Chapter 8

New York was a barren wasteland. Eroded skyscrapers stood into the sky, destroyed vehicles littered the streets, some of them still containing skeletons. We walked as a group towards the reference point on where the Fallen establishment was. I was in the front, constantly checking the map to see our location. Jasmin and Leslie were chatting it up both of them sometimes blushing. Arc and Alex were in the back of the pack, doing the same as the girls. Rev was to our right, constantly looking around. Not sure if he's doing that to stay aware, or he's looking for something valuable to collect.

We come up at the reference point. "Jason, why'd we stop?" Leslie asked. I don't answer but I look around trying to spot anything Fallen. 'Nothing to me left, or right, or on the ground.' I thought, 'Then what if…' I look up and sure enough, there's signs of fallen activity in the two towers we are standing under. A collapsed sky crane connects the two towers, which explains why Cayde wanted two teams for this.

"You've got to be kidding." Rev complains as he looks up. "Well, Fallen aren't exactly the jokesters." says Arc. I notice that the crane is sloped up towards the tower to the right, that means it should be where the leader is, whoever it is. "Alright guys," I finally say, "Let's get climbing. My team will take the right tower, and Leslie's team will take the left tower." Jasmin stomps her foot, "Are you kidding me, that's like 75 stories up. Do you expect us to climb all that?" "Or, you can use the grappling hook that every guardian has on their belt." I point to mine on my waist. She nods in agreement, "Or yeah, we can use that. I forget we have that."

As soon as we enter the building, we notice that the floors have chunks of it missing, probably to give ease of access for shanks or any other transport. Luckily it made it easy to grapple, allowing us to jump about 6-8 floors at time. "How are you guys holding up?" I said into the comms, with Leslie shortly replying. "We're holding up. Luckliy the fire escape is large enough so we can use grapples, but only one at a time." "Alright, stay safe and keep an eye out."

Once we got to the 70th floor, it was just simple climbing. The Fallen broke down the floors so they sloped into the next one. Suddenly, an alarm goes off in the building, and Fallen start to rush us. "Jason, what's going on? I hear a siren." I shoot a dreg's head off and it explodes, killing its comrades. "Oh, we just tripped an alarm; I think it's just our building. Stay wary!" A vandal got too close so I blasted it with my Stolen Will. Arc was using his sniper to pick off Vandals on the opposite ends of the room, while Alex was machine gunning his way up the floors. A group of Vandals burst through a door, and my hud pings them as gold, instead of red. "Alex!" I yell at him and point to the mob. He jumps and glows purple, a short hiss is heard before he flicks his hand, shooting out 3 balls of powerful void light. The vandals immediately combust once the bombs come in contact with them, dematerializing into nothing. As soon as he touches the ground, orbs of light drop from his being. He stands up to look at his left hand, then clenches it. "Gets stronger every time." I run by him to absorb the orbs of light, "Not the time to be admiring your destruction, let's move."

We get to the 75th floor and finally see the crane bridge. It was built upon to actually serve as a bridge. Its metal parts mended with concrete to provide a strong, supportive bridge. We continue onward until we reach a set of closed doors. We countdown to breach, but once inside, we see an empty throne, and a shank floating next to it, looking at us. It didn't attack us, but was just hovering. Suddenly, it begins speaking. "Hello vile creatures of the darkness. We knew of your arrival by the spotting of the scouts a time ago. We knew you would send your team of six, splitting them once you got to these towers. We also knew you would send your strongest soldiers here, leaving the weaker ones in the other tower." No, that means… Suddenly, I hear Leslie is calling out in the comms, "Jason! Help us! They ambushed us! We're being captured! Please hurry, they're-" static. The shank continued, "So, we are going to capture your allies and drain them of their power for our use. You have a choice here. Abandon you're allies and flee alive, or attempt a rescue that will lead to your death. The choice is yours." I shoot the shank, exploding it into pieces. "You guys ready?" Alex rearms his machine gun, "Of course. No guardian left behind." Arc twirls his throwing knife around his finger, "Let's go rescue our friends." With that we take off running across the bridge.

We land in a small room which served as the landing point for the other side of the bridge. To the right we see an emergency escape. Alex takes a quick peek and notices it's a starwell. We make no of it and continue onward. I had Pyro ping the location of our closest team member. We sprint into a hallway and into another open doorway. We run into the room and down the slope. In the room directly in front of us, we see Jasmin desperately fighting off Fallen, but they held her and kept forcing her into the machine. Supposedly, this machine drains a guardian of its light, leaving them as dry as a raisin. I throw an incendiary grenade, blowing up all the Fallen around her. She drops to the ground, still weak from fighting. "Hurry," she says "they took Rev and Leslie deeper into the building. The probably have the same fate as me." Alex takes her towards the emergency exit so they can grapple to the ground. Arc and I continue on.

Fallen try getting in the way, hoping to buy some time for their allies to drain my friends. A group of Dregs run out of room and start firing at us. I shoot one in the head and it explodes, bringing the rest of its squad with him. I peek into the room they came from and hear something ticking. We check the room and notice they have a bomb ticking down. "Pyro, scan this bomb and give me some info." He scans the device in blue light for a few seconds and reports back. We take off sprinting again as he briefs me. "They set up lots of explosives in this building. It looks like they plan on blowing up the structure. Current time left is 25 minutes."

We bust down a door to find Rev screaming in pain. He was already trapped in the device. It looks like a blue cylinder, but its back was all metal. Arc and I start firing at the Fallen at the machine, quickly dropping them before they can react. Arc has his ghost start working on disabling the machine. In the meantime, two groups of Fallen run through the doors, one a group of dregs and the other shanks. Quickly, they spread out around the room. Maybe they saw what happened to their other squads if I headshot one of them. I throw a grenade and take out a chunk of their forces. I start to shoot down the shanks as Arc begins working on the dregs. His scout rifle's deadly accuracy was helping him shoot the dregs' heads clean off. As we killed the last dreg, two captains come through the doors, armed with arc blades. I pull out my sword and have my Imago Loop ready on my left hand. Arc arms himself with his knife and scout rifle. One captain charges and slashes at me. I roll to the side as I fire to take down his shield. He slashes again and I block his attack, emptying the rest of my magazine into his body, disabling his shield. He recoils and steps back. I kick him off and spin to slash straight through his neck, decapitating him. When I look up, I see Arc standing over the captain, sprawled on the floor. He aims the barrel to its head and fires, leaving it motionless. Just in time we see the machine deactivate and Rev drop in exhaustion. "Arc, you take him." He looks at me, "Are you sure?" I nod, "Yeah, I have to go save my friend." Arc begins to carry him away and I take off sprinting.

I run down two more floors till I find what I'm looking for. In the room was 2 things; the machine with Leslie in it, and the Fallen controlling it. The Fallen turns around at its ID'd as Tesian, Baron Exiled. He turns and begins to speak, but ghost translates it. "Ah Elinski, you have arrived. I had a hunch that this one was important. It's a good thing I saved her for the deepest parts of the tower." I had ghost translate what I said to him, "Let her go Baron." What I said came out as growls due to the translation. I aim my Imago Loop at him. "Ah no, we can't have that can we?" He says as he presses a button on the control panel behind him and my Imago Loop and Stolen Will shoot up to the ceiling and stick. "What? But how?" I stutter. He laughs and unsheathes his twin arc blades, "We are going to have a match of honor, pest." I sigh and unclip my Raze Lighter from my belt, "Very well, but I'm going to make this quick." I begin to whisper, "Hey Pyro, get ready to jump out and start disabling the machine once I'm close enough, alright?" Futuristic clicking is heard from my ear, "Alright Jason, I get it. Good luck."

The Baron charges at me at full speed, so I dodge roll to the left. He crashes into a wall but shakes it off rather quickly. I got close enough to the panel for Pyro to begin disabling. Good thing Tesian didn't notice. He charges again but slower, most likely to slash. Sure enough, his right arm slashes diagonally down, then his left does the same. I parry his right slash and I slash him a few times in the torso. The sharpness of my blade left a deep cut in his torso, which only seemed to make him more angry. He charged with the same attack, only when I side-stepped to avoid his slash he punched me in the side. The sudden hit made me recoil, so he took this opportunity to strike. His blade cut my right arm and the left side of my chest. The blade must have been extremely sharp to cut through my armor. I regained my footing and this time I was on the attack. I slashed so fast Tesian need both his swords to block my attacks. I managed to get a hit by slicing off his lower left arm. The heat of the blade instantly cauterized the wound. His anger was leading him to become more sloppy but powerful. He tried to bring down both blades on me, but I dodged and sliced off his other lower arm. He roared in pain and surprised striked me, cutting my left cheek, even through my armor. I felt the draft through the fracture. Suddenly I heard the machine deactivate, and Leslie drops motionless. Tesian quickly drops one of his blades and grabs Leslie. He holds his blade up to her neck, "You step any closer and she dies." "Uh, Jason, you have 5 minutes until the bombs blow." Well damn, looks like I'm in a pickle. "Let her go," I say as I step forward, "or you die in her stead. I take another step forward and he slashes her arm, making her scream in pain. I suddenly hear Pyro's voice out loud, "Oh boy, now you've done it."

My body is engulfed in flames. Tesian backs up but doesn't drop her. An anvil strike later, a silver flaming hammer is summoned in my left hand. I throw it at him but purposely miss, landing behind him to burn his back. He lurches forward in pain and I quickly move forward. Another hammer appears in my hand and I strike Tesian under the head, knocking him away from her. I notice she starts to move, which gives me some assurance. I continue walking forward towards Tesian, who is sitting on the floor dazed. He refocuses as I get closer to him and begins to shuffle backwards until he hits a wall. I stand in front of him and strike him on the side of the head with my hammer, making him fall on his side. "You… you monster! You wield power undeserving to you!" I crouch down and look down at him. "Undeserving? Ridiculous. You brought this down on yourself but hurting my friends. Sadly, I am just fresh out of mercy to spare once you brought pain to that girl. The only reward you are getting out of this is death. The reaper is here for you." Tesian begins to cough and hack, "You claim to be the reaper, yet the reaper controls darkness! Not light!" "Wrong," I say as I stand up, "the reaper controls fire." With that, I impale my sword into his head, then withdrawing. My flames die down and my hammer disappears as I run for Leslie. Ghost transported my weapons to my inventory already, luckily. Leslie was laying face down when I turned her over. I took off her helmet and checked her vitals. She was breathing and still had a pulse, wonderful. "Leslie? Are you okay?" She slowly opens her eyes. She looks at me and touches the wound on my cheek, still bleeding, "You're hurt, I'm sorry." "Leslie we have to get out of here, c'mon." As I begin to pick her up Pyro suddenly yells, "Jason, this place is about to blow! We won't make it to the stairwell!" I look around the room desperately until I had an idea. "How much longer?" "Literally like 10 seconds!" I smile and say, "Perfect." I back up to one side of the room and throw a grenade at the windows, shattering them open. I grab Leslie bridal-style and begin sprinting towards the window. I happen to miscount how much time I have left because instead of doing a jump and controlled descent 67 stories, the bombs exploded right as I got in front of the window, blasting me forward and out the window.

Now in moments like this I usually have a plan B, but when you just got shot out of an exploding building like a guardian-sized cannonball and currently plummeting down to earth very fast, there's not much I can do. Time seemed to slow down as we fell. I made sure I didn't lose grip of Leslie, even when upside down. Aha! I hatched a plan, I slowly moved us in the air so I was falling backwards. I looked over my shoulder and saw the ground was approaching fast. I closed my eyes and used Lift as we got closer to the ground and eventually came in contact with earth.