章 25: Keep Running, Never Stop 1
Essences Used: Lone Wolf (Destiny 1&2) & Blank
Dying once is never a dull affair, but dying twice was something else entirely.
An endless fleet of dark, large, imposing vessels rains death and fire across the sol system. So many lives lost in the ensuing chaos. And that voice I will never be able to get out of my mind.
"Rest Now, for your suffering is over." The voice from the ship said as it proceeded to flick away an entire army sent to destroy it simply. Hundreds of men, women, and frames were sent to destroy an enemy we could never see coming.
But I am skipping ahead too far.
My name was and still is Salvatore Doria. In both lives, I lived as best I could, trying to do as much as I could. I traveled the world, and I almost even managed to go to space one time, among other things, but then when you live your life always running, you get tired much more quickly, and that exemplified itself through life, ending my road through a failed parachute.
Honestly, it was my fault for trusting the shoddy workmanship of normal townsfolk. When I tried to use my parachute, the thing ripped off my pack and floated away as I hit the ground hard. Luckily, I landed in a way that broke my neck on contact, so I felt no pain, just darkness after my body hit the ground.
And in that void, I found two bottles, and assuming they were there for a reason, I drank them both and then found myself being reborn in a new world. This one was a particular future where humanity was in the midst of a golden age, with men like Clovis Bray and his Warminds showing the possibilities for humanity. So, as I grew up, I wanted to take it slow and delve into science and adventure.
And while I was never a prodigy at such things, I found it in my second life I could learn things a decent bit more easily than before as well as retain the knowledge so that what I did, I learned all I could, I visited the earth, venus, mercury, and beyond. It was an amazing life. Even when I heard of wars with machines on Nessus and Europa; I did not heed them as I needed to keep going.
I couldn't stop, I never wanted to, as if it was ingrained in me to never stay in one place for too long. As time passed, I never even noticed how I lived past 100, and even in my two-hundreds, I could still be compared to a prime middle-aged man who never stopped exercising. At one point, I even traveled to Europa when the machines were not so present and found nothing of much worth there other than some Bray facilities.
I had heard the word of something called The Deep Stone Crypt, some type of facility that led to the creation of a new race called the Exo's I had met a couple in my travels, but they were a bit distant, and when I met them again they had some kind of numerical designation for every time they reset themselves, and I had to remind one that was all blue and had yellow stripes of my name.
I think his name was Banshee or something. I never spoke to him long enough to care. But then the layers started to peel off, and in my desire to learn, I delved too deeply and found the origin of the Exos, and it was morbid, to say the least. I soon left Europa to return to Earth when I heard the word of evacuations on other colonies, and since I had my own jump ship it was a simple matter.
As I approached Earth after making the jump to Europa, I landed back near my home in Russia, as I always enjoyed the views from the mountains there. But then the dark times came as those giant pyramid ships appeared in the skies above Earth, and that giant glowing ball people called the gardener, or the traveler did something.
I could never remember what it did to force the ships to leave, but whatever it did hurt them badly. All of the ships that weren't destroyed in the blast retreated back into deep space, either too damaged to keep going or whoever was leading them decided to cut their losses and simply retreat.
In the chaos, I tried to make it back to my ship in the nearest spaceport, and as I drove there, I was met with ridiculous traffic and then decided to hoof it there. Due to the advancements Humanity has made, you could often see people running at the speed most sports cars could go to, but not many enhance themselves like that due to something called Cyber Psychosis.
It was a way to explain how if a human enhanced themselves too far using machinery, the brain would reject it and cause damage to the body as well as the mind, which led to the creation of cyber psychos. But now, with the world in chaos, I was near an overpass as a storm raged on, and before I knew it, I saw a gun put to my head. Before I could say anything, a shot rang out, and I knew no more.
Before I lost complete consciousness, I saw the man with the gun rifle through my pockets, hoping to find something, but I always kept my ship locked with a mental key so it could only be accessed using my voice and passcode. And since my ship had voice registration, anyone who was not me would immediately be killed by my ship's defenses.
So I died again. Yet this time, it was like going to sleep instead of just an endless void.
I don't know how long I was asleep, but in that darkness, I dreamed. I saw visions of many things that could never make sense. I saw billions of red glowing eyes staring at me, along with the shadow of three green burning eyes.
I saw a large diamond-shaped vessel destroy entire worlds, but what terrified me the most was that whoever that being was stared right at me and hefted his massive blade before the vision faded.
It seemed endless, but some were odd as I saw a very large being that looked as if the elites from that Halo game developed a singular diet for Twinkies sitting on a throne with gold everywhere. His laughter was both jubilant and empty at the same time as he reveled in excess, but it all felt empty, and I saw a smaller giant looking at him with conflicted eyes as the vision faded again.
Yet what confused me the most was seeing being somehow coming back to life from the grasp of death. Hundreds of men, women, and even a child fight endless hordes of monsters and battles. And all I could do was watch as battle after battle. All I could do was try to avert my eyes. I wanted to scream, run towards them, and do something! But I couldn't.
Sometimes, I would feel something staring at me, and when I was shown nine worlds, all of them watching me as a child would watch a cartoon on a TV. I went mad and recovered from madness, only to return to the safety of insanity. I laughed, cried, sobbed, and wept for time passing me by.
And when the world never seemed to favor me, I literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and as I slowly walked into the light, I opened my eyes and saw a floating blue eye staring at me.
I may have looked at it for too long as it then proceeded to float towards me, and as I reached for it, I patted it on its metal top, and it simply stared at me.
[Are you petting me?] A distinctly feminine voice asked. (The Ghost sounds like Pyrrha Nikos)
"Yes, I am. Do you want me to stop?"
[Yes, I do. As I can't really feel what you're doing, and we are wasting time.]
"Time, huh? What are you running from then, floating blue eyeball?"
[The Fallen is a race of aliens that want to eliminate humanity and take back the traveler.]
"Doesn't that seem a bit counterintuitive? It seems like the golf ball has some form of sentience. So I don't think killing its protectors will make it more inclined to help its former people."
My question causes the eye to somehow iden as it asks quickly [Wiat! Wait! You can remember what the traveler was?]
"Of course I can. I may have had a very long and extended dirt nap, but my memory is as amazing as I am, so it is perfect." I tried to make a large and eccentric smile, but I could feel the sadness emanating from the eyeball.
[This is my guardian…God, can I get another one?]
"Nonsense. I will be an amazing guardian; what does a guardian do?" I did actually want to know as while the visions did show me many things, I could never actually hear anything, and I could never read any legible words as they were like empty smoke and flew off the page as I tried to read them.
*ROOOAR!*
[Okay, you know what? I will tell you what a guardian does as I am your Ghost, but we need to not die. So can you run?]
"Yes, but where?" I then looked towards the giant rusted wall, and the eyeball flew towards an open door. As it showed me the open door, I asked another question.
"Have all the nearby ships been looted from the Spaceport?" I asked as the Ghost went side to side, so no.
[Surprisingly enough, this place has very high amounts of golden age security, and many Guardians have learned not to mess with golden age security.]
"Perfect, we have an exit strategy then." The Ghost then floats next to me as we delved further into the ruins of the spaceport.
[You already have an exit strategy? What is it?]
"Isn't it obvious we're going to my ship if it's still there, we can use it." My idea caused it to light up a bit as we ran through the facility, and I heard what sounded like dozens of large spiders crawling after us.
[Must go faster!]
"I know, eyeball!"
[I have a name, you know!]
"Okay, what is it then, eyeball?"
[Its-Watch out!]
I then ducked and rolled behind a pillar as I heard another roar form behind us. These multiarmed creatures saw me and began firing some type of plasma that seemed to follow after me.
"You got anything eyeball, or else this tenure will be very short-lived!" As I say this, I am dodging and weaving behind pillars and other rubble.
[Here, take this. Transmatting a weapon into your hands, hold them out!]
I then do so, and a weapon forms in my hands that looks like a classic revolver. As I looked inside the chamber, I saw no bullets as the Ghost seemingly floated downwards in shame.
"You forgot bullets!" The Ghost then nearly falls to the ground as I dodge a slash from some sort of electro blade, and as one fires what looks like some kind of slug magma shotgun, it melts the nearby cover.
[I'm sorry! I never went into combat, and that gun was a collectible!]
Breathing in, I found that I was feeling no tiredness, and as I combed my memory for anything that could help, I remembered a vision of a certain gun.
And as I stopped behind some cover, I focused myself and reached for the power within, and as I reached for the warmth, a small revolver formed in my hands and caused a small explosion of fire to erupt as my body was coated in flames.
I then followed my instincts and left the cover, and as I saw ten of those Fallen, I spun the gun in my hand and fanned the hammer. Thankfully, I had previous experience with guns because you don't travel space without running into a couple of pirates.
As I shot every single one of them, they disintegrated into what looked like solar dust, and when they tried to take cover, I shot through it using my flaming pistol. And after 20 shots, with me missing half of them because I am still decently inexperienced, I fall to the ground in exhaustion.
[That shouldn't be possible. The golden gun should only be wielded by guardians after basic training.]
Breathing heavily, I said to the eyeball, "Thanks..Thanks for the compliment, eyeball. Can you scan for more of those xenomorph wannabes?" The Ghost then spread itself out, and a blue sphere formed around it as it spread out a blue pulse but then closed.
[Good news or bad news?]
"Bad news first gotta temper expectations."
[Well, those were not the last of the fallen, and you have a decently sized Squadron coming after you, but hey, we're almost to the hangar you were talking about.]
Sighing to myself, I got up and started running again, and as I reached the private facility, I asked the Ghost to keep watch behind me. As I went over to the door to put in the password, the pad wouldn't start as there was no power. As I got frustrated, I heard those fallen coming with some big, and I began to panic.
And as I did this, I finally said fuck it focused on that power again and formed a knife of that fiery energy, and began to cut a hole through the rusted metal.
[I'm not one to be a backseat driver, but you might want to hurry up!]
"I am trying!" As I continued to cut through the hangar doors, I was finally able to cut the hole, and I slammed my fists into it and sent the metal slab flying.
As I grabbed the floating eyeball, it shrieked in Surprise as I saw my ship.
I may have taken inspiration from Star Wars as it looks like Slave 1, and as my Ghost saw the ship, even it went quiet.
[This is your ship? I'm surprised you would own something like this.]
"Pfft own it? I built the damn thing, and I built it to last. Now, can you connect to the ship and lead us out? I need to get the guns ready, as we need that firepower to blow the doors." The eyeball nodded, and as I entered the ship and blew away the cobwebs and dust, I sat in the pilot's seat and input the codes to get it going.
After the ship started to hum again, I went to the guns to try to get them working along with the other ordinance, and as the fallen were able to slip in, the ship was already starting to hover, and as the Ghost got it in the position, I managed to get enough power to the guns and started blasting.
The pew pew sound of the turrets started rapid-firing as I blew chunks into the hangar bay doors, and after enough shots, they collapsed, and I shouted, "Eyeball, it's your time to shine!"
[Thrusters activated! Hold on, Guardian!]
"If I die again, I want you to know…we were already best friends!" I could feel the shots hitting the hull of the ship.
It then blasted out of the hangar as I got back in my seat and buckled up. We managed to get over the clouds, not realizing we had a stranger watching us with interest in their eyes.
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