Chapter XXIII: Surgite (Rise Up)
Absolution Arc
Conclave Temple, O?d ?ri?i?h E?pi?e, Earth
Unknown time, December 25, 2714
Truth be told as of now, resting in the central chamber of the Temple is a bad idea.
The sound of gongs and bells bombarded my hearing and rudely woke me up from my sleep to recover my strength. Groaning, I covered my ear that was closest to a ringing bell or gong and waited for the obnoxious, yet melodious rings to come to an end. Right now, I could care less what time it is and how much sleep I got.
"Still haven't forgotten how we ring the bells and gongs, I see." Master Asada was next to one of the gongs in the room, a mallet in hand and struck the gong in a hypnotizing harmony with the bells' chiming.
"If I had to choose between nightmares of what I've done and the Temple's 'wake up' ceremony for my wake up call, I think I'll choose the former." I grumbled, sitting up from the floor of the memorial chamber. "Do you always have to ring the gong, Master Asada?"
"Well, I've got nothing better to do in the mornings except finding herbs for my tea," she spun the mallet in her hand and struck the gong again. "Besides, I don't want to be the one who handles setting up the training equipment and courses across the Temple."
After I winced at the second ringing, my head shook to get the echo out of my ears. Telling between whether or not it was a morning routine around the Temple to ring all the bells and gongs or my wake-up call didn't exactly do the best I could to remember the times I've been here. As I look around the main chamber, I notice that something's missing. Or rather, two things are missing.
"Where's Master Vergil and Zephyr?"
"Either they're getting up or they're talking to Teshin regarding you. I haven't seen them this morning, even if Zephyr's an early bird."
"How thoughtful."
Asada put the mallet down and leaned against the side of the gong, arms folded. "Every Master has their special field, Sparda. It wouldn't hurt to get in some practice before you start teaching it to others."
"I guess extreme survival would have to deal with outside the Temple every day, am I right?"
"Being trapped on a mountain where it snows all the damn time isn't exactly a variety of environments for my speciality."
I walked towards the main entrance to the chamber and was greeted to the giant door. You'd think it'd be impossible to open a door when it's the height of two Kells stacked on top of each other, but you're wrong. Sliding my hand across the surface of the door, it wasn't hard to find the handle and I pushed forward. A section of the doors opened and the cold wind blasted my face, helmet forming and protecting me. The first rays of sunlight shone on my visor and the view of the world below the mountain greeted me. Well, whatever could be seen from the snowstorm, which meant nothing but snow and a few rays of the sun.
As I stood on the stairs leading up to the main chamber, the thought of coming here felt more right than I thought. Running away from my duties isn't exactly what would describe me, nor was it to get away from the stress.
"Sorry 'bout the bells and gongs ringing while you were asleep, love." Master Zephyr sat on top of another pillar and looked down at me. "But we have a routine around the Temple to start at this point in the morning. 'No excuses,' as Teshin would say."
No excuses. That's the one rule Teshin had set in stone once the Conclave began to train new Dark Knights. Unfortunate for all of the Masters to also be under this rule, so they aren't exempted from it. Everyone has an obligation once they come here, so it's a simple 'do the damn thing' with, of course, no excuses. Sure I've heard some complaining from other Dark Knights during training, but the discipline the Masters impose wipe that from memory.
"Would've been nice to let me know or something."
"Can't always think that we'll be considerate to others when ringing the gongs and bells. Here," she tosses me a canteen. "This ought to compensate for a meal you'd typically get at the Tower."
Twisting the cap off, I took a sniff at it. It was pleasant but perhaps too pleasant. Like a really good-smelling breakfast too good to be true. After Master Asada's tea, I was wary of what drinks are provided to me. "The hell is this?"
"It's a breakfast drink made by yours truly. Shouldn't be too bad as Asada's tea!"
"I heard that!" Asada called out from within the main chamber, playful and slightly offended at the comment. For someone who knows they can't make leisurely tea, she does seem touchy about her ability. A smile crossed my lips and I took a swig from the canteen.
…
…
…Huh, that's not as bad as I thought! Refreshing, even!
"Oi, save some for me, you hear?" Zephyr calls out when she saw me take more than a swig of the drink.
"Yeah yeah, here you go," I twisted the cap back on and threw it up in the air.
My decision to look up wasn't probably worth it as she leapt off the pillar and front flipped gracefully, catching the canteen mid-flip and then assuming a diving pose like she was about to head into a pool. A gust of wind engulfed itself around her and sticks the landing gracefully. The wind blasts past me and I covered my helmeted face until it passed.
"That was showing off, Master Zephyr." I managed to say after the wind had passed.
"Well, I'm not waiting for my armor to get me down to the ground. Better to be moving quickly than waiting 'till you hit the ground," she puts up a finger. "Lesson one from me: if you're going to avoid gunshots while you're in the air, especially when a sniper has their sights on you, dive like you mean it. Before you lose your head or be filled full of holes."
Like I ever forgot that lesson. But given how I didn't see a purpose in it while I was in the Tower, I didn't practice that as often. Besides, it'd be odd if a supposed Titan started pulling maneuvers that wasn't a Lift in the air.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Simple, really," she pointed towards a level below her and a course was there in the mild snowstorm. "The obstacle course. Teshin wants to see if you haven't forgotten basic maneuvers in the time you've been among the Guardians."
Of course he'd still think I slacked off. "There's a catch, isn't there?"
She twisted off the cap and took a big swig from the bottle-shaped canteen. "Do it in the snowstorm right now. With the low visibility, unpredictability of the traps, and no use of MI6 giving you a heads up when he can barely process a fast moving target. Of course, same rules apply."
Uh-huh. When they mean the 'same rules', that pretty much meant no Subclass abilities, firearms and weapons except knives, and no sleight of hand tricks. Like I ever forgot that.
"I resent that, Master Zephyr." I heard my A.I retort.
Unpredictability. When the Masters mean that, they really mean 'traps triggered by the Master overseeing the course whenever the hell they feel like it'! Seriously, if others thought it was a rigged system, they haven't seen who's pulling the strings on the traps. Trust me, I've seen the Masters use their gauntlet as the control panel for the trap when no one else was looking.
Sighing, I started descending the steps from the main chamber to the obstacle course. The snowstorm wasn't as bad as it was when I came here two days ago, but true to Zehpyr's word, it was thick as fog right now. Howling winds, the cold biting me even with my armor on, it's the whole package. Asada would've loved to see this. How the old hermit can survive being up at the summit without freezing to death still boggles my mind.
I stood at the start of the obstacle course, ready to take it on. The sound of the course being activated echoed in the wind, followed by clinking and grinding metal, a sudden burst of flames from a flamethrower, and swinging blades. Wonderful. Because of this snowstorm, I can barely see the course in front of me, let alone the first potential trap!
"Son of a…" During my times running the courses, the Masters gave a cryptic lesson to the others. I couldn't comprehend it, but now I knew what the lesson was during a course in an environment like this. Let the Darkness guide you, be your compass. Being an ignorant fool to forsake the Darkness and use the Light, now I could see the consequences.
"Begin!" Zephyr's voice called out.
Cursing myself, I ran straight for it without even thinking—
—and paid the price for it. Right as I vaulted over a log serving as a hurdle, I was thrown back by a massive object slamming into me. My back slammed against the face of a rock and I swore that my spine broke on impact. My Animas Crystal already started healing me and my spine especially was numb as I healed. Tempted as I was to scream painfully, my voice couldn't make a sound and I fell to the ground on my hands and knees. My spine really did break…
"Argh… mother fucking—"
"Can't always expect us to be fair, Pendragon!" Zephyr noted. "And watch that mouth of yours, hot shot! Especially around us Masters!"
Damn her! As much of a point she has, what kind of honor does a Master have if they decide to throw a trap at literally the first second?! And with a battering ram, no less! I thought Masters were supposed to hold some kind of honor!
"What good of a Dark Knight are you to be if you forgot the basic maneuvers? Teshin would be disappointed if his adopted son was actually slacking off for the last two years!"
Actually, I resent that because I wallrun a number of times, so I didn't forget some of them! Sure, the Guardians I face in the Crucible think I'm a cheater when I wallrun and escape their line of fire, maybe even get the drop on them with my Immobius, but it's unfair how the Hunters and Warlocks had Blink before the rise of Shadestep and Twilight Garrison, leaving us Titans with only Lift. Probably would've been better off as a Hunter instead of a Titan when I first arrived, now that I think about it.
"Shut up, Master Zephyr." My spine stopped feeling numb and I got on my feet, panting after that slam from the battering ram. "Whatever happened to honor?!"
"No excuses, hot shot!" My shoulders dropped upon hearing the two golden words expected from a Master, even Teshin himself. "Get back out there!"
D-did she serious just quote Lord Shaxx? If she was trying to do an impression of him, I'd say she nailed it in urgency. Now the thought of the Masters and Lord Shaxx working together in the Crucible scares me. His harshness and types of training, combined with the 'no excuses' rule of the Masters? That's not going to be a good combination.
Looking back at the shrouded obstacle course, my hand curled into a fist. As much as I did ask to come here to learn how to use the Darkness, it also begged the question of was I ready to withstand its full potential when the dust settles? Sighing and briefly fogging up my helmet's visor, my greaved boot dug into the snow. Seeing as they only have one use per trap, the chances of activating the battering ram were zero to none.
Time to go!
-Destiny: Skyfall-
I take back what I said about it being time to go. All of it.
My body collapsed into the snow in exhaustion, chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath. For someone that had mastered this obstacle course some time ago, I look pathetic as hell right now. Dodging swinging blades from blind spots, avoiding being burned alive, maybe even being crushed in between two logs? Should sound like a piece of cake, but no, the timing of the traps and difficulty of the course made it seem remotely impossible. And I partially blame myself for this, for not practicing the bullet jumps, catapult jumps, and dive bombs. The snowstorm is still present, and I still can't see shit at all.
"Too long, rookie."
My head lifted up from the snow and I saw both Zephyr and Asada standing in front of me, clearly not impressed with my performance on the obstacle course.
"It took you ten minutes to finish when it should've taken you at least half the time," a holographic projection with the course time from years ago appeared next to Asada, where the record time was, without a doubt, mine with four minutes, twenty-seven seconds. "What happened, Sparda? Lost your touch because of the Absolution Directive?"
"Without a doubt." I replied, getting back to my feet with the help of Asada. "I hated that assignment. Thank the Traveler that I gave up on it."
"Man, Teshin would've been disappointed in you right now. His expectations from you are high, you know?"
No shit on that. Of course a son of Trionus Pendragon would be expected to follow in the footsteps of their father… Truth be told, I didn't weasel my way through training here at the Temple because I was an exception of sorts. No, it was because of foolishness. Foolish of me to think that the Darkness was something forbidden to use.
"Says the one that has the one thing that Dark Knights don't have," I pointed out, eying something hovering above Asada's shoulder. "A Ghost."
"This is an inheritance, remember? I inherited this Ghost from my mother in her dying breath."
My arms folded in spite of the numbness and pain I felt from running the obstacle course. "I still find it odd how a creation of Light is with a Dark Knight."
Master Asada's Ghost turned to face its partner, then back to me. Its 'eye' began to glow in and out, but instead of words, we heard beeps and whirs. Oh, how much I missed this from her Ghost… It was a slight headache hearing the Ghost 'talk', but it was a good thing that its speech was translated directly to our HUDs.
[Shut up, Sparda.] was the translation.
Yeesh, that wasn't necessary. But I suppose that being around as long as Asada would make it senile in a way. Eh, who knows?
"Settle down, Ghost." Asada sighs, pushing away her mother's Ghost as it started to say rather…colorful words. I won't go into detail about what Ghost said, since it's not for the faint of heart.
The sound of the course resetting itself reached my ears. "Run the course again, Sparda. You're getting there, but you can't master it in just two tries with your newly awakened Darkness." Zephyr said after Ghost had settled down from the onslaught.
My head turned to look at the two Masters behind me. "Just watch me." A confidence burned within me, one that I haven't felt for a while. Even though I accepted the Darkness, my fears still remain of losing myself to it. Then again, my Subclass was earned through that grueling Trial.
The Darkness within me was growing stronger. It wasn't trying to take over me, but it felt good. The power… As tempting as it was, I knew that I shouldn't control it. Of course, the insecurity I felt still lingers. Let the Darkness be your guide, your senses. Instinct alone will not help you against the unknown.
Before I knew it, my senses were sharpened. The wind became louder than normal but honed in on the distant things and my eyesight sharpened, seeing through the veil the snowstorm created. I can see the course in its entirety, even the places where the traps were hiding.
Right before Master Zephyr could signal my second run, I already took off and vaulted over the first obstacle. The battering ram that caught me off guard the first time was released—
—and I vaulted right over it like I knew it was coming in that fast. The cables connecting the siege engine were seen and I cut it with my knife in one fell go, slamming against the hurdle and knocking it over. My feet landed on the stepping stones and I regained my balance rather quickly without the help of my shadow tendrils. You know the saying 'slow and steady wins the race'? Fuck that rule when you'd anticipate swinging blades just waiting to fuck your day up. I stopped myself before I moved to the next stepping stone and the swinging blade appeared ready to cleave me in half. Ducking before that happened and balancing myself between the stones, I got up as soon as I knew the blade was nowhere near me and kept going, avoiding the flamethrower that knocked me off the stones because of its intensity. Above me was a wall that had no clear way of scaling it parkour-style due to the ice. Right as the two logs that crushed me were sprung.
"Son of a—!" Quickly, I jumped up higher than normal and above the logs, which collided with each other in a spectacular display of wood splinters flying. Jumping again to gain leverage, my hand reached out for the edge of the wall and I clung onto it for dear life. No traps since I was beyond the stage where the last trap would drop boulders on me should I have scaled the wall. With both hands on the ledge, I flipped myself up and over, but not before rolling to the side when an Opticor-mounted sentry locked onto me. Of course that cannon had to be made into a sentry…
Rushing towards the sentry, I disarmed it with my knife cutting the vital wiring required to fire it remotely and leapt off the wall, sliding on it like it was a slope until I hit the floor and quickly got up before another trap sprung.
There's not much of the course left before I clear it. Time was of the essence when it came to my progress, but Master Zephyr was right. A success on the second run doesn't equal mastery. Better off to run it as many times as I can before she would declare that it was enough to be mastered.
Teshin stood at a slope overlooking the Temple, hand on the hilt of his Nikana Prime. Compared to down here, the snowstorm was as tame as an ocean of waves, sun clear as day and the sky clear. He saw the progress of his adopted son below in the obstacle course and was not impressed with the first round. As his torn cape fluttered gently with the breath of the cold wind, the warmth of flames from one of his sheaths reached his hand.
The scars of war were present on his armor, worn out to the point that the original design was barely recognizable. Scars from fighting his Tenno brethren and before that, fighting to reclaim what once belonged to everyone living in the City. Each of them told a story. Stories of triumph, and others stories of defeat. Perhaps the most prominent scar was the scratched sigil of a dragon's head on his shoulder, regal and mighty.
"Still playing guardian, I see."
Teshin felt no urge to draw his sword and point it at the person behind him. The Darkness that had he had learned to be one with already told him enough from their presence. Under the helmet, he had a stern look just the same as his old friend, Trionus Pendragon. "I swore to him that I would train his children, not be their father," he turned around and was greeted to an old friend who put her hands on her hips. "I had hope that you were not recruited by this Hive 'God'… Master Eden."
Master Eden bore the armor held onto by those who had mastered both Light and Darkness, shaded just the same as the Conclave Masters. Her arms were covered by drape-like appendages; one black and red, the other white and gold, and a skirt reaching to her ankles with the same design as the arm drapes adorned her lower half. Truth be told, her armor didn't appear designed for combat, but rather as something akin to a warpriest or an oracle.
"And I assumed that because I do not fight unless necessary would make me easy prey to our enemies?" She approached the Conclave leader and folded her arms across her breastplate, looking down at the son of Trionus. "'And thus the Crownless King shall seek guidance from the generation before Him / through the tides of Fate and past the weave of time, He shall rise with the power to reclaim his crown.'"
"Still speaking prophecies and hymns, I see," Teshin recalled. "Tell me, Eden: do you really think he is ready? To accept the Darkness and take back his birthright?"
Eden looked over to her fellow war veteran and former mentor, then at Spectre as he continued to run through the obstacle course for what has to be the sixth time. She cupped her hands together and a sphere of Equilibrium formulated, bright as a gem under the light. "He has already accepted the Darkness for some time now, Teshin. It is safe to assume that he already has…to some degree. He is still reluctant to use the Darkness as an ally, but…"
"But what, Eden?"
"He shows great promise, just like his father. In time, he will show this promise." She began chanting an ancient language as though a prayer. As she spoke in this language, the red and gold along her arm drapes and skirt illuminated and the sphere swirling the same. "'The flames have been fanned, bringing the Dark into the Light / by His right alone, the war has but truly begun for Him / should He stray from his goal, then all Hope shall be lost.'"
A/N: Well, that was rather ominous… and prophetic.
Prophet: You think? I think I got goosebumps hearing Eden's words.
Me: You don't have any goosebumps.
Prophet: Ghost goosebumps.
Me: Is that even a thing?
Mr. Dox the Fox (II-XXII): Hopefully this one lives up to your expectations as well! And now the training for his full potential has begun!
Stay safe out there, Guardians.
