Narvok knew his life was forfeit.
For ages, he had served his Queen, his Sovereign, the Hive, his Worm, and the Deep as a Warden of the Oubliette. Before that, he had fought across the worlds and the ascendant planes against the Sky-blessed and those who rejected the purity of the Logic. He had sharpened his sword on the bones of nations and his worm had fed well. He and his swarm-brethren had led their legions against the Slayer in that horrible slaughter, before his Queen had lured it into the trap. Only Narvok and two of his swarm-brothers had survived that day, and they had volunteered their blades to guard the Oubliette.
And now he was the only one left. Lorzûl had been standing watch over the Sarcophagus when the Light had corroded the bindings around it. The Slayer had ripped his arm off and torn his jaw from his skull. Hormalx had been among the first responders when the alarm had been raised, and by the time he reached the escapee, the Slayer beat him to death before tearing his worm straight out of him. As the last of the Wardens, Narvok had one task left before him, and that was to try to stop the Unchained Predator.
Before charging forth into his doom, however, Narvok and his legion prayed to their Sovereign, to their Worm, and to the sacred Deep, honing their swords, charging their weapons, and steeling their wills before the clash to come. Above the altar, his consort Nar Eiru chanted and led the prayer, but their song faltered when the air twisted before them, and their Queen appeared before them.
Narvok and Nar Eiru both bowed their heads and made obeisance to her, but Kateäk motioned them to rise. "We have little time," the Queen of Chains declared. "The Slayer and the Lightborn are on their way. I must prepare another ritual space and bring forth the Force Unyielding."
The last Warden of the Oubliette shouldered his sword as he clasped his fist over his chestplate. "My blade has served. It will continue to serve. My legion and my brood are yours to command, my Queen."
Beside him, his consort spread her fingers and bowed her head. "My mind sees into Deep places, and my gaze is sharp. My arts and my knowledge are at your disposal, my Queen."
Kateäk's gnarled crest turned toward them, and she showed her teeth, her eyes burning cold. "An appropriate word, young one. I need time to summon forth an Abyssal Champion. All you can give me. They are still in the Bray labs, seeking treasures and weapons. They will soon detect my presence and move to stop me. Nar Eiru, Narvok, you are to take your brood and slow their advance."
Narvok knew his life was forfeit.
They had moved further into Applied Research. Rega-7 knew that in ages past, there had likely been far more projects and artifacts being worked upon here by Clovis Bray's researchers. With every bank of computers they passed, she heard Wahei making upset noises, as the Warlock wanted to linger, to search these systems for their knowledge. But the Hunter and Morgan both reminded her that their priority was taking out Kateäk. Coming back with a cryptarch and a team of Warlocks to plunder more of Bray's secrets could wait until later.
Rega had wanted to simply head back out of Applied Research and continue deeper into the UAC Project facility in pursuit of their quarry, but Morgan's Ghost still insisted there was a strong Hive signal nearby. Even if it wasn't the chain-witch, none of the Guardians wanted to leave a Hive leader at their backs. Even the restless bulk of the Slayer seemed drawn further in, his fists clenching on the grips of his new weapon.
She considered him again. In spite of her Exo optics, she could not see clearly past the visor of his helmet, and could only make out vague features. A strong brow throwing his eyes into shadow, the slope of a nose, and little else. That much spoke to a human, or humanlike, species, but if Wahei was right, then he'd been locked away down here since long, long before the Traveler ever heard humanity's roar in the cosmos. His armor covered up everything else about him, but even with its heavy plating, she knew that he was every bit as muscular as the armor implied. The way he'd been able to knock down that Abyssal Knight and pin it down spoke to his strength.
He was also a lot faster than his size would suggest. Someone as big and as heavy as he was shouldn't be able to move as quickly as he did. She couldn't quite stifle her amusement as she pondered him loose in the Crucible. Rega must have chuckled, because Morgan turned to her. "What's got you laughing over there, Rega?"
"Just imagining." Rega gestured at the Slayer, who was kicking a piece of rubble out of the way ahead. "Can you think of what'll happen if we turn him loose in the Crucible?"
Wahei looked up at this, her eyes going distant for a moment, and then a smile crossed her face. "Oh. Ohhh, I want to see him wipe the smugness of Raayi's face." The Awoken archer was a frequent rival to the Warlock in the times they'd crossed paths. The Hunter Raayi Enne was fast enough that she could keep ahead of Wahei, even when the Voidwalker was in mid-Warp, and more than once she'd shut her down with an arrow through an eye socket.
"I think Shaxx would nut himself," Morgan was grinning as well.
Rega nodded. "Could probably earn quite a bit of silver wagering on it, too," she mused. She looked to the Slayer, who had paused as he came to a larger chamber, one that seemed to be a large circular testing bay. A series of articulated and extendable arms protruded and hung from the ceiling, and other machines were set into tracks in the floor. The centerpoint of the chamber was a yellow-green crystal, suspended in a gravity field of some kind. The stand underneath it, however, had become covered in Hive growth, and annelid lengths inside this started to move as they approached.
"You know," Wahei commented, on seeing it, "the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering if Nokris and his cult didn't have a secondary goal in coming to Mars back during the Collapse. I mean, yeah, trying to capture or destroy the Warmind would have crippled our ability to fight off the Darkness, but given these other Hive were here, I'm wondering if he wasn't trying to capture the Slayer for some reason. From what records I was able to find under Hellas Basin suggest that Nokris was a scholar and strategist, so having alternate motives for his actions would-"
She stopped when the Slayer turned to her, his movement sharp, and punctuated with an annoyed grunt. Rega quietly made a throat-clearing sound and advised, "Not the time, Wahei."
Then she noticed the Slayer turn back to regard the testing chamber they stood in. His head turned to take in the surroundings, and then he seemed to stare at the Hive crystal in the center of the room. His chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath, and then he visibly tensed. Somewhere close, a howl started up, and the Slayer swung immediately toward another door leading out of the chamber.
"Eyes up, Guardians!" Rega-7 called out as she got her submachine gun out. Morgan posted up by the door getting his shotgun out, just as a Hive knight charged in, shield before him. As the Titan aimed his weapon, the Slayer hefted the 'Blast Force Generator' and clicked the trigger.
The world went green and bright and pain.
Hunt. Stalk. Search.
Enemy had retreated. Lightbearers could resurrect. An impossibility that was true. Scout had restored to life after being killed by knight. Took a breath and studied her. Not of flesh and bone, but still alive. Not dead, but not merely sustained by the Light. Touched the place where knight's shot had struck her. No sign scout had been injured. Not merely resurrected, but completely restored.
Alive. Dead. Alive again.
Looked to scout's drone. It was flitting nervously. Source of scout's Light? It did not merely smell of Light, but stank of it. All the Lightbearers' drones did. Drones somehow brought dead Lightbearers back to life again. Bore thinking of. Glanced over as scholar's drone chattered. Lightbearers followed it to room. Banks of machinery. Workbench with a large weapon. Crystal inside weapon. Stench of Deep clung to it. Lightbearers and drones chattered about it. Argued over who it belonged to.
Big. Fucking. Gun. Mine.
Picked it up. Studied it for a few moments. Turned it on. Aimed it at them. Lightbearers agreed to give it to him. Stalked after stench of Enemy. Witch was somewhere. She deserved a final death. Lightbearers chattered as they searched. Found a chamber. A laboratory of some kind. Enemy crystal on pedestal. Someone had been studying it, looking to harness its energies. Behind, the scholar was jabbering on, filling the air with noise. Glared her into silence.
Stop. Listen. Scent. Howl.
Enemy was coming. A horde of them, with a shield-knight leading the charge. Tides of thrall and acolytes. Behind them, an elder knight. No, more than that. Scented it before. While locked in casket as ages passed. One of the Wardens. Lightbearers readied for battle. Lifted big fucking gun. Clicked trigger.
Green. Bright. Death.
The knight leading the charge let out a bellow as the blast struck its shield. Only struck wasn't quite the right word, since it implied that the shield was able to catch and absorb the energies involved. It burned it away in less than the blink of an eye, and only Rega's Exo optics really allowed her to play back what happened. After the shield went, the blast vaporized away the calcified chitin of the knight's arm, and then its chest and head, leaving a glimpse of a silhouette in the blinding green flash. She saw the knight's worm suspended in the air for but an instant before it, too, was boiled to nothingness by the Slayer's new weapon.
The tide of thrall and swarm of acolytes behind the knight did not fare any better. The blast continued to rip through the entire mass of them, burning them away in searing green heat, leaving only scraps of bone and twitching limbs. Near to the back of the horde was a larger knight, its armor more ornate than others, and it had enough time to leap aside, so the blast only scorched its back, and it quickly summoned up a shield in front of it to deflect the last of the dispersing energies, then retreated back down a filth-lined tunnel.
Rega and Wahei were spared the worst of it, standing to the sides and behind the Slayer. Wahei let out a cry of pain, her robes catching fire from the intensity of the blast force. Rega's Exo systems all started reporting dangerous levels of energy, and her optic receptors shorted out several times while she tried to squint against the flash. Morgan, standing beside the door, was not so lucky. He let out a scream of his own, cooking alive inside of his armor, and even his Light couldn't stand up to the energies surging past him. The dark crimson patches of his armor were scorched black and his Titan mark crumbled into ash, before his armor suddenly collapsed to the ground, the body within reduced to cinders.
The Slayer shouldered his weapon and regarded the lower half of the first knight, its legs still standing, and one fist having fallen to the floor, still clutching its sword. Then he looked at the pile of wrecked armor that had been Titan Morgan, before turning to look at Rega, who stared in horror at it. She quickly looked around. "Ghosts, check in! Chaukeedar?"
"Here!" her Ghost poked into view from behind her.
She looked over to Wahei. "Vizier?"
The Warlock's Ghost peeked up from behind the Awoken. "Present!"
"Eyeball?"
Rega let out a sigh of relief when the Titan's Ghost turned up from behind a piece of machinery in the chamber. "Still alive!" The black-in-white Ghost spun its shell facets, as if it were shuddering. "I saw the Big Guy lift that gun, and I got the heck out of the way."
She glanced at the aforementioned 'Big Guy,' who looked from the Titan's ashes over to Rega and Eyeball. He watched as the latter zipped over to the scorched armor, shell opening to channel the Light. With a shimmer and a flash, the scorched armor vanished, and then Morgan was standing there, letting out a loud groan of pain as he braced himself against the wall. He removed his helmet, bent over, and dry-heaved for a few moments. He spat on the floor, then took a moment to gather himself before declaring, "That... was the single most painful experience in all my lives."
Wahei tilted her head. "What about riding your Sparrow through that milkfall on Nessus-"
Morgan cut her off. "Worse."
Rega blinked. "When we fought Urrox in the Prison of Elders, he set you on-"
"Worse," Morgan snapped. He stormed over to the Slayer, who regarded him with the same blank stoicism as ever. "What the fuck, man?!" He pointed at the BFG. "That's Braytech, and you don't just go around using Braytech without warning someone! That's how SIVA went crazy, that's why Rasputin's a rogue, rampant Warmind, and you just up and fired off a weapon with output measured in zettajoules while I was in the line of fire!" He punctuated this last by punching the giant across the jaw.
The Slayer rocked back from the blow, then turned back to Morgan. Once again, only Rega's Exo optics allowed her to replay what had happened so she could follow it. The giant stowed the huge gun on his back, his left fist coming up with an uppercut that shattered Morgan's jaw. She could see teeth flying from his mouth as he left his feet from the blow, but a split second later, the Slayer kicked out with one foot, rocketing Morgan back against the wall, which shook and cracked from the impact. The Titan barely had a moment to look up before the Slayer was already on him again with a right hook that reduced his face to pulp.
Eyeball made a startled squeaking noise, and darted back as the Slayer snapped his head around to look at the Ghost. Before anything else happened, however, Wahei Blinked in front of him, tagging him with a grenade before Blinking back out of his sweeping grab. Rega jumped back out of range as well as the Slayer looked down at it before it detonated, filling the room with a burst of Void energy. The Warlock glared. "Don't hurt my friends!"
When the flash and smoke faded, the Slayer was on his back, but was already sitting back up. The giant's armor had cracked and split, though Rega couldn't see what lay beneath it for the smoke coming off of him. His limbs twitched, and then he sat up. With a grunt, the Slayer got back to his feet, looking around for Wahei.
But Rega stepped into view and raised both hands, empty. "Easy there, Big Guy. You really want to keep doing this?" She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward Morgan, who had already been restored to full health by Eyeball. The Titan stood up, shoving his helmet into place and meaningfully racking a round into his shotgun. Rega continued, "You're tough, okay, sure, but we can keep getting up, and no matter how tough you are, we can and will find a way to put you down for good if you push it."
She still wasn't sure if the Slayer understood her at all, as the giant simply stared down at her. Even without seeing his face, she could feel the intensity of his glare. But he wasn't attacking, and that was a plus. She nodded, then pointed to what remnants of the Hive had survived the BFG's firing. "Hive. Enemy, yeah? Let's focus on killing them, instead of each other."
"Oh, we can spare a few minutes for me to put this asshole on the ground a few times," Morgan growled.
"Leave it, Morgan," Rega-7 snapped. "We get out of here, you two can go up to Shaxx, and let him put you two in the Crucible to work out your issues, okay?!" She did not take her eyes off the Slayer, who had looked at the Titan as threats were spat around. Now, however, he looked back to her, and she nodded again. "Kill Hive. Not us. Okay?"
The Slayer's eyes seemed to narrow behind his helmet, but then he nodded slowly. He looked at Morgan, then turned away, almost dismissively, as he approached the chamber's floating crystal. The giant considered it for a moment, then his head lowered a bit as he touched the cracks and scarring left in his armor by Wahei's grenade. He looked from this, to the crystal, then reached out to grab it with one huge hand. He examined it briefly before his fingers tightened around it. Rega heard the crystal cracking, before it shattered like glass, releasing a pulse of energy that stirred her cloak.
As she watched, the armor seemed to knit itself back together, leaving just a gunmetal gray marking on the heavy plate to indicate it had ever been damaged. And even this seemed to be slowly regaining the green shade. The Slayer took a deep breath as he rotated his shoulders, stretching them out, and the Guardians could hear the popping of joints as he did so. With another deep inhalation through his nose, the Slayer turned back to them, nodded once, then marched off through the door where he'd gunned down the Hive.
The Guardians watched his departing back for a moment, and Rega cut Morgan off from following for a moment. "Morgan, leave it. I know you want to give him a receipt for a double down, but we have a Hive Royal to track down. We RTD her, we get out of here, and then I'll let you two apes go at it all you want. But I need to know that you're-"
"I'm good," the Titan grunted. "If I can tolerate having to go on patrols with that mouthy prick Charlie Tango, I can put up with going worm-hunting with the Big Guy there."
"You sure you're okay, Morgan?" Wahei asked.
"Compared to having a pub-clearer with Sergei?" Morgan felt at his jaw a bit. "I'm fine."
"I meant after taking that blast point-blank," the Warlock explained. "I mean, I didn't see a whole lot of what happened, I went blind from the flash, but seeing what happened to you, it looked like the energies involved made you cook from the inside out. It couldn't have felt good to feel your bones going white-hot and immolating your flesh inside your armor-"
Rega-7 slapped her upside the head. "Not the time, Wahei!"
The Warlock looked abashed, but Morgan just grunted again. "It didn't feel great. But I'm fine now. Now let's go find the chain-witch."
Nar Eiru could feel the eagerness of her consort's forces as they charged forth to stop the Lightbearers. Though she was not Ascendant, she had risen in power enough to know that in the next age, she could rise to those hallowed ranks. Provided, of course, she survived the impending encounter with the Unchained Predator. Many of her sisters and cousins had perished in the last great conflict with the Slayer. She had worked alongside the Queen of Chains to help construct the Sarcophagus that had contained the monster. Once he had been sealed away, however, the question was where to put him.
This backwater system had been chosen. Nar Eiru did not know her Queen's reasons for this. She suspected there was a wellspring of Deep energies somewhere close. If this was true, then her Queen was not telling her where it was. It couldn't be on this barren world. Nar Eiru would have sensed it. But being stuck down here for so long, even with Deep magics being employed to sink them into a hibernating torpor, had caused their power to slowly fade and dwindle. This had likely contributed to the bindings weakening over the Sarcophagus.
And if that hadn't, then the Sky-Traveler's arrival in the system certainly had. Oh, how she had ached to fly to the surface of this deserted world when it came here, and seek to siphon away its power to feed her worm. She knew Narvok had thirsted for it, as had all of the Wardens. But Kateäk had forbade it. Even when the fleshy pink bipeds had begun to dig into the buried exterior of their prison, they had stayed where they were. And as the humans had studied the crystals they'd found, the Chained Swarm had learned of them as well. If the Bray-folk had penetrated into the prison itself, they would have been killed to a man, of course, but Kateäk had counseled patience.
Nar Eiru shook herself from her reverie as she felt an agony tingle through her senses. It was a phantom sensation, the ghost of her consort's pain. She hissed the rest of her coven, lesser witches all of them, into preparation, then flew toward the tunnels leading upward. She drew up short as Narvok staggered back into the chamber. The Warden's armor smoldered, and as he caught himself from falling by bracing himself with his sword, she saw his back had been left exposed, the bone armor missing in a great smoking patch, the flesh beneath was blistered and scarred from an intense heat. One half of his crest had been partially melted away, and the bone armor on that side had a similarly solidified-molten look to it.
She drew in a breath to see it. "Narvok, what has-"
"The Slayer has some terrible new weapon," he growled. "From the Bray labs. A span of platoons, annihilated in an instant. Worse than any Light-born sorcery. Deep protect me, if I'd been an instant slower, I'd have been vaporized with the rest of them."
Nar Eiru touched a claw to the melted bone, then hissed in astonishment. "They used the Deep's power. The Bray found a way to harness the Deep?!"
"They took crystals from the exterior of our caves." He shook his head, hauling himself to his feet. "Sovereigns only know what they learned from them." Narvok took a breath, then spat on the floor. "I must gather more forces to give our Queen more time."
She nodded. "My coven and I will prepare traps to slow the Slayer's advance. Nothing like our Queen's, but it should be enough. Must be enough."
The tunnel where the commanding Knight had retreated collapsed behind it. But with the Ghosts' help, the Guardians were led through side rooms and eventually into a much larger workshop. There were several workbenches scattered about, and much had been destroyed in the intervening centuries, with Hive growth and pods on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. The Slayer marched into the middle of the room, looking around for something to kill. The Guardians, meanwhile, spread out a bit, and it was Morgan that called Wahei over to one workbench.
"This whole facility's basically got a mine attached to it, yeah?" The Titan indicated the tool on the table. "So why's there a chainsaw down here?"
The Warlock simply nodded. "You would think that wouldn't make sense, but there's still a use for chainsaws in a mine. If the blades are made of the right material, they can cut through stone." She peered at the one on the bench. "This one looks like it's-" She looked closer. "I think the edges are actually made of those crystals."
Morgan grunted, but left it where it was. He glanced up as Rega leapt up to an overlooking balcony and started scanning sightlines with her sniper rifle. "Eyeball, how close are we to the Hive signature you were tracking? I know it's not the chain-witch, but the sooner we deal with this big one, the sooner we can get after her."
"Should be close," his Ghost replied. "Signal's strong." Eyeball paused and the Ghost swiveled his shell's facets. "What's the Big Guy doing?"
He looked. The Slayer was approaching a waist-high pillar of Hive growth. Embedded in the top was a Hive crystal not unlike the one they'd found near the Blast Force Generator. He was looking at it speculatively, but Morgan's eye caught a few signals. He glanced quickly to Wahei, who shared his expression, and both were moving toward him, just as Rega called out, "Hive trap! Detainment field! Look out!"
They weren't fast enough to stop the Slayer from touching the crystal. There was a flash of light, and spectral chains swirled up in a circle in the area around the pedestal. The air seemed to turn to solidified smoke within the trapped area. The Slayer rocked back from this and swung around to look at the chains. At the same moment, Hive runes began to glow on the walls of the workshop, and a howl started up as Hive began pouring into the room. High above, a witch floated, encased in a shimmering shield, and chanted, weaving a spell, swaying out of the path of one of Rega-7's sniper shots.
"Wahei, try to get the Big Guy out of there," Morgan shouted as he flung a pulse grenade toward the nearest pack of thrall rushing toward him. He opened up with his auto-rifle into the ones behind, and squinted as he spotted a larger knight with scarred armor. "Rega, big one in the back!"
"I see him," the Hunter replied. "Looks like the one who got away earlier. This wizard's making it hard to get a shot on him. And she's shielded. My sniper's not getting through."
"On it!" Wahei pulled out her grenade launcher and fired a few explosives toward the hovering witch, who shrieked and had to retreat from the area. That done, she turned back to the Slayer, who seemed to be glaring at the departing witch. As Rega started firing at the commanding knight, the Warlock worked to unravel the spell trapping the giant.
-which turned out to be irrelevant moments later. The Slayer clenched one massive fist and punched one of the chains. Wahei stepped back as the energy field surrounding him seemed to ripple. He peered at this, then turned and grabbed the crystal at the center of the trap. He ripped it from its mooring and then crushed it in his fist. She could see energy course up his arm, and then he punched the trap again. The energies burst loose and the spectral chains shattered.
The Slayer unslung the BFG from his back and leveled it toward the hordes of Hive combatants rushing toward Morgan. Wahei called out, "Big Guy firing the big one!" Morgan cursed and shouldered his way past a pack of acolytes, but when the Slayer pulled the trigger, the weapon failed to fire. Wahei looked at it. "Er... never mind, it's still recharging!"
With a grunt, the Slayer slung it back across his back and pulled out the minigun. Bullets chewed through thrall and acolytes and lesser knights. Rega-7 kept trying to line up the headshot on the elder knight with the half-melted armor. "Looks like the big one back there's being tagged in the files I got from Vizier," Chaukeedar muttered to her. "Narvok, Warden of the Oubliette. And that witch is Nar Eiru, Keeper of the Oubliette."
"Doesn't matter what they call themselves, they're gonna die," the Hunter replied. "But they're being damned evasive."
Between Morgan and the Slayer, most of the lesser Hive were dead or fleeing. Narvok roared and raised his sword in the air, which called forth another wave of his followers. Wahei was picking off ones on the periphery with her scout rifle, until there was the high screech of a Hive witch. With a twist of the air, Kateäk materialized and flung molten links of chain down upon the battlefield, forming a ritual circle. This began to glow and a Hive portal opened within. From her perch, Rega-7 saw a blackened shape stirring, and then climbing out of the hole.
"Eyes up, Guardians! Abyssal Champion incoming!" The Exo fired a round at the Queen of Chains, who swatted the shot out of the air with a sweep of her claws. The Slayer turned to see the darkblade rising to its full height, and he started to reach for the BFG again. At that moment, however, a pair of lesser knights rushed the giant. The Slayer snap-drew the sawn-off shotgun and blew the first's head off, then grabbed its sword to stab the other through the chest. It slumped forward, but before the Slayer could shove the carcass away, Narvok closed the gap and chopped down with his own sword.
The Slayer was able to lunge his body out of the way of the force of the blow, but it still slammed the dead knight down atop him, driving him onto his back. Rather than go for another blow, however, the Warden of the Oubliette leaned down with all his weight onto the pile, turning his head to regard the towering form of the Force Unyielding. Yaad Matu ignored the sniper shots that peppered his adamantine armor as he hefted his axe and swung it down toward the pinned form of the Slayer.
Afterword: Sorry for the delay, Guardians and Space Marines! Welcome to all the new followers. I'm always grateful to see that my writing is getting appreciated. In answer to one question I got in an FF Dot Net review, yes, "Click click. Boom boom" is a reference to Miracle of Sound's "Hell to Pay" song.
Obviously, Shadowkeep has consumed a lot of time as of late. I won't deny it's giving me some ideas, especially as more Hive lore is revealed. Sorry also for a cliffhanger, but it was coming up on what I generally consider a good length, and already had some decent content. Next time, we'll see our Guardians and the Slayer take on an Abyssal Champion (maybe two), and we'll see what else the Hive are planning to try to stop them.