I like to write. Destiny has inspired some stories involving my characters and the fire-teams I frequently run with. Here are some excerpts for other players to enjoy. This first one is for my warlock, whom I've decided calls himself Atticus - his ghost found and revived him in the Attica region of Greece. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The silhouette of a man moved slowly through dilapidated hallways, poorly lit by a few barely functional LED lights that had been reactivated. One such light pushed back the shadows, illuminating the figure that made his way through the ruin. An average figure in most respects: a man that appeared to be barely more than a boy, some five and a half feet in height, with pale skin and distant stormy blue eyes. His hair was short, a bit unkempt, with stray lengths of platinum blue locks hanging about his brow and ears. He was garbed in light armour, for a guardian, more akin to robes and cloth than the hardened spinmetal and relic iron favoured by most. An illusion of defenselessness, of course, for each woven fabric was a lattice of baryons and mesons pulled atomic-tight in a fieldweave and strengthened by the very Light of the figure that moved with silent confidence. His gaze fell on the scraps of broken technology, before turning to face a small sphere that floated a few paces behind him. "Ghost, why do you keep so quiet about my research?" The young man with platinum blue hair fixed his eyes on the small orb that flitted nearby, it's glowing blue 'eye' turning to meet his gaze. It was still for only a moment, before it began to reconfigure as it was prone to do - it's geometric metal shell twisting and bending and rotating while barely altering it's outward appearance. "You search for answers that even a lost Golden Age cannot give." Slight nods shook the young man's eyes from the ghost, his robes rustling slightly as he turned away from the sliver of alien technology. He folded his arms, a gloved finger touching the bond wrapped around his bicep. The condensed supercollider hummed with energy at his touch, and his nerves lit up at the feeling that pulsed through him from the sensory cortex linked to his fingertips. The Dead Orbit symbology along it's edge glimmered a pale blue and white at the touch. A sigh rose from his lips, and he returned to his books. "I find it difficult to believe that a sliver of Alpha Lupi cannot offer insight into the Elan of a guardian, and the Light we wield. I've watched you penetrate a conflux of non-baryonic streams and link into the Axis Minds of the Vex networked intelligence. You've downloaded portions of the largest golden-age library discovered, and told me less than a preamble's worth of that knowledge." "Atticus, if I tried to tell you everything that we discover the exposition alone would halt your active duty of defending your world from external threats. Besides... you know what happened to both Toland and Osiris." Should he feel angry, the guardian wondered to himself, or some other sensation? Every feeling since his discovery and rebirth had been so very distant, as if filtered through another life and projected insincerely onto his mind. The pain of every injury was real enough, even those inflicted by his own Light since the deactivation of suppressors in his armor's sensory mesh... Perhaps the life of a guardian desensitized him, taking with it a bit of his humanity. His fingers ran along the lengths of his hood, and he lifted it to eye level to stare into it's visor. It's rounded edges of black and white stared vacantly back at him, an ironic reflection of the warlock's own feeling. A thought danced through his head, tugging the edges of his lips into a morbid smile as he compared himself to the prince Hamlet staring at Yorick's skull. He wondered what memories of his own past life, or lives, were hidden in his own mind. One day, he might join the Thanatonauts and explore the secrets within like Pujari. He slide the helmet over his head, the sound of it's HUD flickering to life familiar and welcome in his ears. The interface linked itself to his neural pathways in nanoseconds, the display becoming a seamless extension as if the visor were his natural eyes. The ghost's voice came from within as it integrated with the suit and extended into the scout rifle. "You will have to trust me, guardian. For now, we have to focus on Arach Jalaal's request. I've identified a Fallen extraction crew a few miles from our location. From the readings, I suspect both a Captain and a lesser Servitor will be in the area. There should be more than enough salvage, assuming we arrive before it's processed into Ether." He stepped out of the dimly-lit building he had taken shelter in, the sun's light pouring over his figure to highlight the contrasting black-and-grey patterning along his robed and hooded armour. He lifted his left hand, and the ghost briefly materialized as he called it out of the suit's interface. It looked up at him for a moment, before sprawling into an array of particles and rearranging into a virtual interface that functioned as navigation and communication in a real-time display. "We'll make it. Call in the EV-30, calibrate it for local gravity." It was done before the sentence was even finished, and the ghost had reintegrated with the guardian's systems. The sparrow shimmered for a brief moment as it phased into existence from the Guardian Transmat Network. Atticus grabbed the handles, swinging his legs over the seat in the same motion and the with a roar of engine ignition he was a blur of motion. The sparrow was little more than a spinmetal chassis fitted over a drive engine, yet it's design was such that it nimbly responded to every subtle shift of the warlock's body. The land was a combination of rolling hills and plains of sparse burnt orange grasses, littered with the husks of stripped cars and ruined buildings. Old Russia, a burnt wasteland ruin encircled by a failed wall meant to protect ancient colony ships during the Collapse. The sound of Fallen comm chatter registered in Atticus' ears as he closed in on the waypoint his ghost had set. He recognized a few of the harsh, barking words and had observed the scavengers enough to guess at their motives in the area. "You're close. They're in a clearing past the next wall. You can get in through a hole seventeen degrees west, seven hundred meters in that direction." A blink and soft tone registered on Atticus' motion tracker, and he turned the sparrow to course-correct. There was a great deal of debris in front of the wall, including the shell of a rusted plane of some size. It was missing the rear section of it's chassis, but the wings had collapsed in such a way that he could boost the sparrow over the wall... He completely depressed the turn pedal as he pulled the break, and then twisted the accelerator as hard as he could the moment the antigrav system registered the wing's spacial position. The plasma engine screamed to life as he soared through the air, right hand lifting away from the controls. Four dregs, a vandal, and a captain. The servitor was likely busy processing inside a building nearby. The sparrow began to lean back with the warlock, it's limiters disabled as he separated from the vehicle. A spark ignited in his right hand, quanta exciting and bursting as the fire of stars burst to life in a sphere of superheated plasma. His will bent the space around him, gravity denied it's hold on his figure as the sparrow fell rapidly away upon an unsuspecting dreg. It's sharp screech ended abruptly, ether forced out of it's crushed figure as the sparrow hit the ground. The remaining fallen turned their many eyes skyward, only to be met with scorching flames. Their screams replaced those of the crushed dreg. There was a hum of arc energy, and the warlock tracked the short range teleportation of the Captain. It alone had survived the Solar Grenade's heat, standing proud and angry some thirty feet away. It rose to full height, it's pale brown armor highlighted by the now-seared red temper cloth marked by the curving symbols of the House of Devils. It twisted it's crest-arched helmet as it's shield, two of it's four arms pulling free the shock swords holstered on either hip. It's four eyes burned with blue ether gas, a harsh roar echoing as the guardian's first boot gently touched the earth.