I do not own Destiny or any of the characters.
Slaughtered
"There you are!" Cayde called out, jogging over. "Heard you got a big mission."
"Must be," Hunter said. "Zavala asked for me by name, confusing as it was for a moment, then stuck me on a squad of thirty."
"Damn!" Cayde said. "Where you heading?"
"Some Hive cave called the Pit of Heresy on the Moon," Hunter said.
"Ooo, sounds dangerous!" Cayde grinned. "Wish I could go."
"It sounds like some random cave with a Wizard trying to resurrect the dead," Hunter said. "Nothing special."
Cayde shrugged. "If there's thirty of you, it must at least be pretty big."
Hunter shrugged. "We're leaving in ten minutes, so I gotta go."
Cayde nodded, and Hunter turned, walking to the courtyard. On a quick headcount, he found he was the last one. The Titan in charge of the raid, a hulking male who was massive even by Titan standards and who wore white and gold armor, nodded to him, resting his massive, golden machine gun on his shoulder, a huge black cleaver hanging from his waist and a shotgun and Burst Rifle, both also gold, behind his two shoulders.
"What are we expecting to face?" Hunter asked.
"Hell," the Titan said. "Even Hellmouth can't compare. Out of the fireteam that was sent in for recon, a Ghost escaped. And it only barely managed to pass on a warning that the Pit of Heresy needed to be taken out before it died from the damage it suffered."
"Great," Hunter sighed. "I hope we're ready."
"You're the last one," the Titan said. "Got everything you need?"
"Yeah," Hunter nodded. "Shall we?"
The Titan nodded, raising a hand, and the small army of Guardians began to warp to their ships, Hunter doing the same. As they headed for the Moon, his Ghost appeared beside him.
"Are we sure we can handle this?" the Ghost asked.
"I mean, there are thirty of us going," Hunter said. "Including me, and I'm...not exactly a normal Guardian."
"I know," the Ghost said. "I used Light Energy to replace the power source in your body, rather than just reviving you like a normal Guardian, so now you produce your own Light. It's why you can use all three classes at the same time. But even with that, this just feels...different. I have a bad feeling."
"Just keep yourself cloaked and monitor my six o'clock," Hunter said calmly. "We'll be fine."
The Ghost sighed heavily and vanished. Hunter set the auto pilot and walked to the back, picking up his helmet, a black Sovereign Mask, and pulled it on, pulling his tattered cloak's hood up over it. Then, he returned to his seat, retaking the controls in time for them to reach the moon. He followed the other twenty nine ships to hover over the Scarlet Keep, then warped down to the center of it. The Titan leader walked to an altar at the back with a Warlock, the Titan's Ghost scanning it for a moment before the altar and the ground under it vanished in a burst of green flames. The Titan managed to jump to safety, but the Warlock shrieked in surprise and fear as she fell. Hunter swore, running to the edge and looking down just as she crashed down on a metal support running from some chunk of metal in the center of the shaft to the edge. Her Ghost appeared, beginning to try and revive her instantly, and Hunter jumped down to her carefully, using a pulse of Light energy to stop his momentum just short of the support. Then, he had his Ghost help revive her, and after a few seconds, she pushed herself up, groaning but nodding her thanks to Hunter.
"Everyone be more careful," the Titan said as he landed on another of the three supports. "We can't afford to lose anyone before we even find the Hive."
Everyone nodded in agreement and began to carefully take turns jumping from one set of supports to the next, the supports having six levels before dropping a hundred feet to the floor of the cave. Hunter was the first down, the Titan just behind him, both holding their guns at the ready, Hunter with his Auto Rifle and the Titan with his Machine Gun. They looked around before nodding and starting down the tunnel ahead of them, the only way they could go. The ground was broken up into large chunks, so they carefully covered each other down the tunnel as they climbed over them, the other Guardians all following them. Hunter narrowed his eyes. Everyone was tense, and for good reason. The very air in the cave felt both dead and also alive and hostile. And it reeked of rot and ogres. Hunter was glad he was wearing his helmet. Even he wouldn't be able to handle the smell unfiltered.
Finally, they stopped at a cliff. Hunter and the Titan exchanged knowing looks before dropping together. As they landed, they saw a solid wall ahead of them, but felt a slight draft behind them and spun, aiming down the next tunnel, which continued under the section of bedrock they'd been on before. They continued down the tunnel at a crawl, the other Guardians catching up quickly. After a couple more minutes, they reached another cliff, then another, and another. Finally, the tunnel opened into a massive cavern that could have been the outside of a cliff face, if not for the lack of a sky and the green-tinted haze trapped inside, as was common with larger Hive caves. The ground before them extended a hundred feet out in front of them before dropping off into yet another cliff face, and extended to the left for a hundred meters before reaching the top of spiked, a blood-red tower identical to those of the scarlet keep on the surface.
Hunter walked to the tower and to the edge of it, looking down, eyes widening slightly as he shook his head, his arms falling limp at his sides. After a moment, the Titan joined him, only to fall equally speechless, as did the others as they joined them.
"Jesus!" a female Hunter in dark green armor breathed. "We have to take this?"
"This is probably only the beginning," Hunter said.
Before them, a dozen more scarlet towers jutted up from the cliff, half of them having a glowing green circle of Hive Magic energy over them with a Hive symbol formed inside of it in darker green. Bridges spanned the distances from tower to tower with Hive soldiers patrolling them. The female Hunter in purple pulled out a Sniper Rifle and reported seeing a couple dozen Ogres, at a glance, as well as dozens of Knights and Acolytes, and that a few Knights and Acolytes looked strange, being paler and with spikes on their bodies.
"We don't have a choice," the Titan said. "We need to go in."
"There's an opening in the tower with the symbol that looks like an "A" over it," Hunter said pointing.
"There's a cliff overlooking the entrance," the sniper reported.
"This one directly below to our right?" Hunter asked.
"Yeah," the sniper nodded.
Hunter leapt off the tower, waiting until the last second to cancel his momentum, landing lightly and swapping his Auto Rifle for his Scout Rifle, crouching and making his way along the small cliff he was on until he could see into the opening. He counted about six Acolytes, one of which was pale and spiky, and three Knights, one of which was bigger than the others and as pale as the Acolyte variant, both the color of sand. He glanced back just as the Titan crept up next to him, scanning the opening.
"I'll cover from here," the Titan whispered.
Hunter nodded and swapped his rifles back again before the Titan nodded. As he stood and opened fire on the Hive inside the opening, the gunshots echoing throughout the entire chamber, drawing hundreds of roars instantly, Hunter dropped off the cliff, again canceling his momentum at the last second. He raised his rifle and opened fire, dropping a pair of normal Acolytes before turning his rifle on the Acolyte variant. And then he emptied his clip. And then he hurled a proximity mine dagger. He shook his head in bewilderment as the Acolyte's remains burned, then dove to the side as the Knight Variant stepped out firing at him while still protected from the Titan's fire, the Titan instead targeting the other Knights. Hunter stood, finishing reloading his Auto Rifle and raised it. Then emptied it. Then emptied his Mos Ultima. Then his Hung Jury. He hurled a grenade and tossed the Knight out of cover, but it survived. Then, after nearly two dozen shots from the Titan's machine gun, it finally went down.
"We are so dead," Hunter breathed, just as a Knight with glowing green cracks running over its body and a massive sword stepped out of a doorway into the cliff located inside the opening of the tower. However, just as it turned to charge at Hunter, twenty eight bullets ranging from sidearm bullets, to rifle bullets, to sniper rounds, to grenades, crashed into its head, destroying it. Hunter walked forward, putting his Auto Rifle away and picked up the sword, his entire arm tingling instantly. Then, suddenly, another Knight leapt out at him, slashing. He moved to block it, and a glowing green barrier appeared in front of him, the Knight's sword skipping off the barrier. Hunter didn't question it, simply slashing and splitting it in half across the torso, then seeing a crescent of green energy speeding away into the chamber inside, where it exploded against the wall.
"Damn!" a female Titan said, picking up the other sword, her teal armor seeming to glow in the green light. "These things have some power!"
"Agreed," Hunter said, looking into the tower, only to stop, frowning at three small, glowing, metal plates hanging from chains near the ceiling of the back wall. "What are those?"
The same sniper in green from earlier raised her rifle and stared for a moment before lowering it. "They're symbols. Hive symbols. They...actually..." she walked out onto a small metal plank-like section sticking out from the edge of the tower and looked down and around. "They're symbols from the towers. Only three, though."
"We'll start there," the Titan said. "Which three?"
"That one on the far left that looks like an ice cream cone," she said, pointing, then that one to the right that kind of looks like a hamburger, then the one with eight spikes sticking out that reminds me of a spi-"
A flood of purple laser blasts the size of her torso exploded into the chunk of tower, erasing most of her body from existence and blasting that part of the tower free, sending everything that was left spinning into the chasm below.
"April!" a male Warlock shouted. "No!"
"It's too late!" the lead Titan said, catching him as he ran forward. "I'm sorry."
"That was an Ogre," Hunter said, staring at the space the Hunter had been.
"Ogres aren't that powerful," a Warlock said.
"I know," Hunter said. " And lesser Knights can't survive a full magazine from an Auto Rifle, a Scout Rifle, a Hand Cannon, a grenade, and a dozen and a half Machine Gun rounds before finally dying. Something's seriously wrong here."
The others all nodded, shifting and tensing, fear beginning to set in.
"She said ice cream, hamburger, then spider," the Titan finally said. "We need to keep moving. We have a job to do."
After a moment, the others all agreed and readied their weapons, Hunter passing his sword off to another Titan and picking up their dead companion's sniper rifle, which had landed at his feet.
"We need to split up," Hunter said. "Ten per tower."
The lead Titan nodded. "Everyone be careful."
Everyone nodded and split into three groups, heading for the towers with the symbols inside the first. Hunter went with the Titan, their group being the one with nine. They headed for the tower with the ice cream symbol above it, moving down the cliff as carefully as they could. However, after about three minutes, just as they reached a cliff above their tower, a pair of ogres began to fire up at them from a bridge below. Almost instantly, the cliff crumbled, spilling all nine of them toward the bridge, the ogres and assorted Acolytes and Knights all firing up at them and Hunter losing the sniper rifle he'd borrowed. Hunter flipped, hurling a fan of flaming knives into the smaller Hive Creatures, slaughtering most of them just as the ogres blasted three of the others into oblivion, pulses of energy announcing their ghosts' deaths as well. The Titan hurled a shining, flaming, golden hammer into one ogre's head, the hammer exploding and destroying the ogre's upper half just before Hunter fired a Shadowshot into the other Ogre's face, the resulting singularity instantly consuming the ogre's body before attaching a stream of Void energy to the other Hive present. Then, the remaining handful of Guardians landed. One crashed down hard enough to fracture the stone walkway and bounced off the bridge, spinning into the chasm. Two more were killed by the Hive remaining just as they landed. Everyone else who landed safely rapidly slaughtered what few Hive remained. Hunter looked around, doing a head count. Three. Of the nine they started with, only three remained.
"We have to turn back," the female Warlock that was with him and the Titan said. "We can't do this."
"The other groups might have done better," the Titan said. "Besides, we don't have the option of retreating."
The Warlock hesitated before nodding, lifting her Auto Rifle.
"Come on," Hunter said. "We've reached our tower."
The other two nodded and they headed for the doorway. Inside, the room was completely dark, and their ghosts shone light into it for them as they headed inside.
"I don't like this," the Warlock hissed. "It feels like a trap."
"Don't jinx us," Hunter growled.
Just then, dozens of Thralls shrieked, swarming out of the darkness toward them just as rapid, heavy footfalls began to sound from deeper in.
"Back!" the Titan ordered, the Warlock hurling a sphere of Void Energy into the Thralls, the sphere exploding on impact.
Hunter turned to retreat, just as Thralls began to swarm from the darkness on that side, too. he began to fire his Auto Rifle with one arm, drawing his Mos Ultima with his other hand and firing that as well. The Titan began to spray into the room with his Machine Gun, and the Warlock struggled to cover to the sides. Hunter's Mos Ultima went dry, so he hurled it into the air, tossing a grenade to his left before pulling out a reload for his Hand Cannon. He caught it with his middle and ring finger, his his pinky under the barrel for balance, and used his thumb and index finger to reload before spinning the Hand Cannon into his palm before returning to firing it. Then, just as he dropped the last of the Thralls in front of him, then spun to report that they were clear to retreat, the Warlock screamed as a Thrall bit into her throat, ripping a chunk out of it, armor and all. Hunter opened fire on the Thralls that swarmed her as her Ghost appeared to try and revive her, only for a crescent of green Hive Magic to flash out of the darkness, hitting the Ghost and exploding, the blast hurling both Hunter and the Titan away, the Titan going further into the room. Hunter groaned as he began to stand, glancing down at his mangled, scorched chest armor, then up into the room. Inside, the Thralls had completely surrounded the Titan, who had lost all of his weapons, but was holding a pair of flaming hammers. However, directly in front of him, illuminated by his ghost's light, was a massive, cracked, glowing-green knight armed with a matching sword and shield. Just as Hunter moved to try to help, the Titan attacked, leaping into the air and hurling the hammers, using the explosions to stop Hunter.
"Run!" the Titan ordered, forming two more hammers.
Hunter hesitated for a moment before turning to flee. He sped across a bridge, dropping several Acolytes with his Auto Rifle and knives as he ran before diving off of it to his right as an Ogre began to fire at him from above. He fell almost a hundred feet before using a pulse of Light energy to jump again, landing on top of a small chunk of stone. However, just as he did, four Boomer shots spun up over the edge, all four slamming into his chest and exploding. He faintly felt himself hit the cliff behind him and bounce, then felt himself falling, spinning as he did. He opened his eyes, managing to make out a bridge rushing up to meet him, and hurled a grenade into the bridge.
A moment later, its concussion slammed into him, robbing him of consciousness. However, after several seconds, the lights of his eyes flickered and came back online, his brain struggling to process anything, making it seem like slow motion.
In the distance, several levels up, a group of five Guardians were surrounded by Knights and Acolytes, but within a second of him seeing them, what little resistance they could put up ended in a hail of Boomer shots and fire grenades, their Ghosts all being destroyed along with them. Further away and about level with Hunter, there was a group of ten finally reaching their tower. However, as soon as the door opened, a flood of purple laser blasts erupted out of it, slaughtering them all before they even knew what hit them.
Hunter rolled onto his back, staring up at the top of the cliff. He could still hear the Titan fighting, see the flashes of light in the tower he'd just left. However, after a moment, there was a roar and a flash of green light, and suddenly the sounds of battle had vanished. He was alone. The last Guardian alive.
"We need to go!" his Ghost urged frantically, still hidden.
"Yeah," Hunter grunted, struggling to stand, only to find a group of twenty Acolytes moving to meet him. He looked around, but his rifles were both missing, as was his rocket launcher. He drew his Mos Ultima and the long melee knife Cayde had given him. This would be bad.
"Be careful," his Ghost warned. "All of your armor is ruined. Any hits you take will be direct damage."
"I kind of figured," Hunter said, just as his fractured helmet fell off of him in three large pieces, taking what little remained of his thoroughly ruined cloak with it.
He sighed, then charged Arc energy into this dagger and charged, opening fire rapidly. The Acolytes returned fire, but he launched himself over them, reloading his Mos Ultima before landing behind them and darting into their ranks, slashing in wide, lethal arcs with his dagger and shooting anything that managed to turn to him while out of range. Finally, he dove out of the way of the last three's gunfire, leaving a swarm grenade for them, and when it exploded, they were slaughtered.
"That wasn't so bad," Hunter said as the Arc energy faded from his dagger.
Just then, a purple sniper shot punched through his left shoulder, making him drop the dagger and stagger backward, falling off the bridge. He managed to cancel his momentum enough to survive, but he landed hard, rolling down a steep slope and bouncing along a small cliff at the bottom, stopping just shy of a fall into the chasm.
"Fuck that hurt," Hunter groaned, pushing himself up, left arm hanging limply, and looking up.
All three of the Hive classes that had been a problem on the bridges were swarming down at him from the ramp. Hunter turned, seeing a cliff below him and jumped, an Acolyte's shot grazing his right side.
Hunter shouted in pain landing hard and bouncing once before regaining his feet, turning and firing his Mos Ultima back up at the Hive, only for it to run dry, Hunter realizing he had dropped all of his bullets. He growled in irritation, holstering it and hurling several proximity mine knives.
"Find me a way out!" he snapped at his Ghost.
"Just finished!" the Ghost said urgently. "The cliff up to your right!"
Hunter spun, all but launching himself to it with Light Energy. The Ghost quickly guided him up a series of small cliffs, many of which he could only barely get to the top of, then across several bridges and onto several elevator platforms powered by Hive Magic. As he rode the third elevator, he did a knife count, finding he only had a handful of normal ones, and a pair of proximity mine knives left. He had even used all ten of his laser tripwire grenades.
"We're almost there," the Ghost said. The tower off to your right is the one at the top of the cliff, and there's an elevator to take us there."
"Good," Hunter sighed, looking down at the numerous wounds his body had suffered. "I still can't use my supers yet."
He leapt to the bridge he needed to take and ran for the tower, only to skid to a stop as an ogre stepped out of it.
"Solar is-"
A flood of purple lasers erupted from the ogre's eyes.
"I'm not getting anything," Ikora reported, her Ghost scanning the cave beyond the cliff they stood at the top of for any kind of signals.
"That can't be," Zavala said. "We sent thirty Guardians into this lair!"
"And they're all gone," Ikora said.
Just then, a mangled, skeletal, mechanical hand reached up over the edge of the cliff, gripping the edge of a rock and slowly beginning to lift the rest of the body attached to it up. As soon as the head came into view, Cayde gasped, dropping the Ace of Spades, which he'd drawn in preparation of a fight.
"Hunter!" Cayde yelped, dragging his protégé up onto the top of the cliff, all three Vanguard leaders staring as his mangled, ruined body, and the heavily damaged Ghost cradled in his left hand, that hand and that side of his abdomen being almost the only spots not damaged. "What happened?"
"Bomb...this place...from orbit," Hunter growled. "Do not...send more Guardians...in here."
"We won't," Zavala promised as Cayde's Ghost used its Light to restore Hunter's, Hunter himself losing consciousness.
"We need to get him to the tower for repairs," Zavala said.
"No," Cayde said, shaking his head. "He has auto-repair capabilities, amplified by his Ghost's Light."
"He what?" Ikora asked. "How?"
"He's different from other Exos," Cayde said. "He's the only one in existence that Clovis Bray built using SIVA."
Zavala and Ikora both gasped, backing away.
"I thought we put an end to SIVA," Ikora said.
"We did," Cayde said. "Hunter's SIVA lost functionality when he died the first time. They were reactivated when he was revived as a Guardian, but when they were, the programming errors that turned SIVA into a plague were corrected by his Ghost. They just function as a pseudo-healing process now. They're no more dangerous than the cells in your body."
Zavala and Ikora glanced at each other before nodding.
"Alright," Zavala said as Cayde's Ghost finished repairing Hunter's. "We should still take him to the tower."
"I'll take him," Cayde said. "He's my protégé, so it's my responsibility."
The other two nodded and all three warped back to their ships, Cayde and Hunter's ghosts working to repair Hunter's body.
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