I do not own Destiny or any of its characters.

Late

Hunter groaned as he pushed himself up, shoving a chunk of rubble off of himself before standing and picking up his rifle, only to put it away, drawing Joker instead.

"Welcome back," Spark greeted him seriously. "We fell at least twenty stories down, and I can't reach Cayde. Or Petera."

"Then we're going after them," Hunter said, starting forward.

He staggered a few steps before his SIVA glowed, instantly mending the damage done to his body and armor. Then, he continued to walk. As they passed through a door ahead of them, they passed several open pods with glowing Ether trails leaving them and leading the direction they were heading. Spark warned him to watch for Fallen and Hunter nodded, quickening his pace. Cayde could take care of himself, but not against the entire prison.

"Hunter," Spark said, his voice sounding unsure. "This Ether is...wrong, somehow."

"It doesn't matter," Hunter said. "We absolutely have to reach Cayde."

Spark nodded. "You're right."

They passed through another door and Spark warned that there was something close by. As he did, Hunter carefully looked around at the cellblock they were in. The lights were flashing, an alarm was going off, and small fires dotted the area around them. He narrowed his eyes, holding his gun a little tighter and sped up to a light jog. A moment later, a door opened and he stopped. There were Fallen running around, but they were darker, had skin that looked half-rotten, wore an odd assortment of gold and brown clothes, giving them a sort of wasteland appearance, a headdress that covered their eyes and consisted of a large rectangle with teeth-like notches sticking out of the upper half's sides, and were swinging around trays of flames on chains that sent out explosions every time one made contact with anything, resulting in most of the room being on fire.

One of them turned to him and shrieked, only for Hunter to put a bullet in his head. A group of four charged, and when he fired, he missed his target, but hit one of their trays, which exploded and killed all four. He swung his fun around as more charged at him, firing quickly, dropping them either with a direct hit, or by shooting their trays. He hurled a knife into one as he began to cross the room, then used his hand's enhancements to pull it back to himself and spun to face back the other way, flinging the knife into a Fallen on the upper level as he shot a tray in the middle of a group charging him. Then, he looked around, seeing the room was clear. He turned, heading to a hatch in the floor and knelt beside it.

"Theses...things," Spark said. "They used to be Fallen."

"That corrupted Ether mutated them," Hunter guessed, dropping through the hatch, landing in a service tunnel.

He followed the tunnel until he reached a large round room where air circulation ducts all converged. Just as he arrived, the grates over several of the ducts exploded, the strange, corrupted Fallen charging him as one dropped from the roof of the ceiling, doing the same. Hunter rolled his eyes, shooting three of the trays and killing them all.

"They didn't just become this," Spark said. "Someone did this to them."

"And we'll find out who after we save the man who adopted me in everything except legally," Hunter said, stepping into one of the ducts, a short one leading to another cellblock, and began to jog again. "He's the only father I've ever known. I'm not losing him."

"No, we won't," Spark agreed. "We'll save him. Detecting activity below us, but I still can't get anyone on comms."

"Keep trying!" Hunter ordered, breaking out into a run just as a sharp spike of foreboding shot through him.

As he raced through the cellblock, more and more corrupted Fallen swarmed toward him, only for him to not even slow as he used his knives and bullets to slaughter them, reusing the knives whenever he was able. At the far end, a mass of corrupted Ether raced across the floor and into the door Hunter was heading for. He followed it, sprinting down a hallway to a door jammed half-open, and looked through, seeing three corrupted Fallen transform into masses of corrupted Ether, taking off away from the door. Then, finally, the door ground open.

Hunter was off like a shot, sprinting along the walkway he found himself on, shooting anything that attacked him. Then, as he passed through another door, a flood of corrupted Ether passed in front of him before transforming back into Fallen, this time wielding roughly-assembled weapons that fired purple bolts or beams. There were also about two dozen of them. Hunter took off instantly, shooting, dodging, hurling grenades and knives, and taking cover as needed. After a few moments, he'd killed the last of them with a knife and took off at a run, retrieving the knife on the way by, and kept it in his hand.

Suddenly, holding cells along the wall to his left began to open in a wave, corrupted Fallen jumping out onto the walkway and instantly turning to engage him. One landed just behind him, only for him to shoot it over his shoulder while hurling his knife into another's face. A pair of them leapt at him and he stepped to the side, allowing both to land before shooting through one's head and into the other's chest. The second survived, however, so Hunter put a second bullet in his head before turning back to the front as he hurled a pair of knives into the last two.

Then, he sprinted up the stairs, only to find the door fused shut.

"We need another way," Spark said.

"Remember that Cabal ship?" Hunter asked, stepping over to a vent beside the door and kicking it, shattering the metal across it before ducking inside, holding the Joker out in front of himself.

After a moment, something that looked vaguely like a naked Fallen but with enormous blue boils all over it scrambled past ahead of him, at a T-intersection, and Hunter paused, shook his head, and continued forward. When he turned the corner, the thing was gone. After a few more seconds, he dropped out of the maintenance shaft he was crawling through and several of the things scrambled toward him on their six limbs. He shot one and it erupted into a dark, fluorescent blue explosion. The blast caught the next and it exploded as well, catching two more, who each caught more, causing a chain of explosions. Hunter waited a moment before moving through the room going around large machines he didn't care to identify.

He ran through a door that'd been blasted open, then dropped through a hole in the floor, landing in a large pipe just before a pulse of blue energy raced past, bouncing him on the floor.

"No!" Spark breathed. "Cayde's Ghost. She's dead."

Hunter's run became a dead sprint instantly. Without his Ghost, Cayde would die. That was unacceptable. Hunter leapt from a broken walkway into a fan tube, the fan sitting motionless. He broke his momentum just before landing before continuing to sprint. He dropped through another hole, only to freeze. For a moment, he thought he was looking at an Ogre, but then he realized it was a corrupted Fallen, except its clearly rotting body had swelled to rival an Ogre for size, boils over parts of its body, and blue electricity crackling from the metal objects on its forearms. However, as he landed, the abomination of a creature turned away from the door it was trying to break down and to him instead. Hunter sucked in a deep breath as he stared at the disturbing sight of the headless creature's severed neck, a sort of mask affixed to it, but not covering it. Then, it roared, sending a bolt of lightning out of one of its hands, barely missing Hunter as he used the same intangibility technique as in the Pit of Heresy to escape death and duck behind cover, another bolt of lightning slamming into the pile of debris he was hidden behind. Then, he spun, holstering the Joker before leaping out of cover and firing a Shadowshot into the giant's chest. Just as the singularity formed, Hunter formed his Golden Gun, firing six shots into the giant. As one struck the singularity, it erupted into a massive explosion of Solar and Void energy, killing the giant, and allowing Hunter to sprint toward the door the Abomination had been trying to break through.

Spark flew ahead of him, hacking the door open, then winked out of sight as Hunter sprinted into the next room. Eight massive Fallen, all corrupted, stood before the airlock opposite Hunter, all backlit by a red light, and walking toward them was someone in a black cloak. The corpses of corrupted Fallen littered the room, and a short ways to Hunter's right lay Cayde. Hunter looked back to the man with the black cloak, seeing an Awoken just as he raised the Ace of Spades.

"He didn't feel a thing," the Awoken said.

Hunter shouted in rage instantly, opening fire at the man, only for one of the Fallen around him to step in front of him, the bullets slamming into the Fallen but not killing it or getting through it to the Awoken. Just as Hunter reloaded, the airlock closed, and Hunter shouted in frustration before sprinting to Cayde, dropping to his knees beside him.

"How's...How's my hair?" Cayde asked, barely clinging to life, voice distorted by the damage he'd received.

"Looks better than your face," Hunter said, barely keeping himself controlled. "But what else is new?"

Cayde laughed, only for it to turn into coughing. Spark appeared over them, looking down at Cayde before doing the Ghost equivalent of a head-shake.

"There's nothing I can do," Spark said. "I'm...sorry."

"Listen, kid," Cayde said. "This...This ain't on you. You were...a perfect...partner. I just...fucked up."

"I should have been here sooner," Hunter said.

"No," Cayde said. "I should've wai...waited for you." He gasped in a couple of breaths before speaking again. "Tell...Tell Zavala and...Ikora...tell them...the Vanguard was...the best bet I ever...lost." His eyes focused on Hunter again. "You were...the best bet...I ever made. Your...Your gun...It's not the Joker...because...Joker is...second to the...the Ace of...of spades. It's...because...after my son...my Ace...you're the second...best thing...I've ever had...in my life."

Hunter opened his mouth to speak, to tell him he was a father to him, to beg for him to stay, only for the lights to fade from Cayde's eyes. Hunter closed his mouth, bowing his head as grief flooded through him. Not ten seconds later, Petra slowed to a stop to his left, staring.

"No..." Petra breathed, voice cracking. "Cayde."

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