THE DARK SIDE

Crota stood by his summoning crystal in his Throne world. At long last, I will finish off that helpless rock that they call the Earth. Ir Yut approached him. "My lord, the waking ritual is underway!" The Hive Prince grinned evilly at this. "Good. Now we must prepare-" And just like that, he could feel himself losing balance as his arms and legs cracked and shattered. He understood everything that had happened. My wife and my pet are dead? I don't understand. He cried for a second, then clenched his Fist of Darkness, picked up his sword (which hasn't been shattered into spirit form), and called upon his father. "ORYX! I DEMAND AN AUDIENCE!" Crota walked into the open, where a jet-black silhouette of a winged wizard with two horizontal horns appeared. The silhouette said, "Yes?"

"We are almost ready for the final phase."

"Good," the silhouette continued, "I heard that you were losing lieutenants to a Warlock."

Crota bit his lip. "This Warlock is a mere trespasser, and he will be dealt with."

The silhouette was impatient. "Use your vessel, I gave him to you for a reason."

"As you wish, Father." the silhouette disappeared. Crota finished carving the last rune onto Doombringer, his sword. Now, Warlock, he said to himself, You shall witness the total annihilation of your world, with a single stroke.

Pahanin looked at the node on the far end of The Shattered Coast. "That one?" he asked the Stranger.

She answered, "Yes," and proceeded to work on the old computer, interlacing it with some of her own wires in her arm. Before Pahanin could say something, the Exo looked at him and said, "No, you can't help." He sat down, playing with his knife. When she was done, she told him, "Give me your Machine Gun."

"Why?"

"Because that Fireteam of Six is coming, I feel it across the time-streams."

Pahanin reluctantly obeyed, then was told to stand back as she fired up the console. Then she spoke. "You're interesting. Not entirely interesting, ..."

"...but you hold promise." As we traveled to the Moon via a mini-wormhole, all of us heard a mysterious voice from the console. "Who was that?" I asked Rusty.

"I have no idea."

The voice continued, "Max, I know who you are and what you will do, but I have no time to explain." She paused, then said, "You're brave, Warlock, going down to face the Hive in their fortress. But compared against the Vex, the Hive are just children."

I asked, "Who and Where are you?"

Another pause. "Go down and tear them up. If you live, come find me," and the voice disappeared.

"I've got some broken coordinates," said Rusty, "Sigma-2, North-Iota."

"The Ishtar Academy on Venus," Rasputin gasped, "It's overrun by the Vex!"

Feeling confused, I asked, "What are the Vex?"

"We'll talk about this later," replied Lilianna, "I've got a bad feeling about all of this."

The Stranger took the wires out of her left arm, and grabbed Pahanin's Machine Gun. She spoke with it telepathically, asking it questions about itself, Pahanin, and The Vault of Glass. She looked at Pahanin at one point, then went back to the weapon. Her final question was, "Where would you like to go?"

The weapon answered, "Mars. In a chest." The Stranger barely touched the weapon, and it instantly disappeared.

Pahanin was shocked. The Exo turned to him saying, "Now, I want you to go back to the City, and wait for the Fireteam of six."

"How will I know?"

"Your Ghost will. I told her everything about this Fireteam." Then there was a high-pitched screech. "Go now!"

Nightingale was concerned. "But you haven't told me yet."

The Stranger looked at her and said, "I have, but you will find me again." The screech was getting louder. "GO!" and Pahanin was gone, teleported to orbit. The Stranger also disappeared, as the House of Winter invaded the coast.

We touched down on the surface of the Moon, in the Ocean of Storms. In the Archer's Line, we set our Ghosts free to look for the cracks. Rasputin, Lilianna, and their Ghosts went to the Hellmouth via a pathway on the left side on his Sparrow, while I stayed here with Rusty as he searched for the cracks.

Archer's Line is just that, a long line fat enough to hold a Lunar Colony Accelerator built by China, which had three parts: a long metal tube built to withstand 5 Nuclear bombs, and two outposts that acted as stations for transferring, receiving, or colliding atomic and/or subatomic particles. As of the aftermath, excess antimatter are sucked down lesser tubes, which are led down to either one of the stations. The main tube is held up by 3 steel vertical trusses, each with 1.5 kilometers of space from one truss to the next one. The surface itself was anything but level (except on the left side): a small valley in the middle, a hill on the right side, and an incline leading to the left side, which holds the station to the accelerator. The station itself was a large, elongated, rounded off prism, with the top half sealed off from the ground, and used to store the antimatter. On the left and right sides, there are smaller outposts positioned underneath the accelerator, which are now mostly buried into the ground. Overall, this accelerator was divided into two, and what remains of the accelerator is held up by the remains of Archer's Line, everything else has crumbled away.

After two hours, they come back with a single word, "Nothing!" Rusty said the same thing. Then, we heard a loud growl shaking the whole lunar surface, and that's when I knew we were in trouble. I wanted to check the path that leads off to the right, so we hopped onto our Sparrows, and went to the Anchor of Light.

The Anchor was divided into two parts, each with an outpost occupied by the House of Exile. The left side, which was a small 'cul-de-sac' diverting from the right side, had no rocky border, but instead had a sudden drop into a poisonous green chasm. The left outpost teetered on this edge, and looked like it could topple any second. The right side, however, was the second path connecting Archer's Line to the Hellmouth, and had no chasms, an outpost half-buried in rock, a port for the Fallen on the first path to the right, and on the second right, near the buried outpost, a path into the Temple of Crota.

The area as a whole had patches of Fallen, most of which didn't notice us until we heard a Dreg scream, by that point, we just sped past them, and into the second sub-path. After a while, the path began to shrink, and we ditched our Sparrows. Upon reaching the large dark entrance to the Temple of Crota, we heard a similar growl from Archer's Line, but this time it was louder, and I could hear it whisper something. Through our headsets, Eris said, "Crota! The ritual has begun!" With that we delved into the Temple.

Crota's Temple was a long passage with twists and turns. The main hallway circled around a large Hive seeder, and it was mostly comprised of darkened Osmium and Hadium carving and boring into the Moon. The entrance was a big, circular staircase leading to the hallway beneath it, and on the other end of the Hallway was the main room, which held another seeder in the center of the large space, and had two pathways, both blocked by doors. The left one remained closed, while the right one opened for 6 Cursed Thrall, and 20 regular ones. I threw a Scatter Grenade at the Thrall, which disintegrated them. "Someone call pest control?" Ras asked. Another growl, this time it was ear-piercing. "They are waking his soul!" said Eris. "Hurry!" I shouted, and we ran across a bridge from the door, around a rocky wall, and down a staircase leading into the basement of the Temple.

Smaller in comparison to the Temple, the basement, which Eris dubbed "The World's Grave", it was mostly linear, with a few sets of stairs, one which led to their library, another led to a ritual room, and the rest were just placed for connecting to other platforms. The three of us powered through 10 waves of Cursed Thrall, stole their library, and took down three Wizards in the next room, who were guarding a shard of the Traveler, which we freed. More growling. Crota's voice said, "I WILL LIVE AGAIN!" The door opposite to our entrance opened into a dark passageway, and we passed through.

The passage was so dark, even our Ghosts' light couldn't brighten it up. "I WILL CRUSH THE EARTH!" shouted the voice. We took a left, and entered the first room. 15 Thrall screamed and ran towards us, with 5 Acolytes and 1 Knight in the background. Rasputin used the Husk to clear out the Thrall, while I knocked down the Acolytes and Knight with my scout rifle. After repeating the same process in next three rooms, we came upon the Chamber of Night. This Chamber only had one bridge over a moat, and in the center of this marrow covered room of hollowed out lunar rock, there was a giant crystal with three glowing green eyes. "CROTA!" shouted Eris, "THEY'RE WAKING HIM!" That's when they saw us.

The Knight said to a Wizard, "Lend me your strength, oh sister mine!" The Wizard, that looked nothing like the four Wakers surrounding the crystal, went to her brother, infused him with a red aura, and he charged at us with his cleaver. Rasputin used the Husk against him, but no avail. I focused on the Wizard, which I took down with 14 shots from my scout rifle. The Knight, upon seeing this was enraged, and slammed down his sword in my direction. Thrown against a wall, I fired two fusion shots at the Knight, temporarily crippling him. I glided to the ground, and then we turned our attention to the Wakers, killing all of them with kerosene-coated headshots. The Knight stood up, and ran over to Rasputin. Rasputin ran away from the cleaver, and the chase was on.

The crystal in the middle started to float. "I WILL HAVE VICTORY!" it shouted, and it started to launch large green projectiles at us. I tried to shoot it down, but the crystal deflected every shot. Rasputin then turned to face the Knight, and blew off his bone-dry head with a shotgun blast. Lilianna took the cleaver, handed it to me, and said, "This sword is the only weapon that can destroy that crystal." I took it hand, glided to the crystal's level, slashing at it with all my might, then I threw it at the Soulstone, implanting it, blade first. With one Nova Bomb directed at the sword, the void pulse pushed the sword in further, and then exploded, destroying the sword, and the Crystal in a mighty explosion. Crota screamed, "AUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" and I thought that our ears were shattered.

Eris's voice, which sounded like a whisper, gave us good news. "You have stopped the Hive from furthering their invasion and destruction. I thank you for giving me the gift of vengeance. And the City thanks you, even if they don't yet know it." I stared off into space, thinking about what I saw in the sword, but they pulled me back to reality. "Hey, Max!" I looked at them, "Yes?"

"Look at the Husk!" said Ras.

I noticed that the Husk was glowing green, and directed us to the corpse of the Knight. On top of the body was a glowing green orb, that was magically magnetized to the Husk. When it collided with the Husk, the bone-dry weapon transformed into a grey colored version of itself. Rusty and Rasputin's ghost analyzed it. "It...shouldn't be..." they searched for the right word, "possible." Rusty said, "It's new, yet old. It's a Hive weapon, that eats the Hive."

"An Eidolon Ally," said Lilianna.

Rasputin's ghost said, "We need to bring this back to the Speaker." As we teleported for orbit, I hoped that we wouldn't get into too much trouble.

Dredgen Yor ran into the Chamber of Night. He saw what had happened. The Soulstone was shattered, and Crota had retreated back into his netherworld. A silhouette appeared. "COME FORTH," it said. Dredgen immediately went to the floating silhouette, and bowed. "Father," Crota said through him, "I'm sorry. I underestimated the Warlock."

The silhouette looked upon the corrupted Hunter. "Underestimated? HE TORE UP YOUR TOP GENERALS AND YOUR PLANS TO DESTROY THE EARTH! YOU SHOULD'VE GONE DEEPER INTO YOUR FORTRESS!" It paused, then said, "Give me your gun." Dredgen handed over the weapon, and the silhouette disappeared with it.

Dredgen was called back to Crota's realm, where he saw the ghostly Hive Prince. Dredgen approached, "My lord," he gulped "What do we do now?" Crota said nothing at first, then shouted, "IR YUT!" The Deathsinger arrived. "What do you want, My lord?"

"Infuse our souls into the Oversoul, I want to kill that Warlock from the City!"