A/N: So I forgot to mention last chapter, but this story is going to be more of a series of oneshots as opposed to a fully strung together story. There will often times be time skips between chapters, and I'll try to let that be known in the text. There was a few weeks in between the first two chapters, which I never really made explicit. I'll do better from now on.

Vision of Thorns

Well, step one was finished. Adeen wasn't exactly sure how, but it was finished.

Now came the hard part: the interrogation.

Ever since she had found that entry from Toland's journal six months ago, Adeen had hardly left the moon. At first, she scoured every inch of the Ocean of Storms, searching for more journal fragments. It had very limited success. After that, she took to watching the various entrances into the Hive catacombs, picking off whatever Hive came out to guard it. This also had limited success. Eventually, she ventured into the catacombs themselves.

While this was extremely dangerous and advised against by all of her peers, it did yield better results. In her first two trips, she found small excerpts from Toland's journal: a feat which would have taken weeks on the surface. Not only that, but the journal fragments got larger and more complete the further down she went.

Then, a month ago, Adeen had her greatest find since the one that started it all: another complete journal entry. Whereas the first had dealt with the nature of the universe in general, this one had focused on the Hive. His words terrified her, but they also fascinated her.

If your Light is strong enough to hear across the soundless plains, you may have heard their screams… Four sounds, oft repeated, but only four. Though I am on the trail of a fifth, faintly heard from the buzz that once spilled from the Shrine—

Eir.

Ur.

Xol.

Yul.

It is in these sounds that I fear yet another Hive secret hides… But then again, I am an old man with many fears, and in those fears , often called madness, I will continue to dwell.

It had been strange, having someone else give voice to a feeling she had been having for weeks, but as soon as it was explained, she understood. So far she had only heard whispers of Ur and Yul, but now she knew what to listen for.

A week ago, she found something that had nothing to do with Toland but was exactly what she needed. It was a dead Ghost deep in the Hellmouth that contained a recording of an old Warlock, Eriana-3, as she interrogated a Hive Wizard. The idea that one could capture a Wizard had never crossed Adeen's mind, but once she listened to the audio log, it seemed so obvious.

A plan began forming in her mind. What if she could capture a Wizard and interrogate it about Toland? Surely the Hive would know something about their greatest enemy.

So now she had a Wizard. Surprisingly, that wasn't expected to be the hardest part. In the recording, Eriana had used pain to elicit a response. Unfortunately, Adeen didn't know what kind of pain. She knew their shields were very weak against solar damage, but she was worried solar would do too much damage. Maybe arc was the way to go. She had an arc machine gun that could do the trick. Mind made up, Adeen took a moment to mentally prepare herself. Once she felt ready, she fired a few rounds into the helpless Wizard.

"Monster, heed me," she said, using Eriana's phrasing. "Tell me all you know about the one known as Toland, the Shattered."

The Wizard shrieked. The noise assaulted Adeen's ears, loud enough to cause physical pain. She turned off the audio receptors in her helmet, only to find that the unholy noise was inside her mind. She tried fighting past it, knowing that the true message would lie in the void between shrieks, but she couldn't. The abominable noise resonated throughout her entire body, exciting the very atoms that formed her. She felt like she was being rent apart molecule by molecule. She couldn't take it. She had to end it.

Adeen threw a Fusion Grenade that stuck the Wizard in the face. The explosion turned the abomination into a pile of ash, and the most intense relief Adeen had ever felt washed over her. It was in that instant, that single moment of silence, that Adeen saw something in her mind's eye.

Unfortunately, what she saw wasn't what she wanted to know. Instead, she saw flashes of a gun—a hand cannon—deep in the catacombs. She had seen the place in a book: the Summoning Pits. The gun itself looked...evil: black and jagged with an ethereal green glow.

It looked hungry.

As quickly as the image arrived, it disappeared.

"Are you alright?" Rigel asked, appearing in front of her. Adeen didn't answer. "Adeen?" Still nothing. "Adeen, can you—"

"Yes, Ri, I can hear you."

"What happened?"

"I saw...something," she said. "But it wasn't Toland. It was a gun. A hand cannon. It was down in the Summoning Pits."

"A hand cannon? Why would the Wizard show you that?"

"I'm not sure, but now I want answers. Let's head back to the Tower."

"Finally," Rigel said, and she could hear the teasing smile in his voice. "Master Kenval is probably worried sick."

"Please, that old Awoken bastard hasn't felt emotions in 50 years. Now come on; let's get out of here."

####################

Master Kenval, leader of the Praxic Order, looked up from his desk.

"Ah, Initiate Flanagan," he said, seeing Adeen standing there. "How nice of you to take a break from your little Moon vacation to visit us. You know, you could have been a full Sister by now if you actually put forth the effort. But I digress. You are obviously here for a reason, so tell me: What is it you need?"

"I need to know about a gun," she said.

"A gun? My dear, I hardly believe that you would come to me for just a gun."

"This is...different. I saw it in a vision, just long enough to get a what and a where. This gun looked...strange. It was a hand cannon, all black with jagged edges, and it had this aura about it that I can't describe. It was in the Summoning Pits."

Kenval's expression darkened. "You speak of evil things, my dear," he said. "From the sound of it, you saw a Weapon of Sorrow, a weapon born from the twisted use of the Hive's arcane arts. And from the description, you saw one of the worst: Thorn—a sinister corruption of the Traveler's Light." He paused and gave Adeen a questioning look. "And you say you saw it in a vision?"

Adeen fidgeted a little. "Well, technically, a Wizard showed it to me."

A pregnant silence grew.

"A Wizard," Kenval said after a while. She nodded. "Now tell me, why did a Wizard plant this image in your mind?"

Adeen didn't really see the point in lying to her Master, so she decided to just tell him. "I may have captured it and tried to interrogate it."

Another silence.

"Interrogate it."

"Yes."

Silence.

"Adeen, that may be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard someone doing. But now that that's out of the way, tell me: Were you successful?"

"Not really," Adeen said, sighing. "I managed to capture one, but when I questioned it, it just shrieked. My head felt like it would explode, so I killed it. In the instant of silence that followed, I saw the weapon, this Thorn."

"Fascinating. That last Guardian to ever attempt this was Eriana-3 during the assault to retake the Moon."

"That's where I got the idea. I found a recording of it on a dead Ghost in the Hellmouth. Now, could you tell me more about Thorn?"

"It belonged to a man named Dredgen Yor, a former Guardian corrupted by the Hive's darkness," Kenval said. "Beyond that, not much is known. Many innocent lives were snuffed out by that infernal gun. Some even believe Yor used it to kill the famous Hunter, Jaren Ward. Whatever you believe, that gun is undeniably evil." He paused and narrowed his eyes. "And you're going to look for it, aren't you?"

"I am."

Kenval sighed. "Then I know there's nothing I can say that will stop you. Sister Rey told me how stubborn you were. Very well. I cannot offer you my blessing on this endeavor, but I can offer you good luck. If you're not dead when this is all over, we should discuss your membership in the Order. Goodbye, Initiate." And with that, Master Kenval returned his attention to the papers on his desk.

Adeen left his office. As she walked away, Rigel appeared on her shoulder.

"So I take it we're headed into the Summoning Pits?" he asked.

"That's the plan."

####################

"I don't think I like this plan!" Rigel yelled over the shrieks of the Wizards.

"Well I'd love to hear a better one!" Adeen said, diving to the side to avoid a barrage of arc blasts. She threw a desperation grenade that somehow found its mark, killing one of the Wizards.

She had managed to make it to the Summoning Pits without too much trouble, but things had gone downhill since. She had found a Wizard floating around...something, so she had started shooting it. Unfortunately, she hadn't noticed the other three.

With the one she just killed, there were two left. That wouldn't normally be a problem if it were just Wizards. Unfortunately, they had friends. A lot of friends.

The whole fight took half an hour. She had Radianced three times, including once from beyond the grave. It still wasn't something she could do consistently, but she was slowly getting better at it.

Once she caught her breath, Adeen walked over to the thing that first Wizard had been floating around. Whatever it was, it was grotesque: a large mass of flesh. It had no real shape, but it pulsed slightly and gave off a vibe of pure hatred. Maybe this was the start of an Ogre being created?

Whatever it was, she knew she had to destroy it. With a few shots of her hand cannon, the thing burst, and it almost made Adeen throw up. She had never seen anything so disgusting, and that was even with spending six months fighting Hive. As she turned away, something caught her eye: a black shape sitting in the lump.

Hesitantly, she walked over and touched the object. She recoiled, snatching her hand away as if burnt. Adeen had never felt such concentrated evil. In fact, it went beyond that. This was no passive force of darkness. Whatever that object was, it hated her.

After a few minutes, she tried again. This time, she managed to keep her hand on it for ten seconds before pulling away. The next time, over a minute. The fourth time, she tried removing it from the destroyed flesh. When she did, she finally understood.

It was Thorn.