Light and Fury: Episode One
The last of the acolytes fell, riddled with bullets.
"Surround them," ordered Eris.
Her fireteam moved at her command as the wizard before them shrieked in defiance. A sphere of black power swelled out of thin air like a shimmering haze over a heap of rotting garbage. Three hallowed knights, roused by the dark energy, moved around the wizard and raised shields not even the Light could penetrate.
"Interesting bunch, aren't they?" asked Toland. "The hive wretches do have power."
"Indeed," replied Eris.
Toland circled around them and tossed a Void grenade at every shield, watching the harmless explosions get absorbed by the dark magic. Eris frowned. It was just like the warlock to conduct experiments at such inappropriate times. Humanity was embroiled in a battle to reclaim the Moon and Toland was merely testing the waters. There wasn't time.
"Toland."
The man perked up at his name and shrugged, disappointment clear even through his helmet. He gestured to Eriana-3, the Sunsinger. The warlocks raised a single finger. Concentrated beams of solar and void energy as thick as their forearms ripped past the knights' defenses and shredded the darkness that concealed them in an instant. Sai Mota and Omar Agah winked in and out of invisibility. Eris barely caught the hunters' rapid maneuver.
Blue light flashed against Eris's visor.
The explosion from the precision-grenades planted behind the backs of the knights disintegrated them. There was nothing left. The power of the Arc devoured them. Only the wizard remained, drooping in the air and dazed from the blasts. It was Eris's turn. She unlatched a stasis receptacle from her belt and rolled the ball underneath the figure of rag and bone. A matrix of white fibers burst from the gadget, trapping the wizard in a cage of pure Light.
So…the pocket prison the Vanguard provided her turned out to be useful after all.
"Interesting," said Eriana.
The exo's ghost touched the forehead of the wizard. It was a simple tap. But it was enough to unleash a violent jolt of energy that sent the wizard reeling against the invisible manacles that bound her in the air. Her cry sounded like metal grinding against metal.
Eris shuddered.
"Eriana," said the ghost. "It responds to pain."
Eriana shook her head. "It responds to the Light," she corrected. "Hurt it again. Monster, heed me. Who is your master with the sword?"
The ghost shocked the wizard once more.
Usually, Eris was the one who interrogated captive enemies, but this was beyond her now. The wizard spoke no English and the only person who could communicate with the beast was Eriana-3. The exo was a disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, a sect that not only specialized in fire, but the dissection of the mind. It sounded impossible. Eris always wondered how a mere robot could understand and engage in such complex phenomena, however, the Traveler always had its ways.
The wizard struggled some more, then let out another gurgling shriek.
"I can hear it," whispered Eriana.. "In my head. The swordbearer's name is Crota." The exo glanced at Eris through the one-way mirror and back to her ghost. "Record that."
Crota? Eris had never heard of that name before.
"Should I burn it again?" asked the ghost.
"No. I think you're only feeding it. I will touch its mind." Eriana raised her palm over the wizard's gnarled face. "Tell me how to kill Crota." Silence was her answer so then came the fire.
White Light burst from Eriana's palm and the wizard screamed.
"Tell me how to kill Crota."
The wizard pulled against the pressurized manacles, growling. It shook and twist its body, and for a moment Eris thought the thing's wrists would snap off like dry pieces of twig. Then she relented and growled.
Eriana's hand pulled back a little.
"Incredible," she breathed. "Where? Where is his throne?" The exo pressed her palm back against the wizard's face and yelled as more white light glowed bright beneath her metallic skin. "Where is the twilight world under the dead star eye?!"
It was like she was in a trance, thought Eris, disturbed.
Her ghost bobbed frantically, but Eriana swatted him away. "Eriana!" it said, with an irritated edge to his voice. "There's word from the company in Mare Imbrium. Crota is upon them. Half a hundred dead. They need us."
"Tell me where! Tell me how! Tell me!"
The exo shocked the wizard with a dose of more stinging Light.
A terrible howling screech rose from the throat of the monster and all went quiet. Eriana's shoulders fell and her head dropped forward. The exo was whispering something, but Eris couldn't make out the words. What did she see? What did she hear?
Eriana spoke up. "Kill the wizard. Scatter the ash. It has nothing but lies to offer." She turned her back and looked at Eris. "Get your sparrows. We have Light and fury. That will be enough.
Eris hoped so.
Light and Fury Episode Two
"If something goes wrong," said Ikora Rey, "you will hide."
Eris gave the Vanguard commander a quizzical look.
"Hide?"
Ikora's cold eyes bore into her. "Hide," she repeated. "Survive." She steepled her fingers. "Same thing. If you fail to kill the dark god, then bringing back intel on the hive is imperative. We know next to nothing of the creatures, and it shows in our battle tactics—in how many of us die. I've grown weary of our ignorance. My colleagues wish to know more. As do I."
"We will not fail," said Eris. "Eriana-3 was successful in interrogating a high-ranking wizard. She knows Crota's weakness as well as his location. His forces did retreat at the Battle of Mare Imbrium."
The warlock grunted. "That is correct."
"My fireteam will not fail."
The warlock huddled within a cramped pit of bone and rock, body numb to the cold and the jagged pebbles underneath her back. After several days Eris was used to it. She was used to everything. From the shrieking echoes from the belly of the Hellmouth to the skittering of wet chitinous feet that passed her by. Even to the hunger. Eris was changing and now it seemed like the Darkness fed her and made her stronger, so much so that she could feel, almost see, tendrils of pure black slithering into her body to be fed to her soul. It was undeniable.
She was becoming someone else.
Eris shivered and felt another wave of memories hit her.
"Vell!" The titan ignored her and waved a hand. "I'll go on ahead!" Eris began to voice protest, but Vell ran away, sprinting through the lunar canyon at breaking speeds and suffusing himself with glowing Light. At the bottom, in a shallow bowl on the moon, a group of acolytes guarded the Temple of Crota, oblivious to the charging titan. "The man has a thick skull," said Eriana. Toland frowned. "Barbarian." "Oh, don't act so high and mighty," said Omar Agah. "You don't even fight half the time." "I beg your par—" Vell Struck the ground, disintegrating the acolytes in a flash of white light and sending vibrations through the air. The titan brushed off his shoulders. He turned around, gave them a thumbs up, and a cacophony of screeching began to fill the air. Thralls burst from unseen pits in the grey rock around Vell. Hundreds of them. The man mowed down a wave with his assault rifle, then tossed stun grenades at another scrambling mass of claws and flesh. "Let's go!" cried Eris, moving to her subordinate's aid. But it was too late. The doors behind Vell yawned open and a spindly black arm tore into the titan's back, taking with it his ghost. The man fell to his knee, shooting down several more thralls. There was just too many. The swarm overpowered him and piled atop his body like a crushing hill of ants. Sai and Omar rushed past Eris as electricity rippled across their figures, the Light manifesting itself as Arc energy. They flourished serrated blades of the strongest metal and bolted into the enemy. Thralls flew into the air, turning to ash. Left and right, up and down. The blade dancers, unmerciful in their power, cut down the fiends in mere seconds, leaving nothing. Only the sole body of Vell Tarlowe remained. Eris, Eriana, and Toland finally caught up, but there was nothing left to be done. Toland bent and examined the body. He shook his head. "He's gone." Eris cursed. "What…happened to him?" asked Sai. The guardian looked smaller than he had just minutes ago. His armor was lopsided, his torn fabric sunk in and flat in some places. Toland released his ghost. The tiny machine ran quick scans along Vell's body, and then went abruptly still. It sunk low, as if in mourning, then turned to them. "His Light is gone," said the ghost. Eriana gave the warlock a sharp look. "What do you mean his Light is gone? It can't be gone." "There's nothing!" snapped Toland. "Look! He's a dried-up husk. The thralls ate his Light. And whatever lurks beyond those doors took his ghost, making it look as simple as plucking a cherry from a tree!" "Enough," said Eris, taking the titan's mark with her. She paused and gave the titan one last troubled glance. "We move." The fireteam followed her into the temple, abandoning Vell and his Lightless body.
Light and Fury Episode Three
Eris struggled and turned in the cold ditch, finding that her memories wouldn't let her sleep. Awake or in the throes of her nightmares, the memories haunted her. Faces of friends long dead, burned into her vision, always.
"Where are we, Toland?" asked Eriana, expanding the orb of solar fire above her.
Toland shrugged. "Closer."
Eris followed Toland deeper into the Temple, deeper and deeper, mostly because she trusted the man. He may have been mad, but he was smart. The warlock half stumbled through the dark, running his fingers along runes etched into pillars of dilapidated stone, all the while humming to himself. How Toland understood this language was a mystery to her, though she had to remember that he was one of the most revered Cryptarchs left in the star system. At one point.
Eris, said her ghost in her head. There's something wrong here.
What do you mean? She thought back.
I am getting weaker. Something is sapping my energy…my Light. I can feel it. I detect a malevolent force building the further we go down. It is a constant drain not only on me, but on everyone here, even if they can't feel it, yet.
Eris pursed her lips. Continue monitoring and keep me updated.
"Why haven't we come across any hive minions?" asked Sai.
"I was just about to ask the same thing," seconded Omar.
Eriana nodded. "It is most strange," she said. "We are pursuing our enemies' dark god as he makes a retreat into his lair. I was expecting at least some resistance to keep us from getting to him."
A sharp sound, like crumpled pieces of paper unfurling, echoed high above them. Eris aimed her handcannon to the ceiling. Dark violet rays burst from a single source, drowning out Eriana's orb of fire and bathing the massive hall in light, revealing a ledge that led into the shadows beside them.
"A shrieker," said Toland, stated as if he had come across a stray animal.
Omar brandished a sword in one hand, glancing sidelong at Eriana. "You jinx."
The exo glared daggers.
The hive sentinel launched projectiles from its roiling core, but Eriana moved her orb of solar Light against each one, absorbing the explosions with pure energy. Guttural screams filled the hall and Eris caught movement at every corner of her vision. Her heart dropped into her stomach, realizing in that moment it had been nothing but a trap. How abominably stupid was she?
"We must escape," said Eris. "We must retreat and get back to the surface."
Sai snorted. "Wouldn't that be easy."
The first wave was upon them.
Eris and her team raised their firearms and fired into the advancing surge of thralls. They fell like lambs to the slaughter. Eris and Toland tossed a series of vortex grenades into the hive masses, causing the seething balls of Void matter to disrupt their formations and slow them down. Every other guardian threw out grenades of all kinds. Some let out bolts of fire or electricity, while others scattered into fireworks of glowing shrapnel. They were the only things keeping the hive at bay.
Omar screamed.
Eris spun around just in time to see the hunter flung off the ledge by an invisible force and a wizard rising from the abyss. She screeched and pointed. Hallowed knights in dirty-golden armor emerged from an entrance, twirling cleavers made from fossilized bone and metal forged in hell.
"She's laughing at us," whispered Eriana, her head cast down, hands trembling. "Omnigul." The exo stomped her foot, crushing the rock beneath her that sent up a cloud of debris.
"Wait, Eriana!"
The warlock charged toward the high wizard, heedless of the knights in front of her. With another screech the wizard fled into the same entrance behind her minions. That wouldn't stop Eriana. She jumped, twisted to dodge a slash of a sword, and brushed her fingers against the shoulders of two knights as she got behind them. Both disintegrated into burning ash. The exo parried a downward stroke of a cleaver with her bare hands and kicked another knight in the chest, sending it flying into a wall, broken. A round of lead took down the last of them and Eriana ran into the entrance.
"Damn it, follow her!" yelled Eris.
Her fireteam moved, cutting down any who came too close, all the while attempting to dodge Shrieker projectiles. Acolytes hung back, occasionally shooting bolts of Void fire at them when they weren't looking. They finally made it to the doorway when a disturbing sound rose from the other side of the giant hall. A song. It was a dragging melody of sharp notes, of highs and lows, sung by a voice with a hollow chest. Eris staggered from a sudden feeling of pure, empty despair and she almost fell to the ground.
Toland dropped his firearm. "Do you hear that?" he whispered. "It's her."
Eris and Sai ignored him, scrambling away so they could get away from the song.
"Come back, Toland," ordered Eris, between gasps of breath.
Toland laughed. "I can't! Don't you see?! It's the Deathsinger! I must go to her!"
Thick doors of dimpled rock closed them off from the hall, and immediately the music from the wizard left her ears. Eris wanted to follow him, but he was lost. She couldn't go back out there. She just couldn't. If she did, she had an unsettling feeling that death would really take her.
"What the hell was that?!" asked Sai, pushing herself to her feet.
Eris punched the ground. "I don't know," she growled, cursing. "We must find Eriana." There was nothing left for them down in this pit of evil. They had to escape and get reinforcements. Crota...would not be killed this day.
Light and Fury Episode Four
Darkness swept in around Eris as Eriana and Sai continued to pursue Omnigul. She tried calling out to them, but their names did not reach them. It was the wizard's doing. She was attempting to separate and kill them, and it was working.
We are not alone, said Eris's ghost, its voice shattered and quiet. The distant power continued to bleed their strength, and she could feel more of her energy leaving her body. Her ghost rarely talked anymore. A hundred eyes shined foul light before her. Eris laid out her palm and a roiling pool of violet Light gathered into a sphere as large as her head. She raised it into the air, lighting the large room up to see what she was working with. Standing around her, growling incoherently in a savage language with spittle dripping poison from their skeletal maws, were hive of the highest order: Crota's hallowed knights. One lunged forward with a swing of his cleaver. Eris stepped back an inch, allowing the blade to glance past her helmet to crush the tile beneath her. Her handcannon's muzzle kissed the knight's chin and her explosive round blasted his head off. Three others leapt towards her, but rolling grenades met them. They detonated into axion bolts, disintegrating them instantly. More approached. Eris was no voidwalker if she could not handle this bunch. The guardian ripped a hole in space and appeared a second later, behind the horde of knights. She summoned the last of her Light and hovered from the rush of spectral force needed to gather the energy from a collapsing star, distant in reach and stubborn in will. It was no matter. Eris pulled what she needed into three balls of extreme power. She flung the nova bombs. Every single knight fell and were given to the Void. Eris faltered and laid a hand on a wall to steady herself as her vision went muddy. She could no longer feel the Light coursing through her body, only a single pin of energy left that she suspected kept her corpse-body alive.
Ghost? Thought Eris, calling out to it. Can you hear me?
No answer.
Eris cursed and reloaded her handcannon, realizing the Traveler would no longer be assisting her in escaping this pit. She continued on through the dark corridors. The hive were nowhere to be seen, yet after several minutes, she could hear a battle taking place close by. Explosions rocked the temple. The shrieks of thralls echoing in her ears. Not just hundreds, but thousands. The voidwalker turned a corner and the corridor opened up onto a valley of stone and wreckage. The sky was lit by bolts of Voidfire, while little light filtered from a section of the Hellmouth above. Thousands of thralls and acolytes poured out from holes dug from the rock, towards two figures battling for their very lives. It was Eriana and Sai, guns on the ground, bullets spent. Sai, her cape torn and ragged, fought the hive with a vigor Eris had never seen before. She cut down the monsters in a way that parted flesh from bones, that split heads from shoulders. The hunter could no longer utilize her bladedancing electricity, so all she could rely on to kill was her two blades. The exo did not have the luxury of using swords. Eriana's titanium-enhanced body was her weapon, driving the thralls underneath her feet as the hive made the fatal error in thinking her a mere scholar—a mere warlock. No, she fought like a titan. They came at her, but were met with bone-shattering fists. They clawed at her, so she batted them away like flies. Eriana grabbed two acolytes by their skulls and smashed them together, then flipped backwards, kicking another three away from her in a swinging blow. Eris stepped forward to assist her and stopped. She had to remember her mission. Ikora Rey's words reverberated in her mind, like a giant gong that refused to be still. "You will hide." A thrall jumped on Sai's back and bit her neck. The hunter threw it off of her, and sliced it down its center. It was inevitable. She killed two, but ten took their places. An acolyte wrenched a blade from her hand and escaped into the grey midst. A minute later, she lost her second blade. It was a never-ending stream of thralls and acolytes, and Sai, who was only human, could not keep up her finesse and power forever. She knew that too. Sai grabbed two acolyte limbs, bit out from the teeth of her blades, and screamed, unleashing what had to be the last of her Light. Fine electricity scraped the bones in her hands into sharp picks. The hunter evaded the thralls, killing any that came within an inch of her weapons, and made it to the wall of jagged rock. She jumped and dug the picks into the wall, attempting to escape by climbing over and out of the Hellmouth. Eriana saw her, but she could do nothing. She was surrounded. Sai made it a good hundred feet before a lance of black fire impaled her to the wall. Eris gasped and found Omnigul hovering in the air where she hadn't been a second earlier. The wizard shrieked and pointed at Eriana, which rallied the thralls into an even more bloodthirsty fervor, if that was possible. The exo was doomed. The thralls were upon Eriana, piling atop her with their crushing weight, but pure white Light burst from the cracks between their bodies. A single flash turned all the thralls into flaming embers, leaving nothing, but a fleeing wizard and single glowing form. It was shaped like a chalice.
Eris sat up in a wordless shout and opened her eyes. More blasted memories, and she was still in this pit. The only thing she could dream about was death. Three green eyes stared back.
"It was only a night terror," the voice said. "Come. The preparations are almost complete. You will soon be out of this hell and back to the loving arms of the Traveler."
Toland grinned.
Light and Fury Episode Five
"The hive have begun to move," said Toland.
Eris studied the tricloptic warlock sitting across from her, tinkering with his own dead ghost. She shivered. Those alien eyes kept drawing her focus. It was the way they bulged out from his face like giant boils close to bursting. It was the way black wax seeped out and bled down his cheeks, turning into wisps of smoke as they left his chin. Mostly, it was the way how dead it made him look.
She couldn't say anything, in retrospect, since she had the same exact face.
After Sai and Eriana's fall, Eris had searched the temple trying to escape to no avail. Navigating the maze-like structure had been impossible for her. Days later, Toland had found her, near to death, and spirited her away to a "safe" part of the Hellmouth where he had claimed no hive wandered. It was there she was changed.
Toland had warned her that if she did not become one with the hive, the hive would locate and destroy her. He had just one method. The warlock had then killed two wizards and extracted their eyes, bringing them back to Eris, explaining to her that they were the only organs that would adjust to her body, while also granting the night vision she needed to traverse the caves. The only way to survive was to adapt. And she did so, grudgingly.
The crazy cryptarch had done the surgery while Eris was half-unconscious, and the Traveler only knew how the optic nerves attached to her severed ones so fast. She hadn't wanted to know. He had done it to himself afterwards, silent and quick. Immediately, she had felt the effects. Wounds had healed, her hunger for food had ceased, and she no longer needed her helmet for oxygen—it was like the darkness was feeding her, giving her life, and it wasn't completely insane to believe so. A couple days later the third eye grew in.
Eris shook her head, trying not to think about the last couple months. It disgusted her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"They're moving," repeated Toland, getting up. "Now we have to move."
Eris stood. "I've had enough of your word games, Toland." She glared at him and clenched her fists. "Tell me what you think you're talking about and say it in complete sentences. Now."
"I can listen in on hive frequencies," he replied, unfazed by her anger.
If Eris could blink in a confusing manner, she would have. Instead, she frowned. There was some sort of garbled noise in the background that sounded like language, but it was unfamiliar to her. She couldn't make out the words. The damn warlock was Toland, she wouldn't even try to understand.
"For months now they've been prattling on about an assault on Earth," he continued. "Now, a good size of the hive forces are departing from the moon to make bases on Earth for the coming siege. It is all in preparation of Crota's resurgence."
A chill went down Eris's spine. "They're reawakening Crota again, so soon?!"
"Indeed. But, now this is the perfect time for you to escape. There aren't as many minions lurking within the caves, and Omnigul has left to manage the reconnaissance units. Before it was impossible, now we have a shot."
If these deaths were to mean anything at all, Eris had to escape from this pit and warn the guardians of what was to come, otherwise, everything her team had sacrificed would be in vain. Crota could not rise again.
"Very well."
Toland took the lead, running down the labyrinthine corridors like he knew his way around his own house. He led her through twists and turns, through expansive halls and past massive cavities in the ground. Shriekers ignored them. Even packs of blind thralls ignored them. Eris suspected it was because the wizard eyes changed them. And not only physically.
A group of acolytes rushed out of a doorway.
Toland whipped his hand out and sent out a wave of luminescent green energy. It crashed into the hive, burning them into pieces of jagged cinders. He flexed his glowing hand and grinned.
"What was that?" asked Eris.
Toland shrugged. "An experiment."
They continued on, taking down more middling hordes that could not stand up to their might. It was like she had an endless supply of power—of Light. Though, she wasn't aware of the Traveler's energy at work. It was something she couldn't really explain. She felt like an abomination.
A series of roars shook the Hellmouth.
"The hive know we're here," said Toland. "They know we're not the same." He ran into another room. "It shouldn't matter though, we're at the very top and close to the entrance of the temple. We should be—"
A large bolt of voidfire struck the warlock, sending him flying into a wall.
Light and Fury Episode Six
"Toland!" cried Eris.
The warlock was slumped against the fractured wall of rock, unconscious. Eris looked to her right and found wizards swooping out from another arched doorway, leading an endless stream of knights at their backs. She cursed and planted her feet. It wouldn't end this way.
Tiny orbs of the deepest green spun around Eris's hands, expanding with every passing moment. She raised her arms as they began growing as big as her head. A mere second later she tossed them into the swarm where they exploded upon impact and turned into seething vortexes that ripped apart whoever came near. The knights were stalled, but not the wizards. They flew over her grenades and sent out a barrage of fire.
Eris scoffed as she tore a hole in space.
The voidwalker teleported every which way, blinking in an out of existence like an erratic firefly from hell. Streaks of fire painted the chamber red. The wizards screeched in hatred and doubled their attacks. As Eris left the empty comfort of infinity, a ball of fire slammed her into the ground, shattering her overshield and singeing her tattered robes.
"Damn it," she muttered, face in the ground.
A clinking of armor and heavy feet made her look up in surprise.
Eris rolled to the side as a thick cleaver dug its tip into the floor beside her head. She stuck her palm out. The knight dissolved into a burst of green strands upon draining his energy, but more knights came to replace him. Eris stood and bent her head, letting another cleaver flash past her very nose. She jumped backwards into relative safety. However, there was just too many knights around her.
An instinctual power grabbed her.
Eris threw out her hands and unleashed an invisible wave of force. Knights, glowing green from the pressure of her control, were wrenched into the air. She pushed out further and launched the skeletal wretches to the far side of the room, taking one wizard down in the rain of bodies. She looked at her hands. It was said voidwalkers using the power of telekinesis was only a myth, though, she couldn't gape in wonder now.
She had to save Toland.
Eris focused and reached her mind out into the depths of space, summoning the energy from a collapsing star so massive in size she could barely handle its power. Three spheres of viridescence formed in the air above trembling hands. With a small shove, the nova bombs were cast out into the hive. A rush of light bloomed.
The knights and wizards passed into oblivion, but more figures moved within the thick haze of galactic energy as it began thinning. A river of knights charged towards her. Eris fell to her knees, realizing that her attack hadn't been enough to win. She realized she was going to die.
A hand grabbed her wrist and she entered space.
Toland winked at her and teleported her to the entrance of the temple. Colder air hit her skin and she shivered, but it was the best kind of chill. She was finally out of the hive lair—out of hiding. Then, something else struck her. A dark feeling of despair, gripping her to her very core as she put her hands to her temples.
YOU SHOULDN'T LEAVE YET.
Eris screamed from the booming voice and a vision suddenly pierced her mind. It was her, disembodied, walking down a black cavern in the pits of the Hellmouth. She heard screams, awful, blood-curdling wailing coming from a chamber beyond. It belonged to Omar Agah.
Eris continued down the hall and peeked into the chamber. What she saw, she knew would follow her until the end of her days. A sea of cocoons surrounded the hunter, while hive spawn, fresh from hatching, swam in their own slime. A wizard held the man's broken form. She used a single claw to peel the Light from his body, like flesh torn from a withered fruit. The unborn squealed for his pain. For food.
OMAR IS HERE. HE IS WAITING FOR YOU. HE IS DYING.
Then the pressure on her mind ceased.
Toland was looking at her. "What happened?" he asked. "What did you see?"
"Crota." whispered Eris, turning back towards the doorway and scrambling into the dreaded dark. "Omar is back there, he is dying! We have to save him! I have to save—"
"No!" Toland grabbed her arm and shoved her to the ground. He laid a heavy hand on her chest and glared at her. "No. You have to escape and get back to Earth. Omar is already lost." His voice dropped. "He was the lost the moment he was captured by Crota's minions."
Eris refused to believe it. She rapped the back of her head on the freezing ground. Toland hushed her and brought her to her feet, pointing at a twinkling light in the sky. "Go to Archer's Line, jumpships will land there and the guardians will bring you back to the Tower. Go."
Eris nodded her head as she bled black tears. Toland went the other way.
"No!" screamed Eris, horrified. "What are you doing?!"
The warlock shrugged and glanced back at her. "Ir Yut calls for me."
With another wink, the warlock teleported back into the hell Eris had wished she would one day leave. And she did. It was all because of Toland. She had a new mission now as she turned her gaze back to the small green sphere in the distant night sky. It was tiny, but formidable yet.
Crota would not have it as long as she drew breath.