He Must Die
"Again." Ikora commanded.
Aro lifted the bottom of his shirt to wipe away the sweat dripping into his eyes and started to concentrate, on his powers and on the three target dummies ahead of him.
"Form a grenade. Make it bigger. Form a grenade. Make it bigger." he thought to himself. He cupped his hands together, the Void grenade manifesting itself with a soft hum. Now came the hard part. He slowly opened his palms, pushing power into the purple sphere and letting it grow. For the first few seconds, the sphere maintained its shape but a little while after, the sphere started to jump and dance, tendrils spiking out of it.
Aro paused with his eyes wide, holding his breath. The difficulty was getting it to maintain its shape. The Nova Bomb, being a natural vacuum, had a tendency to try and implode. A simple law of physics that he had to somehow defy. The last thing he needed was, according to Ikora, "A bolt of the Traveler's Light with the power of collapsing star" actually collapsing in his hands. Not like it would have been the first time. The sphere calmed down and Aro, still wary but only halfway there, let it start growing again. He started to get excited, "Kain I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" he yelled in his head.
The sphere started to dance again.
Ikora sighed and took a step back…
And the sphere collapsed, imploding and bursting with a deafening boom. Aro went flying back, landing hard on his back and getting the wind knocked out of him. When his daze cleared he saw Kain hovering in front of his face. "10 feet. At least it's getting stronger!" the Ghost said, "Before it was only 5 feet."
"Funny." Aro grunted as he painfully tried to prop himself up on his right arm and fell down again. He picked up his hand, only to see smoldering stump.
"Kain?!"
"Calm down. You blew off your arm."
"Fix it!" He yelled, too shocked to feel the pain
"I said calm down!" In a blink of light, his right forearm reappeared. He wriggled his fingers, testing it out before picking himself up again.
"You're distracted." Ikora commented standing over him.
"Is it obvious?"
"Quite."
"I'm sorry. I've just got a lot on my mind."
"Well be distracted on your own time. Again."
So he did. And the same thing occurred. He flew back again and rolled to a stop at someone's feet. He looked up to see a blue Exo peering down at him. "Kayla!"
"Having fun?" she snickered, arms crossed.
He painfully stood up and spit out something that was swimming around in his mouth into his hand and held it to the light. A tooth. "No not really." He admitted as he showed it to her. He felt the tooth grow back as Kain began healing his mangled face, "How are you? I haven't seen you in a while."
"I'm doing better."
"Are you sure? You looked pretty taken back by the Speaker's discovery."
"I admit I was. But I decided to take this one step at a time. Rasputin talks to me even more now. He says he's always been interested in a "human" point of view of the world. I guess I'm the closest he'll get." She laughed, "That's even more people talking in my head. But it's still kind of shocking. A Warmind becoming a Guardian. There's a good chance I'm not the only one. "
"Aro is a bit busy right now." Ikora's voice rang from where she was standing.
"Sorry Master, my fault." Kayla called back. To Aro, she asked, "What exactly are you doing?"
"Trying to get the Nova Bomb down. Both Asura and Crona have been able to get their super abilities down."
"Oh that?" she opened her left palm and the same Void sphere appeared in her hand , growing in size. Her entire body began to shine in a violet light. She compressed the orb in a fist, spun around and waved her entire arm in a horizontal arcing motion. Three smaller orbs burst from her hand and flew, hitting all three dummies head on. They were evaporated in purple explosion.
"Easy."
"One hand? Show off."
"I have something worth showing off. Using two hands is actually a crutch."
"Have you gotten Song of Flame down yet?" Ikora asked, coming up behind the two.
"Uh half way." Kayla admitted, "I can spread it by touch though! Daniel can vouch for me!"
"Requiring physical contact is also a crutch…"
Aro, out of the loop, asked, "What's Song of Flame?"
"It's an sub-ability of Radiance. Taking the strength boost Radiance gives you and spreading it to whoever your Light is tethered to albeit at lesser levels. I thought you were hoping to become my successor, Kayla."
"I still am, but-
"Then I suggest you make use of your time here." Ikora interrupted. Your problem is you can't spread your powers without shortening the time span of Radiance, so that's what you should work on. I can train both of you." Ikora walked back to when she was before.
"See what you dragged me into?" Kayla grumbled to Aro, who just smiled sheepishly.
"Wipe it clean. Wipe it clean. Fleet 64. Wipe it Clean."
The same thing again and again and again. "Wrath" had been making up for his silence ever since the Light tethering. He must have been disturbed. Can't blame him. Even the usually composed Crona looked slightly shaken by what they saw.
"Has it found me?"
Asura perked up. Wrath has never said anything else until now. "What has found you?" Asura asked in his head, making his first attempt to communicate with it. Spirit listened in.
It was silent for a long time but Asura could still feel its presence. Just as he had given up, the voice came again, "The Darkness. It has come to punish me. For losing." The rest of its words were lost on Asura after the first two. The Darkness? What did the Darkness have to do with Wrath? More importantly, what did it have to do with him? Maybe he could pull some answers from it. Asura spoke again, "What was it we saw when connected to Aro?"
Another period of silence before hearing, "The Gate."
So that was the Gate. It looked solid, real, yet metaphysical. "What is the Gate for?"
"The Darkness. It will come here. It will take this world. It will take me! It will use your friend! He must die!"
Suddenly, Asura's hand started to move on its own accord, causing him to let out a startled yell. He felt himself lose control of his body, part by part. Wrath was taking over. "He must die!" Wrath repeated.
He began to push back against Wrath. A war of minds raged on the inside but on the outside, Asura barely moved. Even with Spirit's help, Wrath was just barely subdued. But before disappearing again, Wrath whispered, "He opened it before. He will finish the job. Your sins invite the Darkness." before trailing off into silence.
After a few minutes to absorb what Wrath just said, Asura asked, "Spirit? Are you alright?"
"Yes. Do you think what he said is true?"
"I didn't feel anything about him that told me he was lying.
"So then Aro was right. The Darkness is going to use him to come here and claim this world. And these Heralds are orchestrating everything. Which means…"
Realization dawned on him. "Rasputin really is sending us to die."
"And what's worse…" Spirit said solemnly, "Is that as Guardians, we'd be wrong to defy him."
"Damn it." Asura putting his face in his hands, despair washing over him. After the Archon and the House of Kings, he had an idea of the monstrosities that were waiting for him beyond the City. But at least then he had a chance of getting out alive. He still could now but not in good conscience. He couldn't bring himself to endanger everyone else just to save himself. For a few short seconds, rage took him, "Why not just untether myself from him? I could warn Crona. Aro is the only one who needs to die. Why do I have to as well?"
Spirit was silent for a minute before softly saying, "There are a lot of things I can do Asura. But judging is not one of them. So I ask this truthfully. Could you really do that to him?"
Her question shut his anger right off, guilt replacing it. He couldn't. Not to Aro. They spent 6 months going through hellish training and living together. The man was the closest thing to a family he had. The situation was hopeless, no matter how he played it out. He'd leave the Tower in two days. And for the good of the City and humanity, he wouldn't come back alive. If he had tears, they'd be streaming down his face right now.
"I just scared Spirit. I'm not ready to die. "