Eye of the Gate Lord
"Knew I should've done this earlier," Daniel mumbled, grunting as he tightened the new bolt on his scout.
"You knew because I told you." Caesar turned away from the windshield, watching empty space pass them by at warp speed, to face him. "No specials? You like to get close."
Daniel forced one more turn and prayed that it wouldn't snap off. "The Regime serves well enough as a close-range option."
"It's no shotgun. And it's funny how you refuse to call it 'Suros Regime'."
He shrugged. "Might as well be. And I'm glad you find that amusing." He lifted the weapon and balanced it on one knee to observe it in the light. "How far are we?"
"Not far. I give it fifteen more minutes before we're touching down in the Sink."
"The others?"
"Getting ready, same as you."
Daniel supposed he could've just asked but it was unnecessary, the question more a force of habit. They had gone over their plans, discussed tactics and loadouts, determined alternative methods if needed. Some of them pertaining to escape, also if needed.
Daniel's eyes flit over to the side, to a dimly lit datapad on the dashboard. A letter from Aro, opened, read and then pushed aside for the time being but never closed out. It was Aro apologizing for his lack of contact and promising to speak with him when he returned. It ended with Aro telling him he loved him. Daniel sighed and turned away again.
Unlike Aro, his family regularly made contact over the last few weeks. His elder siblings were still working on their secret project and they kept him informed on the worrying unrest still growing in the City as well as how the Commander's son was caught in the middle of it, playing peacemaker.
Maya has had little contact with Aro since the last time and try as he might to empathize with her poorly hidden disappointment, he can't help but feel relief. With the dreams he's had…
Daniel didn't get much sleep the previous night. He once thought Venus beautiful. When he had touched down for the first time on the planet, a staggeringly short few years ago, his team had been assigned to patrol the Academies. When he returned, he had regaled a jealous Christine and a starry-eyed Maya on the scenery. The mountain that stretched past the clouds, spewing bright blue magma. The batadactyls soaring through those clouds, creatures Kayla must have told him about dozens of times but could never remember much. The trees and how, in some areas, how they shielded the sun so thoroughly that one could only tell its position from the warmth in the air. How everything on Venus just seemed so much bigger than the world itself.
He couldn't see that now. Now, all he saw was the Vault of Glass. The Templar, nearly wiping Aro and Crona from existence. Erek, staring down the enraged eye of a Gorgon. The monster that was once a Titan.
He saw the future. Venus' future, humanity's future. Aro's future. Maya's future.
Not his though. He'd be dead in a few years' time.
Dead by the man who just told you he loved you. Your brother's future murderer, your older sister's future murderer and the first thing you'll probably do when you get back is get him alone and take him to-
Daniel cut the words off at the proverbial throat. His Ghost kept his eye pointedly ahead.
So Daniel continued to force his sympathy. He made excuses for Aro. Made promises that he both did and did not want to keep. It hurt to do so, with how well Aro had integrated himself into their family. To Maya, this was an older brother not speaking to her for reasons she couldn't begin to guess. With how little she knew of her mother and father, brothers and sisters were all she ever had.
He quickly responds to the final messages his family members had sent. He's heading down, he will be careful, he will come back to everyone, he loves them too. It used to feel strange verbalizing it to Tarlowe, given how good they used to be at letting the smallest of arguments spiral out of hand but now, it felt wrong to not say it aloud. The Vault helped with this, as did Aro, in more ways than one.
"Exiting warp space in a minute, Daniel."
To the comms, he ordered, "Ready up, we drop in five."
"Got it," responds Kayla.
"Understood," mutters Erek. Barely.
Daniel rises from the pilot's seat and stretches, loosens himself up. He claps his armored hands together several times, feeling the Arc course between them, shocking him into clarity. When the ship exited warp space and lurched, he grabbed onto his seat to keep from tumbling over, recalling that he should have been sitting. Venus loomed into view. The green he once thought of as entrancing just looked sickly and rotten. Like vines growing and wrapping their way around a bloated corpse.
He readies his weapons, attaching the Regime to his back and keeping the machine gun on standby. He hoists the scout rifle and calls his helmet to his head as the ground drew closer and closer.
"Caesar, send a response to Aro. Tell him, we'll speak when I get back." The last part of Aro's message repeats over and over in his head, one part implying that he should respond in kind, another part accusing him of weakness for even considering it.
Caesar sends the letter before he can make the decision. Daniel simply sighed and waited for transmat.
Kayla and Erek were already on the ground when Venus appeared around him. The Vex towers pointing high into the air had more of an effect on Daniel than he would have liked. He was alone in feeling this, it seemed. Kayla was engaged in a muted but animated talk with her Ghost and Erek seemed content to stare off into the distance, crouched with his weapon resting on his shoulder.
"This conflux we need. We'll find it in the Citadel?" Daniel asked. Only Kayla turned around.
"That's the hope. We input the right stream of data, the packet we got from the Awoken, and that should start drawing the Gate Lord out."
"With luck, there will be no one there," Erek murmured, "Less distractions. Less questions."
Erek summoned his vehicle, mounting up and taking point, Sparrow engines whistled loudly as they followed him through the path. The only other Guardians they encountered on their ride were in the Ember Caves. A pair of Warlocks, neither of whom stopped to pay them any more attention than it took to wave as they passed.
Their target, the base of the massive Vex structure called the Citadel, was devoid of Guardians but not of Vex. They marched up and down the area as they always did, with no urgency, beating the ground even more into submission beneath their feet. With the amount of them scattered across the Citadel, it meant that the Heralds had yet to involve themselves in their plans. A good sign but the Guardians had learned long ago about taking this as the final say on the matter. The Heralds were like a lightning strike, immediate, devastating and with little warning to their arrival.
When the first Goblin marched into their path, Kayla and Daniel veered to the side while Erek remained straight ahead. He waited until the red of its eye landed on him before he threw his Sparrow into the highest gear and leapt off. The Vex unit was split in half, drenching the stone and grass on the ground in steaming radiolaria. Daniel and Kayla continued around the Goblin, unimpeded by the crash and the rest of the Vex, who paused in their marching. Erek rolled to a stop, unleashing a burst of gunfire into the nearest Harpy to ensure all attention would remain on him.
So it did. The nearby Vex twisted onto him at the sound of a weapon and began to advance without hesitation, their whirring and stomping echoing into the air. The others continued, dismounting when they reached a small, nondescript opening in the high stone hill, lit by dim sunlight. "This is the place." Kayla looked around as if this dank, empty cave was the most interesting thing in the world. "My Ghost and I can draw out the conflux," she told Daniel, "We just need you to keep them away from us."
Both heard a familiar snap and the blasting off of three shots. Daniel turned and Kayla jogged back towards the entrance just in time to see a Minotaur's ashes fall over the ledge above and scatter to the wind before they could hit the ground. "I doubt they'll be much left to defend against, the way he's running around up there," Daniel said, then he grunted, as concern pricked him. "Kayla…"
"Yes?" She turned towards him.
But he shook his head. "Never mind. It's not important," he murmured, knowing she wouldn't be so easily convinced. "Go ahead and get started," he told her and walked off before she could press the issue.
Sixx blinked into view as soon as she turned back and traveled towards the center of the opening. "Starting…" he told her, opening up into a ball of pulsating blue Light. Kayla waited and watched as Sixx silently poked and prodded his way through the invisible streams of data that permeated Venusian air. Suddenly, he snapped close. "Found it."
Lines of white light began to carve themselves into the air, starting from the ceiling, forming abstract shapes; cubes and rectangles, merging until a pillar of them stretched down to the stone floor. Outside, Kayla hears the sound of gunfire, most shots distant but some were too close for her liking; Vex encountering Daniel in an effort to reach her.
"Without this packet, constructing this would've been near impossible," said the Ghost as a narrow beam of Light pierced the conflux. "And the Awoken had the exact thing we needed. Wonder what the story is behind that."
"They were vague regarding, well...everything." Kayla kept one ear on the fighting outside. "Petra dodged my questions. Uldren outright ignored them. Seemed annoyed that I would even ask."
"You didn't ask Erek?"
"I assumed it was after he and Eren left." Another boom from above, distinctly Light-based but Kayla still found herself flinching. "Maybe after he's worked out…" She waved her hand in his general direction. "Frustrations, I suppose."
Kayla refocused on the conflux, her feet shuffling closer with little thought from her. The streams of energy that formed this conduit into the Vex network. The light of it, in contrast to the dim surroundings, was almost blinding and with how close she was, she could feel it buzzing with energy, drawn from the very air. How alive it was. Her hand reached upwards. Aashir's voice, Sora's voice, even Ikora's voice dimly buzzed warnings in her head.
Without a single word, Sixx was much louder. His prodding of the conflux snapped off and his eye, almost glowing with foreboding, turned on her. Even without meaning to, her hand lowered. Still, she said, "We need something living. This is alive."
"No," Sixx said bluntly, "This isn't some one-off Vex unit or even a smaller Vex gate. This taps into a part of the Vex network itself, deeper than any have been before-"
"I know that," Kayla seethed, "But think of what we could do, what we could learn."
"I am, Kayla and there's not a single benefit I can see that outweighs the risk. It could tear your mind apart, you could end up compromised…" Six returned to the conflux.
"We need to match Envy, Sixx. Same with Aro and Pride, if we are to stand a chance, we need to match her."
The Ghost spun around again. "That shouldn't require us to throw you into the proverbial jaws of the beast to do it! Aro would say the same."
"Would he?" She asked rhetorically. Sixx seemed ready to retort anyway when something drew his attention away from her again. By the time Kayla was preparing to ask, there was no need. She could feel it too.
"Kayla? Sixx? My Ghost is reporting some kind of strange spike in the air," Daniel called over comms, "What's going on back-"
The conflux burst. A spray of light and sound shook the ground nearly out from Kayla's feet and she had to press a hand to the wall to keep balance. The conflux released another pulse of energy, both invisible and so palpable, Kayla could feel it in her chest. Another and then another. Then the conflux snapped into nothing.
"Kayla!" Kayla flinched at the sound of Daniel's voice, the tone leading her to believe he had been calling on her for a while.
"I don't know," she murmured back immediately, her gaze still on where the conflux had been.
"Neither do I," Sixx added on, "But whatever it was…" he paused, as if wanting to be sure, "Whatever it was, every Vex gate from here to the Endless Steps has just been activated."
"That was the point." The new voice stunned the Guardians into silence. Even the fighting up top seemed to come to an abrupt halt.
"Uldren?" Erek's voice was nearly a shock. Kayla made her way back to Daniel, waiting outside. On the platform above, the Hunter crouched over the edge, looking down at them. "What are you doing here? Petra runs tactical."
The Prince scoffed. "The data packet is mine. Therefore, I…volunteered. You don't need to know any more than that."
Erek rose to his full height, kicking a stone over the ledge.
"The sequence your little drones delivered was meant to interfere with the local gate network," Uldren explained, "I adjusted it so that it would only affect the ones nearby, rather than enough to bring half the Hezen Protective down on your heads. You're welcome."
"Why, Prince Uldren?" Daniel started to pace, "What's the point?"
"Interfere and make the interference so obviously external and severe that the Gate Lord will need to materialize into our reality in order to find and neutralize the threat. The threat being, whoever among you linked to the conflux and entered the packet."
Two heads turned to Kayla. Kayla turned to Sixx.
Erek released a deep snarl. "You put a target on her Ghost?"
"You're surprised?" Uldren made no attempt to hide the amusement in his voice, "Did you think Zydron would just come out at your beck and call? Shut down the portals on the way to the Endless Steps. The Gate Lord will then meet you personally. How well that goes is up to you."
The line cut. Erek let out a long, rumbling sigh, staring straight ahead as if he could melt a hole into the mountain with his eyes alone. It was Daniel who spoke up to Kayla. "Stay with your Ghost and near us," he ordered her, "Can you think of a way to shut down the gates without exposing Sixx?"
Kayla shrugged limply. "We could shoot them?"
She couldn't see his face but she could tell he blinked. "I'll take your word for it."
Erek leapt off the ledge, leaping once more to slow his descent. His Sparrow transmatted just before he hit the ground and he mounted the vehicle immediately. Daniel followed suit. "To me, Sixx," Kayla whispered, "And stay with me."
The Ghost silently obeyed, calling her Sparrow down so she could join the others. Erek shot off without a word. The others once again follow him, speeding through a trail of foliage and greenery, well-worn by the elements, the planet's inhabitants and visitors such as them and shadowed by high hills and higher trees.
"The spot we're looking for is an opening in a Vex-made wall," Daniel said, "On the outskirts of the Waking Ruins. Where we…"
They entered the Waking Ruins. Kayla nearly had to slam on her brakes to keep from hitting Daniel, who had cut his speed near in half. He turned out of her path and then stopped. So did she. She watched him. He watched the structure to their right. More high stone walls, built by Vex into the moss-covered rocky pillars that spread all across the Ishtar Sink.
Among all her other concerns, it hadn't even registered how close to Vault they would come. Given his reaction, Kayla wondered if it was the opposite with Daniel. That, when examining their path, he knew where it would take them and had been thinking about it all the while.
Erek's voice cut through the quiet. "Why have we stopped?"
Daniel remained silent so Kayla answered in his stead. "We're right next to-"
"I know where we are," he cut her off, "I also know we have no business with it. We need to move on."
"I know, I know. Just hold a moment." She was whispering and had her comms directed just to him.
Erek wouldn't give the same courtesy. "Hold for what? Vex are already swarming our path. We've wasted enough time."
"Enough." Daniel's voice was enough to stop Kayla from responding. Sluggishly, almost unwillingly, he turned his Sparrow around, back onto the path. "He's right. There's nothing for us here."
Kayla stared at him, even as she heard Erek's Sparrow kick back up and speed off again. Daniel moved behind him, passing her by with nothing more than a small nod. She spared the wide opening and the barely visible entrance to the Vault one final glance before moving to follow.
The Vex were relentless. Predictable but relentless. When they entered Campus 9, the remains of an ancient Ishtar research outpost, they were met with a battalion, marching towards the opening that would have taken them into the Waking Ruins to search for the saboteur of their network.
Closest to Erek, the first burst of Arc lightning vaporized the Vex. From there, he bolted to the first, to the second and third, his blade, sharpened by both stone and Light, tore through the beaten bronze of their frames as smoothly as cloth. Daniel moved on ahead and joined the fray as Kayla kept to the back, providing cover fire and gunning down any who managed to make it past the wall of her teammates. Very, very few did.
Erek fought here with the same intensity he fought with before, in the Prison of Elders, in the Crucible. On the battlefield, he was a spinning fury, verbally silent but his moves spoke from themselves. He'd bury his knife with one hand into the neck of a Goblin and then shoot it through the chest with the rifle in the other. He'd dodge to avoid a Minotaur's arm only to slice through it with Arc lightning before it could bring it back up again. It was a staggering contrast, compared to his behavior outside of a fight; quiet and sullen, avoiding most conversations that he could and rushing to end those he couldn't. Before everything, Kayla might have found his fighting impressive. But now, with their experiences and the context, it was just worrying. She hadn't watched his most recent turns within the Crucible. There were simply too many and happening too frequently but Erek would always return a shell of himself. One with barely enough energy to drag himself to his bedroom.
Kayla's guess had been correct, shooting worked to damage and disable the activated Vex gates. Slowly but surely, their team made their way down the winding path towards the Endless Steps, cutting off any reinforcement the Vex might have attempted in the process. Daniel was quick to react to the gates, as well as obvious. He avoided them, keeping a well-enough distance away from every portal they tried to shut down. The sight of the Vault or maybe just being here on Venus, swarmed again by Vex, stirred up old and terrible memories in all of them, Kayla was certain. Maybe Daniel was affected more than most. It was not lost on her just how frustratingly vague he and Aro had been about what happened after their fall into that Vex gate within the Vault. The one she had to save them from, that they seemed to be so sure she would be able to save them from. Whatever it was had both men cowed into silence and that fact alone both exacerbated her curiosity and grew the deep pit of fear within her core, always present and ready to swallow her whole.
She ignored it, like a gaping ravine at her back, as she always did and pushed forward with the others. Kayla kept closer to her team than what would have been wise but it drove the Vex into a furor. They would charge straight for her and her Ghost, those they viewed as the threat and disregard her teammates, the real and very current threat. They carved their way through, leaving piles of dead and smoking bodies in their wake. Every Vex in their path was destroyed, every gate they came across was rendered useless, bullets or Light serving where an off-switch could not.
They reached another opening in the Vex-carved wall, coated in leaves and moss like nearly every other solid formation on the planet. Similar to the one that took them into Campus 9, this one led to their goal; the Endless Steps themselves.
The last few remaining Vex were disposed of before Kayla had squeezed out of the narrow tunnel. The area was wide and open, a rocky, square shape of land overlooking the copper-colored sea that stretched on for miles. At its very height stood a Vex gate, bigger than all the rest and crackling with energy.
"It's waiting for us," Kayla murmured, "Or…me."
Daniel was down to a knee, scoping the area through his scout rifle and shooting down any Vex stragglers outside their immediate vicinity. Erek ripped his knife from the chest of Hobgoblin, sending it over the stairs they stood atop of with a vicious kick. "Then why wait? Let's get this done."
Daniel's gun kicked in his arms. Another Vex down. "We can afford a few seconds to prepare ourselves," he said, "You sure could."
Erek's head swiveled towards him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means reload your damn weapons first before jumping into another fight, Erek." Daniel made no effort to hide the edge developing in his voice. He rose back to his full height. "Kayla, follow."
She did, taking a second to reload her own weapon before leaping with him off the long staircase, feeling Erek's glare on her back all the way down. Water splashed and swirled around their ankles when they hit the bottom and the limbs of slain Vex stuck out from beneath the surface. Another splash came out from behind her seconds later, Erek having joined them.
The rise upon which the gate stood was much bigger up close and the gate itself hummed with building power. Strong enough to hear in the air and feel beneath her armor. Not only her because Daniel's walking pace began to pick up, his heavy legs practically carving a path for them through the thick, cold mud.
They reached the base of the Steps and climbed, one by one. With each, the gate seemed to grow stronger, the humming louder, more invasive, until Kayla could feel it in the teeth she didn't have.
"Here, Kayla." Daniel's hand came up to stop her where she stood while he and Erek moved some distance forward. On the outer rings of the Vex gate, white radiolaric lightning arced between its points. Waiting, same as them.
"We're ready," said Erek.
Kayla breathed. "Sixx?"
"Starting the broadcast…"
The response was instantaneous. The Vex portal suddenly pulsed with blinding light, reminiscent of the conflux in the Citadel. All three Guardians found themselves taking a hesitant step back. Another pulse and then another, each one rumbling the ground more than the last. At the center of the gate, six blocky shapes flashed into existence. Kayla recognized them immediately for what they were. Slowly, the separate pieces of the Gate Lord's body began to slam into each other, gears of its joints locking and whirring to life as the shapes became more and more solid. One final shape manifested from the portal, above its right hand and outstretched fingers. A weapon.
The hand reached up and snatched the weapon out of the air. The Gate Lord, fully formed, dropped to the ground, nearly shaking them off their feet. The team, as one, took several more steps back as Zydron, the Gate Lord, sluggishly stomped forward, looming tall and reminding them all too much of Wrath(K). The massive round head, cocked sideways, straightened.
"Kayla, get back," Daniel whispered between clenched teeth.
The red eye swiveled around and then fell, locking onto her. It narrowed.
This time, Daniel didn't whisper. Instead, he roared. "Get back!"
Zydron bolted forward, cracking the ground beneath its feet as it pushed off its back leg. Kayla felt a hand wrap around her arm and suddenly, she was flying. At the same time, she felt the push of the Void emanate from Daniel and saw Erek in a similar state, leaving Daniel on his own.
Zydron swiped at a pillar, shattering it and sending a cloud of dust and stone flying. Daniel is struck head-on, just as Kayla hits the ground behind cover. She could almost feel the impact as Daniel was sent hurtling, back and off the platform to the watery ground below.
Kayla was quick to her feet as the red eye turned back to her but Erek was quicker. Roaring to catch its attention, he lifted a launcher and fired. The payload smashed into the Gate Lord's back, causing it to stagger forward with a high-pitched screech. The Hunter succeeded in his ploy. Zydron twisted almost entirely at the waist, away from Kayla and towards him.
Erek charged the beast. Zydron loomed high over Erek and in a flash, the world changed. The green clouds above became pitch black and the towering Vex Minotaur shone with blinding white light. The same high pitch scream, the same gargantuan arm raised.
It took a second for Erek to remind himself that this wasn't the Vault, that this wasn't Wrath(K) and even that was nearly too late. He jumped away enough for the Gate Lord's arm to just graze him. It still sent him falling over the edge onto the ground below.
Rolling midair, Erek managed to get his feet beneath him and avoid landing on his back. His ankle still twisted and with a groan, he fell to his knees. As Eren worked swiftly to repair the damage, Erek's eyes landed on Caesar, a floating ball of Light over Daniel's prone body. He began to limp forward, moving into a pained jog when Eren deemed his leg functional again. His hand out, he projected his Light into the Ghost. Caesar snapped closed and Daniel's body bolted upright.
"Kayla…" He wheezed, taking the hand Erek held out.
"Up there. I got knocked down right after you." An explosion drew both their eyes upwards. A Nova Bomb detonating. "We need to get back up there." Erek started to track backwards.
Daniel braced himself, his knees squat, his hands put together and lowered. Erek dashed forward and jumped, dropping a foot into his open palms. With a heave of muscle, Daniel threw Erek as high into the air as he could manage. The Hunter latched onto the side of a rock face, grunting at the strain in his arm before powering through it and jumping once again.
He cleared the wall and returned to the platform where Zydron was rampaging. Before he was even fully back on his feet, Solar Light erupted from his body and coalesced within his hand. The fiery shots splashed into the Gate Lord's back, the third of them burning a hole straight through its metal chassis at the shoulder.
Zydron twisted around to find him again and screamed. Just like before, it charged him, leaving cracks in the ground beneath its feet and tumbling over any stone pillar that happened to be in its way. Erek jumped away from the spot just before it could barrel into it and then dashed in again, also just as before, unloading buckshot after buckshot into the Gate Lord's legs and knees and doing everything he could just to avoid being crushed underfoot.
Erek leapt out of danger once again but before he could jump back in, a Void blast from its weapon detonated beside him, sending him spinning off course and throwing him into a wall. His gun fell from his hand and went clattering away. By the time he looked up, Zydron was already on top of him.
Daniel threw himself into it before its raised foot could land on Erek, shoulder-charging it so hard, the Minotaur nearly lost its balance and with that half-second of a distraction, Erek was able to call his weapon back to his hand and return to his feet. As much as the Guardians were throwing at the monster, it always seemed to recover with little issue and would set upon them again before they could ever catch their breaths. Despite all this, Erek and Daniel kept moving, drawing back from the Minotaur and then charging in as soon as its focus moved onto another. Kayla grunted and rolled herself out from under the pillar that had been knocked on top of her, stopped only by falling into another. Three Golden shots had been enough to tear a hole through the metal of the Gate Lord's body. It was strong, large and fast but vulnerable compared to Wrath(K), who was quickly becoming the standard by which all other Vex were judged and even found wanting. If it could be slowed down, frozen in place just long enough, then maybe a few good hits were all they would need.
Kayla hopped to her feet and ran at Zydron. Its gleaming red eye tracked her as she darted towards its legs. Its weapon ceased firing, rising up in preparation to come back down. She Blinked through the opening between its feet and at the same time, another missile crashed into the back of its head, forcing its attention back on Erek and Daniel. Erek readied another while Daniel hefted a heavy machine gun and let fly, peppering the Gate Lord with dozens of tiny bullet holes in its frame.
Kayla kept running, legs thundering beneath her as she made for the Vex portal from which Zydron had appeared. As Ikora had taught her so many times, she forced her mind to clear amidst the chaos, cut through the noise of fighting, of explosions, of weapons discharging and Light detonating, of her Ghost's warnings. Empty herself of distraction until nothing but her one goal remained.
Her hands pressed to the Vex gate, vibrating and hot to the touch. She forced her mind forward. The Vex gate forced back.
Zydron froze mid-step and began to spasm so violently, flakes of metal and bolts of lightning began to fly off its body. Its ear-piercing screech bounced off the walls and echoed far and wide.
The effect of whatever Kayla did had her teammates stunned but not for too long. The sudden release of Arc lightning blackened the ground beneath the Hunter's and Titan's feet. Erek bolted forward, blade outstretched while Daniel went high. Spinning faster and faster, the Bladedancer struck Zydron at the ankles like a saw striking sheet metal.
He tore straight though, leaving red, smoking lines at the very base of the Gate Lord's legs, sliding to a stop along the ground behind it. Its load-bearing joints gone, it teetered precariously backwards. The following slam from Daniel, straight into the center of its chest, sent it toppling the rest of the way. Zydron's fall shook the world, kicking a cloud of dust high into the air. The Gate Lord's cannon dropped from loosened, limp fingers with a crash. Flat on its back, Daniel still brought his Arc-filled arms down on its chest once more. For good measure and maybe even a bit of spite.
The Vex gate shut down with a boom. Kayla disconnects with a yell and goes flying backwards, tumbling across the ground until she hit one of the few pillars still standing, going limp just after. Shouting her name, Daniel dropped down from the Gate Lord's chest and ran to her.
Erek trudged towards the Gate Lord's body. He looked over the base of the stairs to find more dead Vex than he had seen before. In its dying moments, the Gate Lord must have tried to summon reinforcements. They came at its call and whatever Kayla had done short-circuited and rendered them all inactive. Just under the rush of blood in his head, he could hear Kayla murmuring, Daniel helping her straighten up, not yet ready to stand. He turned back towards her, taking in her state. Weak and dazed but alive.
Daniel turned on him. "You didn't need to keep charging it, Erek," he said lowly.
Erek's eyes flicked towards him and narrowed. "We were supposed to keep it distracted."
"We've done this plenty of times before," he snapped back, "Your recklessness nearly got you hurt."
The fraying thread of Erek's patience was starting to split. "Yeah, we have done this before. I've also had to do this on my own as well. Inside the Vault, no you, no Kayla and this was how I had to do it."
"That was then, Erek! This is not the Vault."
"No fucking sh-" Pain exploded in Erek's shoulder and a roar ripped its way past his teeth. He spun on his attacker, finding only a Hobgoblin, flat on its back, red eye flickering, its Line Rifle trained on him and smoking. It began to charge up again.
The thread snapped. With another roar, Erek twisted around with his uninjured arm and launched a knife directly at its head. It landed dead center in the eye, throwing its head back before the knife exploded in a loud fiery blast. Soon, once the echo had cleared, it was quiet again, save for Erek's heaving breaths. Slow seconds passed them by before Daniel spoke again. "Are you-"
"I'm fine," he growled sharply. He turned back around towards the Gate Lord and clambered onto its chest, towards its head. The tip of his drawn knife extended in a blade of Arc Light and with it, Erek savagely hacked away at Zydron's neck until the head fell, severed from the body. It was after it fell did the others notice that his ship was already half down from the clouds. He and the head disappeared without another word as soon the ship was within reach. The ship turned around and began to rise, rocketing back into orbit.
Daniel exhaled. He put his hands beneath Kayla's arms and helped her to her feet, holding her there until her ship and his own appeared from the clouds to finally take them away from this place.