"Ready?" Kendrix asked, glancing up at his companion. Nova's only reply was a nod of his giant metallic head. "Alright, I'm not gonna go easy on this one!" Kendrix exploded forward, his legs and Glide instantly carrying him to a speed no normal human could ever hope to match. He sprinted towards the makeshift ramp a few meters in front of him and dashed up it. When he reached the apex, he pushed off with both feet, carrying his momentum through his body and into his right arm, putting all the force he could into the motion. His hand shot forward, and just as it stretched far enough that he felt like his shoulder would rip from his socket, he let go.
The rusted-out car wheel went spinning off towards the horizon like a military-grade frisbee, rocketing through the sky. It hung there for a few seconds, like some sort of unidentified spacecraft.
Then a bolt of Arc energy streaked across Kendrix's line of sight and slammed into the target, causing the wheel to tear apart and fall to the ground.
Kendrix's eyes shot up to Nova, filled with equal parts awe and indignation. The robot simply shrugged his shoulder as his cannon twisted back into a hand, then glanced down at Kendrix with smug nonchalance.
"Ok, you're definitely cheating."
Nova's eyes widened in feigned affront, putting his hand over his heart in a poorly translated gesture of honesty.
"Oh, don't give me that. No one's that good. You've got a targeting system in there or something, I know it."
N-O- S-Y-S-T-E-M. O-N-L-Y- -S-K-I-L-L, D-U-D-E.
"Bullshit! We stuck an English dictionary inside your head, you could absolutely- wait… did you just say 'dude'?"
Y-E-S-,- -D-U-D-E.
"...ok, you're not allowed to say that. It sounds way too weird coming from you."
D-U-D-E- -D-U-D-E- -D-U-D-E- -D-U-D-E- -D-U-D-E- -D-U-D-E- -D-U-D-E- -D-U-
"Alright! Enough, already!" Kendrix shouted as the binary beeps slammed into the shape of words inside his head. Nova let off a series of rapid-fire whistles that sounded suspiciously like snickering.
It had been a couple of days since Kendrix's fight in the Crucible. He'd decided to opt out of Beckett's missions for a few days, since he wasn't exactly in a hurry to see Apollo again. Plus, he owed Nova some time away from the Tower after all the flying the machine had done for him.
They'd been out here for an hour or two, though Kendrix wasn't clear on where exactly 'here' was. Proxima had said it was somewhere in southern Africa, an old, minor city that had been srtipped clean of all its resources decades ago, meaning Fallen virtually never travelled there, and thus other Guardians never had reason to go poking around either. It was one of the best spots Proxima could find where they would hopefully be able to let Nova cut loose undisturbed. The three of them had been experimenting with Nova's ion cannons, testing the limits of their range, power, and accuracy. Turns out, as with so many other things regarding the alien robot, the things were pretty damn impressive.
"Fine, wise guy," Kendrix grouched jokingly, refusing to let Nova irk him any more. "If that's how you're gonna be, then no more target practice!" Nova's expression changed instantly, and his thrusters hummed defiantly as he gestured frantically about the hateful injustice of it all. "No, no." Kendrix said, wagging a finger. "Since you already proved you're sooooo skilled, there's no point in practicing that any more, right?" Nova's eyes narrowed as Kendrix grinned evilly under his helmet. "Besides, one skill does not a warrior make. Got anything else for us? Or are you a one trick pony?"
Nova's body split and shifted into the red, black, and white form of his jumpship mode, engines roaring triumphantly.
"Yeah, yeah, I've seen that one," Kendrix said dismissively, covering up how much the transformation still managed to surprise and impress him. "Not like it's hard for you though, is it? You can rearrange your body at the molecular level; if I had that kind of ability, I bet I could turn into all sorts of things! What else you got?"
Nova switched back into robot mode, feet striking the ground with a loud thump, eyes glaring at Kendrix. Then the robot seemed to think for a moment, his eyes glazing over and flickering, as if his mind was elsewhere, sorting through corrupted data and fragments of memory. After a few seconds, Nova's eyes refocused, and looked down at Kendrix brightly.
The robot clenched his hands into fists, and they split apart. Instead of coiling into a twin pair of ion cannons, however, they slide back into his forearms. A nanosecond later, a long metal rod sprang out to replace each of them, the pair ending in blunt, hard-edged tips. Then, the rods began to move, pulling in and out of Nova's forearms at a rapid pace, building up a noise like a raging machine. Suddenly, without warning, Nova slammed the two devices into the ground, where they began to split pavement and rust like a pair of massive jackhammers, tearing through the gentle silence of the empty city with crushing and clanging loud enough to wake its long dead inhabitants. After a few seconds, Nova stopped, straightened up, and returned his hands to their normal shape.
Kendrix crossed his arms and nodded.
"Wow, pile drivers. Nice. What next?" Nova's thrusters roared, carrying him into the air like some sort of jetpack. He hovered around for a few seconds, even firing off a round or two from his cannons.
"Semi-aerial combat. Good, you can watch and learn from me. Anything else?"
Nova paused, seemingly needing to think again. It took longer this time, and Kendrix suspected the alien was running low on tricks. However, he seemed to find one last thing.
Nova stepped back, flexing his arms and shoulders back and craning his neck towards the sky. Two metallic cylinders, one encircling each shoulder, began to spin and glow with heat. They spun faster and faster, until they began to shriek, firing off a salvo of tiny red points of light that went racing off into the air. Kendrix followed them with his eyes, up, up, up, until they all bloomed out into bright red flashes of light.
Flares. Signalling their presence to anything and everything nearby.
A roar of alien static crashed across Kendrix's comms.
"Shit."
Fallen!
Kendrix's eyes shot to where Proxima directed them, just in time to see the red tail of a cloak duck into an alleyway a dozen blocks down the street through his helmet's telescopic HUD.
"Shit!"
Kendrix jumped into the air, Sparrow forming effortlessly under his body. He punched the thrusters and went racing off towards where they'd spotted the scavenger, weaving in between wrecked cars and ancient buildings as fast as he could.
He hoped the chase would be over quickly, but the situation quickly became complicated when he heard the roar of another engine. He swung around the corner just in time to see the Fallen, a Vandal by the looks of it, blast off on its own hover vehicle.
Crap, it's got a Pike.
Yeah, I noticed. Kendrix muttered through gritted thoughts, struggling to keep pace with the clearly more experienced rider.
That noise on the comms was an emergency beacon. If it's got friends nearby, they know about us too.
So we follow it. See where it heads for pickup, take care of whatever we find.
Yup.
Their conversation ended there, so Kendrix could focus purely on his steering. It was incredible how it had taken less than a week for him and Proxima to become so accustomed to one another that they hardly needed to speak to precisely coordinate a plan of action. It made some sense on his end, he felt, since she'd been with him every moment since his resurrection. But for Proxima? She'd spent centuries alone, with no one for company but her thoughts. She'd told him she'd never really had much interest in speaking with other Ghosts, and they were usually too busy searching for their own Guardians anyway.
And now here he was, filling her head with countless new thoughts and feelings, most of them confusion or fear. And yet, she seemed so unbothered by it all, ignoring it in the name of their partnership and fighting the good fight.
It was yet another reason he knew he didn't deserve her.
Suddenly, the Pike ahead of him began to slow. He saw why a second later when the Fallen Skiff decloaked, lowering itself to hover above a clear intersection as its passenger approached. Kendrix pushed his Sparrow as hard as he could, desperate to reach the dropship before it escaped with the Vandal.
Unfortunately, he just wasn't fast enough.
Kendrix watched in despair as the Pike was lifted off of the ground, attaching to the Skiff's side as its rider clambered up into the hull. Kendrix pulled up in front of it as it rose to the sky, turning as it prepared to jump away.
Then the roar of thundering thrusters split the air, and a shadow rushed over Kendrix. He looked up as the jumpship pulled into a steep ascent, peaking about a hundred meters above the Skiff. Then, he watched as it shifted its form into a giant metal warrior, and blasted downward, engines screaming.
Nova hit the Skiff at an angle, tearing into its side with his bare hands and pulled, using his momentum to drag the other machine towards the ground in an instant. The Skiff struck pavement with a grinding crunch, then ripped apart in a deep, reverberating explosion.
Kendrix threw up his hands as he was struck by shockwave, heat, and debris, grunting to himself at the force of it all. A moment later, the smoke cleared, and he was able to see the aftermath.
The Skiff was resting in a shallow crater, its insectoid form almost unrecognizable for how twisted and strewn about it was. Its red eyes were dim, and no chittering survivors struggled in the wreckage.
Nova stood atop it all, his body heaving rhythmically, as if he was breathing heavily. The robot sank to his knees and put his head in his hands, voice whirring and glitching with exertion.
Kendrix slowly walked over and placed a hand against the robot's titanic calf, looking up with a mixture of relief and concern. Nova's blue eyes flickered to him for a moment, before looking away.
"Hey," Kendrix began, his voice soft. "Don't beat yourself up, ok? You did what you had to." He paused, letting the irony of his words wash over him. Then, "This wasn't your fault. If I hadn't pushed you so hard, we never would've gotten into this mess. I'm sorry."
Nova let out a long, dolorous note, and Kendrix patted his against the alien's metal frame.
"Come on, let's get out of here."
As they rose up into the sky, Kendrix's comms pinged with a contact request. When he saw who the caller was, he picked up.
"Beckett, hey. What's up?"
"Hey, Kendrix," the Titan grunted, his voice thick with exertion. "I know you've been taking it easy the past few days, but, any chance you can do me a favor?"
"Uh, sure," Kendrix replied, somewhat confused. "What is it?" The comms were briefly filled with a smattering of gunfire from a weapon sounding a lot like Oroa's minigun.
"I told HQ I'd do a patrol for them. Hive have been getting restless around the Hellmouth, and they wanted me to go scout it out. But the team 'n I have gotten in pretty deep with the Vex out here on Venus, so I don't think I'll be able to make it for a while. Was hoping you could cover for me."
"Uh, sure, but… you sure you don't want me to come back you guys up?"
A mechanical scream ripped into Kendrix's ears, but it was mercifully cut short by a couple of gunshots.
"No, you're good," Beckett said with a huff. "Vex aren't too tough, there's just a lot of 'em. We'll be fine."
"Uh, ok then."
"Good. Sending you coordinates now."
Kendrix looked over the mission data as Proxima relayed it to his HUD, but quickly stopped when the location caught his attention.
"...uh, Beckett?"
"Yeah?" the other Guardian grunted over the sound of rending metal.
"I… think there's been a mistake. This says the Hellmouth is… on the moon?"
A half hour later, and Nova was pulling into orbit over the pale, barren surface of Earth's largest natural satellite. Kendrix had felt certain leaving Earth's atmosphere would be the most awe inspiring part of the trip. Then, he thought nothing could beat the endless world of color and light as Nova had activated his interplanetary drive and sent them sailing through empty space at speeds that no rocket could match.
Now, however, he could confidently say that the moon took the cake. Something about the white world's eerie, reflective beauty enraptured Kendrix, moreso even than the blue marble of the Earth hanging above it. Maybe it was the undeniable similarity to the Traveller, the yearning for discovery rooted in the very concept of lunar exploration, or the blood of countless ancestors who had gazed in wonder upon this same pale face. Whatever it was, it took his breath away.
"I've never been in space before," he finally managed to murmur softly.
"Me neither," Proxima said from where she floated at his shoulder. Kendrix turned to her with surprise.
"Wait, really? I thought you said most of the planets and moons were colonized during the Golden Age?"
"Yeah, and?"
"...well, wouldn't you go looking for Guardians out on all of them too?"
Proxima shook her 'head'.
"Not really. Too risky. Without the City to fall back to, exploring the outer worlds solo is really dangerous. I mean, think of how much trouble we had just on Earth. Plus, not many Guardians offering to take Ghosts on field trips that could last years. So unless you somehow got a hold of a jumpship, not really a way to get out even if you do find someone."
"...ah. I guess that makes sense."
A questioning beep echoed up from the jumpship's console.
"Yeah, Nova, I think we're ready. You can take us down."
The descent to the lunar surface was much smoother than the escape from Earth's orbit had been, presumably due to the lack of atmosphere. When they got close, Kendrix found himself transmitted onto the barren landscape. His stomach dropped, not from transmatt, he'd been getting used to that, but from the sudden shift from the artificial gravity of the jumpship's interior to the almost bouncy feel of the moon.
His feet touched the ground slowly and softly, and Kendrix took a moment to take it all in.
He was standing on the surface of another world.
Proxima broke him out of his reverie after a few seconds, and Kendrix began to move, trying his best to keep his balance as he bounded across the low gravity world. He felt like his Glide could carry him forever up here, but he decided to take things slow. Proxima herded him past the abandoned moon base the transmatt beacon had been stationed by, crushing his hopes of poking around inside, and sending him up and over the ridge.
Kendrix felt the Hellmouth before he saw it.
It was like a strange mix of heat and vertigo. His skin burned with a noticeable pain, even through his armor, and yet at the same time he felt drawn forward, as though reality itself had begun to slope downward into the pit. It was abrasive yet smooth, repulsive yet alluring. And it was so very, very Dark.
Then he saw it. The massive crater yawned at the horizon, its sheer walls dropping ever downwards into an abyss of condensed and writhing shadow. Its name was appropriate, he thought, as the pit definitely felt like a mouth, a great maw gaping wide as if to swallow the stars themselves.
"This is…" Kendrix began, feeling a discomfort so deep he suspected even his soul was shivering.
I know. Proxima replied, her voice equally disconcerted. Do you… want to turn back?
Kendrix considered it for a moment. Oh he really did. But he couldn't leave now, not with Beckett counting on him.
"No, I'll… I'll be ok. Besides, I exist to fight this stuff, right? Can't do that if I turn tail every time I see it."
If you say so. Proxima dropped Kendrix's Duke into his right hand, and he began to slowly move towards the Hellmouth, eyes searching for the slightest sign of movement.
So… what are the Hive, anyway? Kendrix asked, deciding it was easier to speak internally, even though the silence made him nervous.
In a word? Monsters. Or the closest thing this universe has yet produced. They serve the Dark by way of their twisted philosophy, the Sword Logic. They kill whatever they can find, feed the death to the Dark worms that live inside them, and are granted paracausal power in return.
Why?
Because it's how they're born. Every one of them is given a worm shortly after birth, consigning them to the whole revolting system for the rest of their lives. Infants tear each other apart to prove their might, using that power to grow into new, more developed forms. Any weakness, any hesitation, means death. All the while, a portion of the proceeds goes to their elders, in a tribute chain that leads all the way up to the highest of the high, their Hive Gods. Those buggers have been running things for eons, all the while building up more and more power. The rich get richer, and the poor eat each other.
Jesus. Enslaved from birth by paracausal parasites. That's... awful.
Yeah. The Fallen may be cutthroat, the Cabal may be brutish, and the Vex may be unthinking machines of assimilation, but the Hive… they're worse. They're always worse. Even if they're not the biggest threat at a given time, they're more our enemy than anything else in the whole of creation.
Do… do you think if they were free… of the worms, and their society, I mean… do you think they could be better?
Honestly? I don't think so. They've been evolving under this system for billions of years. The worms are so intrinsic to their biology I don't know if they could even survive without them, much less fully develop. And even if they could, I'm not sure it would matter. This might makes right shit has probably been bred into every codon of their DNA at this point.
I guess you're probably right…
Kendrix's musings were interrupted, however, when he saw motion ahead. He was still a few hundred meters back from the edge of the Hellmouth, but he could see the gateway leading into a great black building at its side, one that seemed to slope into the ground around the crater's edge.
Emerging from that gateway were dozens of shapes, tearing across the moon's surface in haphazard parody of bipedal movement. Lumbering behind them were larger, darker shapes, hefting what Kendrix could only assume were weapons. For a split second Kendrix was gripped by terror as he considered the possibility that the monsters were coming for him.
His fears were quickly put to rest, however, when the sky in front of the charging split open into a series of massive green tears in space. Slowly, with a screeching that somehow carried across the airless landscape, dark black shapes slid out of the tears, firing on the charging creatures with blasts of all-too-familiar Void. Shapes dropped from the bottom of the ships and joined the bloodbath, ripping into the opposition with apparently little concern for formation or strategy.
Well, this explains the disturbance that was reported.
What… what's happening? Kendrix asked, confused.
A culling. Basically the Hive equivalent of a turf war. Every now and then, a brood will turn on itself for a time, ripping itself apart and feeding on its own death. Cut out the weak while simultaneously making the strong even stronger. Helps when resources are tight, too.
Jesus. Should we… do something?
No. They might be fighting each other right now, but if we get involved they'll all turn on us in a second. Killing a Lightbearer like you is a feast for any worm, and they'd literally die for the chance to claim you. Best we can do is wait it out, then head back when the coast is clear and tell the Vanguard what's up. That way they can have other Guardians keep their distance until the Hive sort all this out.
Okay…
They waited for a time, but the battle didn't last long. The Hive fought with such ferocity and abandon that their numbers were cut down to a mere tenth of their previous mass in a matter of minutes. Kendrix could feel the Hellmouth's presence swelling with all the death, like a fly growing fat on blood, and could even feel the sting of some of the Hives' Dark as it grew more potent. It was revolting.
When the bloodshed was over and all was quiet and still, Kendrix stood. And he began to walk towards the battlefield.
Kendrix… Proxima warned.
I… I need to see it. See what we're up against.
He walked down the slope to the graveyard, feeling suddenly heavy despite the low gravity.
It was worse than he could have imagined.
Corpses were strewn about like leaves after a storm. Some were alone, some were piled up. Some were locked in eternal embraces of silent hate, while others stared to the black sky with eyes of glass. Blood and bone and bile and ash were everywhere. In the earth, in the air, in the Light, in the Dark. Fires of green and violet raged down to the scale of atoms, struggling to consume one another. There was profound and agonizing sorrow to it all, which the monstrous nature of the tragedy's victims did not seem to lessen.
There was a cough.
Kendrix froze, snapping around to level his gun at the noise, at the last sign of life in the face of all this death.
One of the Hive was coughing. It was a large thing, a meter taller than Kendrix, at least. It's chitin armor was a dull reddish-bronze, cracked in places. Its three eyes were a sickly green, growing dimmer by the moment. It's skull-like mouth opened and closed, breathing vacuum.
It's Dark is… faint. I think it's worm was removed.
Kendrix looked to a large hole in the creature's abdomen, the dark absence inside slowly filling with blood.
Kendrix would never be sure why he did what he did next. Maybe it was pity. Or hope. Or destiny. Or maybe he just wanted it all to be done with.
Kendrix slowly holstered his gun. He stepped forward, and knelt at the Hive's side. Its eyes turned on him, blazed like emerald stars. It struggled to stand, to strike at him, anything. But it could barely breathe, much less raise a hand against him. Kendrix raised his own hand, could feel the Void struggling to fill it, to end it. But something else came instead. A tiny sphere of golden light, shining in the dark. The Hive stared at it, and its eyes reflected the warmth. Kendrix pressed the sphere into the gaping wound in the Hive's side, and watched as its skin and chitin knit back together over the wound.
"Sleep…" Kendrix murmured as the light began to fade. The Hive went still, and its eyes dimmed to nothing.
Kendrix stood, and sighed.
You pity them.
It wasn't a question.
Don't you? They didn't ask for this. They didn't *choose* this! They didn't choose to be born and reared just to kill and die! And all for what?!
This is the world the Darkness wants. Where all life, humanity included, wars with itself, fighting and feeding and destroying until only one remains. That is the truth it seeks to make. That is the truth we seek to prevent. All we do is in defiance of this.
Then… then we can't afford to lose.
No. We can't.
Kendrix turned away from the Hive's broken body, looking to the horizon, ready to leave this place.
But there was no horizon.
There was only the dark black shell of a Hive ship.
Kendrix snatched his Duke from its holster and leveled it at the silent craft, for whatever good it would do.
A tombship! I didn't hear it warp in… I didn't even *sense* it!
Why isn't it attacking?!
I… I don't know.
Kendrix stood, motionless, staring at the dark craft and its silence.
For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. Then, just as Kendrix was preparing to Blink away as fast as he could…
The tombship shattered.
It's greenish, almost ribbed split across the middle. The front half lurched upward as it crackled out into the shape of a ridged torso, while the latter half split again, swinging down to become the boot-like ends of a pair of legs. The flat, stone-like top of the ship undulated into a series of smooth, square plates, shifting like the carapace of a millipede. Two arms tipped with metallic points clawed their way out from under the plates, while the plates themselves crawled across the surface of the body, arranging themselves like portions of some hellish armor. The plates were the dark black of the tombship, while the toned yet still distinctly mechanical body underneath was a very dark green. Finally, an ornate helmet with a crescent crest tore out of the body mass to take its place at the peak of the wretched form. The helmet framed a white mask, with a grate where the mouth and nose should have been and a pair of black sockets that swallowed any memory of eyes. Though clearly mechanical in nature, the mask was nevertheless unmistakeable the image of a skull.
The monster landed on the ground with a force that should have been impossible in a low gravity place such as this. It turned its empty gaze on the little Guardian standing before it, with no emotion to soften the horror of its face. Then, the thing spoke.
"Ahhh," it sighed, with a voice as smooth and sweet as a draught of mercury.
"There you are, little Light."