Chapter XI: Unleashing the Beast

Absolution Arc


1602 Hours, December 18, 2714

Yoyogi Gymnasium, Shibuya District, Old Tokyo

From the hole in the ceiling above Carolina and Lightning, a single scale fell from the sky. It rocked gracefully in the wind like a mother putting a baby to sleep, a song whispered in the breath of the wind. Nyx perched on the edge of the hole, softly crying when it saw the Dark Knight and Huntress preparing for combat. A tear fell from one of its slitted eyes, colliding with the scale still beautifully descending. Once the scale settled in the snow below, Nyx spread its wings and flew away back to its mommy and daddy.

"Artemis, can you scan Carolina and check for her strong points?"

Her A.I appeared next to her, taking her holographic cube form instead of her Ghost shell. "Only thing I'll say right now is that she's one hell of a martial artist. That stance she's taking proves that level of finesse she's got. You're probably gonna have your hands full with her with your sword and shield." Informed CIA, the wavelengths within her cube pulsing with each word.

"Noted. Anything else I need to know?"

"Aside from the typical 'Keep your guard up at all times and keeping your rage in check' warnings I'd give you? Watch out for her sudden moves with her grappling gun and knives."

"Trust me, this won't be a problem to keep my rage in check. This is just like how Nero was when we dueled for both the fun of it and training to compensate for our weaknesses." Memories started to surface in Tohsaka's mind, recalling the events she mentioned to her A.I and thankful that they fought each other for those purposes alone.

"Except this time it's a girl that fights with martial arts and not swords that has their own unique purposes."

"And one hell of a hot-headed, competitive attitude."


"Got anything on her, Church?"

Like Artemis in her A.I form, a holographic figure appeared next to Carolina taking the form of her brother Leonard Church. "Yeah, uh, aside from the info she released about herself and the rest of her team I got nothing."

"That's not what I meant, Church. What're you seeing from her right now?"

"'Kay, apart from her sword and shield she seems quite adept at close quarters combat. And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that she's had almost all of her life training in sword and shield combat aside from her marksmanship."

"Then again, Lightning and her team were born like normal people and she did confirm that they were trained since they were thirty years old," added Carolina.

"Seems pretty insane for the leaders of the Dark Knights to have her generation start as child soldiers. On a side note, she reminds me of Tex…"

"That's what she reminds me of as well, just with a more understanding and caring heart underneath that exterior and not a brute of a bitch. This could be interesting…"


"Reminds me of you when you were proving to be better than Hibari, always trying to surpass her and sparking a heated rivalry," recalled Artemis.

Lightning growled at the mention of her rival's name, gripping Dusk Repulsor's hilt tightly. "That bitch got what she deserved. Even though she was a traitor to Red Veil she deserved to die a traitor's death!"

Artemis looked over at Carolina and then back to her partner, noting a faint energy outline of claws replacing her fingers. "Okay, enough pep talk and sulking over a dead bitch of a rival. Go get her, girl."

Artemis disappeared from her side the instant Lightning took the first steps and raced towards Carolina with her Dusk Repulsor and Aegis shield, going for an overhead strike. As expected from a martial artist, Carolina dodged the slash from the sword and hit her opponent in the chest with a punch to which her fist met the blazing surface of Aegis. In the instant her fist hit her shield's surface, Lightning shield bashed Carolina back a few feet backflipping away the same length and slashing. Dusk Repulsor only tore through Carolina's cloak instead of making its mark before being deflected by one of her plentiful knives.

Both of them landed on their feet in a mix of grace and urgency before kneeling on a knee, the sounds of a device powering up in their ears before charging towards each other with the speed of a rocket. Carolina broke out of the sprint and started striking Lightning with her martial arts expertise, laying a beatdown against the surface of Aegis. Keeping her body within her shield's protection, Lightning had to steel herself from the barrage of punches and kicks before reversing her grip on Dusk Repulsor and striking from a blind spot.

Carolina barely dodged the surprise attack and backflipped in front of Tohsaka, kicking in her shield and making space between the two. Quickly, she whipped out a baton from her pack and flicked her wrist revealing a high-powered stun stick. Spinning it around like a sword, she charged towards the Dark Knight and swung, only for her stun stick to cross with Dusk Repulsor's blade. The unstable Arc energy from the baton jumped from the stun stick into Tohsaka's sword, indirectly attacking her through the shocks when her sword-bearing right arm started sparking with the Arc electricity.

When the electricity jumped to Tohsaka's arm, it barely felt like it hurt and instead like one of those cheap joybuzzers used on April Fool's. As a result to this, Dusk Repulsor's blood red glow started to morph into a sinister purple in a shockingly short amount of time. Carolina felt the heat radiating from Dusk Repulsor, far more intense than the Solar flames the Guardians use and most likely deadlier than the former.

"I don't think you'd like to see what happens next when fire and Arc energy mix," Lightning kept her strength on her sword, stalemating with Carolina's stun baton enough to stop them from being face to face. Both combatants jumped back when they heard the shrill cry of electricity sparking and the flames being ignited. Spinning the double-edged sword in her hand, Lightning's blade ignited into flames before the Arc electricity boomed across its surface.

"What the–?" Carolina barely had time to react when Lightning dashed up towards her again and started stabbing at her with the element fused blade. She dodged a number of the stabs despite the flame's intensity enough to melt the snow and the Arc energy being used against her when it jumped from the blade to her baton and knives. Damn, she stabs like she's fighting with a rapier instead of an arming sword! Carolina dodged a slice that would've cut her head off cleanly and tripped up Lightning.

The snow around them was blown away the instant Lightning hit the ground backfirst, a shockwave of crimson energy shaking up the ground. When the shockwave hit Carolina's feet, she too fell just the same as Lightning and the two swiftly got back on their feet the former getting up with the speed and grace of a feline.

"Church, what the hell was that?!"

"I don't know, but I have a feeling tripping her over or knocking her down triggers that shockwave as a counter!"

Lightning's shield started to unbind itself from her arm and threw her arm forward like she was throwing a frisbee. The Aegis shield struck Carolina in her chestplate, causing her to stagger back from the force of the shield and unaware of Lightning creating a portal in front of her and appearing right before her. She then saw that the seemingly heavy arming sword in the Dark Knight's hand had morphed into a javelin-like weapon and the thrown Aegis back to its owner's arm, backing away in time before she was skewered from above. Instead of countering, Lightning threw her shield up to defend herself and throwing her transformed Dusk Repulsor at her opponent, increasing its flight time thanks to her telekinetic power. Carolina caught the javelin and launched it out of Lightning's reach, striking Lightning from multiple angles with both her fists and stun baton as fast as she can. Just as she was close to striking the Dark Knight in the face with her boot, Lightning caught her leg mid kick.

What?! For once since the fight began, Carolina felt genuinely afraid after witnessing Lightning's combat capability for herself. As for the hand around her ankle, it wasn't a death grip that stopped it but a defensive, almost martial arts-esque hold. Carolina tried to free herself from her opponent's grasp but the firm grip was proving her attempts to be futile.

"Oh, this isn't good." Church muttered.

Lightning launched the Huntress into one side of the derelict stands around the gymnasium, creating a screen of dust and snow upon her impact. Aegis retracted into its inactive form on her arm and she whipped out another weapon with Artemis's help, this time a beautifully crafted white and golden bō staff that contrasts her black and red coloring. It's been a while since I used mother's bō staff. I just hope I can hold her off with it until I get Dusk Repulsor back. Sorry mother…

"Church, I thought you said she only knew how to use a sword and shield!" Carolina said, getting back on her feet after that hard of a launch and drawing out her knives like they were twin daggers.

"How was I supposed to know that her sword could transform into a javelin, throw her shield, and be able to counter your kick with her own hands?!" argued the Huntress's A.I companion. "Now she has a bō staff? What kind of combatant are we facing, Carolina?!"

"I'll say this now, but she's no Tex… Sure she has a similar level of skill and a lot of surprises up her sleeves, but she's got to be on her last trick," just as Carolina got back on the snow covered stage feet away from Lightning, an explosion ignited between the two. Both of them backed away from the blast radius and turned at the same direction.

"Adam!"

"Did you two miss me?" Menacingly, the white and brown-colored leader of Fireteam Sparta stomped slowly towards the fighting ground, his modified Cabal projection rifle slung over his shoulder. "I didn't. It wasn't that hard to follow you. Now that I have my two most hated bitches in front of me, might as well get my problems over with."

Carolina gripped her knives's handles tightly, and so did Lightning with her mother's weapon. Both of them were within close proximity to the other, close to having their arms bump into each other. The Dark Knight and Bladedancer shared a look at the other, despite being enemies a few seconds ago.

"Well, this has become quite the fight."

"Agreed. Adam has a score to settle with you, and so do I with him."

Lightning looked over at Carolina. "What'd he do to you?"

"He left me and York for dead when we were fighting the Vex on Venus. Went for the target instead of helping us. Damn bastard…"

"Can't say I've been in a similar situation. Where you and your partner were left for dead, I was lured into a trap with my brother and a teammate of ours that showed her true colors."

Carolina scoffed. "Let's save our stories for another time. Right now we got him to worry about!"

"I couldn't agree more. Think you can keep up with me?"

"Suggesting an alliance?" Lightning glanced over at Carolina and stared her down.

"Artemis, reroute all power from equilibrium style to yūgana gādo style."

"Boost to defense and mobility coming right up." Artemis acknowledged, Lightning's armor remaining largely unchanged aside from golden linings running across it like circuitry and her Aegis shield covering her entire arm.

"Church, I need armor enhancements."

Epsilon appeared next to her shoulder. "Which ones?"

"Give me the anti-Feedback Fence enhancements!"

"You got it." Like Lightning, Carolina's armor began to encompass over the cloth-like armor Hunters and Huntresses valued for mobility. She wrapped her fingers around her knives's handles, holding them in a reverse grip.

"You sure your enhancement can hold out against this guy?"

"I could say the same about you, using your staff and sword."

Lightning smirked and located Dusk Repulsor, still impaled in a support beam holding up the roof. "Thankfully, my weapons don't count as melee attacks. So don't worry about me getting countered by his Feedback Fence."

Adam had barely reloaded his custom projection rifle when both Dark Knight and Bladedancer rushed towards him, dodging his grenade launcher-like shots with ease thanks to their speed boosters. Lightning made the first attack and broke free from her sprint, striking the lower end of her inherited staff to Adam's side. Quickly, she placed the other end in between Adam's arms, the end meeting at his neck and kicked the bladed projection rifle from his reach. The staff was withdrawn from his throat and smashed against the side of his helmet, the trauma enough to disorient him from thinking straight.

"Not gonna happen this time, bitch!" Adam caught the end that struck his helmet and held on tightly until Carolina attacked him from behind, freeing his grasp from the staff and kicked back several feet by the Dark Knight. Adam stopped himself from crashing into the wall and snarled, forsaking his rifle and charging towards his enemies.

Lightning glanced at the pillar where her transforming sword was impaled and broke into a run for it, leaping and grabbing the handle until she was hanging from it with both hands. Looking down at the center stage to see Carolina and Adam duking it out, she grit her teeth and let one hand go. With her hand extended towards the Titan and Huntress, her palm started to pulsate with Void energy and launched a crimson sphere in their direction.

Carolina wasn't faring as well as she thought. When she struck Adam in his helmeted face, the Titan retaliated with two punches to her chest and abdomen, both with the force exerted from a Cabal's shield bash. She staggered back from the punches and put her fists up. Even though she wasn't as strong as he was, she laid a fast smackdown at him with her fists striking the pressure points despite his Feedback Fence sending her punches' kinetic energy back at her.

Not working, Carolina!

I can see that! Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the sphere made from Lightning headed for Adam. Jumping back, she shielded herself and waited for the sphere's impact with her arms and cloak. It exploded in Adam's face, releasing a flash of bright light and stunning him.

"Damn you!" roared Adam, wildly swinging his punches until Lightning appeared from above, flipping over him and throwing part of her shield. The Aegis fragment she launched forced Adam to fall forward and into Carolina, where she caught him by the neck and pummeled his visor in. Her last punch smashed the orange visor in, leaving him vulnerable should either of the two use firearms to finish him off. After that punch, the cyan Huntress threw him back at the Dark Knight, to which the thrown fragment of her shield returned to her. Aegis expanded once more and Lightning held on to her shield-bearing arm as she smashed him downward with it, bringing her back to the ground with Adam.

Lightning rolled out of Adam's reach when he reached for her neck and spun her bō staff, sheathing her recovered Dusk Repulsor at the same time. As Adam got back up, his Cabal projection rifle came back to his grasp and charged at Lightning. "I'll cut you up into tiny pieces, you bitch!"

The white and brown Titan went for an overhead slash and Lightning held back the blade with her bō staff. Instead of cleaving through the staff, the curved blade barely nicked it and became somewhat stuck. I'm grateful for your parting gift to me, mother! For once I'm glad its indestructible!

Without warning, Lightning slid her mother's staff down and kicked him in the chest towards Carolina, the latter with her stun baton out and striking against his body until she hit Adam with it like a sword cleaving diagonally across his chest. Sparks of Arc energy streaked across his chestplate until Adam caught hold of Carolina's neck and lifted her up.

"Carolina!"

"I should've left you and York for dead back on Venus. But knowing that you're the only one alive between the two of you, maybe I''ll let you pay a visit to him in the afterlife!"

Carolina struggled to breathe under the pressure of his hand constricting her neck, clawing at his wrists and kicking at him to no avail. With her vision blurring at a rapid rate, she could make out the Dark Knight charging towards him, Aegis at the ready and so is her Dusk Repulsor in its javelin form. The moment when Carolina looked back at Adam, she heard the sound of a device powering up and his Feedback Fence charging up.

"Don't...!"

Too late.

Just as Lightning's javelin was so close to piercing through Adam's armor, a sudden burst of wind tore through the area, blowing away all of the snow in the arena. Lightning saw time crawling into a complete halt, leaving her in her stabbing motion with her Dusk Repulsor's javelin form. The world then became lost all color to her except for Adam whose armor started sparking with electricity.

Artemis popped out near Tohsaka's arm, her cube form moving in the frozen world around her. It was now that the A.I saw a sniper trail headed right for her from a sniper's perch and tracked the trail down to find South with her 1000-Yard Stare aimed directly at Lightning's side. "Light? Can you hear me?" No response from her partner. "Aw, you have to be kidding me. Not a time distortion device!"

The only one that is able to move was the white and brown Titan. Menacingly, he faced the charging Dark Knight and put Carolina right in front of the javelin's tip and prepared his Brute Shot. Growling, he let go of the Bladedancer's neck, suspending her in the time-frozen world and raised the curved blade of his weapon overhead with both hands.

"Aw, son of a mother–" As suddenly as the time distortion device activated, the black and white of the world got their colors back. "Light!"

Lightning had the most minimal of time to react when she saw the body of the cyan Huntress in the path of her javelin's tip and Adam raising his weapon overhead. Like a chain reaction, she felt the shot of a high-powered round piercing through her ribcage, followed by her transformed Dusk Repulsor impaling through Carolina's back and effectively piercing through her heart. She wanted to scream from what she's done, but only the blood from her shot escaped from her mouth and Adam brought the curved blade down.

Her figure smashed against the wall feet behind her, bringing a few of the ancient concrete down on her. Lightning gasped painfully as though it was her last, falling down on her hands and knees just after hitting the wall. Her chestplate was torn up from Adam's blade, exposing some of her bloodied chest from the cut. Her blood spilled onto the snow below her, staining the powdery stuff red even as she held a hand over where it hurt the most. Her heart hammered against her ears, crescendoing the closer she was to being defeated. Lightning glanced at her HUD, where her health gauge was replaced with numbers and a steady beeping indicating her shields are gone. Two hundred and steadily dropping.

"Dammit, focusing all power on the emergency stabilizers! I got you Light," Artemis cried out, reverting her partner's armor back to its original state and a glow erupted from her wound, even her helmet retreating back into the neck guard. "Light, can you hear me?!"

Adam approached the downed Dark Knight, reloading his projection rifle and gesturing South to stand down for now. He aimed the barrel at her, ready to win this Battle Royale once and for all.

"A-Artemis…!"

"Hey, don't talk now! You're still bleeding!"

"R-remove the inhibitors." Requested Lightning, painfully looking up and watching the Titan make his way towards her. The Darkness within her was growing alarmingly, and the voices tempting her to kill Adam and take his Light were in her ears again.

"Are you crazy?! I'm not doing it! Do you remember last time I released your inhibitors? You had to be heavily sedated to bring you back!" The A.I looked down and saw something formulating at Lightning's armored fingers. Like spectral claws. They clawed at the snow like any animal with claws would to sand or dirt, the ethereal outline slowly filling. "Lightning, there's a reason why your armor was installed with inhibitors: to make sure you don't lose control of yourself! If you release it now, you might do something you'll regret!"

"Do I have a choice?!" Roars the Dark Knight, her eyes now an uncontrollable flaring gold. "Now I know… He's the one that shot Cloud in the throat and took away his ability to speak in English! Do you think I'm just gonna let him walk away with it after twelve years!? Nero's life is on the line as well and I'd do anything to make sure he doesn't get the plug pulled on him!" The claws finally formalized, razor sharp and sparking out of control.

Artemis inched away from her partner when she saw the ethereal claws and swore that the gold in her eyes was alive. [There's no talking her out of this, is there? She just won't listen to reason once this happens…] "…All right. I'm deactivating the inhibitors. Just promise me and your brother that you won't lose yourself to the Darkness."

Artemis unlocked the inhibitors within Lightning's armor, preventing the flow of whatever inhibited something within her from reaching her bloodstream. The Dark Knight started to pant angrily the moment the inhibitors stopped working, armor morphing into a newer look rapidly. Grunting and shaking violently, Lightning clawed at the snow with her ethereal claws like someone undergoing a painful transformation her vision drowning everything she saw in a bloody red.

"I was expecting more of a fight from you. Guess you're just as pathetic as your brother," Adam stopped dead in his tracks and kept a lock on the downed Dark Knight. "Looks like I win. Goodbye, Dark Knight trash!" He pulled the trigger and drowned Lightning in a barrage of shots, the rubble behind her finally free and burying her alive.

A scream tore through the battleground, the rubble that buried Lightning blown away. Shocked, the Titan reloaded his rifle and turned around. Standing there was the Dark Knight herself, her armor morphed into a sleeker yet extremely durable variant and her ethereal claws ready to tear into something. An aura enveloped her entire body like a fire and her face bearing blackened vein-like markings, her breathing aggressive and heavy.

"What the–?!"

Lightning roared towards the heavens, the crimson aura around her now even violent like a fire. Red waves struck the Titan at the same time she screamed in rage. Adam tried to move but his body wouldn't respond, almost as though his armor was in lockdown. When Adam looked up, the enraged Dark Knight had pounced at him like a feline ready to attack tackling him down to the ground and disarming him in one swift move. She started clawing at his chest, cutting through the plating in a berserk rage. Catching a glimpse of the Feedback Fence on his arm, Lightning made an immediate grab for it and ripped it off his arm, her claws tearing through the materials and throwing it away from them.

"Get the hell off me!" Adam pulled out his FWC handcannon and fired the magazine into her abdomen. Instead of recoiling from the pain, Lightning remained on him and the bullets' marks clear. How is she withstanding the shots?!

Lightning's clawed hands went for her victim's throat, the ethereal claws digging into the rubber materials and drawing blood. Adam grabbed hold of her wrists to get them off but it was futile. Her sudden spike in strength was enough to perhaps surpass a typical Titan's strength. He punched her in the face. Instead, it only pissed her off even further.

South watched the action unfold and reloaded her sniper rifle, aiming at Lightning's head. Through her scope, the Dark Knight stopped and faced South's position, hand outstretched towards her. Before she knew it, she felt the tightness of a cable or rope constricting around her neck and her body flying towards Lightning. Once she was mere inches from her, she looked down. One of Lightning's claws have torn through her robes and out her back like she impaled herself on a steel pipe. She tried to speak but instead of words coming out of her mouth, it was blood. South cursed at the Dark Knight and Lightning only snarled menacingly back before taking her other hand and placing it over her face. In one fell move, Lightning jerked South's head to the side and broke her neck.


"Shaxx, you need to call off this match right now!" Zavala watched the Battle Royale unfold from a live feed in the Hall of Guardians, turning to the Crucible Handler.

"I understand how dangerous it is for everyone, but this has to be settled between Adam and the Dark Knights!"

"Look at what Lightning did. She impaled a Guardian clean through their chest with her own hands and broke their neck! This is getting dangerous enough to respark our last Battle Royale!"

Ikora watched the feed with Zavala and Cayde, focusing on the Dark Knight in question. "That power is exactly as we feared it a century ago. It twists us into monsters in human form, hungry for the Light. Yet the Dark Knights have not harnessed or controlled it. But how is she using another Super when she had already used one?"

"That Super isn't what you thought it was," Primus stated in his A.I form, facing Ikora. "There are some hidden abilities granted to us by both our subclasses and our familiars. However, only one of those hidden abilities is artificial to her."

"Artificial?"

"You see, Lightning had one very traumatic experience that almost broke her completely. She was...captured by a rival faction of ours and experimented on, even tortured for their twisted plan," MI6's holographic cube almost faded from existence, the wavelengths with barely a pulse. "At the time, she was a Nova: a female Dark Knight subclass that can use antimatter as a weapon. Her captors were experimenting on making Dark Knights with dual subclasses, and she was the unlucky test subject. It almost broke her mental state, and if Spectre and the others weren't there to find and rescue her she would've been lost to reason."

"So you are saying that second subclass is…?"

"Yes, the one Lightning is using right now. Valkyr, a tortured subclass that lost all sense of reason and is forevermore a ball of pure rage. That was why Lightning's armor was outfitted to have inhibitors installed. After that incident, she was prone to violent fits of rage and sudden outbursts of hysteria. It left her scarred since then."

"Yikes, so that's why Lightning doesn't get angry in outrageous situations. She could've lost herself in that subclass." Cayde whistled, arms folded and listening to MI6's story. "Man, almost I feel sorry for Adam pissing her off. Those claws of hers aren't kidding around."

"So this experiment performed on her is permanent? With no way to reverse it?"

MI6's body 'whirred'. "Unfortunately, yes. The Perrin Sequence really did a number on her, since all of the Dark Knight subclasses are literally blood-bound to them."

Cayde glances towards the monitor showing the Battle Royale. "And I thought us Guardians had it rough enough with the Darkness. Turns out that the Dark Knights fight on two fronts: a war within and amongst themselves."


Die, die, die, die, die, die!

That was the only thing the rage-induced Lightning could think about. As she kept on clawing at Adam's chestplate until she was sure she hit flesh, she grabbed Adam by the throat and pinned him down. She was sure she was saying the word over and over again, but only screams of uncontrollable anger left her lips.

"Light, that's enough! You'll kill him at this rate!"

Lightning threw one of her clawed hands at the holographic A.I, snarling and grinding her teeth. I can beat him! He must pay for what he did to Cloud and Nero. To us! She raised a claw high above her head, sharpened tips pointed at him. I must make him suffer! And rob him of his Light!

"That's it, I'm inhibiting you right now! You're letting the Darkness take control of you!"

Snarling again, the Dark Knight tightened her grip on Adam's throat. "It's over, Adam! Die!"

Before she knew it, the aura around her had quickly dispersed and her markings on her face fading away. No! Several small pricks ran all across her body, the inhibiting agent reentering her bloodstream. Her strength sapped away from her, eyes widened when she saw her own ethereal claws fading away like a ghost.

Below her, Adam grinned and pressed the barrel of his handcannon against Lightning's abdomen. "Gotcha." He pulled the trigger.

Lightning staggered backwards from the shots, letting go of him and clutching her abdomen. "No…! It can't end like this!" She was kicked back into the wall, adding more to her injuries and letting out a pained cry. Using the wall to regain balance, Lightning was gasping for air, the blood staining her hand and the ground red.

Adam retrieved his projection rifle and growled at the weakened Dark Knight. "I knew Dark Knights didn't have the guts to accept the Darkness. And here you just proved it. So long, scum!" He threw the bladed projection rifle, spinning like a frisbee and making her way towards her.

Guys, I'm sorry. You have to pick up the slack from where I left off… Lightning winced, accepting her inevitable elimination from the Battle Royale and chances of victory diminished by half of her prediction. She waited for the blade to decapitate her, impale her, something!

But it never came.

Lightning opened her eyes to the sound of a helmet being cracked and saw a Hunter within the flight path of Adam's projection rifle. Shards of a Celestial Nighthawk was in the air around the Hunter's face, the golden gleam fading in the setting sun. Why? Why would a Guardian care about saving one of us?!

The Hunter fell over like they were thrown by an Ogre, projection rifle long gone from being recovered. He was on his hands and feet, panting after taking the fatal blow from the bladed rifle. Showing no signs of bleeding on his body, he covered his exposed face with his hand. "Bloody hell, that was one of my favorite helmets. And here someone goes destroying it."

Adam whipped out his handcannon and aimed at the Hunter. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow your head to kingdom come, Combatant 30."

Excalibur only chuckled at his threat. "You just don't seem to get it at all, do you? If there's one thing I can't stand for completely, it's a hardheaded girl thinking she should take on the bull when she knows that her limits have a price on her." Slowly standing up, he kept his hand over his shattered Celestial Nighthawk. "Then again, none of you know who Combatant 30 really is. Then again, there is a justified reason for it," Excalibur reached for his helmet's release locks, the locks hissing air and falling apart completely. "You want to know what that reason is?"

Lightning was taken aback when she heard the British accent from Combatant 30 and was instantly replaced by another. One that was eerily familiar. "And that reason is…"

Adam snarls angrily, a fist clenched and his grip on his FWC handcannon tighter than before. There's no way…! He saw the Ghost hovering overhead, serving as the cameras capturing the action for this Crucible match.

"I shouldn't even be fighting right in the first place. Isn't that right, Tohsaka?"


A/N: I deeply apologize for the almost month-long update. After being trapped in storyboard hell and the release of Rise of Iron, I just couldn't find the time to finish this until the day this chapter is uploaded. Okay, I promise that the next chapter will be the end of this Battle Royale and we can finally get to the rest of the Taken King story.

The Crimson Commando (II-XXII): Either that song or to me 'I May Fall' or 'Falling Towards the Sky'. Plus, I knew this would happen again. Also, whoops on Carolina in this chapter. Don't kill me *cowers*

Dawnartist: You know, you're one of the reasons why this chapter was released like a month after the last one. One, I have no idea if you were giving hate or criticism about the 'last few chapters' (what, since the Battle Royale or the Absolution arc started?), and secondly, that could be seen as rude. There's a point to this fanfic: to give my interpretation of the Taken King story and my own mix since I do not want to be copying the story bit by bit (that's boring to me).

Commentary aside, until next time Guardians, and enjoy both Rise of Iron and the last of Iron Banner this week! For the Iron Lords!