A/N: This chapter is what I told you all was going to happen a while ago; while it doesn't necessarily add much to the current story, it does cover the ONLY part of the Taken War that was even relatively impactful on GND's storyline. So, if it seems kind of 'out-of-the-way' or something, that's probably because it is. Hope you enjoy it anyway.
Woods took a moment to take pause and see how she was faring so far. Clara hoped he was able to see the wonder and intrigue in her features; she was truly immersed in his story.
After confirming that she was paying attention, he turned away to stare around at the walls of the cabin. She had the feeling that he hadn't had to talk to anyone in quite a long time, and was having difficulty making conversation other than his retelling of history. She decided to throw him a bone.
"So … I gather that Mathias cared about his friends a lot."
He stared at her blankly, his visor obscuring whatever face was behind the helmet. She felt as though he was nonverbally indicating that should have been obvious. She shrugged under his scrutiny and explained, "I mean, I just felt like commenting on it. Seems like it should be recognized."
He sighed. "Well, you're right. He- he cared more about them than they ever knew. Or maybe they did. I hope that's the case."
She nodded. "I'm sure it is. Especially for Ash; seems like he and her really were something. Best friends?"
"Lovers."
That surprised her, and her eyes widened momentarily. Upon reflection, she thought that maybe she should have seen the signs, but it seemed as though the Hunter had almost deliberately been avoiding telling her that.
"An Exo and a human?"
"Yes. What about it?" he muttered.
She was a bit unsettled by his tone. "Nothing, I just- I never considered such a possibility. I would have thought that a relationship like that would be looked down upon."
He nodded understandingly. "You would be right. For a time, anyway. Once they sealed the bond between the two of them, there wasn't much anyone could really do except adapt to-"
"Sealed the bond?" she interrupted curiously.
He waved his hand dismissively. "You know, married each other."
Now her eyes widened further. "They even married?"
He thought for a moment that she was expressing ridicule. "I get that the notion is abnormal-"
"They must have really loved each other."
He fell silent, unsure of how to react to her sentiment. After a moment, he nodded. "Yes. They did."
She leaned forward as Ghost watched them with intrigue. Even the Hunter's Ghost materialized and paid apt attention to Woods, encouraging him to expand upon what he'd just said.
He gave a small chuckle, a fond memory crossing his mind. "I don't suppose you'd like to hear how that happened?"
With a small smile on her face, Clara nodded slightly.
He sighed, but not with weariness; more like a pleasant breath of satisfaction.
"Thought you might."
THE DREADNAUGHT, MANY YEARS AGO
"You know," yelled Dawn as she narrowly avoided a burst of flame from a Taken Knight, "when I heard he was called, 'the Taken King,' I didn't actually think he'd be the Taken King!" Raising her aim up as she came out of her roll, she landed a few shots right between her attacker's eyes.
Matt had to agree with her; he'd figured that it was just a title for the fact that Oryx ruled the Taken in some twisted form of a monarchy. But after they'd defeated him the first time, the Hive-god had used his own power on himself and disappeared into his throne-world.
Now, they were battling a massive white and black Taken incarnation of their former enemy, and he was a much more formidable foe than he'd been before.
Around the Dreadnaught, a dogfight between the Reef's, City's, and Hive's ships was taking place. While they tried to prevent the Dreadnaught from making it any further towards Earth, the Legends' job was to take out the King. And so here they were. Problem was, Matt wasn't sure they were going to last much longer.
Flowers of fire and metal blossomed out in the asteroid belt as ally and enemy ships alike tore each other apart. Here, in this final encounter aboard what seemed to be the top of the ship, they had quite the view of the explosions.
And they weren't faring much better in here; in his throne world, Oryx could only be killed by an Ascendant Hive. Considering that business when they'd killed Crota, they all counted as Ascendant and any of them could take the shot; problem was that making that shot was increasingly difficult. His power over the Darkness was too strong to be killed by anything other than a massive amount of light to counteract him.
Trying to channel all of that into him was taking a lot of time that they didn't have, and energy that they were quickly losing. Their speed was waning as they continued to constantly dodge and try to press the advantage only to be forced back time and time again.
"Don't know-" grunted Scorch from off to his left, "how long- we can- keep this-"
A Taken Thrall appears next to her in a flash, and extended its claws to cleave off what it could. Ducking backwards, she barely managed to evade and shove her knife into its gaseous skull. It dematerialized into a point of light with an ethereal scream, and was no more.
"Look out!" yelled a familiar voice from off to his right, and he felt himself get shoved down as someone jumped on top of him. A moment later, a blast of fire went soaring right through where his head had been a moment ago.
Ash rolled off of him, and planted a Ward of Dawn around them. As he watched, enemy projectiles kept raining down upon it, trying to break it apart. Ash groaned, her concentration faltering as she tried to hold everything together.
Oryx waved one of his hands and blasted it with a pulse of dark energy. It shattered, and Ash crumpled to the ground in a daze. Dawn immediately moved to pick up the slack, raising her own shield around them as Ash's dissipated.
Matt moved to her side, grabbing her firmly and trying to lift her onto her feet. Their fight wasn't over yet … but he feared it might soon be.
Her visor depolarized, and he saw a look on her face that told him she felt the same; that maybe this was it.
If it was … then he didn't want to leave anything unsaid.
"Get … ready … guys!" Dawn grunted, finally giving way and releasing her strength. At once, enemies surged forward on all sides.
"Ash," Matt began, trying to multitask as he spoke and combated the Taken simultaneously, "listen; there's been something I've been meaning to ask you-"
"On your right!" shouted Eager, and he quickly adjusted to dispatch of the Acolyte that had almost taken a potshot at them.
"What is it?" she called back.
"Well," he started nervously; this hadn't been the situation he'd planned to do this in. "You and I have been together for a few years now-"
He heard murmurs over the comms as the others tried to figure out exactly what he was going on about, as if this wasn't awkward enough.
"And I've been wanting to ask you this for a while, but I just never felt it was the right time-"
"Oh you've got to be kidding me," he caught Eager groan as he realized what Matt was doing. "Is this really the best time for this?!"
Ignoring the Exo, he pressed on hastily. "But if we don't make it out of this, then I don't wan to die without at least having asked you-"
"Is this happening?!" Aria exclaimed in both excitement and consternation, "Why did it take you so long to ask?!"
"Shut it!" he ordered to the Warlock, hoping to retain at least some shred of dignity. "Look, I just- I truly love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you-"
"Which may not be very long-"
"-and I was wondering if, assuming we survive this, you … would you marry me?"
Ash had remained silent throughout the entirety of his speech, and continued to do so now. Turning around to look at why she wasn't responding, he saw that she had disappeared altogether.
"Where is she?!" he called out, now with the rest of them turning to look at where she'd gone as well.
"I don't know, there's no sign of-"
Scorch's comm cut out unexpectedly, and he spun to see that she too had vanished. Gripping his weapon tightly, he prepared for whatever threat was facing them now-
He felt himself get pulled out of reality briefly, and then thrown into … somewhere. Nowhere. A void of some kind. Looking around, he saw a ring of white fire surrounding him, and nothing but fog beyond that-
Hearing a roar of anger, he rotated to see Scorch and Ash battling against what appeared to be some Echo of Oryx. Was this what they needed to defeat in order to kill Oryx?
The Hunter noticed him, and beckoned her head towards the Echo. "A little help?!"
He quickly leapt into action, emptying his chamber into the beast. It didn't do much other than to piss it off, and it lashed out by moving startling quick towards him and swinging a massive blade downward.
He dodged just in time to see Eager appear, and spin around in confusion. "What's going-? Oh, shit!"
The Warlock retreated towards Scorch and Ash who were moving up to support Matt. Rolling away towards them, he was able to see Dawn and Aria pop into existence as well. The two of them looked quite confused before glancing towards the others and seeing their predicament.
With another roar, the Echo swung the blade downward and sank it into the ground with an air of finality. It began to glow, and the white fire began to ominously turn red.
All six of them felt the same pain that they'd felt when Crota has called upon his oversoul. They tried to hold their composure, but buckled under the strain.
"Matt!"
He tried to hold himself together enough to look to where Ash was crawling forward on the ground, extending her hand towards him. She wanted him to take it.
Slowly, he resisted through the pain and clasped hers hand tightly. At least they had one another-
Using his hand as leverage, she pulled herself forward to gain even the slightest bit of speed. Landing on her hands and feet, she used what was left of her remaining energy to jump into the air and slam her fists into the Echo.
Arcs of lighting traveled from her hands into the Echo's form, and it gave a cry of pain as it began to burn away into ashes. As he watched, the void around them began to glow brighter, and brighter, and-
With a flash, they were back in proper reality. Glancing around confusedly, Matt's attention was drawn to the sight of Oryx hunching over himself, gripping his chest as it glowed a bright white. The light continued to expand until a massive shockwave erupted from his torso, and knocked all of them onto their backs.
When he managed to stand again, he saw what was left of Oryx's corpse slowly drifting away from the Dreadnaught, towards the body of Saturn where it would spend an eternity frozen in the vacuum of space.
Looking towards the dogfight outside, the Hive understandably ceased their attack and began to retreat to safety. Their King was dead; there was nothing left for them to die for.
"Is that it, then?" Dawn waved her hands in an expectant gesture, as though waiting for something else to happen.
Wanting to see Oryx's death with his own eyes, Matt pulled off his helmet and inhaled the stale, rotting air of the Dreadnaught. This time, he did so with satisfaction. "That's it."
"Not quite," came a voice from his side. He saw Ash walking towards him, her helmet gone as well.
Without waiting for him to understand, she grabbed the collar of his armor and pulled him down to her for a kiss. He was stunned into inaction by her boldness before she separated and smiled.
"Yes."
Understanding dawning in his mind, he returned her smile and embraced her tightly.
This was going to be quite the story to tell later.
A/N: Aaaaaaand that's basically the only important part of the Taken War that I was going to write. Like I've said, there wasn't much that its storyline could add to the overarching plot of GND, so that's the main reason I cut it out.
Sorry for the delay between updates; I hope that the fluff in here makes up for it. Plus, we're getting back to normal length chapters now. Next one will be continuing the current story of the Last Hunter and Clara.
Reviews are always appreciated!
Until the next time,
- Matteoarts