I do not own Destiny or any of the characters.
Lightblade
Hunter flipped over the massive Scorn, driving a knife into its head and killing it, then looked around. Elsie was just finishing the rest of the lesser Scorn, so Hunter walked over to the distortion in the air. As he stepped into it, feeling his Darkness energy attuning itself to it, he felt a sense of dejà vu, the area around him suddenly feeling very familiar. He looked around, then up at a hanging brazier without a flame. He jumped up to it, looking around. As he looked back down to the area he'd jumped up to, a rectangular doorway filled with a green portal appeared.
"What'd you do?" Elsie asked, staring at the portal.
"I just looked down where it should be," Hunter shrugged. "I guess it's sort of like an automatic ability."
Elsie nodded, and Hunter jumped down, both crossing through the portal into a shimmering world of white stone passageways, the light painfully bright around them.
"Ikora, we've been transported somewhere," Spark reported. "It doesn't look like the rest of Savathûn's throne world."
No answer.
"Looks like we're on our own," Elsie said as they followed the shimmering corridors.
"Good," Hunter grunted.
Elsie sighed. "You still haven't forgiven them?"
"Nope," Hunter said. "I'll work with them, I don't work for them. Like Drifter."
Elsie shook her head, smiling. "Then they can't tell us we can't take a vacation after we kill Savathûn."
"Do we?" Hunter asked.
"Yes," Elsie nodded. "We do."
"Good," Hunter said. "I can't fucking wait."
Elsie nodded slowly. "It's not as black and white as you think."
"I don't care," Hunter said. "Not right now, at least."
Elsie nodded as they reached a large, empty area with large, round, garden-like platforms spread around and a portal waiting in the center of the area. They passed through the portal and came out in a short hallway before a large chamber with a round altar-like object ahead of them. They walked over to it and Elsie placed Sagira's shell on it. Within seconds, their new Darkness energy pulsed and swelled, and a silhouette of Savathûn appeared before them, looking up.
"I stand before a being with a thousand names," Savathûn's voice spoke. "It whispers one. The Witness. Remember it. Remember that name. It is not Darkness, but something that wears it like a cloak. It gives Darkness a wicked shape. I refuse to be its servant. I spend centuries crafting schemes, playing tricks, finding loopholes." Savathûn vanished, replaced by Osiris. "And then, I select my new name. A man with many enemies and few friends. But those friends know secrets." She paused as Ikora appeared. "About the Light, about new beginnings. My plan takes shape."
"That came from Sagira's shell," Spark said as Hunter picked Sagira back up. "Like a psychic imprint. A memory. Savathûn's memory. And if that's what it was..."
"It means she used her disguise as Osiris to learn something important about the Light," Hunter said, humming thoughtfully. "We need to talk to Ikora about what she and Osiris discussed."
Elsie nodded and they quickly left the dimension they were in, then back out of the cave to the surface of the Throne World. As soon as they reached the surface, Fynch contacted them, calling them back to him for another lead. Once there, he informed them about a temple dedicated to Oryx, the Taken King.
Hunter narrowed his eyes as he stared at Oryx's temple. Finally, he drew his Pulse Rifle. To his left side, Elsie readied her own rifle, and to his right, Cayde drew the Ace of Spades, forming a fan of knives in his free hand, about the only thing he'd mastered generating.
"The temple to Oryx is protected by one of Savathûn's toughest warriors," Fynch warned them. "He's guarding something. Something you can use like you used Sagira's shell. But the only way in is through some old canals, which means we need a boat. Leave that part to me."
They followed the paths formed by large hedges, and after the first few minutes, Hive soldiers began to appear to stop them, only to die in a hail of gunfire. An Acolyte stepped out to fire at Elsie, but she vanished just as Hunter sent a burst into the Acolyte's head, killing it. A moment later, a pair stepped out to either side, only for Cayde to shoot one and hurl several knives into the other. A Knight stepped out ahead of them, and Elsie fired several bursts into it, killing it without breaking her stride. However, as they reached a bridge and jumped off of it toward the temple, a truly massive knight ahead of them roared, extending a hand and beginning to send a massive stream of Arc blasts at them from its palm. They all swore, diving for cover, and the blasts began to slam into the world around them hard, cracking the ground.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Fynch said excitedly. "That's our guy! The one guarding the temple! What's he doing away from his post?"
"Don't know, don't care!" Hunter growled.
He leaned out, hurling a trio of Proximity Mine Knives around the corner he was using as cover, and the Knight roared as they stabbed into its left shoulder and exploded. It barely damaged him, but he staggered backward, his firing stopping for a moment. In that instant, Hunter and the others charged, opening fire, Hunter using the Joker. The knight roared in rage, trying to return fire, but now that they weren't caught off guard, they were able to avoid his returning fire, which had to split between the three of them, all while they peppered him with shots.
Finally, the knight roared, vanishing in a pillar of acid-green flames as more and more Hive began to swarm out of the hedges around them. Hunter swore, spinning and hurling a ring of knives as he holstered his pistol, grabbing his Glaive instead. Then, he launched himself into the Hive, greeting their front line with a sweep of his Glaive's blade, then landed in a roll. As he finished his roll, he slammed the back end of his Glaive into an Acolyte, knocking it to the ground as he spun, sweeping his Glaive's Blade through the next line as well, driving a dagger into the fallen Acolyte. A Knight stepped out of cover ahead of him, but he fired a Void Blast into its head from his Glaive, killing it instantly. He turned, slashing a pair of Acolytes as they charged him, then watched as Elsie and a small portal over her shoulder slaughtered an entire line of Acolytes while Cayde used his beloved hand cannon and a fan of knights to do the same. Finally, they finished and turned toward the stairway the giant knight had been guarding. At the top, they reached the same chamber where they'd battled the illusion of Savathûn and had been soundly defeated. A pair of Hive Lightbearers, a Knight who aligned to Void energy and a Wizard who aligned with Arc Energy, roared at them as they entered, and dozens of Hive swarmed from deeper into the room. Hunter launched himself across the room to the Hive, spearing one as he landed before slashing out through its side as he began his lethal dance among them, his Glaive flashing and sweeping through their ranks, firing blasts to kill anything out of reach. After a few moments, Cayde crashed to the ground, bouncing off of his face and shattering half of it before he landed on his feet, hurling a fan of knives.
"Swap!" Cayde yelped instantly, and Kai turned, hurling his Glaive like a javelin.
It stabbed through the Knight's chest, killing it instantly and making its Void Energy dissolve both the Knight and the Glaive, but as Hunter crushed the ghost, once again absorbing its Light, for reasons he couldn't understand, he reformed his Glaive, instantly forming its shield to his right in time to block a Boomer shot. Then, he lunged, clearing the distance and spinning, slashing the Boomer out to the side as he spun around the Knight, then flipped his Glaive around, stabbing backward under his arm but up at an angle, driving it through the Knight's heart. As the Knight crashed to the ground, dying, Hunter turned, once again hurling his Glaive, this time scoring a strike through the Wizard's head just before it could blast Elsie. Once again, Hunter crushed the ghost, absorbing its Light, then turned, forming and hurling a pair of fans of Solar-charged knives, slaughtering the remaining Hive with them and ending the battle. Cayde sighed, leaning against the wall as his SIVA regenerated any damage to his body from various bumps, bruises, gazes, and dings, plus his half-shattered face.
"Good work, team!" Cayde sighed. "Sorry about your Glaive."
Hunter shrugged dismissively. "I can recreate it whenever I like. It's a symbol of a Blademaster's achievement of mastery over blades, not the key to it. Besides, I prefer knives to the Glaive. It's a perfect balance of blades and ranged weapons, but it's a bit too slow for my tastes."
Cayde laughed, nodding. "That's fair. So, what's next?"
Hunter chuckled, he and Elsie dropping to the bottom level of the pit-like chamber as Hunter formed Cayde's favorite bow again, tossing it to him with a quiver of auto-regenerating SIVA arrows, and Cayde swapped the Ace of Spades for it, grinning and nodding. Hunter drew the Joker and his left melee knife, then looked toward the only door out, which was in the back left corner and led to a stairway down deeper into the structure, though Hunter wasn't sure it was a temple.
"So, Savathûn was impersonating Osiris, Ikora's friend and mentor, right?" Fynch asked. "Maybe...Ikora slipped up. Said something that helped Savathûn get at the Light."
"Whatever happened between them, this isn't Ikora's fault," Spark snapped.
"That's right," Cayde agreed. "Ikora's not responsible for Savathûn's actions."
"Sure, sure," Fynch said. "I'm just saying. Ikora is a spy master, right? And Osiris is her friend. Yeah, you'd think she would've noticed..."
Fynch trailed off as the tunnel they were following turned to cave, then back to tunnel, then to an upper level of a chamber like they were running on rafters rather than floor.
"Savathûn tricked us all," Spark said. "Including you and every other Hive Ghost. We're not going to let Ikora take this on herself."
"I'm considering it," Hunter admitted.
"Hunter," Elsie scolded him.
"What?" Hunter asked. "I am."
They finally reached a massive, enclosed chasm with a platform floating ahead of them that Fynch identified as a ferry. They all sprinted for the stairs on either side, taking them up to the platforms on either side of the ferry and killing the handful of Acolytes there before hopping onto the ferry itself.
"Ugh, these weird Hive controls," Fynch complained. "I mean, how does this..." he paused as the ferry lurched into motion. "Ah! There it is!"
As they traveled, Hunter, Elsie, and Cayde lined up at the front, Hunter in the middle, Cayde to his left, and Elsie to his right. They passed sets of platforms where Hive gathered to try and kill them or board the ferry, only to die in a hail of bullets and Cayde's exploding Void arrows. Up ahead, a Shrieker opened to attack them, but Hunter sent a Golden Gun shot into it, obliterating it. Finally, they stopped as they reached a barrier, Fynch announcing they would have to deal with it themselves. They jumped off of the ferry to the path leading up a flight of stairs on either side, Elsie alone and Cayde with Hunter, and they nodded to each other and ascended. At the top of Hunter and Caye's waited a Knight bearing a pair of Void Light shields. However, he was facing away, and the moment they saw him, Arc Light flashed over Hunter's body, and he shot forward in a blur, driving a melee dagger into the back of the knight's head and smashing it to the ground before ripping his dagger back out. The knight disintegrated, and as Hunter crushed its Ghost, another Knight across the chasm roared in rage. However, before it could do anything, Elsie hurled a pair of Stasis Sickles directly into its back, freezing it before the second sickle caused its body to explode into fragments and blow away from her. Then, she crushed the Ghost in her hand, and it released a pulse of Light, which faded a moment later.
"Why is it only me?" Hunter asked.
"No idea," Elsie frowned. "But for right now, let's focus on getting to that temple."
Hunter nodded in agreement, and they picked up a pair of Void Charges before jumping down to a pair of platforms by the ferry and slammed them into the awaiting receptacles. The three of them returned to the ferry just as it began to move again, and they all instantly turned their sights on the Hive lining several bridges ahead that they'd need to pass under. As one, they all opened fire, Hunter having swapped the Joker for his Pulse Rifle, and slaughtered anything that passed through their sights. When a pair of Wizards flew into view, Hunter hurled a pair of Solar-charged knives, which overloaded their shields, then exploded on impact with their heads, killing both and a pair of Acolytes beside them. A pair of Shriekers opened, only for Cayde to send an arrow into the center of both of their eyes, the combination of impact, Void explosion, and Void poison killing both within a second using only the one arrow each. Finally, they passed under a waterfall, only to stop in an open chamber with a pair of passages to the left and right, and an open doorway above them.
"Fynch, we're stuck again," Spark reported.
"Seriously?" Fynch asked. "But I did the thing! It's just this Hive tech...it's so archaic and...ugh, give me a sec."
Just then, several Thralls shrieked above them before leaping out of the doorway to try and board the ferry, only for Cayde and Hunter to whip out their Hand Cannons, opening fire. Every headshot Cayde got exploded, whereas Hunter simply fired faster, keeping pace even without each shot killing one or two extras. Elsie's Pulse Rifle was equally effective, and the temporal technology in it returned shots to its magazine so efficiently that Hunter wasn't sure he'd ever seen her have to reload. As they killed the Thralls in the air, not a single one landed on the ferry, as they were able to hold them back between the three of them, and each time one died, it disintegrated. Then, suddenly, they were coming from the sides as well, through two more open doors, and Hunter stuck his Pulse Rifle to his back as he drew a melee dagger at the same time as Cayde and Elsie turned outward. Suddenly, the Thralls were landing on the ferry, only to rapidly die in a hail of bullets and the flashes of daggers, both Elsie and Cayde having formed a dagger like Hunter's and Elsie having put her rifle away and, for the first time since Hunter had known her, formed herself a different gun to fight with.
It was a replica of the John's oversized Sidearm. It was a uniquely destructive and ridiculously designed pistol that gave the impression that the designer was trying to build a Hand Cannon without admitting to it. The gun fired a 12.7mm bullet, exactly the same as Hunter and Cayde's Hand Cannons, except that the casings for John's Sidearm were slightly shorter, giving the round slightly less power overall. In the pre-Traveler ages, it was similar to a difference of a .50 AE bullet fired by a Desert Eagle against a 500 S&W round fired by a Smith&Wesson 500 revolver, for which the bullet was named. However, the frame of John's gun itself was that of a Sidearm, with excessive amounts of modification to compensate for the recoil, a black grip and body, a white slide, which stuck up from the gun ahead of the grip where the rear sights aligned with a small but effective scope, white on the back of the slide, white on a rounded, quarter-circle, bladed guard that both protected the shooter's fingers if the weapon was used as a melee weapon and also turned it into a bladed one, and an under-barrel flashlight. It was a truly unique weapon, and one that John could use to a lethal perfection that made him one of the three most deadly Blademasters in the entire order, second only to the Slayer. However, in Elsie's hand, it was little more than an oversized pistol, and while she was still deadly with it, she lacked John's horrifying grace. It was a wonderful choice of weapon for the situation but was nothing beyond a weapon. Still, it served its purpose, because within seconds, she'd used it and her dagger to clear her portion of the Thralls as efficiently as Hunter and Cayde had.
"I never thought I'd see you use another gun but your rifle," Hunter commented as Elsie reabsorbed the gun's SIVA. "Not including rocket launchers."
"There are exceptions to every rule," Elsie said. "But I can't use his gun the same way he can. It kind of felt like trying to sing a famous song without a good singing voice."
Hunter shrugged. "It served its purpose. Besides, trying to compete with his use of the gun is no different than trying to compete with my use of a Glaive. It's impossible, because we're Blademasters."
Elsie nodded, just as the ferry began to move again. "About time."
"Agreed," Hunter nodded, looking ahead of them as he swapped his dagger and Joker for his rifle again. "How much further, Fynch?"
"A ways," Fynch admitted as the ferry drifted down the tunnel to the right. "But once you're out that door, you should be able to see the temple."
Hunter held his left hand out, forming a Hand Cannon that, like the Joker and Ace of Spades, was built on a Mos Ultima frame but that had a knife-shaped bayonet on the end, a heavier, square body, spikes along the sides of the body, a white grip and cylinder with the rest of the weapon being grey, a three-round burst firing system.
"What's this?" Elsie asked, accepting the weapon.
"A burst-fire Hand Cannon, in case you need to use a close-range weapon instead of your rifle again," Hunter explained. "It's a replica of a weapon I used to have, but it's inferior to the original. The original had started out as a Pulse Rifle, then had been used by a Guardian Killer, and was used so extensively that it gained an ability from the Guardian blood it spilled. It would absorb the lifeforce of its victims and transfer it to the wielder, healing them. After its original wielder was killed, it passed hands from one wielder to the next, always ending with its wielder's death, and its ability to heal its wielder grew with every death, every wielder making a change to the weapon, first adapting the frame until it was more Auto Rifle than Pulse Rifle, then adapting it again until it eventually became a Hand Cannon, constantly becoming more and more deadly and always with its power to heal growing. I still have the original, but I don't use it because I'm not a fan of the curse, or the evil feeling that surrounds the weapon, so instead I keep it safe where no one else will be able to get it. Anyway, this version won't heal you, but it's still a burst-fire Hand Cannon, so it will be useful in a pinch."
"Thank you," Elsie smiled.
"Hold on," Cayde said. "You have Crimson? You have the one and only weapon ever outlawed by the Vanguard?"
"Formerly known as the Red Death," Hunter nodded. "Yes. I have it locked up and hidden away where no one will ever find it."
Cayde shook his head. "You should just melt it down."
Hunter shook his head. "If the day ever comes when I'm desperate enough, I may need it. But until then, it's going to stay hidden."
Cayde nodded, just as they passed out of the tunnel, all seeing the temple in the distance. It was a tall, round tower surrounded by a swamp.
"Those two killed each other about a million times over, but she dedicated a temple to him," Fynch was saying to Spark, who'd been having their own conversation about the temple being dedicated to Oryx. "Eh, it's funny how that works."
Just then, the ferry vanished out from under the three of them, and they all yelped in fear, plummeting toward the swamp. Hunter grabbed Cayde, then used a burst of Light to break their momentum just before landing, Elsie doing the same with a pulse of Darkness, and the three of them landed safely, Hunter setting Cayde down on his feet.
"Thanks," Cayde said. "I gotta figure out a way to make something to be able to do that again with my SIVA."
"Try repulsors," Hunter suggested. "Or you could just make a jetpack."
Cayde nodded. "True. Fynch, where'd our ride go?"
"Sorry, but the ferry won't sail here," Fynch apologized. "Be careful here. For the same reason as the ferry won't go. Something happened here and it's overgrown with Darkness. It's enough to kill even Guardians like you."
"Uh-oh," Cayde said. "Maybe I should sit this one out."
"Good idea," Hunter nodded.
Cayde sighed, warping back to his ship, and Hunter and Elsie took a breath before sprinting into the swamp. Instantly, they felt the Darkness weighing on them, so thick it was nearly suffocating. However, the Scorn that charged them, mostly Screebs, weren't affected, forcing them to blast them. Within moments, they were both walking, struggling to do even that, as though walking through thick muck up to their shoulders. Even moving their guns to target the charging Scorn was difficult, forcing both to have to use their Hand Cannons just for the sake of having to move less of her body to use it. Then, as they neared a stone pillar that glowed with a pale, green light, the weight began to lift. Both surged toward the light, feeling themselves slowly break free of the Darkness, before they finally reached the pillar and were free. They took a moment to clear the Scorn around them, narrowing their eyes as more began to appear in flashes of blue light.
"Pillar to pillar," Hunter said.
Elsie nodded, and they turned as one, sprinting for the next as Hunter spun, sending a wave of daggers into all of the Scorn around them, giving them a few moments of piece for Elsie to reload and upgrade the Hand Cannon with her SIVA to have infinite ammo, like Hunter's Joker. The weight of the Darkness began to settle on them again, but they fought forward, once again slaughtering any Scorn who tried to stop them. They passed through a small gate formed by a pair of stone spikes, then reached another Hive pillar, allowing its magic to free of them of the weight of the Darkness, then continued. They repeated this process of pillar to gate to pillar no less than five more times, killing dozens of Scorn each time, before finally passing through a gate and out of the Darkness flooded swamp. They jumped across a broken bridge to the entrance of a cave system before stopping, Hunter forming and dropping a Transmat Beacon for Cayde.
"Cayde, we're good," Hunter said. "You see my beacon?"
"I see it," Cayde confirmed. "Just be a second."
"Careful heading in," Fynch warned. "The knight guarding this place? He's an old rival of Oryx, and he's no joke. Pretty funny that Savathûn has him guarding Oryx's temple."
Cayde appeared beside them, and Hunter reclaimed the SIVA from the beacon before they continued into the caves. A dozen Scorn and several Lucent Moths moved to meet them, only to die quickly in a hail of bullets without ever getting close. Finally, the cave opened up into the face of a cliff, and they saw a Scorn Abomination putting up a surprisingly decent fight against a trio of much larger Ogres, though it was definitely going to lose. They jumped down from the cliff, Hunter once again carrying Cayde, and allowed the huge monstrosities to rip each other apart as they focused on cleaning up the rest of the Scorn that swarmed toward them. The Scorn had been assaulting the temple, evidently as intent on getting into it as Hunter and the others, but within moments of deciding to try and kill Hunter and the others first, they had been wiped out. Finally, Hunter stepped out where he could see the brawl between the Abomination and the Ogres, only to watch as the two surviving Ogres finally ripped the Abomination apart. One of the three had died, and both of the others were nearly dead already, and would probably bleed to death if left alone. Instead, Hunter formed a Golden Gun and fired a pair of shots, killing both surviving Ogres before letting the gun fade as Elsie and Cayde stepped up beside him.
"I miss my Light," Cayde said longingly before returning to himself as he turned to the temple. "Last one in's a rotten egg!"
He fired a pair of arrows into the two Shriekers flanking the entrance, then sprinted for the entrance, Hunter and Elsie sprinting at his sides. Several Acolytes rushed out of the temple to meet them, only to die within seconds, along with the Lucent Moths providing them Light barriers. Inside the tower was a hole in the floor, and they all dropped through, landing inside of the main chamber of the temple atop a dias. Before them was a massive statue of Oryx battling his own Worm God, but as soon as they landed, Hive Magic energy began to swarm from the dias, forcing them all to leap off of it onto a balcony around the room as a light shone from the center of the dias. Then, in a flash of light, the knight guarding the temple appeared, slamming a massive axe with a head bigger than Hunter's entire body down on the dias and fracturing it.
"He's a big one," Hunter mused.
"Yup," Cayde nodded, just as dozens of lesser Hive troops began to flood into the room both from the doors and from Hive Magic circles that allowed them to be transported into the room directly from anywhere in the Throne World. "So, who wants what?"
Hunter hummed thoughtfully before nodding to himself as he put his rifle away and formed his Glaive. "I'll take the knight. You two handle everything else. I'll help where I can." He formed his SIVA along his forearms into magnets and dozens of dagger blades, as he had in Eternity.
"We'll cover you," Elsie promised. "I'll take the left side."
"I got the right," Cayde nodded.
"Go," Hunter said, leaping from the balcony at the knight.
As he flew, he swung his hands outward, sending a rain of dagger blades out into the swarms of Hive before his Glaive swept back around to the front, crashing into the side of the knight's axe and knocking it to the side before stabbing into the Knight's chest. It roared in pain, staggering backward before Hunter pushed off of its chest, ripping his blade free and landing on the dias with it. The Knight roared, swinging its axe around at Hunter, only for him to duck and spin under the axe blade, allowing it to pass as his Glaive swept around, slashing its shins before smashing the back end of his Glaive up into its face as it doubled over. The Knight's head was encased in a large, chitin helmet with horns off to the sides and a gap down the front that glowed with white light. Hunter doubted he felt the impact with the back end of his Glaive, but it made the knight tip backward, and as soon as it was off balance, Hunter swung the front end of his Glaive back to the front, channeling his Void energy into the Glaive and began to rapidly squeeze the trigger, sending large blasts of Void Light into the Knight's head. It roared in pain, staggering backward further and shielding its head with its arms, only to slip off the edge of the dias and crash to the ground on its back. Instantly, Hunter stabbed his Glaive into the ground and spun himself, arms whipping around and sending a storm of blades raging through the room, slaughtering Hive creatures rapidly just as they began to overwhelm Cayde and Elsie.
Finally, he stopped, grabbing his Glaive and leaping backward just before the the Knight rose, smashing his axe to the ground and sending out a pulse of raw Hive Magic, the concussion hurling Hunter and overturning the dias. Hunter flipped, slamming his feet into a pair of Acolytes and smashing them to the ground, killing them as he swept his Glaive around himself, slaying half a dozen Hive. Just as he turned back to the massive Knight, Hive Magic began to flood from the platform the dias had been on, half a dozen sword-bearing Knights appearing from it.
"I don't believe it," Fynch said. "You're making Alak-Hul, the Darkblade...er, Lightblade now, I guess...look like a fool!"
"No Hive Knight can match me with a blade," Hunter scoffed. "Who are these other Knights?"
"Those are the Lightblade's Disciples," Fynch said. "His top followers."
Hunter snorted as three of the Knights leapt at him, the other three heading for Elsie and Cayde, who had ended up fighting over to each other. The first leapt at Hunter, slashing, but Hunter spun out of the way, then stabbed backward into the Knight, killing it before slashing out through its side and then through the next Knight's chest as he stepped out of its way, allowing its corpse to crash into the first's as they both disintegrated. The last roared and charged Hunter, only for Hunte to sweep his left arm toward it, a barrage of blades flashing from his forearm to its face and torso, killing it and knocking it off course, its corpse crashing to the ground. At the same time, Cayde managed to put a bullet into one Knight's head, the bullet exploding and killing it, wounding the second as Elsie killed the third. She hurled a Stasis Crystal into the second, freezing it, then tapped her hand against it as she passed it, a pulse of Stasis Energy blasting the Knight apart.
Alak-Hul roared in rage, and Hunter's SIVA swarmed to his Glaive, rapidly transforming it into a replica of the Lament. Hunter leapt from the balcony once again to meet Alak-Hul, but this time, it roared in rage, raising its free hand and sending a flood of Arc blasts into Hunter, sending him exploding backward into the wall. Hunter huffed, pushing off of the wall, then dove aside from Alak-Hul's axe. However, as he spun to face the massive Knight again, he swore, diving to the side out of the way of another spray of Arc blasts. He rolled off of the balcony, then landed on his feet on the bottom floor and instantly spun, his sword tearing through a ring of Hive Acolytes below him. Alak-Hul roared above him, dropping and bringing his axe down at him, but Hunter dove forward, narrowly slipping under Alak-Hul, then just as he rolled to his feet, he twisted, the thruster on the back of his blade screaming as he slashed back upward at Alak-Hul. The blade tore up through the back of Alak-Hul's leg, the blade's weight and momentum yanking Hunter into the air before the thruster swept the blade down and around before up again. In about a second, three successive upward slashes tore up Alak-Hul's back, splitting it wide open and sending him staggering forward, shrieking and roaring in pain.
Hunter landed on his feet as his SIVA swarmed from the sword back to him, reabsorbing it entirely. Alak-Hul spun, swiping at Hunter, but Hunter leaned backward, the axe passing him within inches of his face before Hunte swiped his arms forward, sending two dozen daggers flashing into the gap in his helmet. Alak-Hul shrieked in pain, staggering away from Hunter just as a pair of Knights glowing with Void Light and wielding a pair of Void Shields crashed down on either side of Hunter. However, just as they both moved to strike, Hunter spun, a pair of Daybreak Swords flashing into existence in his hands before he slashed their shields out to the sides, then stabbed the pair in the face. He released the swords, which flashed and vanished before their bodies disintegrated, and Hunter grabbed both of the Hive Ghosts by their cores, crushing them both and absorbing their Light. Then, he turned, his SIVA swarming to his hand again and forming a new sword, a SIVA replica of a Daybreak Sword. It lacked the Solar Energy that gave the Daybreak Sword its power, but as Hunter swept the sword around to meet the axe, it deflected it all the same, as his Glaive had done before hand. Then, Hunter leapt off of the ground, stepping off of the axe as he did, then slashed once, sending Alak-Hul's head spinning into the air. All around the temple's chamber, the Hive froze, Cayde and Elsie stopping to look around, cheering as they saw why the Hive were frozen. Then, as Hunter landed on his feet and Alak-Hul's head crashed down off to the side, the Hive fled, swarming back into the doors out of the chamber and leaving Hunter and the others alone.
"Great job!" Cayde cheered as Hunter reabsorbed the SIVA from his sword.
"Thanks," Hunter smirked.
They all stopped as Alak-Hul's Ghost appeared, but as all three lunged for it, it shot into the air, avoiding them, then warped out of the temple just before they all fired up at it, escaping.
"Shit," Hunter sighed, then shook his head. "What exactly are we here for, Fynch?"
"I'm not sure," Fynch admitted. "But it'll probably be on the altar."
Elsie walked over to the altar and picked up a fragment of a shattered tablet. Instantly, Savathûn's voice echoed through the room.
"The tablet hides a riddle..."
As her voice trailed off, Spark appeared beside Hunter, scanning the tablet.
"Hey, I recognize this," Spark said. "Fynch, you were right about there being something here. This is a fragment of the Tablets of Ruin, the Tablets Oryx used to create Taken."
"I was right?" Fynch asked. "I was right! I knew it! I knew the Taken were involved somehow."
"Alak-Hul's Ghost got away," Hunter reported to both Fynch and Ikora. "It just left his body here."
"Ah, contingency plan," Fynch explained. "They're learning. Trying to stay a step ahead of you. But you got the tablet. That's the important part. That gets us one step closer to taking down the Witch Queen."
"What should we do with the body?" Cayde asked.
"Just leave it, for now," Ikora said. "If it becomes an issue again, we can deal with it then."
"If you say so," Hunter shrugged. "Come on. Let's get out of here."
The others nodded, summoning their ships to the temple before warping to them.
Leave a review.