So I thought I would try this for a bit. The world of Destiny intrigues me a lot, but it's often forgotten that between all the world-destroying threats, there are still the little stories that fall between those gaps. So let me just transplant something over...

"- Stand by for DECISION POINT:

If available ISR and WARWATCH indicates imminent [O] departure

then [O] departure compromises human/human-descendant survival and epoch strategy

- Stand by for ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE:

Activate LOKI CROWN Perform deniable authorization: full caedometric and noetic release Prevent [O] departure by any means available

- Stand by for effect assessment criteria:

Coerce pseudoaltruistic [O] defensive action. Defer civilization kill."

- Excerpt from unknown transmission within the Warmind Network, pre-Collapse

=| Prologue |=

Old Russia Sector

Mobile City Chernobog, Ursus Empire

The man had been on the edge of life and death, surviving despite his captor's many machinations, but today was the day he would take his last breath.

Soulworker had been watching him for the past month, ever since the Ursus Royal Guard had hauled him up and dumped him onto their experiment table, before doing all sort of unimaginable things to him. The many drugs they used on him, followed with the vicious implantation of Originum-based catalysts, before asking Soulworker to inject pulses of Light into him.

It didn't work, of course. They wanted a weapon, but their pitiful understanding of the powers-that-be was even lower than that of the Last City, and even the warriors that held court there barely had any idea themselves. So the man suffered so much before they simply gave up and left him to rot.

And so the facility was reduced to that of the skeleton staff, the wretched soul choking upon his accelerated Oripathy, and Soulworker himself.

That said, Soulworker did admire the man's tenacity. Which was not surprising, considering who he was and what he did.

But now.

Soulworker slipped between the sealed cracks of the window, peering over the city of Chernobog.

Already, the fires had started. Hundreds of white-masked figures were on the streets, rioting and smashing their way through the city. The local police forces of the Ursus Empire were trying to retain some sort of control, but even from his tiny view of the carnage, Soulworker could see that the madness had already gripped the entire city, and those efforts were already fruitless. The great mobile tracks that move the massive construct from place to place was silent, while massive black storm clouds were gathering more and more from the east.

...and how coincidental that this would happen just as the massive storm was about to fall on the city, huh?

Soulworker spent the brief moment considering how such a spate of events would happen, but almost immediately changed his mind. None of the events in Chernobog was his concern, save whatever payment the Ursus government had for him. Just as the Guardians of the Last City had chosen to exclude themselves from the politics and machinations of the remaining human/human-descendant polities of Earth. Besides, he had gotten his payment, and now that the Catastrophe was about to fall on Chernobog, it was time for him to make himself scarce.

Spinning his shell, Soulworker disappeared back into the abandoned complex, searching for what other fragments of information or artefacts he could scavenge from the complex. The skeleton staff themselves had fled as well, possibly because of the chaos in the city. Oh well, it simply just made his rampant larceny of government assets easier.

Just as he was plugging himself into a server mainframe, Soulworker heard footsteps from the lower levels. Slipping through the ventilation vents, the Ghost found multiple figures gathered around the sealed entrances to the complex, waiting as one of them was trying to break it open.

Oh?

Soulworker studied their uniforms. There was an attempt to conceal their origins, but Ghosts had their ways. Beneath the tactical coats, Soulworker could see the emblem of a rook within a triangle.

How curious, another third party. Or...

Soulworker disappeared back into the vents, flying to the prisoner. He had begun choking, the black Originum crystal growths having grown rapidly as he neared his reckoning. Soulworker checked his records again, and...

Ahhhh, I see. Your friends.

The man choked and spat. Brackish blood shot out of his mouth, staining the already fouled walls of the cell even further.

You don't look like you are going to last until they reach here, though. The crystal is already claiming you. And even then...I don't think the chances of you surviving the rescue are going to be high, though.

The prisoner's eyes opened, fixing the Ghost with a single eye. He stared at Soulworker with a certain determination.

"Still trying to deny the inevitable, Doctor?" Soulworker finally spoke. "Then again, I would expect nothing less from a man like you."

The man said nothing but continued fixing his gaze on the Ghost. "Are you just...going to stand there and watch?"

Soulworker tilted to the side, imitating a person looking askance at the prisoner. "I have seen many men over the centuries since the Collapse. Some I've watched die. Some I've let die. Other than the supreme tragedy that you are expiring on the cusp of rescue, you aren't much different."

The man choked up a sarcastic laugh, more of the brackish blood leaking from his mouth. "Why not spare some of that forsaken Light to let me live a little longer, then. Certainly, you must have a lot of it, seeing that I see no Guardian in this place."

"Perhaps, but I highly doubt the medical wizardry of Rhodes is going to save someone's who's Oripathy is this advanced while they are in such a brutalized state. No offence to you, but you are effectively a lost cause." Souldancer simply said, matter-of-factly.

The prisoner sighed - and immediately pushed against the wall, attempting to prop himself up. Just as he managed to lift his mangled body several centimetres off the floor, his feet slipped on the pool of his blood and piss, The prisoner fell back onto the floor with a sickening crunch of crystal and bone, but undeterred, he began trying to push himself up with a dull groan.

Soulworker watched him, spinning his shell a few times. As the prisoner fell back onto the floor for the third time, he finally asked, "What is it...that drives you so?"

"My job-" *hack* "- isn't done yet, Ghost." The voice of the man had lowered to a quiet snarl.

"Surely there are plenty of people willing to continue your work, your legacy."

"You might be right, but-" the man paused for a second, thinking his answer, "-but I still haven't finished what I have to do, what I need to do. So it means my job isn't complete. There are-" *hack* "-are still people waiting for me back there. Besides, if what you say is correct..." The man finally resorted to crawling, slowly making his way towards the door of the cell. "Then it means that Amiya, or that Kal'stit still thinks I'm useful of service to them. So...I am not giving up on this chance. Not. Yet."

As the man painted a dark trail on his pained struggle towards the cell door, Souldancer hovered and thought, many images flashing through his mind as he watched.

Bravery. Sacrifice. Death.

As the man reached the door and began trying to force it open, Souldancer finally spoke. "Well, there is one final option."

"Which...is...?"

"To accept becoming the most wretched thing in the universe. A Guardian."

The man stopped. "Oh?"

"You won't remember anything, and you will become an immortal being destined to never die, in eternal service to the Light. Perhaps your compatriots will reject you, perhaps they will accept your reborn self. But...well, you said you still have things to do in this world, so what am I to say? The choice is yours." Soulworker said, betraying little emotion.

"An interesting thing to come out of the Traveller's little servants."

"I am centuries old. I have seen things. I care little for anything than doing what is requested of me. Better make your choice quickly, because your lifespan is literally measurable by seconds at this point."

The man turned over, his face illuminated by the dim light of the cell. For a few moments, he thought through it, before finally answering. "Do it," He finally answered, staring straight at the Ghost.

"Thus, servant to the children of man, forsaken by the world..." Souldancer's shell expanded, and a bright light began to shine around his core, cosmic energies swirling within him as he began a ritual. The man closed his eyes, taking the last few breaths of his current life.

"...Die, and be reborn in the Traveller's Light." As the Light gathered around him, Soulworker whispered words, words that seemed like an eternity since they had last been spoken.

A bright flash filled the room, shining brighter than the surface of the Sun.

==| Beneath the Traveller's Shadow |==

=| A Destiny/Arknights Fusion |=