rammed against Sasha-5's body with desperate fervor. It clawed at Sasha-5's face with the two arms it could somewhat use, scratching at her metal and eye sockets. She batted away at it, but it held surprising strength in its final struggles.

Sasha-5's optical inputs began to flicker as it continued clawing. Sasha-5 grunted and yanked at the tubing connected to the being's mask, tearing it clean off of its face. Sparkling white gas spewed out of the tube, glittering in the air before dissipating. The being clawed at its face for a moment before it slumped to its knees and collapsed against Sasha-5's feet.

She kicked it to the side, catching her breath. Her chassis struggled against her lungs as she gulped in large breaths.

Mortag appeared next to her. "You did it!"

Sasha-5 held out a hand to stop him. "Armory. Which way?" She didn't have the energy to elaborate. Thankfully, Mortag seemed to catch on that and pointed the way those enemies came from. "I did some scouting. Not far through there."

Sasha-5 nodded and stepped over the body. Mortag's light was a welcome source of comfort from the almost pitch black that came before. Mortag noted characteristics of those she just fought, traits that she also noted as she interacted with them. Insectoid, but walk on two legs like humans. Four arms, tough exoskeleton. Not able to breath air, and instead breathe in whatever that white gas was. Mortag's scans revealed it was nothing known on Earth. The weapon seemed connected to their version of fingerprints, and were useless to Sasha-5.

She took it all in silently as they made their way to the armory. Mortag had no information on what species they were, but he mentioned that they seemed small and juvenile by characteristics similar to human growth. That worried Sasha-5, as she was close to being overpowered several times by these juvenile creatures. She was still a bit off-kilter from only being newly alive again, so she needed a gun.

Thankfully, they reached the armory. With a wave of her hand, she instructed Mortag to lag behind as she entered, knife held in one hand, ready to strike at a moment's notice. Stab, don't slice.

The armory was a small room that had once been locked and kept secured by a gate. That gate was now torn apart and left the place open. Small metal boxes were stacked against one corner, and three walls were filled with lockers. Most of them were open and empty. Sasha-5 scanned the room. No enemies.

Mortage floated in behind her, peering above her shoulder. The light from his eye filled the room to where she could make everything out clearer. There weren't many weapons left. She made her way to the boxes first, just to check behind them. All clear. In the containers themselves were piles of smaller white boxes. She inspected them. They were ammo, some kind of special form that adapted to several different weapon types. She grabbed several cases and stuffed them in whatever spaces she could find on her person.

Then she inspected the lockers. On the right wall, the one closest to her, she made out a small gun behind a locked door. She smashed it open and held the gun close, inspecting it. The logo was faded but otherwise it looked perfectly fine. It was small, but looked like it worked well enough. She pulled out the old magazine and stuffed the new adaptable ammo box in. It fit the form fine and she clicked it into place.

Just then, commotion stirred behind her, and Sasha-5 spun around, gun held high.