Chapter 24: A Helping of the Mind
A few days later, the Sin trio was trying to take their minds off the nightmarish nest they had found the day before. Vulcan went to the Reef to alert the Awoken there about what they had found. Alex and Cortona were in the former's room playing with Nyx in a bid to try and take their minds off of yesterday's findings.
"We're gonna have trouble taking our minds off of that for a while, aren't we?" The Serpent Sin asked as Alex dangled a feather toy above Nyx, the chubby worm trying to get it.
"Unfortunately so. Rebooting sounds pretty appealing right now." He replied somberly.
"I heard Vulcan went to the Reef to tell the Awoken about what happened. I don't think I've seen them that shaken before. And Variks looked like he was gonna drop dead." The woman said in worry.
"No shit. Burning all those nests will be a service to the whole system." The male Exo stated as Nyx caught the toy before darting off with it, much to the two Exo's amusement. "Man, I'm glad I found that little sweetie." He said with a smile.
"Think we should show her to Eris?" Cortona asked curiously.
"I would like her opinion on a few things, sure." The man nodded thoughtfully. Calling the worm over to them, she crawled into Cortona's robes and they left to go see Eris. Once they found her, the strong willed woman tried to shoo them away to focus on her work, but when her three stolen Hive eyes landed on Nyx, she paused.
"Why do you have a Hive worm with you? … Nevermind that, why is it colored in such a way?" She queried, not knowing about Nyx's gender.
"I found her some time back on the moon during a mission to… The World's Grave, I think. She apparently took a liking to me, so I decided to bring her back with me." The Dragon Sin explained. "Her coloration is due to the fact I've been willingly feeding her Void light for a long time. I've been feeding her life rather than death, essentially." He continued.
Nyx popped her head out from between Cortona's breasts, cooing hungrily as she looked at him. Alex chuckled before he created an orb of light and fed it to her, the little critter devouring it with gusto and letting out a happy chirp before nuzzling in between the female Exo's breasts and going under her robes again, much to her embarrassment.
"Does the worm do this often?" Eris asked, noting its apparent enjoyment of being in the woman's chest.
"Unfortunately for me, yes." Cortona grumbled as her heating systems flushed her cheeks.
"This is… Very interesting." The Hidden nodded.
"She doesn't seem to be growing, but she is getting… Fatter. Does that count as growing?" Snake informed then asked.
"In my experience, yes, though this may mean that she is being satisfied. Though I would suggest some exercise so that she doesn't become so fat that she doesn't get… Stuck." Eris suggested.
"Thanks for the advice. We'll start working something out for her." Alex nodded.
"Before you leave, there is something I'd like you to do." Eris told him. "I have reason to believe that Omnigul may be trying to find Rasputin. This must not happen. He is too valuable an asset to have the Hive destroy, or worse, control."
"No argument here. I'll contact Vulcan and we'll head for where his bunker is immediately." The male Exo said seriously, only for Eris to shake her head.
"No. Bringing him to his bunker is ill advised. I have heard of how the heat he emits can warp the metal around him. I do not want him to accidentally damage Rasputin's systems." The woman told him.
"... This is going to be a serious problem." Alex sighed. "Any hive we should keep an eye out for besides Omnigul?"
"Just three: The Blade, Wrath, and Heart of Crota." The woman told him.
"Alright, thanks." The Dragon Sin nodded before turning to the Warlock of the team. "Let's drop Nyx off at my room and head for Rasputin's bunker." He said.
"Alright." Cortona nodded as said worm popped out from underneath her robes again as they walked.
After dropping her off, they headed for their jumpships and made their way to the Cosmodrome.
-Skies of Earth-
The duo flew mostly in silence before they suddenly got an incoming call. Alex looked and saw it was Vulcan. He sighed, having a pretty good idea of why he was calling, but kept it to himself for now.
"Alex, where did you and Cortona go?" The Lion Sin asked.
"Eris wants us to check on Rasputin's bunker in the Cosmodrome. No offense, buddy, but she doesn't want the heat you generate to accidentally damage the Bunker's systems." Alex replied.
"... I guess you're not wrong." Vulcan admitted begrudgingly. "Let me know when you get back to the Tower." He added before ending the call.
"He took that a lot better than I thought he would." Cortona commented.
"No kidding. Anyway, let's get to work." The Dragon Sin said as they headed for the Cosmodrome.
-Cosmodrome landing zone-
Once they were at the Cosmodrome, The waypoints their Ghosts set had unintentionally led them right into a trap set by the Heart of Crota and her Hybrid handmaidens.
"Well this blows!" Alex growled as he shot a hybrid in the head with his pacemaker, making it explode.
"These things look like Wizards and Captains had an ugly love child." Cortona said as she used her auto rifle to spray them with bullets, but ended up being caught in some sort of Hive cage trap. "Okay, what the hell?!" She barked in irritation.
"It's nothing serious. Just shoot it until it dispels." Hawk informed. Cortona did so and broke free, but was then grabbed by one of the Heresy Witches.
[Your soul will act as the perfect seed for our master's spawn.] It told her as it pulled her back by her arms and started to slowly separate the robotic woman's 'soul' from her body while chanting Hive incantations.
Cortona struggled before her serpent tattoo started glowing on her leg. Suddenly, her soul was pulled back into her body, much to the Witch's surprise. She looked at the Exo woman, who looked back at her angrily.
"MY SOUL WILL BE USED BY NO ONE! THUNDER BLADE!" She roared as she created a Thunder Blade and sliced the unfortunate Heresy Witch in half.
Alex was in a similar situation. The Heart of Crota currently had two Paladins pinned him to the wall as she reached her hand into his chest and started to attempt to rip out his soul as well. She looked at the purple energy longingly.
[Lady Omnigul will be able to create many mighty Princes with your soul as a seed.] She said as the humanoid outline became halfway visible. The process continued for a few minutes, but just when the feet of the outline were almost completed, it stopped. The Witch frowned in confusion and tried to get it to continue, but to her shock, the soul returned to its vessel. When the soul was back inside the Exo's body, he glared murderously at the Witch in front of him before he flared his power and entered Assault Mode.
"NONE OF YOU WILL LIVE TO SEE THE SUN SET!" He roared as he threw the Paladins off of him. He then pulled out Lostvaynne and got ready to hack away.
In a tornado of dark energy, he killed the Paladins and sliced the Heart clean in half, making the two halves fall on the ground. Alex breathed as he looked at the Heart of Crota angrily.
"Piece of shit." He growled. After he was done there, he went to find Cortona. "Are you okay?" He asked her as he helped her up after finding her.
"Yeah… Let's just find that bunker." The woman groaned. Her partner nodded as they continued on to the next waypoint, in which they found Rasputin's bunker. But instead of having their Ghosts hack it open, Rasputin let them in willingly.
"... Okay, that's a little alarming." Alex commented warily.
"Something must be going on in the bunker that Rasputin needs us to deal with." Snake theorized.
As they went into the bunker, they were soon met by the Hive and the Hybrids, which were apparently not trying to kill each other, but rather work together.
"Are you fucking kidding me?! They're working together?!" Cortona exclaimed in disbelief.
"Guess Hyrax and Omnigul came to an agreement." Alex sighed as he loaded his hand cannon. "Come on, let's kill 'em." He said as he gave the female Exo a light smack on her ass, causing her to yelp lightly.
"Seriously, Alex? Right now?" She snapped, while loading her shotgun.
"Don't act like you don't enjoy it." The man grinned wolfishly.
"Just kill them already, you hopeless pervert." Snake sighed.
With that they continued forward and started killing any hostile entities that came their way, and when they reached the control panel, something weird happened. A small Hive portal appeared before it opened and Omnigul came out right in front of them, the same Hybrid hatchling from a few days ago strapped to her back in a swaddle of sorts.
"Oh joy. What do you want, Omnigul?" Alex groaned as he addressed the Will of Crota.
The Witch simply opened up two more portals and more Hive and Hybrids came pouring in, she then disappeared, taking the baby with her. The Hive and Hybrids then charged at the two Exos with the intent of devouring their light.
With their new objective being to stay alive, they started shooting, throwing grenades, and using their class abilities to keep from getting hit. As soon as they got their supers were charged, they were ready to end this in one go, but then something appeared.
It was two massive creatures. One was an Ogre with yellow chitin armor and one bulging purple mass in the center of its head. And the second looked like a four armed Ogre with the head of a Fallen and four glowing purple eyes. This was a Troll, a Hybrid version of an Ogre. These were the Wrath and Blood of Crota respectively.
Alex stared at them blankly as he felt his Ogre hating side resurface, begging to be unleashed. It was made known by how his eye-plate kept twitching madly under his helmet.
"Uh, Alex? Is everything okay?" Cortona asked.
"I. Hate. Ogres." He growled slowly.
"Oh boy, here we go again." Snake groaned.
"What?" Hawk asked in confusion, which Cortona shared.
"Back on the moon, Ogres kept on appearing around Alex, which caused him to instinctively hate them on principle. Now that hate is coming back with a nasty vengeance." Alex's Ghost explained.
As if on cue, Alex entered both his Assault Mode and his super, dark bullets swarmed around him as he stomped up the two massive creatures as they looked down at him. The angry Exo just glared right back at each of them.
"I hope you realize that you're dying today. It's gonna be brutal, too." He told the objects of his ire. He then made the dark bullets make a dome around him as the Ogre tried to slam its fist down on him, causing its right arm to be turned into the world's ugliest swiss cheese and fall off with a sickening plop.
The Wrath of Crota roared in pain as it stumbled back and clutched its stump. The Troll tried to smash Alex, but he just swung his scythe and cut its hands off, making it stumble and fall on its ass.
"... Should I be helping, or…?" Cortona tried to ask.
"No, just let it happen." Snake said.
"This is truly an interesting sight indeed." Eris added, taking pleasure in seeing the creatures suffer.
"How long have you been watching, Eris?" Cortona asked in slight surprise, having been unaware of the woman in question watching them.
"Since the beginning. I find it good to simply sit and watch at times." Was the former Hunter's reply..
They continued to watch on as Alex basically made the two Hive creatures his bitches. It was almost sad to watch the Wrath and Blood of Crota get completely torn apart by the angriest Exo in the solar system… Almost.
With one last mighty blow, Alex decimated the two creatures and caused them to fall, dispelling the Hive magic in the area and causing Omnigul to retreat. Though as she left, Alex was able to see that over the course of the fight, the hatchling had somehow turned into a young Drell.
"Snake, did you catch how that hatchling turned into a young Drell?" Alex asked as he calmed down.
"Yeah, it's as if Omnigul knew you'd unleash this much carnage and purposefully sacrificed two of her best pawns to feed and grow it." The Ghost nodded.
"And I played right into her hands. Fuck me sideways." He sighed.
"Do not concern yourself. The important thing is that Rasputin is safe. Come back to the Tower for now, your next task can begin another day." Eris said to him calmly.
"Alright, then. Come on, Cortona. Let's head back." Alex said, getting a nod in return.
With that, the two Exos left the bunker and headed for the Tower.
(The Tower, night)
Alex sighed as he sat with Cortona in his room. They had informed Vulcan of their return and what had happened while they were away, and the Titan was a little disturbed by the unexpected alliance between the Hybrids and the Hive.
"I will inform the Awoken council about this as soon as I can. In the meantime though, Mara has told me that she needs my help with preparations for something important. Though I don't know what it could be." Vulcan stated.
"Take your time. We can wait." The female Exo told him. With that the man hung up. "Wonder what it could be?"
"Maybe she wants to plan a wedding in advance?" Alex joked, getting a laugh in return.
"If that's the case, then I think Vulcan's gonna make their wedding the best in the solar system!" She laughed. The two then fell into silence as they tried to think of something to say.
"... Should we get Nyx a playmate?" Cortona suddenly asked.
"What do you mean?" The man asked.
"Well, Nyx is almost always cooped up in your room all day with no one to play with while we're out on missions. I feel like she's getting lonely." The Serpent Sin explained. Alex looked down in thought at her words.
"Well, If we were to get her one, who or what would it be?" He asked.
"I'm not sure. But I'm sure we can figure it out." She shrugged as they continued to sit there with Nyx next to them.
Little did they know that that was exactly what was going to happen.
ThermalsniperN7: Okay, we got to see a throw down in Rasputin's bunker... And the souls of Alex and Cortona almost get stolen.
Dragon Emperor0: Yep. And that means that things with the Dark Below are underway.