[i]The guardians are so powerful, I wanted to explore how an ordinary person might fare against the minions of the Darkness. What methods they might use to resist extinction and survive in an environment as dangerous as the Destiny universe. This is my best effort to tell the story of one such person. I welcome all comments, compliments and criticism alike. I hope you enjoy the story, if you do give it a like and leave me a comment! Thanks![/i] [b][u]Part One[/u][/b] Jorn tore through the woods, running through the darkness as fast as he dared. To his back, the sounds of the attack still rang out into the night. Flashes of the Fallen's arc weaponry lit up the black, and and the screams of the dying were quickly lost to the far more terrible chorus of feral alien cries. Off to his left, Jorn caught a glimpse of another survivor sprinting through the trees. One second she was there, and then an instant later, those bolts of white energy came crackling out of the night and cut her down. Jorn held his young nephew Halad to his chest, ignored the burning in his lungs, and ran on. In case of a critical emergency, the settlement had a fall back rally point. Every person in the village knew the way there -even in the dark- and anyone who had managed to escape the raid would be heading that way. It wasn't much further now, so Jorn willed his body to keep running. At last he emerged into a grassy clearing and saw the rally point: a lone, broad oak tree, ahead. With a final burst of effort he sprinted across across the open meadow, under the great tree's boughs, and into the relative safety offered by its deep shadow. Once under the tree, his eyes began to adjust and slowly, other survivors began to come into view. While it was too dark to make out their faces, he could tell right away that there were only three others. One of them was Rona, one of the town elders. She had always stood tall and strong, even into her old age. It was her fine posture that gave her away now. The other two, a woman and her baby, sat in the grass. The woman rocked her child softly, trying to remain calm. Jorn knelt down beside the woman and set Halad down in the grass beside her. He laid his hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment before turning and approaching Rona. "Is this everyone?" Jorn asked with disbelief. He and the other men of the village had rallied a counterattack to buy others the time needed to escape. "There had to be more people who made it out." Rona shook her head, "Not yet, she answered before shifting her gaze back to the treeline. "Who is the boy you carried out with you?" "Logan's boy" He answered, also scanning the edge of the forest for any movement. "What happened?" she asked. "The attack was even larger than we feared" he responded. "It wasn't scattered Dregs or even a Vandal death squad. There were dozens of them working together under a Fallen officer." Their conversation was cut short by the sound of someone, or something, moving through the forest toward them. It was common knowledge that while under the rally tree at night, that a person was hidden in the oak's deep shadow. Sound still carried however, so Jorn and the others fell silent. The sound of rustling leaves grew louder as the approaching source drew nearer. Suddenly a man emerged from the trees and began to hurry toward the lone oak. He was clearly injured however, and leaned heavily on a staff. Jorn watched the man approach, but then movement back in the trees drew his gaze. A lone Dreg stepped out into the meadow and in an instant, shot the fleeing man in the back. The man fell halfway to the tree and collapsed face down in the grass. The Dreg approached the man. Jorn couldn’t tell if he was alive or not, but the three additional shots that the Dreg sent into his back extinguished any hope. Jorn swallowed his anger and told himself that there was nothing that he could have done. Leaving the tree would have jeopardized everyone under it. He watched the Dreg standing over the man, willing it to go back into the forest. “Go back into the trees. There’s no one else out here” he thought. “Go back and tell all the rest of your pack that there’s no one else.” The Dreg snarled and chattered for a moment before looking up at the tree. A feeling of dread washed over Jorn. It had always been assumed that the Fallen wouldn’t be able to see into the oak’s deep shadow, just as humans couldn’t. However, he didn’t know if it had never been tested. The Fallen scout looked directly at him and bared its teeth in a snarl. It let loose a feral cry and pulled a wicked dagger from its belt. The long blade sizzled to life, arcing with electricity. Jorn didn’t wait to see anymore. With one hand he pulled a leather sling from his belt. With his other hand he dug into a small pouch on his hip and withdrew a chunk of steel the size of a walnut. With the practiced hands of a seasoned hunter, he loaded the primitive weapon and, with a snap of his arm and a twist of his wrist, sent the projectile hurtling out toward the Dreg. The bullet streaked toward the alien, too fast for the eye to follow, and slammed into its hip with an audible crack. With a yelp, the Dreg went down hard. The dagger went dark as it fell from the Fallen’s grasp. Crying out in pain and fear, it tried to drag its broken body back toward the safety of the trees. Its cries were abruptly silenced when a second chunk of steel came hurtling out of the darkness and found the back of its head. Jorn rushed out from beneath the oak and charged toward the wounded Fallen. Above his head, his sling spun like a rotor and as the Dreg tried again to get up, a third projectile hit it between the shoulder blades. Jorn closed the rest of the distance at a sprint and as he neared the broken alien, he bent and snatched the Fallen dagger from the grass. He stalked toward the downed alien and the dagger crackled to life in his fist. The Dreg rolled onto its back, and looked up at Jorn in pain and hatred. One of the bullets had connected with an ether unit on the alien’s back, and it leaked thin wisps of white smoke into the night air. He glared down at the Dreg in a fury. All the hatred and anger from the attack boiled over in his mind, and before Jorn even knew what was happening, he began stabbing savagely at the Fallen. He stabbed again and again, but he wasn’t connecting. The Dreg blocked the first and second strikes, and on the third one it caught Jorn’s arm. The Fallen’s sharp claws dug into his wrist as it tried to wrench away the dagger. Too furious to feel the pain, Jorn kicked the Dreg in the head. He then raised his leg and drove it down as hard as he could, stomping down on the alien’s face. The Fallen released his arm and an instant later, the dagger was buried in the Dreg’s belly. An alien scream rang out into the night and Jorn ripped the blade loose before driving it down again into its chest. Overcome with fury, he viciously twisted the knife before tearing it loose to stab yet again. But as he pulled the knife from the Dreg’s chest, a burst of white ether shot from the wound directly into Jorn’s face. Coughing and gasping, Jorn reeled from the gas and turned away from the Dreg. Sputtering, blind, and unable to breathe, he dropped the dagger and collapsed into the grass. Jorn retched and fumbled blindly in the dark trying to find the dagger again. At last, his fingers found the weapon’s handle, and seizing it in his grip, he rose again to his feet. With his eyes still watering from the alien gas, he strained to find the Dreg again. Thin puffs of ether oozed from the black shape in the grass, but nothing else moved. Continuing to cough, Jorn knelt beside the dead man and retrieved the staff he had been using. He then turned to the Dreg and began to look for anything they might be able to use. He hefted the Fallen’s shock pistol out of the grass and found it empty. Discarding the heavy weapon, he turned to the Dreg itself. Finding a second shock dagger, a few coils of wire, and a grenade, he gave the alien one last kick before turning and retreating to the oak tree. “Are you alright?” Rona asked as he approached. Jorn handed her the staff. “Yea, I think I’m okay.” “We have to get out of here” the woman in the grass said. Her voice was strained, but Jorn recognized her as Shir. She had always been one of the kindest people in the town, Jorn was glad that her and her baby had made it out. “She's right,” Jorn agreed. “The rally tree’s not safe, and I don’t think anyone else is coming.” Rona nodded “I know.” She turned and pointed to the far end of the meadow. “We will head south. I have heard of another settlement in that direction. The City too, though it’s too far to try for right now.” Jorn helped up Shir before picking his nephew up out of the grass. The five of them departed, hurrying to the opposite end of the clearing before turning slightly and heading south. As they moved into the trees, Jorn could hear the hellish calls of the Fallen behind them. Looking back across the vast meadow, Jorn saw a pair of Dregs and a Vandal emerge from the tree line. “We have to move –fast” He whispered, turning back to the others. As quietly as they could, the group fled away from the clearing and into the dense wood of the forest. [b][u]Part Two[/u][/b]: [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/203330624[/url]