Chapter 12: Lord Shaxx

"At long last we have a chance to learn the Hive's ultimate goals. The Cryptarchs are in a frenzy, working day and night to decipher what you stole from the World's Grave."

— Ikora Rey

Whisper sat quietly in the safety of her jumpship, breathing quietly, and trying to process the chaos she'd just experienced. The Hive were truly horrifying, and she doubted she had seen the worst of them.

"Well Blabber, was it worth it? What did we learn?"

The ghost hovered in front of her. So much. I can barely hold it all. The Hive have seen thousands of worlds taken by Darkness and they've been seeding Earth for centuries waiting for their gods to return. The Terrestrial Complex was just one of many.

"So they're just sitting there, waiting?"

No, they're… preparing for their return. They are performing some sort of ritual, but I don't understand it. They're preparing something called the Sword of Crota. We have to warn the City about this.

"Alright, send the immediate threat to the Vanguard on the secure channel, then lock in the course and get us moving, but there has got to be more. Where did the Hive come from? What do they want?"

The jumpship thrummed into motion, repositioning itself and leaping forward as the NLS drive activated.

I don't know. For as much information as there was, there were some obvious holes that must be intentional. Where they came from, their highest leadership structure, and other information that could be strategically useful is missing.

Whisper frowned. "Was there anything on the different groups of Hive at least?"

Yes. The primary swarm on the Moon are the Spawn of Crota, the brown and green Hive. The reddish-orange Hive with spikes are the Hidden Swarm—they seem to act as the outer guard around the Hellmouth.

"Well at least we know what we're up against… wait, did you say they've destroyed thousands of worlds?"

Whisper transmatted down into the hangar and waved upwards as Shiro-4's jumpship flew by overhead, then made her way to the Speaker's office where he and the Vanguard were waiting for her. The rest of the Tower hummed along, unaware of the grave threat they were all under.

Commander Zavala shut the door behind her. "Guardian, Whisper, we are grateful for your safe return."

"Yes," stated Ikora softly, belying the fierce intensity in her eyes. "At long last we have a chance to learn the hive's ultimate goals. The cryptarchs are in a frenzy, working day and night to decipher what you stole from the World's Grave."

"What we have learned so far is bad enough," said Zavala gravely. "Our efforts to keep the Hive bottled up on the Moon were a complete failure. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of pockets of Hive have been secreted away. Our best chance now is to strike aggressively to delay whatever activation signal they are waiting for while we clear them out, one group at a time."

"Yes, yes, I feel it now." All eyes turned towards the Speaker. "Everything is connected in the light. This ritual you discovered—I sense a shard of the Traveler, bathed in darkness. This ritual seeks to drain the light from it, and in doing so, from the Traveler itself. How long, I wonder, has it continued? Is this at last the reason the Traveler does not heal itself, because the wound is still open and bleeding? Whisper, if the Hive succeed at their task, if they complete their ritual, the Traveler will fall, both figuratively and literally, and our tale will end. We must stop them—no matter the cost."

Zavala nodded respectfully. "It will be our top priority, Speaker. But if we launch another offensive like the Battle of Mare Ibrium—"

"I share Zavala's concern, Speaker," added Ikora. Sending an army of guardians may trigger the return of Crota or the very attack we are trying to prevent."

Cayde nodded emphatically from behind them both.

The Speaker inclined his head in acknowledgment of the point. "I understand your fears, and I will not see another Great Disaster. A more carefully targeted attack is required, but to carry out such a strike we must know where to direct it. There are no Hidden on the Moon, so we must rely on the hunters to locate the shard of the Traveler for us."

"The hunters will get it done, Speaker."

"Then go forth, and may the Traveler be with you."

The Vanguard filed out of the Speaker's office and Whisper trailed after them to the Vanguard's open hall. They gathered around the table and, with a flick of a switch, dropped soundproof channels over the openings. Zavala took the lead. "This needs to be contained. We can spread the word once we have a target, but until then, public acknowledge of this will simply cause panic, or prompt uncoordinated individual efforts unlikely to succeed. Cayde, what do we have?"

Cayde held up his hands defensively. "Hey, don't look at me. You know hunters don't like boundaries, but I held the line on keeping them away from the moon. I'm sure one or two hunters have taken a peek, but not many, and they're not about to tell me about it. You want our moon expert, you're looking at her."

The Commander sighed. "Ikora?"

"We have no Hidden agents on the moon… but there is always Eris Morn."

"I suppose there is," grumbled Zavala. "Whisper, we have already asked much of you, but I'm afraid we must ask once more. Will you speak to Eris Morn and ask her what she knows and how we can locate this shard of the Traveler? In the meantime, we will put together a few fireteams we can trust to follow up on whatever leads you find."

That didn't sound too bad, though it would have been nice if they had told her about a moon expert before she went in there blind. "I can do that. Who is Eris Morn?"

Cayde grinned. "Oh, we wouldn't want to ruin the surprise. I think we passed her on the way in, lurking near the entrance the way she does. You can't miss her."

The other Vanguard members didn't seem inclined to say anything else about Eris, and Zavala and Ikora already had their heads together talking about potential fireteams, so Whisper headed out the main entrance. The flow of guardians was nearly solid back and forth, but they all separated, leaving a little bubble of space around someone who was trying to shout over the crowd in a raspy, low voice. "Until we find Crota, we're all just water racing down a drain. Tell everyone! If you aren't hunting Crota, you're just killing time until he gets here."

The crowd parted to reveal an extremely pale woman that appeared to be in her forties, though with so many guardians around you could never tell. She stood slightly hunched over and wore battered, black armor that showed signs of heavy use. Most shockingly, however, she wore a blindfold over her eyes that leaked darkness, while beneath the blindfold glowed three yellow eyes of a hive acolyte.

Well, Cayde was right about one thing—she was hard to miss. "Are you Eris Morn?"

"Yes," she said, waving a hand that clutched a floating green stone of some kind. "And who are you? Are you willing to listen?"

"It depends on what you have to say. Why don't we go somewhere a little quieter to talk?"

"Hm, perhaps you will prove useful. I will follow."

Good enough. Whisper led the way to a quieter corner of the hallway and turned to face Eris once more. Out from under all the passing eyes, she was able to speak more quietly. "I'm Whisper. The Speaker is, um, concerned about a Hive ritual on the moon, and the Vanguard said that you might know how to locate it."

Eris sneered. "The Speaker is a fool, clinging to the corpse of the Traveler, thinking it will keep him safe. It will not. If the Hive are active once more, then they are preparing for Crota's return. If he returns as he was, he will not be stopped. I will help, guardian, if you will help me save the City. Help me destroy the Sword of Crota."

Whisper blinked. "I've… heard about the Sword of Crota, but I don't understand how a sword can be such a terrible weapon."

Eris sighed. "The Vanguard send a child to ask for my aid? One who knows nothing?"

The exo pushed down her annoyance. "Then tell me, help me understand."

Eris gave her a hard look. "I will speak, if you will listen, where so many shut their ears, choosing to walk blindly. Many years ago, the Hive seeded the world, attacking from the fortress moon. They were driven off, and in the Speaker's pride, he ignored warnings of the danger and launched an invasion of the moon with one of the largest forces of guardians ever assembled. There, they faced Crota and his dark sword. And there they died, until the scattered survivors fled and the Vanguard forbade all entry. But the lessons have turned to legends, and then to myths. Guardians raised afterwards dismiss the lessons of the past like fools. If Crota returns and is reunited with his sword, many will die. The Vanguard believes they destroyed the sword long ago. Seek it out and destroy it, and you will see that the vaunted Vanguard suffer their own blindness. The return of Crota is real. Preach the word."

Well that was interesting… if a word of it was true. At least she has some information to verify. "Thank you for this information. I will go and think about what you said."

Eris shook her head dismissively. "I see I have wasted my time," she said, and walked back towards her street corner once again. A little relieved to be rid of her, Whisper, too, left and returned to the privacy of her little room. She had research to do.

The Battle of Burning Lake was what the Tower's records called the first major engagement with the Hive. It took place long ago—so long the records were scarcely more than a list of confirmed and suspected guardians present and killed, with only the most threadbare accounts of the battle itself. Some sort of seeder ship had landed, filled with Hive, and was driven off. The victory seemed to have emboldened the Tower's leadership, however. The public record of a Consensus meeting shortly afterwards popped up in her Vanguard Network search, and she activated the old video, fast forwarding to the discussion, but accidentally went too far. On the screen Commander Zavala stood before the Consensus at the end of the discussion, looking exactly the same as he had just hours ago despite the years in between.

"I see. Then it is decided. I yield the floor, Speaker." With a nod of respect to the white-robed man at the head of the long table, he turned to sit down.

"Thank you, Commander Zavala. The next order of business is the growing City foundries—"

Whisper reached out to rewind the recording when the double door burst open with a sound like a gunshot. She let it play.

A giant of a man, larger even the wall of muscle that was Zavala, marched into the room without the faintest trace of self-consciousness while every eye in the room turned to him. His horned helmet surveyed the room before landing on Zavala like a targeting laser. "What madness is this!?" he demanded in a booming voice.

Zavala moved to intercept him. "Lord Shaxx! The Consensus did not send—"

"We barely eked out victory at Burning Lake," continued Lord Shaxx, completely undeterred. "And now you think we're ready to attack the moon?"

Zavala stood unmoving between Lord Shaxx and the rest of the Consensus. "We are preparing to—"

"Did you not read my report from Burning Lake?" the titan demanded. "About the Hive's weapons? Those swords, they're like nothing we've ever—"

"Lord Shaxx!" barked Zavala. "Recall your surroundings!"

For the first time Shaxx seemed to recognize there were others in the room, and his helmet traced over them once again. He did not acknowledge the Speaker. His gaze returned to Zavala and he grudgingly lowered his volume to something just under a bellow, and his tone softened from a demand to an incredulous question. "Zavala, you cannot think this is wise. We need to examine these swords, train against them."

Zavala stepped closer, his voice likewise lowering to a more conversational level. "That is a matter for the Consensus to decide, old friend. The days of the warlords are behind us—the people choose their own destiny now."

Lord Shaxx was clearly unpersuaded but allowed Zavala to lead him back out the door, still protesting. Behind them, the Consensus recovered and started discussing manufacturing targets to prepare for the invasion.

Whisper paused the recording and considered. What Lord Shaxx said seemed to match what Eris Morn had told her. A near victory followed up by a disastrous attack. She backed up the video and watched the Consensus' discussion, but the more she watched, the deeper she frowned.

The plan treated the guardians like a giant hammer to be smashed directly into the teeth of the Hive defenses. But more than that, they treated, and thought of, the guardians very differently from what she had experienced. Commander Zavala held overall command, and under him was a Deputy Commander, then various company commanders leading platoons of three fireteams each. They each had targeted landing zones and carefully plotted invasion corridors, though the details had been blacked out. It was all very regimented, very military. And in the second wave the "unassigned" guardians would arrive and follow the first wave more haphazardly.

She hadn't seen anything like this since waking up. The Consensus didn't deploy a company of guardians—not even the Vanguard seemed to be able to do that. Whatever happened on the moon, it was so disastrous that it permanently fractured the guardians as an organization. But… how? She was still missing pieces, still needed more information. She ran another search, but the public records didn't have much more to go on. However, she did find a reference to hard copies of records in a library of some kind at the Fu'an Institute. The label read "Open to Students and Guardians Only."

Well, it was as good a place to start as any. Whisper ignored Blabber's dramatic sigh and prods to just jump back out there and fight the bad guys and made her way briskly onwards, following the directions she loaded into her HUD.

The Institute was close to the center of the City, so she had to pay for a private shuttle (which she couldn't afford) or brave public transport. Fortunately, there was a maglev train station stop not far from the base of the Tower itself. She paid a small bit of glimmer to get on and sat nervously on a refurbished bench up against the window as people piled on. The sun was starting to set—was this the end of a shift? Humans with a handful of Awoken and exos crammed their way inside, practically on top of each other, and immediately pretended nobody else existed as the doors slid shut, the train lifted off the platform, and eased into motion. Whisper stared out the window watching as tall apartment buildings flowed past along with the flashes of green of small parks.

::Next Stop – Peregrine District::

As they flew towards the City's center the Traveler grew noticeably bigger, and Blabber materialized and looked out the window. The Traveler. I haven't been this close in a long time. The train began decelerating and Whisper noticed they were drawing eyes. A lot of eyes. Everyone in the train car was staring at them. Whisper grabbed the oblivious ghost reflexively as she looked back at all those faces bearing a mix of every emotion.

"Um… hello."

::Now Arriving – Peregrine District Station::

"Are you a real guardian?" asked a little girl two seats over, staring with huge eyes at the ghost in her hand. At the sound of that small voice the dam broke and everyone was talking, then shouting, all at once.

"Does the Traveler really speak to you?"

"Just let me take a picture!"

"Have you seen the Darkness? What is it?"

"What's it like having the Light?"

"Why do you hide in that Tower?"

"Is it true guardians only say fifteen words a year?"

Whisper shrank back as the crowd pressed in on her. The doors slid open and she bolted, shouldering her way out while hands reached out trying to for even the briefest touch of a guardian. She squeezed out the door with what felt like half the train on her heels, activated her stealth rig, and leaped, quickly gathering the light into a paper-thin shell beneath her, and jumping again to land on top of the train stop roof, where she ducked down flat and out of sight.

The crowd milled in disappointment down below, but the train boarding warning dinged and most reboarded, discussing the moment in excited tones and many making com calls to family and friends.

"Mom, you won't believe what just happened! I was on the train home and I saw a guardian! She was just sitting there, like it was no big deal, and—"

The train doors closed and once more the transport lifted off the ground and continued on its way. Within a few minutes even the most determined had given up the search and boarded the next train.

Blabber reappeared and they looked at each silently from their hidden perch. "I vote you stay out of sight whenever we leave the Tower."

After climbing back down (and making sure Blabber was safely out of sight) they managed to complete the journey to the Fu'an District without further incident. The Fu'an District was centered around a large series of utilitarian buildings, surrounded by housing for staff and students. They followed posted signs until they reached a large building with a white sign that read "Fu'an Institute Library."

She approached the large solid wood double doors hesitantly, while two human guards wearing university staff uniforms watched her, looking bored. "Student ID please."

"Uh, I don't have one, I'm a guardian."

"Uh huh. Let's see your ghost then."

Blabber emerged and the guard looked vaguely irritated. "Why didn't you just—whatever, go on in then."

"Right." She walked past them and into the large and open library itself, with high-vaulted ceilings. Everyone spoke in hushed voices. Whisper sat down at an open terminal and ignored the surprised glances of two long-robed warlocks.

"Here we go." She started up her search and discovered that the library had its own separate network containing information not open to the public, though even here some information was blacked out with "classified" labels. She ran a search on the encounters with the Hive and pulled up the first file to see that it was entirely redacted. She frowned and pulled up the second, which made it a few sentences before the redaction started.

Over and over she ran into dead ends asking her to enter Vanguard Clearance access codes, but bit by bit the pieces started to connect. They were little more than hints, really, but they were something. The first contact she could find was a fireteam that went missing on the moon, sending back troubling but vague reports of a "towering monster, wielding a sword of utter darkness." A powerful guardian named Rezyl was rumored to have gone there. But the first hard report came not from the moon, but from Earth. A fireteam in the Eastern Flood Zone had encountered a Hive Seeder. They eventually destroyed the Hive, but only a single guardian returned to the City with the survivors of a small feral community in two to warn the Vanguard.

Sometime after that the Battle of Burning Lake happened, though once again there was little in the way to go on.

She decided to take a new tact and changed her search to the Battle of Mare Ibrium, and pulled up the first result, which was an all-spectrum order from the Consensus and the Vanguard.

BY ORDER OF THE CITY CONSENSUS AND THE GUARDIAN VANGUARD

ALL SHIPS IMMEDIATE/REPEAT AND RELAY

We hereby terminate all organized combat operations on or around Earth's Moon. Effective immediately we declare the existence of an interdiction on the Moon and cis-Lunar space. Guardians operating in this interdict will receive no formal support from the Vanguard or from assets of the City. We urge Guardians to exhibit the greatest care and consideration in approaching the interdicted space.

We furthermore derogate all strategic objectives concerned with the recovery of assets or information from the Lunar surface, and, without exemption, cancel in whole and in all its parts the effort to establish a beachhead and strategic presence upon the Moon.

This interdict will remain in effect until such time as the hostile presence on the Moon poses a demonstrable existential threat, or until intelligence is obtained that leads to the defeat of the enemy leadership elements recently encountered.

Guardians with an accurate assessment of losses in the recent days, or with intelligence on the nature and method of hostile resistance, should report to the Vanguard immediately for debriefing.

That… did not sound like an orderly withdrawal. That sounded like the guardians broke and ran, not able or willing to regroup. They didn't know what their losses were. They didn't even know what had caused those losses. They were pleading with survivors to come back and tell them what had happened—no wonder they made Luna off limits.

She kept searching and found that at least one guardian had followed those instructions.

My name is Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal. Survivor of the Great Disaster: the day we set out to retake our Moon, united in a host of thousands, and found ourselves outmatched by one Hive champion of unspeakable power.

The monster's name is Crota. He killed my friends face to face, one by one, and he relished it. In the name of all those lost I devote myself to his utter destruction.

WARNING: Further access restricted. Contact the Praxic Order, or enter Vanguard Security Clearance, for further access.

She kept searching and ran into the access restricted warning over and over. But by combining the tidbits she could find, a picture began to emerge. The Hive had effective, but limited, anti-aircraft fire. The guardians had brute-forced the landing with hundreds of jumpships all swarming down at once. They'd crushed the initial resistance and moved down into the tunnels en-masse. That was where things went wrong. They'd run into this Crota and his sword. The only thing clear after that was that the guardians had suffered extreme casualties. Reading between the lines, casualties had been the worst among the front-line units and their leadership elements. Most of the units listed were effectively destroyed, and from the look of it, the guardians, at least on an organizational level, had never recovered, marking a fundamental shift in the relationship between the guardians and the Consensus, not to mention the people of the City, creating a gulf between them that she could still see today.

And Whisper had walked right back in there without a clue—no one had even bothered to mention it. Well, lesson learned—she needed to do her own research, learn everything she could on her own. She couldn't trust the Vanguard to tell her everything she needed to know, not when they guarded their secrets so closely in order to control the other factions.

Well? Did you find what you came here for?

"Yes, Blabber, in more ways than one. Eris was telling the truth, it seems, at least about what happened on the moon. Whether Crota is coming back, and what happened to this sword of his, I don't know."

Well, we could ask Lord Shaxx. He seemed to know something about swords.

"He's still… oh. I guess I should just assume every guardian we hear about is still alive until we hear otherwise. That will take some getting used to. Where is he?"

He's down by the Crucible headquarters, of course.

"What's the Crucible?"

"Yes, yes! Wipe! Them! Out!" Not far from the Vanguard offices was an open area plastered with viewscreens. Simple robotic frames in white shells with red trim and sporting an emblem of crossed swords moved between the screens switching viewpoints and recording statistics. At the center of the chaos was a veritable giant of a guardian completely unchanged from the recording she had seen. Lord Shaxx was even more intimidating in person in his ancient heavy orange-and-white, fur-lined armor and horned helmet.

He watched the flickering screens intently while keeping up a running commentary, and Whisper couldn't help but look. On display were live feeds of carefully constructed arenas in which guardians were… slaughtering each other? What on earth?

The last guardian went down to a grenade launcher shell that blew them to pieces, ending the match, and she stepped closer to get the titan's attention before another match could start. "Excuse me, are you Lord Shaxx?"

Lord Shaxx turned to face her. "An, another brave guardian ready to test their might. Now, the Crucible of Lord Shaxx will prepare you!"

"Uh, actually, I had a few questions for you about—"

"Crucible first, guardian! Questions after."

"But how do I—"

"In my arena, should a titan stand in your way, CRUSH HIM. If a hunter confronts you, BREAK HER BLADE. If a warlock speaks, FEED HIM HIS WORDS. Do not enter the Crucible to fight—NO. Enter to dominate. To crush. To conquer. Show me what you've got."

Whisper started to back away. "This doesn't sound like something I—"

Shaxx darted forward with surprising speed and grabbed her hand. "No need to be shy, guardian. We're all nervous the first time. Arcite, get this future champion signed up for the next match." He frog-marched her over to another frame that was dressed like a smaller version of Lord Shaxx, complete with fur-lined armor and horned helm. "My next match begins. I will see you shortly, guardian, and we will talk."

Half stunned, Whisper provided her name to the frame while Shaxx returned to shouting at the monitors, and minutes later, still in shock, Whisper found herself on a shuttle headed for an area.

Cayde-6 finally escaped the endless meetings and made his way down to Shaxx's lair, one of the few places he was confident Zavala and Ikora wouldn't come to collect him and risk Shaxx bullying them into the Crucible again, insisting they show the new kids how it was done.

"Shaxx, buddy, how's it going?"

"Ah, Cayde-6." The Crucible handler spread his arms wide in greeting. "Slinking away from meetings once again, are we?"

Cayde grinned. "Maybe. Us hunters can be sneaky. How are they doing these days? Improving, I hope?"

Shaxx fell silent, watching the Vanguard member closely, then waived for Cayde to follow him. Mystified, Cayde fell into step as Shaxx led him to a quiet spot on a balcony overlooking the City. Shaxx spoke quietly. "I see the worry on you, weighing you down, young hunter. You enjoy your success in the Crucible—you only ask how your potential opponents fare when you wager and when you are worried for upcoming battles. What troubles you?"

Cayde sighed and leaned against the railing, watching the lights of tiny citizens going about their lives far, far below. It was easy to forget sometimes just how insightful the bull of a man could be.

"You know I can't talk about it, but… maybe I am a little worried. Maybe. Sometimes I think it would be nice if someone were almost as good as me so I could leave some problems in someone else's hands."

Shaxx considered this. "Do you know what they say about titans?"

Cayde rolled his eyes. "That they're loud and abusive?"

"That the good ones are all dead. I know what you feel, Cayde. We have lost many—Radegast, Wei Ning, Saint-14…"

"Hey, you don't know that Saint is dead."

Shaxx chuckled. "The greatest titan who ever lived just disappeared. Call it a hunch."

Cayde winced, more at seeing a chink in Shaxx's relentless optimism than at his words and tried to lighten the mood. "What a guardian. No one ever put down a Kell faster than he could. But man, he was a real weirdo."

"Eccentricity was his strength," protested Shaxx.

Cayde emitted a digital snort. "Talking about the Speaker like you're related is eccentric. Claiming he's seen the future, that he fought the Battle of Six Fronts fueled on the idea that some guardian savior is coming? That's insane."

Shaxx nodded. "Belief is one hell of a thing."

"Sure, yes, Saint, one guardian is going to fix everything. Kick Crota off the moon. Make it look like us Vanguard know our heads from our hindquarters. Hey, where are you going?"

Shaxx walked briskly back towards the Crucible headquarters, reinvigorated. "Then we will train the guardians even harder!" he shouted over his shoulder as Cayde hurried to catch up. "One of the new recruits from Old Russia I've had my eye on is entering the Crucible for the first time."

"Hey, maybe they're the one," joked Cayde. "We'll call 'em Crota's End."

Authors Notes: Apologies for missing last week. In good news, though, I've completed implementing all of the D1 grimoire and all of the (pre-Season of the Chosen) Lore Books into the master timeline I'm putting forming. This should speed up writing considerably. I've also decided it might be helpful to list the sources of lore that are being referenced. Some of them are conflicting, so I can mention why I'm interpreting things in certain ways if there are questions. In this chapter I referenced, and somewhat adapted, the following:

Items: Helm of Saint-14, Raze-Lighter, Star Map Shell

Lore Books: Eva's Journey: Loss of Light (for existence of the Peregrine District)

Grimoire: Crota's End, The Rusted Lands

Ghost Fragments: The Ocean of Storms, Hive, Hive 2

Other: Some Shaxx dialogue from the New Light campaign

I may go back and add in these references for previous chapters if you are interested.