Chapter 14: The Sword of Crota

Whisper stared at the weapon of Darkness, half repulsed, half morbidly fascinated. After long seconds she wrenched her gaze away and activated her com. "Eris, we found it… Eris? Can you hear me?"

The only response was static.

"We must be too deep underground," explained Alice quietly.

"Hive incoming," warned Vistrek urgently, "lots of Hive. What's the call Whisper – stay or go?"

Whisper didn't hesitate. "Let's get out of here. We found the sword and I don't want to touch it. Vistrek, you're on point, let's move."

The fireteam burst into motion, charging forwards as another swarm of Hive came upon them. They waded in, cutting through the seemingly limitless numbers, but their momentum slowed, then slowed further, then came to a stop. And then deep reverberating roars shook the passageway and three ancient knights appeared, spurring the Hive army forwards.

There were just too many of them, and they started to give ground, one step at a time, to buy another second to cut down the screaming Hive that charged them. Vistrek went down under a swarm of thrall and Whisper pulled out The Swarm and held down the trigger on the heavy machine gun, cutting a swathe through the thrall and acolytes, and covering the titan's ghost long enough to hurriedly get him back on his feet, armor still covered in deep scratches.

The drum magazine ran dry and she switched weapons, unwilling to risk the seconds it would take to reload.

The fireteam retreated stubbornly, step after step. They hurled raging balls of light, an avalanche of lead, and Alice fired a heavy grenade launcher that punched holes in the Hive's lines.

Yet for all the hurricane of destruction they threw out, the Hive kept coming, anchored by the inexorable advance of the three Swarm Princes that shrugged off everything that came at them.

Whisper risked a glance behind them and grimaced. They had fallen all the way back to the entrance of the sword's chamber, and if they went back any further they would be in open area where they would be surrounded and overwhelmed. "Hold here!" she shouted, barely audible over the Hive's shrieks and the thunder of weapons. "Vistrek, Alice, we must hold the line!"

They had no time to reply, but they didn't need to rely on words. Alice exploded with solar energy, and somehow brought the Light closer to them, easier to reach. Vistrek bellowed a warcry and the light answered, wreathing him in crackling power, and he dove forward, Hive bouncing off him while acolytes fell with every blow from his gauntleted fists. With Alice's assistance, even Whisper managed to reach out and ride the wave of arc energy, wreathing her blade in power, and she charged in Vistrek's wake, lashing out left and right. They made progress, driving the Hive back and bottling them up. Whisper allowed herself to hope.

The Swarm Princes charged Vistrek together. He took a step back, boots stumbling on the piles of disintegrating Hive bodies, as Whisper raced to help him. They pursued relentlessly, picking up the pace as they wielded their own lethal cleavers. Vistrek changed tactics, planting a foot and charging forward to land a powerful punch on the leftmost of the three, crunching bone and smashing in its chest. But the desperate move left him open to the others, and they struck without hesitation, one impaling his left leg, cutting through armor and bone. Vistrek screamed in agony, which cut off abruptly as the third stabbed him through the heart.

Whisper lost the wave, stunned at the sight, and the Light slipped away. The Swarm Prince, its sword stuck in Vistrek's torso, backhanded her with such power she launched off her feet and skidded backwards past Alice. The warlock refused to give ground, firing her pulse rifle in one hand and grenade launcher in the other, glowing with Light, while Blabber hurriedly repaired Whisper's crushed armor and body. For a few impossible moments Alice's light and weapons held back the swarm. Then the Princes were on her, all three attacking together, and they cut her down in a flurry of violence just as Whisper regained her feet.

The Swarm Princes signaled silently and their army drew to a halt in the entryway, trapping Whisper alone in the open room while her fireteam's ghosts huddled behind her. For a moment they stared at each other, then a single Prince advanced, sword pointed in challenge.

Whisper pulled out her shotgun and fired, but the Prince was deceptively quick, and she scored only a glancing hit as it slid sideways. Whisper ducked a swipe of its sword so close she felt the wind of its passage, then raised her shotgun to block the backstroke. The lethal blade snapped her shotgun in half, scattering pieces across the floor, and sending her stumbling backwards and into the center of the area, knocking against Crota's sword.

An overwhelming feeling of darkness enveloped her, underlined by a volatile mixture of anger and fear. Through clouded vision she could see the knight pause, uncertain, as waves of dark energy rippled over her. And then she heard a whisper, quiet, yet somehow reasonable against the backdrop of rage and terror, and tinged with a melancholy sadness.

[Another victim of the Light. How many times have you suffered and died for a cause not your own? Lay down your weapons and receive salvation.]

Whisper shuddered as the thought slithered across her consciousness, struggling instinctively to resist what she did not understand. I… I learn… I choose… It is my life.

[Then sharpen your blade and pursue the final shape.]

Whisper's vision cleared and she found herself staring at the Sword of Crota.

-per, can you hear me? I don't think this is a good idea.

Whisper grimaced. It most definitely was not a good idea. But as she hesitated she saw two more silent, desperate ghosts waiting. She felt something, a faint echo of a memory long lost. "I can't let them down, Blabber. If we can get them out, we have to try."

Blabber spun anxiously in the air. Okay… just be careful not to cut yourself on it.

Whisper nodded, pulled in a deep breath, and reached out and grasped the hilt. Immediately whatever suspended the sword vanished and even with her incredible strength she staggered at the massive weight of the sword that was almost as long as she was tall. Shadows gathered at the corner of her eyes, the whispers returning, buts he ignored them and forced her left hand onto the hilt, stabilizing it. She moved the weapon cautiously, putting it into a clumsy guard position. She knew weapons down to her base programming, but whatever past battles she had waged, sword fighting wasn't one of them. Yet for all the awkwardness holding an unfamiliar weapon, she couldn't help but feel the absolute lethality of the terrible sword in her grasp that had destroyed more lives than she could imagine.

Look out!

Whisper spun and blocked the Swarm Prince's blow. Her entire body vibrated with the force of the strike, but she held her ground, leveraging all of her reinforced mechanical muscle, augmented further by the Light, just to match the flesh and bone power of the knight.

[The strength of the Light is given, not earned. Artificial. Unnatural.]

She broke the clash and attacked with a simple cross swing, still clumsy, as part of her programming raced to compensate, to translate her intent into the correct commands that would move her exo frame accordingly. Despite her basic attack, the Swarm Prince stepped backwards, eyeing the sword cautiously.

He's afraid of it. She pressed her advantage, each swing gathering more data, making her a little faster, a little surer.

[This creature has prepared every moment since its birth for this battle, practiced endlessly for this strength you steal for yourself.]

The knight feinted a black and sidestepped, letting Whisper's momentum carry her past and raking her side with its blade, cutting deep. She raised her sword defensively, circling, while Blabber repaired the damage, then resumed her attack. Blades clashed in sparks of metal the strange squealing rasp of bone on bone. She feinted high for a killing blow then diverted low. The knight reacted quickly, pulling back, but not quickly enough, and the tip of her blade tore a long thin scar along its left leg. The knight grunted, but pressed on, ignoring the wound. No darkness came to heal it or strengthen it.

[Every wound overcome through strength, empowering, not whisked away, stealing growth.]

Despite her focus, the words bothered her, and she slowed a moment to think. The Darkness did nothing for its champion here. The knight was alone, yet it faced her and the Light, together, and held its own. Don't get distracted, Whisper. You have to get your people out of here. She reset her grip on the sword and moving in grimly, probing.

Their blades flickered, crashing into each other with terrible power as they fought, watched by ghosts of the Light and acolytes of the Darkness. She continued to gain speed, processors observing and leaching off the knight's centuries of experience. But no fool, no matter how strong, could become a Swarm Prince, and it, too, took a step back to consider her, perturbed by what was happening. And it understood—every injury it had to endure, the Light would heal for her, and each second the battle stretched, she would steal his strength and cunning. So it did the only thing it could. The Swarm Prince bellowed a cry of hatred and launched itself into an all-out assault, its blood humming through the air.

Whisper danced backwards to buy a few seconds, analyzing, then made her move. Instead of falling back, she stepped into his next attack and released her left hand from her sword, instead holding it up like a shield while her right stabbed forward viciously.

Their attacks landed as one. The knight's sword sliced entirely through her left forearm, ripping and tearing through the hardened skeletal components in what would have been a mortal wound on a flesh and blood human. But the sacrifice of her arm had slowed the blade and protected the vital power systems in her torso. Her blade, however, had struck home, its razer point piercing through the knight's chest. As it caved in she could just see a worm the size of her fist wriggling on the point of her sword. It fell still and the knight collapsed soundlessly, sword slipping from its grasp.

Blabber quickly got to work on her arm while she recovered the blade.

[Every battle fought, desperate to survive. Every battle sought, to prepare to survive the next, and the next, and the next.]

Whisper's arm reconnected just in time to see the last two Swarm Princes charge in together, spreading to either side. Their blades clashed and clanged as she kept constantly on the move to keep them from surrounding her or pinning her against the wall. She was fast, flitting out of reach, but they used their advantages ruthlessly, putting Blabber to work constantly repairing her frame, sewing her back up just as fast as they cut her down. Worse, Whisper was totally on the defensive, unable to attack one without leaving herself totally exposed to the other. She needed more—she needed the Light.

She reached for it, extending beyond herself with barely half a thought while she continued her desperate fight. It was hard, like squinting through a fog, refusing to come. Come on, Traveler! I'm trying to stop them from draining away your Light.

With her attention divided, the knight's finally pinned her. They closed in cautiously, careful not to let her slip away again, and raised their blades.

The Light came.

The Hive cleavers crashed down with terrible finality, but were met, one with a sword wreathed in shadows, the other with a knife crackling with the Light. With a burst of energy she twisted, letting each cleaver crash to the ground on either side of her, and leaped into the air, gathering the light beneath to leap once again, flipping over the right side Prince.

Even surprised, it was quick, and whirled with a powerful two-handed stroke. She blinked, appearing just on the either side of the blow and impaled the knight with both her blades. The knight shrieked in anguish and fell. The other knight swung desperately, trying to catch her while she was still engaged with the first Prince. It's blade pierced her left shoulder, but the dead Prince's back had absorbed at least half the force of the blow and she kept hold of her knife. She spun to her right as the knight collapse and swung both weapons into the last Swarm Prince, cutting him half with the Light and the Darkness.

The Sword of Crota cut deeply into the final Swarm Prince, who gazed its hatred at her even as it burned in green fire, one hand locked on the sword in its side. It pulled her closer, impaling itself still further, mouth working as if it would speak. Then it froze as death took it, and fell sideways. The impossibly powerful blade of Crota snapped in half at the hilt, its blade lodged in the last of its creators, and burned in the same green fire as the knight itself until only the scorched ground bore record of its presence.

The Sword is gone… they say that was one of the most powerful weapons the Hive ever wielded against us. The Cryptarchs won't believe this.

Whisper ignored him and turned to face the army of Hive, holding up her knife, and they broke, turning and fleeing the way they came with the strongest among them cut down. Which was just as well, as she lost her grip on the blade dance seconds later.

Alice and Vistrek's ghosts wasted no time, hurrying back to their fallen guardians' sides and returning them to life. Unlike those knights, she thought quietly to herself, no second chances for the Hive. But there were more important things to worry about.

"What happened," demanded Vistrek, confused. "How did we survive?" Alice, too, was staring at her with a blank expression.

It occurred to Whisper that this wasn't the best time to mention wielding the Sword of Crota. She could still barely believe it herself, and those whispers… now was definitely not the time. "They… stopped the rest of the Hive and fought me one at a time. I… managed to defeat them, and the rest ran off. The sword is destroyed. Come on, let's get out of here before they regroup." She glanced over at the empty pedestal and couldn't suppress a shiver. "I never want to see this place again."

A/N: I interpreted this battle a little differently than it goes in the mission itself. However, I have the benefit of knowing where the story is going to go, which Bungie didn't at the time, so a little more foreshadowing is in order. Plus, the Sword of Crota is incredibly powerful story-wise, but kind of lame in the gameplay. What do you think of the changes?