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High Celebrant
Hunter watched the Hive Wrathborn burn away as Elsie and Crow both reloaded. Hunter put his Pulse Rifle away and walked forward, picking up the crystalized form of Xivu Arath's magic, which the High Celebrant was using to transform things into Wrathborn, and gave it to Crow. He nodded, pocketing it.
"This should be the last piece I need," Crow said. "Meet me back at the cryptolith."
Hunter nodded, heading for the Cryptolith while Croaw teleported up to the ship where he could work without being interruoted by Taken or Scorn. After a few minutes, Osiris teleported down beside the Cyptolith just as Hunter and Elsie reached it, nodding to them in greeting.
"I've been learning what I can about the High Celebrant," Osiris said. "It moved to the Dreaming City, or was moved, some time ago, and now has the ability to travel between the ethereal and Ascendant Planes. I've learned that in order to truly kill it, you must do so in the Ascendant Plane."
Hunter nodded. "That shouldn't be a problem."
Osiris nodded just as Crow warped down next to them again. Osiris filled him in as well, and Crow likewise said it shouldn't be too hard. Then, he turned to Hunter.
"There's a separate Cryptolith where I need you to set this up," Crow said. "I'll go and track the High Celebrant, that way we can ambush it when it arrives."
Hunter nodded, accepting the lure, and Crow teleported away. Hunter summoned his Sparrow for him and Elsie to ride, and a few minutes later, they reached the Cryptolith.
"Crow, are you there?" Spark asked.
"Sort of," Crow answered. "I tracked the High Celebrant through a portal into swirling darkness."
"A door to the Ascendant Plane," Spark informed him.
"As I said, swirling darkness," Crow reiterated. "I've been studying how it moves through these realms. It's like a shark sliding through black waters."
"Whatever you think about it, we're deploying the lure now," Hunter said. "Be ready to have to chase it."
He set the lure down and activated it, then turned around as it sent out a green energy pulse.
"Hah!" Crow laughed suddenly. "Tagged it! It's bleeding energy and on its way back to you!"
A moment later, it appeared, Hunter and Elsie to opening fire on it instantly, oy for it to begin teleporting around the courtyard they were in, firing back with its gigantic Hive Boomer. They moved quickly and carefulky, avoiding the High Celebrant's returning fire while peppering it with their rifles. Finally, it vanished, leaving a pitch black sphere behind, floating in an archway in the center of the courtyard.
"It fled back into the Ascendant Plane, but what's that it left behind?" Spark asked.
"Let's find out," Hunter said, walking forward.
"I told you I tagged it," Crow said. "That's residual energy. A blood trail. Destroy it, and the essences in the lure should reopen the portal."
Hunter retrieved the lure, then fired a dozen shots into the sphere. Just as it burst, the lure released a pulse of energy and Hunter and Elsie were dragged into the Ascendant Plane. Ahead of them was a glowing green trail of some kind of goo, similar to the blood the Wrathborn left behind when they all tried to flee. Hunter and Elsie followed the trail quickly.
"The Celebrant seeks to bring more territory under Xivu Arath's control," Osiris said. "Be quick. She will not be pleased with tresspassers."
"Don't piss of the Hive God, got it," Hunter said as they passed through another portal out of the Ascendant Plane, continuing to follow the green trail, including dropping through a hlone in the ground into some kind of temple-like structure. "We made it through and back to the Dreaming City. Still tracking the Celebrant, but no sign yet. Where are you, Crow?"
"At your coordinates," Crow said. "Walking on the other side of the sane coin."
"How the fuck..." Hunter trailed off and shook his head.
He shouldn't be surprised that Uldren Sov's reanimsted body could access the Ascendant Plane as he wished.
"The way I see it, as long as we're in both planes, he has nowhere to hide," Crow said as Hunter abd Elsie entered a large, open, round chamber where the Celebrant appeared before them.
"Celebrant sighted!" Spark reported as Elsie and Hunter went to work.
Except, their shots weren't effective now.
"Crow, you know that thing you did to be able to kill Wrathborn?" Hunter asked. "We need that."
"You mean reclaimed light?" Crow asked. "Understood. Sending some your way."
Reclaimed Light was a sort of misleading name. It was actually enemies who were partway through becoming Wrathborn, allowing them to have bits of Xivu Arath's power that Hunter and Elsie could use to hurt the Celebrant. When a group of Hive appeared from a portal a moment later, Hunter and Elsie slaughtered them before stepping in the pool of Xivu Arath's energy shining from under the group.
"We've flushed them out of the Ascendant Plane and into the open!" Glint told Hunter and Elsie.
"Already got them," Hunter said.
"I just shot them until they ran," Crow was saying to Glint, "but I like the way you put it better."
After a few moments, Hunter managed to score an entire burst into the Celebrant's face, and it retreated to the Ascendant Plane instantly, leaving a portsl behind. Hunter and Elsie charged after him without a moment's hesitation, finding another glowing green trail behind.
"To think, you can enter this plane using nothing but dead essences," Osiris mused.
Finally, they found another sphere of residual energy and shot it, a pulse from the lure pulling them both out of the Ascendant Plane and back to the Dreaming City.
"Xivu Arath strikes where Savathun first punched through the veil and entered the Dreaming City," Osiris commented almost anusedly, or mockingly. "Has she no amition of her own?"
Finally, they reached what looked like a throne room, and the High Celebrant appeared at the far end. They ran toward him, but when he vanished into the Ascendant realm, leaving behind a Wrathborn Ogre, he failed to leave behind a way into the Ascendant Realm with him. Hunter huled a SIVA Grenade, and it exploded against the Ogre's head before the SIVA drones it unleashed burrowed into it and exploded into equally violent explosions, killing it.
"The High Celebrant has stopped bleeding energy," Hunter reported. "We can't follow him into the Ascendant Plane."
"I think it realized we marked it and sealed the portal behind itself," Glint said.
"We're trapped in here?" Crow asked, then was only static when he tried to speak again, then silence.
"If your companions are trapped in the Ascendant Plane with the Celebrant, then they are already lost," Osiris said. "Like Sagira."
"Not yet," Hunter said. "I think there's enough Hive Magic left in the lure to open another way through."
He set down the lure and activated it. A pulse of energy shot off of it, the world around them growing slightly hazy. Off to the right, Hunter could just barely make out several floating chunks of walkway. He leapt from one to the next, and Elsie followed as their communicators crackled to life again.
"-hope you can hear this," Crow's slightly distorted voice said. "The High Celebrsnt turned it around on us. The hunter becomes the hunted. I wanted to...Look, if things get ugly in here for us, just know it's not your fault. Everything I did, I did because I wanted to. Thank you, for letting me have a choice."
"The fuck kind of bullshit's coming out of this bastard's mouth?" Hunter scoffed. "Letting him have a choice. I'm the one with no choice. Otherwise I'd have shot him by now."
"It sounds like Crow respects you," Elsie said before her tone became more strict and forcibly emphasized. "You should make friends with him."
Hunter groaned. "See? No choice."
Elsie smiled knowingly as they reached a portal to the Ascendant Plane at last and leapt through, landing on a floating chunk of ground.
"Crow, you still kicking?" Hunter asked.
"Nothing in here I can't handle," Crow said.
"What are you talking about!?" Glint snapped. "The last thing you'll be doing is kicking! The Celebrant broke your legs and threw you into an abyss!"
Hunter rolled his eyes.
"Nothing I can't handle," Crow repeated. "The Celebrant's up ahead, and I think I have a plan."
Just then, Hunter and Elsie reached a huge, round chamber with a catwalk wrapping around half the wall as an upoer level and a ramp leading up to it, just as the High Celebrant appeared.
"For Sagira!" Spark said.
As they opened fire, Hive began to swarm in, Elsie cloaking and moving to slaughter them, Hunter lending a hand where he could but mostly focusing on the Celebrant.
"Are you keeping it busy?" Crow asked. "I'm nearly at the portal where you came in."
"Take your-"
A Knight slashed Hunter's rifle out of his hands, and Hunter spun around the Knight, leaping onto its back and driving a knife into its neck, killing it. As he landed on his feet, he drew Worldline Zero and shot forward, carving his way through the Hive rapidly, reaching the High Celebrant in seconds.
"Are you okay?" Crow asked.
"Fine!" Hunter shouted over the chaotic orchestra of him spinning and slashing his way through any Hive creatures standing between him and the Celebrant.
However, when the Hive had unilaterally begun to target him, Elsie had switched her focus to the High Celebrant, so there was no shortage of Hive to get in Hunter's way.
"Like Osiris said," Crow said. "The High Celebrant must die in the Ascendant Plane, and you are our best shot at making that happen."
Just as Hunter brust free of the Hive and shot toward the Celebrant, the Celebrant teleported away.
"He's leaving!" Elsie warned.
"Energy readings are spiking!" Spark warned. "He's going to create another portal!"
"The fuck he is!" Hunter snapped, hurling Worldline Zero in a blurred disk.
A split second later, it impaled the retreating Celebrant between teleportation, and as it reappeared the next time, it collapsed. Hunter and Elsie charged, Hunter grabbing his rifle and putting it away before drawing a pair of knives and Elsie firing at it already with her own rifle. Several Hive Knights and a Wizard moved to stope them, only for Hunter to take down all of the knights in under a second before hurling a dagger through the Wizard's barrier and into its eye, killing it. He put the other dagger away, forming a replacement from SIVA, then flipped over the High Celebrant in time to rip Worldline Zero out of its back. It roared and tried to form a portal, only for the portal to instantly seal. It tried again, but another sealed. It teleported away from Hunter again just as Hive swarmed him once again, Elsie struggling against her own swarm.
"I survived by watching the world around me and learning from my Light," Crow said. "I've studied how that thing creates those portals. I'm on the other side. You're smoking it out, Guardian, but if I block the exit, it burns."
Hunter switched to wielding Worldline Zero one-handed, drawing a dagger in the other hand, and rapidly slaughtered his way through the Hive. Finally, he launched himself forward, twisting himself into a spin and shredding his way through several Knights, swords and all, then transitioned into a lunging slash at the High Celebrant just as Crow spoke again.
"Now!" Crow shouted. "Kill him!"
Hunter's sword separated the Celebrant's body across the torso, and it crashed to the ground, burning away, though not before Hunter removed its head and used his Light to stop it doing the same.
"The High Celebrant of Xivu Arath is no more," Osiris spoke up as Hunter rapidly finished off the Hive heading for Elsie as well. "How did you manage that?"
"Crow destroyed its portal from the other side when it tried to escape," Spark said.
"Glad you stuck around, Crow," Hunter said. "You've got skill, and potential."
"Thank you," Crow said. "Oh, bring ita head, would you? Spider will want proof."
"Way ahead of you," Hunter said. "Meet us at my ship first, though. There's a small...augmentation I want to make to Glint. Trust me, it's worth it."
Crow nodded, and they left, heading back closer to Hunter and Elsie's ship before warping onto it. Hunter quickly had Spark scan Glint for the explosives Spider implanted, then quickly disabled it and removed it with his SIVA. Once he was finished, they flew back to Spider, Hunter dropping the Celebrant's head at Spider's feet.
"So it is," Spider nodded. "So it is. As a reward, in the effort to maintain a...positive opinion of further collaberation, you can have a prize bauble from my lair."
"I want him," Hunter said, nodding to Crow.
"Cute," Spider said. "Real funny. Adter the very large fortune you cost me by turning that prison over to the Awoken for free, I should warn you that my patience for jokes is exceedingly low."
"Then it's a good thing I'm not joking," Hunter said, hand resting on the Ace of Spades' grip, the Fallen around them bristling. "We've been here before, Spider. You know how this works. Even Crow can't stop me, and he can be revived once his reason to fight ne has repainted the walls."
Spider snarled angrily before sighing, reclining in his chair. "Get the hell out of my lair."
Hunter nodded, and Elsie walked out, followed by Crow, before Hunter followed.
"What will you do now?" Hunter asked Crow as they got outside.
"I don't know," Crow said. "It doesn't feel real. Why would you do this for us? I've seen the way you look at me."
Hunter sighed, shaking his head. "You remind me of someone, but you're not them. You're your own person, and you're a Guardian. We help one another."
Crow smiled and nodded. "Thank you. I think I'll go to the tower. It's time for me to be around other Guardians."
Hunter nodded. "I should warn you, now. Others will probably be slow to trust you as well."
Crow nodded. "I understand."
They all warped back to their respective ships, and all flew back to Tower.
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