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Bloodborne belongs to FromSoftware, Horizon Zero Dawn belongs to Guerrilla Games

Chapter 23: Rage of the Amber Moon

LOG: The Nature of the Hunt: Data Uncorrupted

Cyrus Bishop: One of my other logs speaks briefly of the calling bells, and I mentioned, albeit briefly, that Great Ones can send you across worlds on their whim over your will. I find it prudent to explain why.

It is the nature of the Hunt to be as unforgiving as it is horrifying. We, as Hunters, are beholden to what the Great Ones want. We get no say in the matter, and yet they do not remove from us our free will… We must be able to think for ourselves while on the hunt. To them, we are little more than slaves. Still, it is an interesting thing. The Hunt itself binds us in our thoughts, our actions, and our will. That is why staying sane is so hard. The ultimate goal of The Hunt is to drive us into such an insatiable bloodlust, that our only goal is death, destruction, and the blood.

The nature of The Hunt is one of bloodshed. Spill the blood and feed the insatiable hunger of Crimson Moon. However, it is only the Paleblood of Great Ones that will ever truly satisfy such a craving. It was long speculated that we are descended from some Eldritch being, hence why our blood can satisfy The Hunt to some extent. But it is not enough. It will never be enough. For the Hunt wishes to reclaim all of the blood. And we…

We are born of the blood.

…/…

The sound of guards running toward the gates drew Cyrus's attention. One of the guards stopped at the house.

"Machines have been sighted approaching the ridge." The guard said. "The King has called for your presence."

Cyrus nodded at the guard and headed up the stairs to get Aloy. He was moderately surprised to see she was already gathering her weapons.

The two of them hurried towards Avad's palace. Meridian was in an uproar. Guards gathering weapons and arming anyone who could fight and the few remaining civilians rushing to safety.

"Aloy, Cyrus, glad you could join us." the King said in greeting. "Scouts saw a large contingent of machines approaching from the ridge."

Cyrus and Aloy looked towards where the king was pointing. It appeared quiet from their position. Only the light of the full moon shone down on the distant trees.

"Khopeshes?" Cyrus asked.

"And more." Marad said. "At least two Thunderjaws, and a Stormbird amidst a significant gathering of other corrupted machines. We don't know the exact numbers, but-"

A massive explosion resounded throughout the valley. The Carja soldiers, Marad, Avad, Aloy and Cyrus all watched as the ridge was torn to pieces by the force of the blast. Khopeshes, Scarabs, Ravagers, and more began marching through the broken rock. Cyrus turned to Avad.

"Avad, when I give the signal, your men will need to retreat." Cyrus ordered.

"And leave Meridian defenseless?" Avad asked, shock ringing through his body.

"If they don't retreat it will. Watch for the moon to turn red." Cyrus said.

"We need to get down there and defend the gates!" Aloy ordered.

She started towards the gates. The soldiers weren't doing anything.

"You heard her, GO!" Avad commanded.

They ran to defend the city. Another smaller blast destroyed part of the palace. A part of the balcony they were on collapsed. Cyrus looked to the alcove below them and frowned. Helis and some of his Shadow Carja walked out in triumph.

"Aloy, you get down to the gates! I'll deal with Helis!" Cyrus called.

"Why you?" Aloy asked.

"We need a host for the nightmare. Preferably one who is expendable." Cyrus replied before dropping down.

"WHAT!?" Aloy shouted as Cyrus fell.

Cyrus ignored her as he plunged his Burial Blade through the head of one of the Shadow Carja. The other guard stepped back in fear as Cyrus stood and yanked the sword from the dead soldier. He shifted the Burial Blade into its scythe form and summarily executed the second guard while Helis drew his own blade.

"You're supposed to be dead." Helis stated.

"Believe me, I wish I was." Cyrus replied.

Helis swung his blade at Cyrus, growling. "Then I shall deliver you to your death as many times as it takes!"

Cyrus stepped back to avoid the attack. He retaliated with an upward swing of his scythe. It was a minor surprise to him that Helis was able to block such a blow so effortlessly. The man was clearly strong, if nothing else. Cyrus grinned and pressed the attack.

Blow after blow were exchanged, neither combatant gaining nor losing any ground in the fight. Cyrus dodged another swing of Helis' sword. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough as the man clipped the Hunter in the shoulder. Helis rapidly began to slash at Cyrus. The Good Hunter weathered the beating before uppercutting Helis. The stun was enough to give Cyrus a respite to heal. Helis's eyes widened as Cyrus stabbed a blood vial in his leg and the wound on the hunter disappeared in a red haze.

He let the Eldritch power flow through him and arched his back slightly. He aimed his hand at Helis, and a small Eldritch portal opened. The disembodied tentacles of Ebrietas emerged from the small hole to the cosmos and struck him. The impact of such a force knocked Helis onto his back.

Helis barely had time to get back up before he was on the defensive. The Hunter had switched back to using the Burial Blade as a sword. Helis could feel his blood draining with each purposeful slash. He realized as he knocked away another of Cyrus swings, that the Hunter was trying to bleed him dry. Unfortunately for Helis, it was working. Cyrus dashed behind him and slashed at the back of his knees.

Helis knelt in pain as Cyrus knocked his sword from his hands. He looked up at the Hunter who was grinning slightly. His eyes had taken on a slightly darker tint.

"Why?" Helis asked. "It was my destiny to rule."

"A destiny fed to you by a false god." Cyrus replied, in a stoic voice. "I told you before, you are little more than a puppet, and your final act will be to play temporary host to a nightmare in this reality."

Helis didn't have the strength to resist as Cyrus stood him up and turned him to the full moon.

"Now turn to the moon and despair." Cyrus whispered.

To Helis' horror, the moon shifted from its natural white glow to an unnaturally deep crimson. Cyrus stepped behind the dying man as the silhouette of the Moon Presence appeared in the crimson light. The nightmare beyond comprehension descending from above, visible only to Cyrus and Helis, broke the man.

The Moon Presence focused its attention on Cyrus. It spoke in a language Helis would never understand. Cyrus nodded and forced Helis to kneel once more. The Moon Presence grabbed Helis with one hand. Cyrus frowned as a bridge was opened between a nightmare and the waking world. A moment passed before the Moon Presence vanished and the night returned to normal. A short-lived sense of relief spread across Helis as the Moon Presence vanished. That relief turned to pain and horror as Cyrus stabbed the Burial Blade through his heart. An ethereal blue glow surrounded the blade and the man as the nightmare found an anchor.

Cyrus sighed and turned away from Helis. He unsheathed Ludwig's Holy Blade and moved towards the battlefield below.

…/…

The defense of Meridian was slowly but surely falling apart. The number of soldiers and Oseram provided cannons would have provided an adequate defense were it not for the sheer number of machines marching on the city. Aloy focused on any Khopeshes and other large machines that entered range. The Stormbirds were the biggest problem. The strafing electric blasts pounded the defending force. Compounding that was the fact that the Stormbirds stayed beyond the cannons' range.

Aloy growled and ordered one of the Carja guards to take the cannon. He did and Aloy began firing arrows up at the machines. The Eldritch arrows from the Bowblade struck true each time. One of the Stormbirds into the invading force when a third glowing arrow pierced through its head.

A loud familiar bang was heard, followed quickly by a grunt and crunching metal. Aloy turned around to see Cyrus bisecting a Scarab. She also realized how far from the gate she had advanced.

"I'd suggest keeping an eye on your back next time." Cyrus said as he turned and attacked two approaching Longlegs.

"Sorry, Stormbirds were staying out of range. Are the reinforcements arriving soon?" Aloy asked.

"When the moon turns red." Cyrus replied, decapitating a Longleg. "So, any minute now. Order the retreat, I'll hold them off!"

"EVERYONE, FALL BACK!" Aloy shouted. "WE WON'T SURVIVE STAYING HERE ANY LONGER! PROTECT THE CIVILIANS!"

The remaining soldiers nodded and entered the city, rushing to any areas where civilians may have remained. Aloy ran toward the gate and turned around. She continued to fire arrows into the army of machines. Cyrus raised a, now glowing, sword over his head and slammed the blade into the ground. Waves of energy flew through the earth and destroyed the front few lines of approaching machines. Cyrus continued to fling more blasts of Eldritch energy into the army as he backed toward the wall.

Aloy grinned as she noticed the light of the moon turning a pale red. Cyrus unleashed another blast before raising the sword once more. The horrendous tones of the Moon Presence echoed through Cyrus, just as it had back at Zero Dawn. Aloy tuned it out as she focused on shooting the approaching machines. Cyrus lowered his blade to the ground and slumped against it.

Aloy slowly lowered her bow as two large, seven armed monsters landed amidst the monsters. She recognized the Amygdala's from the mountain. Her bow lowered as the two Eldritch beings crushed each and every machine near them. One of the monsters seemed to roar as it tore off one of its arms to use as a makeshift club against the machines.

Small holes filled with stars seemed to open at the end of each hand with each attack. Parts of machines would disappear into the holes whenever the Amygdalas closed their hands on a machine.

"Less than I was hoping for, more than I expected." Cyrus muttered as he leaned against the wall.

It wasn't hard to see how tired the Good Hunter was. He was breathing heavily; his form was slouched over his sword and sweat was dripping from his brow.

"Will they stop them all?" Aloy asked.

"No, they're probably going to die." Cyrus replied.

Aloy turned back to the two monsters. To her surprise, the machines were managing to damage each Amygdala.

"I thought that you had to be connected to the dream to see them?" Aloy said.

"Sometimes. Helis's corpse is serving as a temporary anchor for the nightmare from which those two arrived. This makes them visible since we are technically in a nightmare right now. Secondly, even if they weren't visible, seeing something isn't a requirement to hurt it." Cyrus replied.

The first Amygdala to fall dead was the one that hadn't torn off its arm. The corpse of the monster crushed a few machines when it lay still. The second Amygdala fell soon afterwards. Cyrus pushed himself off the wall, a small smile of relief on his face. Aloy could easily see why. The massive army had dwindled by a significant number. Unfortunately, there were still a not insignificant number of machines left.

Cyrus went back to attacking any machines that were close. Aloy focused on the ones flying overhead. A sense that something was wrong slowly overtook her as she brought down a third Glinthawk. She chanced a look across the river to see three Khopeshes firing a massive barrage of missiles at Aloy, Cyrus and the wall behind them. Aloy yelled for Cyrus to take cover before doing so herself. Cyrus growled and spun around a Sawtooth he had been fighting to place the machine between him and the missiles.

Explosions rocked the ground around them. Aloy could only despair as the gate and wall were blown to smithereens. A chunk of rock was the last thing she saw flying towards her before the world went black.

Her vision slowly started fading in. She could hear the screams of the dying, the roar of fire and screeches of machines. An orange glow illuminated everything around them. She could just barely make out a Khopesh dragging a glowing red ball of metal behind it before her vision blacked out again.

She came to sometime later. Someone was calling her name and shaking her.

"ALOY!" the familiar voice shouted in relief.

"Rost?" Aloy asked as her hazy mind tried to make sense of the situation.

"Nope, Erend." Erend said as Aloy's vision cleared. "Glad you're alive."

"Cyrus?" Aloy asked as she stood up and stumbled slightly.

Erend's face fell. "He didn't make it."

"The city?" Aloy asked, feeling some blood leaking from her forehead..

"Under attack. Come on! A large machine dragged something up to the spire. If you're right, we don't have much time left!" Erend said as he helped Aloy steady herself.

Aloy looked to the spire to see a pulse of blue rip across the sky overhead.

"Hades is already sending the codes!" Aloy exclaimed. "We have to hurry."

"Way ahead of you, come on!" Erend said as the two began running through the burning city towards the spire. Another pulse erupted from the metal monolith as they neared the mesa's base.

…/…

The dull glow of the fires barely illuminated Cyrus as his body stood up. Though if one were to watch him, they would quickly realize that he was clearly not himself. For one, a slightly manic grin was beset upon his face. For two, his eyes were blood red with no pupil. For three, he was obviously bleeding, with large gashes scattered across body and a decent sized dent in his head. Yet, he did not appear to care one way or another.

A blue pulse ripped through the skies of the waking world. The anchor for the nightmare was weakening, but this manifestation would last a bit longer. The barely standing body lurched forward and began stumbling its way through the destroyed streets of lower Meridian. Blood dripped down his arms as his body drug itself through the streets.

He stumbled out of the city, walking a little easier for him, blood still dripping down his arms.

"Sir, we need to get you to a healer!" One of the soldiers called as he noticed Cyrus.

"No." Cyrus said as he continued.

The soldier halted. He couldn't explain why, but there was an undercurrent of vast unnamable power underlying that one word. Were it not for the man speaking, he doubted that he would have understood what was said.

Cyrus's body continued towards the spire. Any worried voices were summarily ignored as he walked through the battlefield. The attacking force of men and their pathetic machines had been stamped out, leaving no obstacle to hinder the slowly fading body of its hunter. The faint sounds of battle could be heard from above as they began the ascent of the Mesa.

They crested the rise to see their new huntress fighting and losing to a heavily armed Khopesh. Other unimportant humans were fighting different machines. It was easy to recognize why Aloy was losing as well. The crimson markings across the machine signified it was a blood wasp. More than though, a slight Eldritch presence hung about the machine, as though it were under control of another Great One.

The Moon Presence felt anger. The Eldritch presence emanating from the machine, and the sphere next to the spire for that matter, felt so much like the formless Oedon that she had destroyed so long ago. A presence that also matched the newborn her hunter had destroyed back in Yharnam. It was impossible for those two to still be alive. He had ensured they were both eradicated, lost to the winds of the cosmos. Not even the blind dreamer nor the Gate could bring them back if they so wanted.

Another explosion launched Aloy back against the wall. It wasn't hard to see that she was on her last legs.

"Pathetic automaton." The Moon Presence intoned though Cyrus. "You're barely fit enough to be a beast."

Cyrus's arm raised and the glow from the moon grew darker. The Moon Presence clenched a fist in front of the modified Khopesh and growled out a cacophony of sounds and words from its alien tongue.

The other humans fell to the ground, clutching at their heads as all of the machines around them crumpled inward. Large blood red spear shot out of each machine, ensuring they were all dead. The Moon Presence approached the base of the spire as another pulse ripped from the monolith.

"This world belongs to me." Cyrus translated as another blood spear manifested in Cyrus hand.

The anchor was failing as the moon presence slammed the spear into the Hades core. A massive storm of bloody frenzy spears shot up through the spire and a red pulse tore open the top of the monolith as the nightmare's anchor finally failed. The Moon Presence pulled back its power and released the hold on Cyrus.

The Good Hunter swayed in place before falling backward. Only the distant crackling of flames could be heard as the dawning sun crested into the sky.

ERROR-DATA_CORRUPTION-BEGIN_FILE_RECOVERY…/…

Data Log TEH-023

Thus I am back and we have reached the end of Zero Dawn. I've decided that I'm going to do a short few chapter arc for Frozen Wilds, before moving on to Forbidden West. It will just be continued on this fic here.

Sorry for the unexpected hiatus. Life decided to throw a curveball at me, then it kicked me while I was down. Over the last couple months, I encountered a massive influx of work for my job, then I lost my job because of a qualification I lack that I thought I had, was called for jury duty, was evicted, moved in with family, had several final exams, and had to deal with the fear of my sister almost having a miscarriage. That being said, right now, everything is fine. My sister is fine, I'm back in college again focusing on getting a masters, that missing qualification, and waiting for fall to start my next job. I finally, FINALLY, have some free time to unwind and write. Hopefully I can start regularly updating again. After all, my growing folder of fic ideas has is getting quite out of hand…

Anyway, thank you to all who read this, your feedback and views are much appreciated, and thank you for sticking with me.

Goodbye viewer; Fare thee well.

End Log S.T.K.