Chapter 2, The Mistake
Hakke jogged along the glossy halls of the Arcology, Midnight Coup drawn. The place was a triumph of minimalist architecture, all clean lines and smooth edges. The flooring was plated in a black material that offered a surprising amount of traction, the walls were segmented in white paneling, small rivulets of old grime streaking down their lengths. The lights were embedded in the walls in long, hidden strips, bathing the hallways in a gentle blue light. Water collected in small puddles along the ground occasionally, a result of condensation rather than leaking.
Beside the trace amounts of liquids, there was very little actual debris or signs of decay anywhere to be seen along his path. 400 years of neglect had done little to slow down the Arcology's automated cleaning and repair systems. Of course there were some things that the veritable army of disk shaped vacuum drones couldn't get rid of, such as the overgrown plant life that had begun to spread from their original decorative planters, or the aggressive Hive growths that spilled out of wall fissures and dark doorways.
Eventually, Callie led Hakke into a large atrium, complete with a miniature park in an indented section of floor. The room elongated out and eventually bent around along a graceful arc, several stories of habitation blocks stacked on top of one another in a rounded 'V'. Walkways bridged the gap between the left and right habs. Further along he could see openings in the residential sections where abandoned storefronts and communal benches were arrayed. Far above the ceiling was made of some incredibly durable and clear material, letting the natural light filter down through the methane ocean to diffuse throughout the space. This was once a residential district for the two odd million people who had called the Arcology home.
Hakke doubted that the original residents would approve of what the new squatters had added to their home.
Most of the left side of the residential corridor was covered in a thick carpet of mossy, dark grey material, dotted with strange barnacle creatures. Large, amber colored welts stretched like taffy throughout, connecting the different splats of corruption. Sections of the material shifted slightly as a multitude of thin worms slithered just under the surface. Once Hakke got closer, he knew he would be able to hear them. He was just glad his helmet blocked the smell.
He began to continue, as Callie gave him an update via his helmet's internal speaker.
"We're not that far off now." She said. "Towards the end of this hab block there's a rather large bridge. It looks like the signal is coming from a room just across there."
"Perfect. Hopefully we can find our distressed Guardian before the Hive figures out we're here." Hakke said out loud, his voice echoing through the hab block.
Almost as if on cue, a single figure rose out of the park's overgrown vegetation. It was humanoid, with its legs spaced just a little too far from each other, its shoulders just a little too long. Its skin was gnarled and cracked, and covered in a crude armor that looked like it had been carved from old bone. The figure's head whipped around to look at the intruder that had dared come down to its lair, its three glowing eyes burning a sickly green.
"Are you kidding me, Hakke."
The Hive Acolyte let out a battle roar, and lifted it's three fingered hand. With a chant, green flame began to coalesce from its forearm and spread to its fingers. It was preparing a spell, the Hive soldier's equivalent of a grenade. Its eyes returned from the spell to Hakke, its naturally skull-like face seemed to grin with malicious intent.
Up until the moment that Hakke's bullet punched through its top eye and out the back of its head. Its body burst apart with the same green flame it had been summoning, most of its flesh turning to ash as it fell over, dead.
Hakke didn't lower his hand cannon.
"So they may know we're here."
Shrieks and roars began to fill the hab block, coming out of nearly every possible doorway and around nearly every bend. More Acolytes began to appear along the second floor causeways, accompanied by a small wave of Thralls that threw themselves down to the ground floor and began to charge.
"Okay. Any advice, Callie?"
"Just… don't die please."
"Some pretty good advice."
Hakke broke into a sprint, aiming to take cover behind a still functional kiosk halfway between himself and the charging Hive. He slowed down just enough to fire three more rounds from Midnight Coup, each one taking the head off of a Thrall. He slid behind the Kiosk as void-energy projectiles began to fall around him, evaporating chunks of the floor where they landed. At least twenty Hive had emerged from the walls, the majority charging at him.
He could hear the clattering of the Thrall's claws as they approached, hungry shrieks echoing from their emaciated frames. The echoing howls of murderous intent from the Acolytes. From somewhere out of sight came the deep bellow of challenge from a Hive Knight.
The odds were stacked against him, but not by an insurmountable degree. They had numbers, but he had a fundamental aspect of the universe on call. The same energy that allowed him to throw balls of destructive energy, glide through the air, or have Callie bring him back from the dead. The Light.
Hakke stepped out of cover as the Thralls closed in, purposefully letting them close most of the distance. The Acolyte's weapons fired in an aggressive arc, forcing them to drown their opponents in fire rather than sharpshoot. With the wave of Thralls so close, they were more likely to hit them than him, giving Hakke a bit of breathing room from the immediate threat of getting shot. He swept his offhand in a lazy lobbing motion, focusing his Light into a fusion grenade that slammed into the lead Thrall. The creature shrieked as the grenade burned its way into its chest and fell back into its fellows before the grenade detonated, incinerating it and many of its kin.
The remaining Thralls staggered back from the heat, momentarily stunned. Hakke took the opportunity to leap over them, tapping into the Light to glide to the causeway the Acolytes had collected on. The moment his boots touched down, he was moving, trading shots with the gathered Acolytes.
He had gunned down two of the Acolytes in front of him, leaving two more. One charged directly at him, the last bobbed for a better shooting angle. The Acolyte closed the distance fast, bringing the sharpened bottom of its gun up for a strike. Hakke sidestepped the attack and threw his hand out in a pushing motion, sending a ball of kinetic energy crashing into the Acolyte's chest armor. Its armor crumpled inwards, the force of the palm strike sending the dead Hive soldier toppling over the guardrail to the first floor.
A shot from the last Acolyte slammed into Hakke's chest, burning into the layer of protective Light he had coated himself with. He responded in kind, sending two bullets into the creature. It clutched at its wounds and recoiled, attempting to bring its gun to bear.
Unfortunately for the dying creature the Hive Knight finally made itself known, a charging eight foot wall of fury and thick bone armor. It smashed through the dying Acolyte, knocking it aside with a backhand. Hakke began to unload into the Knight's head while backpedaling, emptying his hand cannon. The shots ricocheted off of its thick armor. It roared in rage.
All he had done was piss it off.
A shriek from behind alerted him that the Thralls had reentered the fight. The Knight was still a decent distance away, giving him hopefully just enough time to deal with the Thrall. He spun around in time to watch the last one heave itself back up to the second story they were fighting on. A quick palm strike killed the first Thrall in line and sent it bowling over into another. One darted out and slashed with a glowing claw, Hakke barely managing to grab its forearm before it could land. He whipped his empty gun across the thing's face, before bodily heaving it at the charging Knight.
The Knight didn't even react, crushing the weaker Hive underfoot to get to him. It had a massive meat cleaver of a sword, made of the same bony material their armor was made of. It looked crude, too thick to be effective, but Hakke knew just how paradoxically sharp it was.
He just barely managed to evade to the left as the Knight brought its sword down in a heavy vertical strike. Almost in the same motion the Knight brought the flat of its blade careening into Hakke's chest, bunting him like a baseball into the Hab wall and bashing the wind out of his lungs. The Knight reared its blade back for another strike, looking to cut him in half. Hakke dropped to one knee, and extended his offhand to cast his Light again. Three fiery orbs launched from his hand as the Knight's sword embedded in the wall above his head; the orbs catching the Knight in its side and exploding. The Knight roared, its right side and arm burned, its armor superheated and brittle.
Hakke finally had just enough time to roll to a safer distance and reload his hand cannon before the Knight recovered. Using its off hand, it wrenched the blade free of the wall and turned back to Hakke. He shot out the Knight's knee to buy himself some more time to turn and shoot the last Thrall dead. Hakke then dashed forward and rammed the barrel of Midnight Coup in a gap in its armor, right under the Knight's chin. He fired until the hand cannon clicked empty.
As he reloaded again, he could hear more Hive working their way towards his position. He began to run again, heading towards the bridge that Callie had called out as his destination. He knew that the only thing he had communicated by killing those Hive was that he was powerful enough to truly be worth the effort of killing. The rest of the Hive would be in a frenzy to get him now.
Hakke sent a mental request, his hand cannon being replaced with his auto rifle. Volume of fire was about to become significantly more important to him in the next few seconds.
More Thrall came howling out of a hab door ahead of him, to which Hakke responded with indiscriminate blind fire. Several of the skeletal creatures went down before he reloaded, taking the extra time to be spiteful and chuck his expended magazine at them. He managed to duck around the rest of that particular pack, and kept running.
The wall in front of him exploded, sending shrapnel battering against his Light shield. He turned to find the new threat. Another Hive Knight was keeping pace with him along the opposite side of the Hab space, this one equipped with a portable siege cannon.
If ever he found her, Hakke had several strong words he would like to share with Lady Luck.
He couldn't stop to send enough firepower at the Knight to down it without letting the Thralls catch up. He couldn't scatter the rest of the Thralls without slowing down enough to let the Knight land a direct, and probably fatal, shot.
So he leapt again, rising to the third floor on his side. There he saw some semblance of cover, a long glass terminal, faded and still displaying news from before the Collapse. The transparent material of the terminal wouldn't hold against the Knight's cannon for more than one shot, but it would protect him long enough to deal with the Thrall. He turned and immediately began firing into the Thrall as they clambered up to the third floor. Their bodies began to pile as the glass shattered beside him, the whistling howl of another cannon shot following it.
By now he had generated enough Light to throw his celestial fire at the Thralls, the bright yellow flames leaping between the tightly clustered Hive, destroying them down to the atom. It took time to build up enough Light to create a grenade or cast fireballs like this, greatly limiting the total destructive potential he had access to. Even with the downtime between casts measured in seconds, it still often felt like an eternity when enemies were hounding him closely.
He swapped to Midnight Coup again, and began landing shots on the Knight. A lucky round rattled in between the visor gap on its stone helmet, and the monster lurched back. It shook its head violently, throwing its hand out to create a shield of dark energy. It was a common tactic for Hive Knights, giving them a reprieve to knit minor wounds back together with their foul magic. It also forced them to a standstill. That suited Hakke just fine, and he continued to run.
Below him on the ground floor, Hakke could see Hive Thralls swarming with a healthy mix of Acolytes amongst them. With a sinking feeling he realized that this must be one of their nesting grounds in the Arcology. Traveller knew how many of the damn things were lurking down here, pouring out for a chance to feed on his Light. So he kept his path, killing the few Hive that leapt out in front of him, or leaping over them when he needed to reload. Up ahead he could see his destination. A bridge large enough to fit three battle tanks stacked side to side stretching across a man made chasm, at the opposite end was a sealed round door. Callie was more than capable of hacking it open, but he would need to hold back the horde that had appeared to murder them.
He saw a decent enough place to make his stand. Directly in front of the door was a receptionist's desk. It wouldn't provide perfect cover, but it would shield him from the worst of the incoming fire.
"Get that door open!" Hakke shouted.
"On it!"
Hakke leapt down to the ground floor, and raced across the bridge. Void shots cracked around him as he vaulted over the desk. Callie was already materialized, digitally interfacing with the door's controls. Hakke focused, concentrating the Light that was present in the environment to his location. With a graceful swipe, he released it, the Light spilling down into a circle around him. A healing Rift.
Survivability increased, he turned his attention back to the fast approaching swarm, the vanguard of which had begun crossing the bridge. Midnight Coup vanished, and he readjusted for the substantial weight of his heavy machine gun. He brought the sight to his eye and squeezed the trigger.
The howls of the Hive were drowned out by the staccato roar of 21% Delirium, its twin barrels beginning to glow red from sustained fire. He scythed the gun from one cluster to another, fighting to keep it level with his enemy, and was rewarded for his efforts by the sheer number of Hive that began to fall. Shots rained on and around him, but his Light held strong. The healing Rift he had placed down was continually pulling more than enough Light from his surroundings to repair whatever damage the Hive inflicted.
As the wall of Thrall and Acolytes finally collapsed under his fire and he prepared to summon a fresh drum of ammunition, the Hive assault stopped. The few Thralls that hadn't died began to retreat, soon followed by the other Hive warriors on the opposing side of the bridge. Hakke fired the last rounds in his current drum as encouragement to the Hive, who one by one vanished back into their holes.
Hakke reloaded, kept his machine gun shouldered for the next wave.
30 seconds passed.
Nothing.
"What the hell." Hakke stated.
With his heart sinking down towards his stomach, Hakke turned to his Ghost. "Callie? How are we looking?"
"Whoever designed this particular doorway is a madman. I've never seen such overly complicated security for a doorway that absolutely should not need it. If this was some hidden Clovis Bray research lab or the entrance to the Reef's treasury I could see this level of security be justified."
"Well, whatever you need to do, do it quickly. The Hive just backed out. That either means they're regrouping or something bigger has their attention. I'd rather not be here to find out which."
"I don't know what to tell you. It's like the computer is evolving to adjust for my inputs. I've never in all my years seen~"
With a hiss of pneumatics, the door began to open.
"Nice going, Callie!" Hakke congratulated. She turned to him, her fins motionless.
"That wasn't me."
"What do you mean that wasn't you."
"I mean I didn't open this door. The system just unlocked itself."
Hakke didn't like that. "I don't like that. The distress signal still coming from further down the tunnel?"
"Yes it is." Callie told him. "It's coming from less than a hundred meters down this corridor." She paused for a moment. "It's moving!"
Hakke dropped to one knee, pointing his machine gun down into the darkness of the newly revealed corridor. He alternated between keeping his gaze on the sights of his gun and checking his in-suit radar. Callie was capable of transmitting friend or foe information directly into the system in real time. He trusted her to tell him if it was their mystery Guardian approaching or an enemy.
It also would let him know if the Hive were trying to sneak their way over the bridge to jump them.
Eventually he could make out a human figure approaching him, while his Radar only picked up on the movement. The figure was trying to move fast, but was noticeably favoring one leg over the other. Even from this distance he could see a sizable wound in one of the figure's legs. A long rifle was clutched in one hand, the other holding on to the strap of a large bag that they were dragging along the ground.
She was human, or close enough. Definitely not Hive, which was the important detail. As he got a better look at the rest of her equipment he could see pieces of chromed armor scattered lightly across her frame, and a cloak dangling from her back. A Guardian, specifically a Hunter. He got up to make his presence known.
He called out to her and lifted a hand. "Over here, Guardian. The name's Hakke. We got your distress call and came as soon as we could."
The hunter stared at him. "Distress call? What are you talking about, Warlock? No, why are you down here? You shouldn't be here!"
Callie answered. "We've been following a distress call that has been broadcasting from this location. Are you telling us that was not you?"
"No it wasn't. The Hive destroyed all of my comms equipment. Including my.." She paused for a second. "They did something to my Ghost. We have to go now."
A small piece of information, but one that changed the situation greatly. If her Ghost was damaged, it might not be able to channel the Light properly to heal or resurrect her. He guessed that was the case due to her injuries. If she was killed, that would be it. Gone forever.
The Hunter began to limp her way forward. Hakke stepped forward with his hand out to stop her.
"The other side of this bridge is crawling with Hive, and you aren't going to be able to outrun them all with that wound. Give me half a minute, and I can throw down a healing Rift, give you a better chance to get out of here."
"We don't have half a minute. Dûl Yurnath is coming, and she will kill all three of us."
"Who's Dûl Yurnath?"
"Hive Wizard. An artificer. Armorer. She made an artifact, a human sized helmet, marked up like the Crown of Sorrow. We have to get it out of this place. Be rid of it." The Hunter hissed, and brandished the bag she was dragging.
The sinking feeling got a little deeper. The Crown of Sorrow was a powerful artifact that had been designed to specifically overwrite and destroy the mind of its wearer, bending them to the will of its creator. Hakke had never heard of this Dûl Yurnath before, but if the Wizard was capable of making something even remotely as powerful as the Crown, then they were in deep trouble.
"That doesn't sound good." Hakkesaid, adding a curse under his breath. "Callie, can you do anything for her wound? We'll start moving, but as soon as I can I'm tossing you in a Rift."
This seemed to placate the Hunter, who nodded and began to limp quickly across the bridge. Callie hovered over to her side, and shined a beam of Light over the wound.
"There's not a lot I can do, but I can give your Light a boost. That should make it easier for you to concentrate, seal up the worst of it." Once she was done Callie stared at the bag their new acquaintance was carrying before flying back over to Hakke. "She's not kidding about that artifact. I can feel the Darkness radiating off of it, I can barely focus on anything else."
Hakke didn't respond, falling behind the Hunter, machine gun at the ready.
"You said this place was crawling with Hive?" the Hunter asked. She was already moving more fluidly, more confidently after Callie had given her a boost of Light.
"Yeah, they all retreated as soon as the door opened up though." Hakke informed her.
She stopped.
"Then a trap lies at the end of this bridge. Can your Ghost send a message for me?" Hakke looked at Callie who shook her head.
"There's some form of interference preventing me from getting any messages out. If we can get closer to the surface, I may be able to bounce a message out from one of the antenna relays. With that we can get in touch with Commander Sloane, or whoever you need to get in touch with."
"Damn."
"Well that's far from ideal, but we can make do. We'll pause there, plan out how to cut through this Hive trap, and I'll throw down a Rift for you." Hakke pointed to a raised parapet a small distance from the end of the bridge. It would offer them enough protection to prepare, while giving them a decent enough sightline to watch out for attack.
The Hunter wasn't happy but she obliged, and they gathered behind the parapet. Hakke threw down a healing Rift while they paused, its Light covering both Guardians.
"15 seconds, then we go. How do we avoid this trap?"
"Do you know of any other paths to the surface other than down this path?"
Callie responded. "There are other routes, but they all are longer or take us straight through Hive nests. And regardless, we still need to get to the end of the hab block to access any of them."
The Hunter paused, thinking. "Then we blitz through their trap, leap through the other side before the jaws can seal us in."
Hakke nodded. "On your mark."
They waited, the light hum of the Rift and the wet squelching of Hive barnacles the only thing that could be heard, until the Hunter gave a sharp nod. Wordlessly, the two Guardians began sprinting along the ground floor of the hab block, making sure to favor the wall. There was no opposition. Sweat started to collect on Hakke's brow. He could feel the Hive watching them leave, he could even see their eyes glowing in some of the doorways, but they weren't doing anything to stop them.
They were waiting.
His suspicions were confirmed when three pillars of green flame materialized, cutting runic circles into the floor with a hiss. Hive figures began to materialize in each teleportation circle, a single massive Knight on the left and right circle, easily 12 feet tall each even hunched over from the weight of their armor, with flat helmets and square axes. From the center circle a floating Wizard appeared, a helmet with two horns jutting out the top, its robes interwoven with strange glowing glyphs and sigils. The monster raised both of its three fingered hands and began to make strange twitching motions with them as it began to sing a harsh, piercing song that felt like sandpaper against his soul.
This had to be Dûl Yurnath.
Before he could raise his machine gun to kill this new threat, a hail of void shot began pelting everything around them. The Hive had begun to make their move. They swarmed out of the second and third floor habitations, and rained lethal energy down on them. Thrall emerged along the bottom floor and began their assault.
Hakke let loose a colorful string of curses in a multitude of human and alien languages, and pressed himself close against the wall to return fire. He alternated between killing the Acolytes above and thinning out the swarms of Thrall below. The Hunter's scout rifle barked at an alarmingly fast pace, and wherever she pointed it Hive died. Between the two of them they were thinning out the horde enough to survive moment to moment, but for every Hive killed, another took its place.
As he fired the last rounds he had for his machine gun, he realized something. They had been caught in the open with practically no cover, and yet only a small handful of the deluge of fire coming in had hit them. The Hive were purposefully not trying to kill them. They were suppressing them, preventing them from moving.
They want us right here.
"We have to move!" Hakke shouted over the din. Wordlessly, the Hunter tossed a small grenade at her feet where it detonated into a thick purple smoke. She then slapped an explosive to the wall behind her, and returned to killing Hive. It detonated, creating a hole just large enough for them to go through. She was through before the shrapnel from the blast had even landed. Midnight Coup in his hands again, he followed.
The Hive outside howled in rage, and began to fire blindly into the smoke. Hakke felt his shield break under their assault, raw Void shot digging through the armored microlattice of his duster and into his back. He gritted his teeth and ducked through the hole. Once outside of the Hive's line of fire, it only took a handful of seconds for the pain to vanish as the Light healed his wounds.
He found himself inside what was once a quaint family home, the remains of a couch along one wall, a cracked screen that had been an entertainment system on the other, a kitchenette in the back. Everything was covered in centuries of dust, most of which was now in the air due to their dynamic entry. Hakke swiveled around to cover the hole they had entered. He could hear the Hive outside, and knew that at any moment they would be swarming in through the same hole that the Guardians had just made. He trusted his new companion to find them a way forward, he would stay here and buy her time to do so.
He just wished the Wizard would shut up. Her song cut through and over the din of the Hive and the longer it went on, the harder it got to concentrate. The more the song physically hurt.
It was getting difficult to blink his eyes.
"There a back door to this place?" He called to the Hunter.
"That accursed song..." He heard her say, before he heard the distinct sound of a body hitting the ground. He turned to look, and wished he hadn't. The wound on her leg had reopened with a vengeance, larger and angrier than when she had first appeared. He didn't understand, he hadn't seen anything hit her, there wasn't a reason for the wound to have reopened. He went over to her, always facing the hole and crouched down.
"What's wrong?"
"The song Dûl Yurnath is singing. It's a spell, close enough to the Deathsong that it's affecting my wounds. It's opening them. If we can't silence her up in the next few minutes her song is going to open an artery."
Hakke's mind raced. Disrupting a Hive ritual was always a convoluted process. He hadn't seen any crystals form around Dûl Yurnath, he wasn't even sure if she had a shield up to defend herself with. Dûl Yurnath was definitely the leader of this particular operation, and as such had to be damn powerful, and most importantly damn smart. The problem was he knew nothing about her. She knew a song similar to the infamous Deathsong, a song that killed whoever listened to it from start to finish, so she could very well be an actual Deathsinger.
"What do you know about Dûl Yurnath? Any hints on how to get her to be quiet?"
"Her full name is Dûl Yurnath, Deception's Prodigy. She's a daughter of Savathun."
Hakke's heart froze. They were up against the direct spawn of one of the three ruling Hive, monsters so powerful that they were worshipped as deities by their species. Specifically they were facing the spawn of the Hive Goddess of Deceit and Trickery. Hakke knew where he ranked in terms of both experience and skill amongst his fellow Guardians: towards the bottom. He was young for a Guardian, having been revived only 20 or so years ago, and hadn't been lucky enough to have the absurd skill some showed during their early years. His mental calculations for his chances of getting out of this alive plummeted down to the single digits.
The Hunter snapped him out of his downward spiral.
"Take this." She said, handing him the bag she had been carrying. "Get it off Titan. Do not let it reach Earth. Do not let the Hive get it back. You have no idea how important this is, Warlock."
"I can't-" He tried to begin.
"You can and you will." She grabbed his collar, her fist locking him in place. "Swear that you will see this through to the end, Warlock."
He nodded slowly.
"I'll see it through." he promised.
She shoved the bag into his arms. The helmet inside was surprisingly light, its edges sharp even through the dense moment he touched it, he felt a tingling in the back of his mind. Muffled whispers. Hakke was not a fan.
She stood up, a knife in one hand, her scout rifle in the other. Hakke heaved the bag over his shoulder, adjusting so it hung on his back like a messenger bag.
"When I give the signal I want you to use every dirty trick you have to put as much distance between yourself and Dûl Yurnath. Do whatever it takes, get out of here." The Hunter commanded.
"I take it there's no backdoor then." Hakke said.
"You said it yourself earlier. Only paths out of here are at the end of the hab block. So do what I say, run as fast as you can, and don't look back."
"And what about you?" Callie added. While she had not rematerialized, she was capable of connecting to both of the Guardians comm units.
"I plan to pay back Dûl Yurnath for the hassle she's caused me today." Her left hand was smoldering, solar Light coalescing on her throwing knife. It was glowing a dull red.
"That's suicide."
She turned to look him in the eye. He could feel her rage.
"They killed my Ghost, Warlock."
He realized then that he wasn't going to be able to talk her out of this. Not in the handful of seconds they had before the Hive began to flood in, and they would both die.
He conceded, and gave her a nod. "Give 'em hell, Hunter."
"That's the plan. Ready?"
Hakke nodded. The Hunter turned back to their makeshift door. He could hear the first wave of Thrall as they approached. He adjusted his grip on Midnight Coup. He wished he had more time to synthesize more ammo for 21% Delirium. It's firepower could prove decisive in the next few seconds.
"Go."
The two Guardians charged, Hunter in the lead, Warlock behind. He threw celestial fire ahead of them, where it detonated amongst the Thrall as they finally made their attempt to break in. They flew through the pieces of disintegrating Hive, their guns adding harsh bass to Dûl Yurnath's perverse song.
Hakke dipped into the Light, dashing over the Thralls in a burst of fiery energy. The Hunter dove through them, the action interlaced with Light in such a way as to actively bewilder the creatures. He threw a grenade up amongst a knot of Acolytes, and watched it expand into a ball of heat that burned the Hive to nothing. Simultaneously, the two Guardians cast their supers.
Below him, the Hunter flipped in midair, vanishing in a storm of Void light, and emerged with the light literally pouring out of her and down into two long daggers. Almost too fast to see she began tearing her way through the Hive in front of her, cutting a path towards the Wizard and her Knights.
Hakke extended one hand above him, felt the exhilarating flow of fire as the Light burst out of his body with an audible crack. Similar to the Hunter, the Light coalesced into a weapon in his hand, a flaming longsword. The action had taken more effort than usual, the Crown strapped to his back seemed to drag his Light out of him. He couldn't even feel the Light coming off of the Hunter when she cast her super.
He hovered in place just long enough to get a grasp of the situation.
The Hive along the habitats were dividing their attacks fairly evenly between the two Guardians, and there were far more than enough to knock them clean out of their supers through concentrated effort. A super was one of the most devastating techniques a Guardian could learn to shape the Light into, granting them increased resilience, speed, and power. It did not make them invincible, as almost every Guardian eventually learned the hard way.
Ahead he could see that the Hunter was making incredible progress towards her prey, a trail of severed body parts in her wake. The two Knights had stepped between her and Dûl Yurnath, preparing their great axes.
Whoever she was, she was far and above more experienced than he. And judging by the staggering body count she had managed in less than six or so seconds, far more powerful to boot. He was glad she was on his side.
It was weird that her kills weren't disintegrating, however.
Shoving his thoughts aside, Hakke surged forward, soaring through the air and leaving a fiery trail behind him. Void shot scattered around him, some hitting him, most not. He zig-zagged through the hab, letting himself fall before dashing to a higher elevation. Anything to make himself a harder target for his enemy. He knew he could cause some serious hurt by throwing his sword at the Hive, but to do so would eat at the Light he had available to maintain the super. Movement was far more vital than firepower at the moment.
He had just passed by the Hunter when the Knight threw its axe at him.
The massive bone axe hit him square in the chest with enough force to shatter the energies of his super, and with more than enough energy left over to shatter most of his ribs. With the axe practically on top of him, he plummeted down to the Arcology floor. He landed before the guarding Knights, Dûl Yurnath hovering behind them. He could see what passed for a Hive smile on her skeletal features.
Hakke tried to suck air back into his lungs with little success, and he pulled Midnight Coup out to shoot at the Hive elites arranged before him.
The Hunter roared in dismay, her voice warped by the Void energies she had collected around herself. Hakke could hear her approach in the slashing of her blades cutting through Hive. He felt surprisingly calm, he could tell the next part was inevitable.
Dûl Yurnath finished her song.
A portal opened in front of him. A shimmering purple miasma that began to pull at its surrounding, dust and lighter debris immediately getting pulled in. Both Guardians recognized what they were looking at. A one way trip to the Ascendant Realm, the nightmarish dimension where the ancient Hive gods reigned supreme. The portal increased its strength aggressively, and portions of the flooring under it began to rip out of the ground.
Hakke knew they were lost. They were surrounded by more Hive than he could count, and he was trapped in the wake of a powerful Ascendant portal. This was a no-win scenario. The bag nearly flew off his shoulder into the portal, but he just barely managed to catch the strap of the bag before it disappeared past the event horizon. He was oddly lucky that the Hive axe had all but landed on him. It was so heavy that the portal had barely moved it, and he had managed to cling to the axe to prevent being pulled in himself. The bag began to tear. Time seemed to slow down.
The Hunter called out to him, her voice cutting through the chaos. "Use your Light! Destroy it!"
He turned to her. The Hunter was barely visible, a staggering number of Hive Thralls had piled on top of her in a desperate attempt to kill her. He could see the flashes of Void daggers tearing through skeletal frames, the glow of Thrall claws as they tried to rip her to shreds. One of Dûl Yurnath's Knights lumbered past Hakke towards the Hunter, axe held ready.
For one brief second her masked face appeared through the melee. "Destroy the Crown! Pour your Light into it!"
It wasn't the worst idea he had heard. Far from it. He turned his attention back to the bag. He had used most of his reservoir of Light in his escape attempt, and it would take time to refill. Time he simply did not have. Even as he lay there, he could see the other Knight approaching him with an almost glacial speed, preparing to reclaim its weapon and most likely kill him. He reached deep, and pulled every scrap of Light he had left in his body out.
He released his grip on the axe, the portal immediately pulling him towards it. He pulled the bag closer to himself, and with his other hand pooled his light into a ball of burning solar energy. The energy in his hand pulsed and boiled as he condensed it down to a single blinding point held between clawed fingers. Finally he threw the ball of Light at the Crown.
The bag evaporated and for just a moment, he saw the helmet, an ugly thing of rough carved brown bone, two horns emerging horizontally off the sides and curving down, covered in Hive arcana and profane sigils. Then the ball of solar Light burned its way in, flowing into and surrounding the helmet. The Light vanished, the mask drinking the energy as its sigils began to glow and emit blinding light.
Somehow, the Crown had eaten his Light. He had charged it.
The Crown sent out a shockwave of a hazy, gray energy which slashed across the Ascendant portal, solidifying it. The portal didn't shatter, but bent, collapsing into itself. The surrounding Arcology began to bend, elongating as it was pulled into the collapsing portal in long stings. The Crown was next, flying with unnatural speed directly into the center of the portal. Hakke tried to resist, but the portal's influence had already attached to him. He watched as first his arm, then his shoulder, then his head, was stretched almost to the breaking point. With a wordless scream he was pulled piece by stringy piece into the blinding gray of the portal. As the last of his head entered the event horizon, he heard something. Over the sound of metal tearing, over the shrieks of the Hive, over even his own voice, he heard it.
Dûl Yurnath, Deception's Prodigy, was laughing.
Then he was through, and he saw nothing.
