[b]Prologue: Golden Recollections[/b] They asked me, “What do you remember?”. They expected me to remember my past so well that they could pick apart my recollections and obtain information to help them in their fight. Our fight. The fight against The Darkness. [i]Tcha.[/i] Were it that easy! They wished it were. I wished it were… But it isn’t. All I remembered was the events leading up to the Collapse of the Golden Age. Yes, I remembered how Humanity spread to the stars with the help of the Traveler. How the Traveler endowed us with unexplainable abilities that even scientists had to call ‘magic’. How lifespan tripled. How the Traveler had enemies, enemies that came to our planets and killed us. How I and my siblings in arms of the World Guard were doing our best to valiantly evacuate civilians to the safety of fortified underground bunkers. Lastly...I remember a blinding light appearing in the west. It grew brighter, it came closer, until my entire being was engulfed. All my senses were overloaded in exasperation, and the last I felt was a tingling in my chest. Of course, I remember waking up in what seemed like an instant after that. A floating light bulb telling me I had been dead for roughly seven hundred years...but that part wasn’t any help to those asking me about the past now. The worst part are the crucial bits of information I can’t remember. The knowledge no Guardian can remember. [i]What or who[/i] was the Traveler? [i]Why and how[/i] do the Guardians have its power? [i]Why [/i]was The Darkness its enemy? These most important details was lost to the ages, and every Guardian’s mind is forsaken of this knowledge as well. So here I found myself, having a cup of tea with the most important man in The Tower, giving only shrugs and empty answers to his inquiries. Rather, I had the tea all to myself. He offered it...he never drank it. Never took off that helmet, and II guess it was fitting. The Traveler was closed up now, never showing what was inside itself again. This ‘Speaker of the Traveler’ probably covered every bit of flesh on himself for the same reason. Seemed a little religiously fanatic to me...and I remember history class on the subject of the woes of religion. Regardless, The Speaker was a nice enough man. “It’s disappointing…” He averted his gaze down to the table we sat at, masked face resting on a palm. “Not you, of course. Just the situation with the Guardians. Like I said, every other Guardian doesn’t know what we need to know.” An extended sigh came from him. This wasn’t the sigh of a defeated man, but it was definitely the sigh of a weary man. “I understand. Wish I---” I coughed several times painfully, voice catching in my throat. God knows how those tiny robots could bring someone back from the dead, but it wasn’t a perfect process. My voice was low and throat painful as hell still. “Sorry. Wish I had more to say, chief, but I don’t. You got my word though, like I told you before. I was a Guard before the Collapse, now I’ll be a Guardian after the Collapse. Think I can handle three extra letters, eh?” I smiled optimistically. The Speaker’s head inclined toward me, gaze lifting back up. I was never the best at reading body language, but I think he was amused. Or vexated. “Every soldier counts.” He rose from his seat then, indicating our talk had finished. He briefly glanced over the railing to my immediate left, as did I. We looked down upon the back portion of the Last City, high up in The Tower. It was a beautiful sight. “I must return to my other duties, Guardian. Despite the purpose of gathering knowledge once more failing, it was pleasing to learn a little about you. Every soldier and Guardian is important...yet, you seem destined for higher greatness than most the others.” A nod of his head and he turned to saunter off, hands reverently clasped behind his back. Well. I appreciated his confidence in me, but not as if I lacked any. I wasn’t a Captain in the World Guard at the age of fifty four for no reason. I was the best and I kept proving it with my valiant efforts in defending our home. If it were an actual alien force that came for us as we evacuated civilians in Russia, the results would had been very different. I went my own way after The Speaker returned to his post. Figured I’d try to navigate my way down to wherever the personal quarters resided at within The Tower. I had fresh armor, fresh guns, and a fresh ship all pretty much given to me. Guardians were more or less seen as royalty in their own stomping grounds, so every vendor felt obligated to get them back on their feet after they were brought back into the fight by their A.I ghost companion. Hopefully the folks that managed the personal living spaces were willing to lick my boots, too.