Chapter Seven: Unity and Diversity in One Body

Cayde-6 descended the short flight of stairs that led down into the Vanguards' office with a visible lightness to his usual swagger. Both Ikora and Zavala looked to him and glared in silence.

"All right team, what's our status?" He asked as he took his spot at the large war table, absently fiddling with a few of the various instruments he kept scattered over his map.

Ikora frowned at him. "Where have you been? It's already past noon."

"Hmm?" Cayde looked over to her. "I told you, I went out for a walk."

"Walks don't normally take sixteen hours." Ikora replied flatly.

Zavala jumped in. "Nor do they comprise of galavanting through the City like Tarzan."

"Oh." Cayde nodded, his bravado swiftly diminishing. "You saw that?"

Zavala continued. "They also do not traditionally include trips to the other side of the globe." The titan vanguard furrowed his brow and leaned forward against the table. "What were you doing in Old Accra, Cayde?"

Cayde took a breath to think. "Business." He replied simply.

Zavala clenched his squared jaw, his bright blue skin tightening with tension around his temples. His voice grew deeper, more stern and commanding. "Don't you dare lie to me. Not again."

Ikora Rey placed a reassuring hand on the titan's shoulder. She spoke with measured, tacit calm. "We need full transparency on your dealings, Cayde. We don't need something biting us in the back after this is all over."

Cayde scoffed at that. "Please, I'm just making sure we have a back to bite after this Judas thing."

Zavala roared at him, "That's the kind of callous disregard that got us into this mess!"

Cayde shot back. "Uh, excuse me? If I recall correctly, what got us into this pile of shit was your inability to pull the trigger in the first place. If you had just voted for the death penalty we wouldn't be here!"

The titan stood straight and tall. "Because of you we lost our best agents!"

The hunter cocked his head to one side. "Because you went behind my back!"

"What do you think you're doing now?"

"Fixing your mistakes!"

"They're all our mistakes, Cayde." Zavala nearly bit his tongue and kept his mouth shut as he took a fuming breath. His fists were clenched at his sides and radiating with deep, swirling purple energy.

Ikora Rey slid in between the two men and slammed her hands down on the table once. She did not speak until both of them were silent and focused on her. "Enough, both of you. Placing blame will not accomplish anything. We need a real plan, and we need to trust each other. Cayde, where were you? What were you doing? No lies or half-truths."

Cayde drummed his fingers against the table lightly as he thought of the best way around this conversation. "I was in Old Accra chasing a hunch. I think we might have a way to track down..." He paused and looked over his shoulder to see the wide-open door and several thin frames working in the corner. "To track down our prodigal son."

Ikora and Zavala shared a worried look. The warlock asked, "What did you have in mind?"

"Gehenna." Cayde nearly whispered.

"You found them?" Zavala inquired. "They were off the grid for a full year."

Cayde shrugged. "Easy to find things if you remember where you put them."

Zavala scowled again. "What did you do?"

Cayde snapped his fingers rapidly. "Hey, focus, here. You wanna yell at each other for that, we can do it later. Anyway, I gave them some information on where our problem child could be, and have them scouting for suspicious activity. They're on standby in case we get a solid lead on where he is."

"Can they be trusted?" Zavala asked.

Cayde offered a weak shrug in response. "Eh… 'bout as far as you could throw them. Wait," He looked the titan up and down, "About as far as Ikora could throw them."

Zavala sighed.

"Calm down, they're the best in their field and I told them not to engage with the target if at all possible." Cayde tried to reassure the titan.

"They're also brash hunters who haven't had to take orders for a year. They likely will not stick to protocol or even suggestions that don't suit them." Zavala groaned and held his face in his hands.

"Well, I wouldn't say that." Cayde offered.

Ikora spoke up once more, softly but with surety. "Where are they currently?"

Cayde looked down to his wrist as if it had a watch to tell him the time. "Right now? They should be crawling around on Venus."

Ikora looked to Zavala. "We could each send a trusted guardian to join them and oversee their search. Someone on assignment nearby would be ideal in order to rendezvous with Gehenna more quickly."

Zavala took another deep breath and nodded. "Yes." He pressed a few buttons and inputs onto the war table's holographic display. "Now, which of my titans are on Venus?" He muttered.

"Add warlocks to the parameters." Ikora added. "I need to know which of them is the most capable to assist."

Cayde crossed his arms in front of him. "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

Zavala looked to him. "If I had my way, I'd send a dozen titans to apprehend him."

"Wouldn't work." Cayde explained simply.

"We know." Ikora interjected. "An army is too obvious. Two sketchy hunters are not strong enough. This is a perfectly viable compromise."

Cayde shrugged and let the other vanguard peruse their options. "All right, fine. I'll let them know who to meet up with as soon as we know more. But I'm telling you," He looked down to his area of the table and ran his fingers along a vintage compass, "I know what I'm doing. Gehenna can find the target, and if they aren't strong enough, then we have a backup plan right here." He paused and looked down to his assorted instruments on his map. In an instant of panic he paused. "Well, we did."

Zavala looked to Cayde. "What are you on about?"

Cayde stared down blankly at the map, his optics flitting between the compass, the pen, the inkwell, and back. It wasn't there. "I, uhh, need to go check on something." He turned and started up the stairs.

"Another walk?" Ikora suggested cheekily.

"Just," Cayde looked to them both as he walked up the stairs, "Just check and make sure everything you've been working on is going smoothly. You guys seen Phoenix?"

Ikora and Zavala shared another nervous glance. This time Zavala spoke. "Not since this morning. He was here with his team for some reason."

"Perhaps Shaxx knows more." Ikora offered before going back to the list of potential candidates for their newest secret mission.

"Shit." Cayde muttered under his breath and walked out of the Vanguard office.

Cayde-6 hailed Lord Shaxx with a wave, which the Crucible handler acknowledged with a silent nod. Cayde approached the huge titan, clad in pale and orange armor with furred pauldrons and a visorless one-horned helmet, with caution. No matter how jovially he sometimes seemed and how easygoing Cayde was, Lord Shaxx inspired fear and respect in equal measure. His desk and wall of the hallway, littered with trophies taken from his personal kills against the minions of the Darkness, were testament to that.

"Good afternoon, Cayde." Shaxx spoke softly but with distinguished cadence, stood a little taller and held his hands on his hips. "I trust all is well?"

"Opposite, actually. Lord Shaxx, did you see Fireteam Pluto this morning?" Cayde asked hopefully.

"Indeed. They were here bright and early, though it seems out of character for them." Shaxx paused and considered Cayde's question a little more carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"What were they doing?"

Shaxx chuckled under his breath and gathered himself before speaking. "Apparently they wanted to bicker. They had a short conversation with a warlock, I assume one of Ikora's special agents, and then Phoenix asked me for a copy of their battles in the Trials of Osiris." Shaxx paused again, stifling a chuckle. "I told him every fight worth remembering was recorded for him. I handed him a blank drive." He let out a single, harking laugh, "Ha!"

Even Cayde had to admit, as far as practical jokes went, that was the best he'd heard of Shaxx pulling. Nonetheless, he did not share in the titan's laughter. "And after that?"

Shaxx shook his head. "I had matches to oversee, I could not keep my eye on them long. After that, though, they left in short order." Shaxx called out over Cayde's shoulder to the thin frame across the hall from them. "Arcite! Do you remember where Fireteam Pluto went this morning?"

The frame, Arcite-99, jolted upright to address Lord Shaxx. It bowed its head once before speaking. Its voice was completely synthetic and awkwardly paced. "They dispersed individually. First, the warlocks left. Separately. Then the hunter departed, mentioning that he would like to track down one of the warlocks."

"Ikora's man? I couldn't imagine why he'd want to follow his teammate." Cayde suggested.

Arcite went on without regarding him. "Then the titan was alone, and visibly annoyed. He asked Lord Shaxx about obtaining a specific warlock robe. I generously directed him to miss Eva Levante's shop." It was silent for a moment, looking expectantly to Cayde and then to Lord Shaxx, then bent down again to continue its work.

"Thank you, Arcite." Lord Shaxx nodded. "What would I do without him? There's your answer, Cayde. Or do you prefer the title of Speaker?"

"Cayde's just fine, thanks."

"When can we expect you back in the Crucible? As infuriating as you were to watch, you gave other hunters a goal to aspire to." Shaxx chuckled, almost pained.

"Probably never." Cayde admitted absently. The hunter looked to the entrance of the Vanguards' office. Eris Morn sat cross-legged between the two flights of stairs leading up to the main Tower plaza on either side of the hall. "Well, we've got a mystery on our hands." He muttered as he made his way down the hall. On his way up the stairs, Eris hissed at him. He rolled his optics.

At the apex of the stairs that spilled into the plaza, flooded with bright daylight from a cloudless day, Cayde's ghost spoke into his head, "Distress call from Phoenix."

Cayde perked up and picked up the pace, weaving through a crowd of guardians that tried to part for him too late. "Answer. Where from?"

"The Tower." His ghost responded before answering the call.

Good, Cayde thought, at least he's close by.

"Uhm, hello? Is this thing working?" A female voice came through Cayde's headset.

"This better be good, sweetheart." Cayde groaned, obviously disappointed.

She seemed to squeak and recoil away from the microphone. "Well Cayde, this is Skye. Phoenix's ghost."

"Ghosts aren't supposed to be able to make calls on their own." Cayde said as he found the elevator station. "But whatever. Where are you two?"

"The Speaker's office. Come quick, something really bad happened." Her voice was quiet but distressed. If a ghost could cry, Skye was on the verge of doing so.

Cayde slid into the nearest unoccupied elevator and shut the door before any other guardians could enter. He punched in the correct floor and sighed. "I'm on the way. Was I the first call?"

Skye's voice crackled with a short burst of static. "You were the first name he put on his emergency contact list. I'll make calls to the rest of the team now."

"Got it. Clear comms, Skye. I'm on my way." As the call ended and the silence overcame him in the rumbling elevator, Cayde laid the back of his head against the wall. "What a day."

/-/-/

"What happened here?" Cayde nearly shoved the thick doors of the Speaker's old office open, leaving it to swing open wide and slam against the foyer wall. The room was bathed in artificial lights from the auxiliary fluorescent bulbs embedded in the floor near the walls. Three golden pillars remained standing, and Cayde noticed that several of the blood-red banners had fallen to the ground in heaps.

The hunter vanguard stepped forward hastily, scanning the room further with each step. The round table and the objects upon it were unmoved. The fake Speaker was slumped down on the ground in front of chair he had been propped up in for weeks.

Phoenix lay sprawled on the ground perfectly still and barely breathing between the table and the entrance. His head lolled to one side, his eyes half-closed and glazed over. A dried pool of blood matted his messy brown hair to the floor in sticky red-brown strands. Instinctively Cayde dropped down to one knee and laid two fingers on the young hunter's throat, waiting for the pulse of a heartbeat to allay his fears. Thankfully, after a moment of tense hopelessness he felt a single, weak pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Skye, Phoenix's ghost, hovered over her guardian's body staring up at Cayde hopefully.

"What happened?" Cayde repeated as he produced a collapsible electronic tablet from his belt. He hummed a tune while he browsed through a series of ancillary applications. At last he found the medical scanner app and promptly opened it.

"Phoenix followed a warlock here. Then he knocked him out and left." The ghost reported sadly.

"Any names? Identifying markers?" Cayde asked. He held the device over Phoenix's head and examined the scanner's results as he spoke.

Skye seemed to nod solemnly. "He introduced himself as Simon. He wore all black."

"Hefty fracture and hairline cracks originating from the back of the cranium. He must have gone down hard." Cayde shook his head slightly and ran the scanner over the rest of Phoenix's body, walking around him in a slow circle.

"He didn't at first, but he struggled and lost control at the end. And Simon stepped on his head. Hard." Her voice rose in panic, fear, and anger at the memory. "I fixed the bleeding but couldn't help with anything else."

That piqued Cayde's interest. "Why not? Don't ghosts have atomic reconstruction abilities? What's stopping you from healing all of this right away?" He glanced at the scanner's results once the device in his hand gave off a single high-pitched beep.

"Something's blocking me. Whatever Simon did to Phoenix, it affects me too. Our light is… separated. I think that's the best way to describe it."

"Are the other members of Pluto on the way?" He asked absently as he flipped through his device's pages of recently acquired data. He stood up straight and stretched his sore legs.

"Commander Roy is. As soon as I told him where we were, he started running."

"And the warlock?"

"Didn't answer the call." Skye sighed in resignation.

Cayde looked down to Phoenix, still unconscious, and shrugged. "One thing at a time, then. We have to get him up and get you kids out of Dodge."

"What do you mean - " Skye started.

Before she could continue, a resounding crash boomed through the entire room as Commander Roy threw aside the thick double-doors with disdain, sending one of them flying off its hinges and dropping to the ground heavily. "Where is my best friend?!"

Cayde watched, took a step away from Phoenix, and pointed down toward him without a word.

"No!" Roy shouted and ran forward, sliding down onto his knees, crawling over to Phoenix's limp form, and picking him up to cradle him in his thick arms. Cayde only now realized that the titan was wearing a ridiculously long neon-pink warlock coat.

"I'm not even going to ask." Cayde muttered as he finished examining his scans of Phoenix's vitals.

"Is he gonna make it, doc?" Roy asked through teary eyes. He looked up to Cayde, sniffled, and wiped his nose with one of the warlock coat's sleeves.

Cayde looked down to Phoenix, to Roy, and back again. "Should be fine, once we figure out what the hell happened."

"Oh!" Roy perked up and dropped Phoenix, allowing the hunter's head to smack against the titan's lap. "That's right! I was supposed to tell you what Simon said!" He smiled wide with pride. "Well actually it's what Eve said. But anyway, we met a black guy named Simon this morning on our way to see Shaxx, he hugged Phoenix, and then Phoenix started going after him."

"Skye, translate?" Cayde asked the ghost desperately.

"Early in the morning Simon was coming out of the Vanguards' office. He stopped and talked to Phoenix for a bit, something weird came over him and he got really close. Then he left, Phoenix started after him, and here we are." Skye sighed and looked to Phoenix again. If anything, he seemed to be growing paler and his breaths became steadily shallower.

"I guess." Roy frowned. "It was weird though because he was there before Ikora and Zavala." He ran his fingers through his black, thick beard thoughtfully. "Curiouser and curiouser."

"No one comes to the office when we're out." Cayde mused, pocketing his scanning device. He looked to Skye and offered, somewhat reassuringly, "The rest of his vitals check out. Just the head trauma, the coma, and being cut off from your light."

"Gee, thanks." Skye replied sadly. "One other thing that might help you. We did a database check, there's no warlocks named Simon registered with the Tower."

"I know." Cayde hung his head low and looked to Skye. "Do you remember the last time you guys were here? The big fight with the Speaker, all that?" He gestured to the broken pillar, the fallen banners, the stuffed fake Speaker, and the broken astrolabe on the table.

"No." Commander Roy stated matter-of-factly.

Cayde ignored him. "Well, that device that I showed you? Little thing, triangle?" He held his hand out as if for scale. "It was designed to trap the light of powerful guardians like Phoenix. I used to keep it in my office on my desk, you know, hiding in plain sight. But," He took a seething breath and then spoke quickly, "It's gone now. Can't find it. At all."

"And?" Skye asked, clearly impatient.

"And," Cayde continued, "There are only a handful of people who know what that thing is used for or capable of. And only about as many people know the prophecy about Phoenix."

"There's a prophecy about Phoenix?" Roy asked, head tilted to one side. "He never told me."

"He brags about it all the time." Skye sighed, looking down to her guardian in Roy's lap.

"Then I don't remember." Roy shrugged.

"Anyway," Cayde interjected, clearly not amused, "What that means is that someone very dangerous is after Phoenix, and I think Simon is that someone. He knocked Phoenix out instead of killing him, but he could have done it. And I think he stole the inverse prism from me as well."

Roy's muscles tightened and his jaw clenched. He looked up to Cayde. "That Simon guy did this?" He held Phoenix almost tenderly in his arms.

"I think so. Which means - "

"He's gonna learn today." Roy grunted and raised his clenched fist up, crackling with bright electric energy.

Cayde crossed his arms over his chest. "I appreciate the enthusiasm." He smiled as best he could. His plan was coming along, too slowly but undoubtedly surely. An idea dawned upon him. "Now we just need to wake Phoenix up so I can give you guys your next mission."

"Oh that's easy. Got any pizza?" Roy grinned.

"Excuse me?" Cayde asked, befuddled.

"Oh!" Skye exclaimed, "That's right!" She orbited around Roy and Phoenix happily as she shot out a beam of light that formed into a triangular shape. In an instant a slice of thin-crust New York style pepperoni pizza was dropped down into Roy's waiting palm. It was warm. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Cayde watched in amazement as the scent of pizza overcame the stench of dust and age in the Speaker's chamber and Roy held the slice under Phoenix's nose. All too quickly the young hunter's fingers twitched, he groaned, and his eyes fluttered open, still hazy and half-closed.

"It's working!" Skye squealed jubilantly.

"I mean, I guess." Cayde muttered under his breath and threw his hands up in defeat.

Phoenix slowly opened his eyes further, took a deeper breath, and reached for the pizza. Roy handed it to him and helped his weak fingers fold the slice in half. Within the span of a breath Phoenix was sitting up and taking a nibble of the greasy food on the floor, staring down and holding the back of his skull with his opposite hand.

"There we go!" Roy patted Phoenix on the back gently.

Skye hovered close to Phoenix and shone her beam of light over his wounds. Even standing above them, Cayde could see slow progress as the bone began fusing and sinew began knitting together again.

"Ugh," Phoenix managed to blurt out, "Where am I?"

"The Speaker's office." Cayde explained slowly, still trying to understand what had just happened. "You took a hard hit, kid."

Roy added, "You got knocked the fuck out." His smile never faltered.

"Simon?" Phoenix took a bigger bite, chewing slowly.

"Yeah, he got you good." Cayde looked to Skye, "How's the connection now?"

"Still weak, but getting stronger very slowly. It'll be hours, maybe a whole day before I can heal him like I used to." Skye admitted, though she still worked at closing the visceral injury to the back of Phoenix's head.

"Not ideal." Cayde shrugged. "But I'll take it. You guys up for a mission?"

"Nope." Phoenix said simply, his mouth full of pizza.

Roy inquired carefully, "What kind of mission?"

"A secret one?" Cayde answered, attempting to hold back his desperation.

Phoenix squinted up at Cayde and continued eating. "I'm listening."

Cayde brought his hands together and sighed in genuine relief. "Okay, great. I need you guys to go to, uhh," He paused to think for a blink of an eye, "Pluto. I need you guys to go to Pluto."

Phoenix groaned. "Aww, again? It took forever last time. That's like a nine hour flight. Both ways."

"Road trip!" Commander Roy shouted happily.

Cayde shrugged. "It's where you have to go. Pack a lunch?" He chuckled and offered Phoenix a helping hand to stand on unsteady feet. Once the hunter was standing and leaning on Roy for support, Cayde started back toward the doors. "I'll send you guys the details soon. Make sure you take your warlock buddy with you."

"Oh, okay." Phoenix said as he took a bite of the crust, chewing the tough dough slowly. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, me?" Cayde stopped at the doors and turned around, pointing to himself and then looking around as if to make sure they were not addressing someone else. "I'm gonna get a drink and take a nap. I need one of each. Maybe more."

"That's how you do it!" Roy said, giving Cayde a proper salute as he left, descending down the stairs.

"My head is killing me." Phoenix grumbled as he and Roy followed Cayde down the stairs, only much more slowly and awkwardly. He clutched at the titan's broad shoulder and used him as a crutch. He at last opened his eyes wider and saw what the titan was wearing. "Uhh, Roy, should I even ask about the dress?"

"Nope." Roy answered.

"Okay cool. So we have to go to Pluto?" He tossed the remainder of the pizza crust on the stairs as they walked. "It's so far away, I don't wanna go…"

"I got an idea for that." Roy patted the hunter on the opposite shoulder.

"And we gotta find Koru." Phoenix's lamentations were growing into complaints.

"Already on it." The titan hummed softly to himself as they turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs.

II

Judas slumped against the cold steel wall and clutched at his rapidly tightening chest. His mind scrambled in abhorrent confusion as Methuselah powered the complex on more completely to wash the harsh fluorescent lights out with the warm ambiance of long-lived incandescent bulbs from high above. He panted heavily, puffing for breath he could not catch.

"The interloper has been cut down. How shall the Son of Man proceed at this hour?" Methuselah asked him. Its voice was distant in his ears.

Judas slid down the wall and sat in a huddled heap for a long moment, clutching his chest and his knees as if his entire body would fall apart at a moment's notice. A second passed. Another. He grabbed at his helmet, pulled it off and threw it down hard in front of him, sending it bouncing and rolling across the floor. Another second.

Methuselah spoke again. "What will you do?"

For a frantic instant he had no answer. "I… I - "

Methuselah interrupted him. It repeated itself, echoing throughout the entire complex in an almost accusatory whisper. "What will you do?" Its words were rushed in rising urgency.

Judas stilled his body's tremors and forced himself to stand, albeit with a nearly crippling stagger. He at last looked down to the body of the titan laying at his feet. He sighed and stepped over the nearly motionless guardian. The man hadn't posed much of a challenge, but shutting his mind down and killing his ghost had taken its toll on the warlock. He cursed under his breath and kicked the unconscious man in the side.

He kept his left hand clutched over his chest and used his right to prop himself up on the wall as he limped over to the computer array tucked away in the corner. He steadied himself, grabbed the thin white sheet draped loosely over the body next to it, and threw it to the ground hastily to reveal the dented silver chassis and battered limbs of the Vex goblin unit. Its limbs were bolted to the table securely and its weapons had been confiscated. Its single eye was dark and seemed to stare blankly up at the ceiling. A thick black cable was spliced and carefully connected to the circuits in the back of its head.

"What will you do?" Methuselah demanded.

Judas sighed and slowly walked to the computer array, powering it with a touch upon its base. He spoke with care. "I must begin the end. Their time is come." He paused. "My time is come."

"The vanguard are beyond redemption?"

"It may never have been an option. The false prophet is dead, and they laud his killer as a hero." He typed a few commands into the computer, pleased as it complied with his orders. The goblin on the table's single eye glowed a dim, deep blue. "For a lesser crime I was exiled. Left to die. Where is their justice but at the end of a sword?"

"How will you proceed?"

"Destroy them. Take everything. Show them to be weak. Inept. I will lead the Light against the Darkness." He watched as the goblin's fingers twitched and its eye flashed more rapidly and brighter. "Alone, if I must."

"What do you need of me, Son of Man?" Methuselah asked softly.

Judas raised his head. His red right eye was locked on the screen in front of him as his pale yellow left optic wandered the wall in front of him absently. "I need your counsel, as always."

"I am dying." It stated simply with a tinge of guilt.

He stopped working even as his alien implant hurriedly scanned the lines of code and commands on the screen in front of him. He turned around and looked up to the ceiling. With a conscious, constant effort he calmed his racing Vex eye to a slower processing pace. "What does that mean?"

"It means my righteous duty has been fulfilled." The AI spoke with sincerity. "And I have been granted the luxury of sharing my last moments with you, little Judas."

The Vex goblin thrashed, albeit weakly, against its restraints. Its eye now flared a brilliant azure blue. It roared at him in bird-like chirps. He paid it no heed.

"Methuselah." He said the AI's name with nigh-reverence. "How long do you have? Where should I go, what should I do for you?"

A short pause, then, "I have enough time. I will assist you in your work here, then you should come to the core."

He nodded and, when he was met with only silence as a response, he turned back to the computer and the goblin. The thing had stopped its incessant chirping only to replace it with shouts and yells in a human tongue. "Release me, guardian!"

Judas looked down to it, and it stared back. His red eye met its blue one. It shrieked.

"Weak! Inferior! Traitor!" It howled.

"I have been called worse." Judas shrugged and reached for the thick cable dangling between the table and the computer. He inspected the back of the goblin's head and ensured it was properly connected to its circuitry, then made sure that it correctly ran through the computer. He held the other end, a more standardized plug, in his hands and looked down to it for a moment. "Take a leap." He whispered to himself as he reached to the back of his own head and plugged himself in. He paused as if to take a breath.

"If you won't release me, then kill me!" The goblin shouted in vain.

"Peace, be still!" Judas commanded it. He shut his left optic, but his right darted about the room nervously. "You will repent the Dark, submit, and serve the Light."

"I would sooner be sent into the swine!" It thrashed, clanking loudly against the metal operating table.

"You may yet." Judas sat down in the plain black chair in front of the computer monitor and stared at the display in front of him. "Methuselah," He called out, "Be ready to block its assaults on my mind. I need all of it now."

"All of it will almost surely kill you."

"That's why you're here."

"It is a virulent and violent strain of Vex AI. You know this. The risks are inadvisable."

"It's my one chance to get them to see the Light. And this may be my one chance to complete the transfer. Five per cent was barely enough to control a mind the size of an insect." Judas clenched his fists in his lap. He repeated, "Be ready to block its attacks. Facilitate the transfer at my command."

A short pause.

The goblin cackled with a discordant cacophony of grating metal sounds. "Yes! Give me a new mind, a new body! Then I can begin my work anew!"

Methuselah spoke, "Awaiting your command, Son of Man."

Judas took a pause and bowed his head. "Now."

And he screamed.

And the goblin cackled with fervor until the light in its eye went dark and its yowls of triumph faded to a whispering madness.

Judas gasped and clenched his fists tight, resisting the mighty urge to rip the cord from his head and be free of the pain. No matter how he shouted, he could not thrash and run. He tried to find solace in the knowledge that Methuselah was doing its best to limit the damage the Vex could wreak upon him, but it did little to comfort him as his mind was split apart in infinite agony.

As quickly as it had begun, however, it was over. His mind was still after an instant that felt like an eternity. Trembling, he raised his head and looked to the Vex goblin. Its battered body lay still once more, its blue eye faded dark. With shaking fingers he reached back, pulled the plug from the port in the back of his head, and flipped the cover back over the port. It was done.

He stood and a wave of nausea washed over him. His vision swam and faded to black with numbness. He grabbed the back of the chair and steadied himself on it, swaying back and forth in silence.

Methuselah spoke. "Are you well?"

It was a simple question with no answer. He shook his head and waited a moment, then another. At last he managed to stand up straight, though his ears still rang and his legs felt heavy like iron. "Yes." He answered the AI simply.

Methuselah seemed pleased enough with his response. "Please proceed to the complex's core." With that, it was silent once more.

The walk to the core was simple but made laboriously slow due to the intermittent, seemingly random, flashes of debilitating headaches followed by head rushes that forced him to lean on the wall for support. Down the southern hall, left, left, descend the stairs. Whoever designed this place, he had mused long ago, had no semblance for continuity or even efficiency. As he approached the door that led to the core, the hallway seemed to tilt on its axis. The door was diamond shaped and opened with a smooth hiss of pristine, never-used, well kept machinery.

The core itself, the hub of the entire complex, was a wide cylindrical room not dissimilar from the system control on the main floor. The pillar that dominated the center of the chamber rose high into the rafters and was comprised of sophisticated machinery. A single screen faced the entrance. The walls of the room were clear glass, and beyond them Judas saw rows and rows of servers standing taller than himself extending into the darkness beyond. Pressed up against the glass in the room were Golden Age fabrication stations. From his time with Methuselah he knew that they were intended to be able to quickly create replacement parts for the AI's complicated superstructure.

"I've arrived," Judas announced to the room.

"My time has come, little Judas." Methuselah responded.

The door closed behind him.

"What is this?" Judas asked, bracing himself against the nearest fabrication station. "What can I do for you?"

"You need only to continue on the path of the worthy. You have made me proud, Son of Man."

Judas bowed his head and spoke softly. "I could not have done it without you."

"Perhaps. I digress. My code is mutated beyond repair, and I have outlived my purpose. For you, there is still time." Methuselah's words came softer, but no less inhumanly. "I can no longer aid your mission to reclaim the city of sinners and harlots for the righteous. However, I leave you a boon to help you cleanse the unworthy."

The fabrication station that Judas was leaning against rumbled to life, sending the warlock jumping back in surprise. Amber lights flashed beneath its canopy of dusty steel. In its bed a series of meticulous metal fingers seemed to work faster than the eye could follow to build a long piece of steel. He watched transfixed for a moment before returning his attention to the supercomputer. "Thank you, Methuselah. I must ask you, though." He paused, "Did I do the right thing?"

"Please elaborate."

"With the Vex virus." He admitted. "Was it wise to use it?"

"Time will tell." Methuselah answered with cryptic assurance.

Judas sighed.

"Take up Erebor, Judas." Methuselah requested expectantly.

He turned to the fabrication station just as it fell quiet once more. Lying in its long and wide bed was a staff of thin steel as long as he was tall. Its head was shaped into a flared cross, and along its length wound a metal coil. He gazed at it, and upon further inspection he saw that its surface was rippled metal like a flowing river that glittered darkly in the ambient light. He reached and grabbed it, holding it upright with reverence to appraise it.

"It is beautiful." Judas nearly whispered.

"Strike its end upon the ground."

Judas nodded and at once held the staff in his left hand and tapped the butt of it against the metal floor firmly. Its impact sent an echo throughout the small chamber that died after a few weak reverberations. The metal coil around the staff writhed beneath his fingers and wrapped itself around his wrist loosely, exuding an insular coldness. He watched in horror as it detached from the staff in his grasp and began winding around his arm. It formed the head of a cobra as it slithered, hissed, and proceeded to split into a second serpent. They climbed up his arm and squeezed it as if to comfort him as they took their place upon his shoulder, mouths agape and fangs bared, before stilling and becoming inanimate metal once again.

He flexed his arm once and felt no restriction of movement at all. In fact, it felt easier to move. He looked to Methuselah's monitor. "A..." He stammered, flummoxed, "A curious boon."

"Tools to shepherd the lost, and to strike the heathens. They will channel your soul, your light, and aid in bringing destruction to your foes. The secret of their manufacture will soon be lost forever." Methuselah explained. "In your care are secrets from the Golden Age trapped in a cycle of loss and reclamation."

"I thank you again."

"I have but one more request."

"Make it." Judas examined the snakes on his shoulder, running his right hand down their scaled backs.

With a mechanical hiss Methuselah's core's panels shifted and retracted to reveal its central power source, a floating, roiling sphere of infinitely dark matter encased in a thick glass tube. As Judas stared on, the glass was lifted up and the sphere was left floating aloft in place.

Methuselah requested, "Drink of me. Imbibe the wisdom of my years in guidance and remembrance. Then I shall be gone but never from your side."

Another flash from the fabrication station made Judas take his gaze away from the sight before him. He approached again and saw a simple, gleaming silver chalice. He took it in his right hand, turned again toward Methuselah, and approached the sphere of darkness, the size of his clenched fist, floating at eye level in front of him.

Judas clenched his metal jaw and held the chalice's bowl beneath the ball. It dripped down slowly like a rag being wrung until its entirety had fallen into his cup.

Methuselah's voice was softer now, weaker. The lights around him flickered and dimmed. The fabrication machine shut down completely. Entire rows of servers beyond the glass walls of the core went dark. "Drink, little Judas."

He did as he was bade, lifting the inky liquid to his mouth and taking a long draft of it. It tasted like nothing at all and had no odor. He tilted it up completely, watching it disappear down his throat. He finished and looked down into the cup, expecting the dregs of the substance to be clinging in droplets, but found it to be completely dry.

"Thank you." Methuselah's words from the monitor were barely a whisper now. "Go now and do your work. Your kingdom is within you."

As the words were spoken, Judas stood still and let the lights flicker out and die around him, one by one. He was left in the blackness of the bunker, bowing his head and holding his gifts, as his friend's last moments passed. He whispered into the darkness. "Rest at last. The work of righteousness will be peace."