"parasite, brethren"
He walked.
And walked.
And walked some more. There were a couple occasions he thought they'd come about in a circle, but each time Xiān assured him they were making progress. "Starting to get an image," she said. "If I tap into the mainframe quickly - just enough to glance around - I'll have a solid map in no time."
"If they sense you-"
"Ike. I don't get caught."
"And you call me reckless."
"You are."
Ikharos snorted. "If you were any other Ghost-"
"Good thing I'm not. You want the best, you got the best."
There was no world in which he'd correct her.
The inside of the cable eventually sloped down. Xiān held him back when it gave way to a sheer drop. "I'm reading Darkness. Taken and Nightmare and... whatever this new stuff is."
Ikharos nodded to himself. He flexed his fingers, willing Stasis and Void to fill his hands. "If we cut through..."
"We'll be broadcasting our location to the entire station."
"So what are our options?"
"I... guess follow this thing along? Wait. I'm... okay. There's a branch up ahead. That's-"
The paracausal thread turned red.
"Yeah. That. It's where the Nightmare essence is pumping from."
"Going now." Ikharos stepped out, felt the tug of artificial gravity and allowed it to take him part of the way. When the branch leered up, where the surrounding cable veered into two directions, he darted down one as a gust of Voidsmoke. The new tunnel abruptly ended in a mechanical valve. Ikharos picked his way along, found the tiniest fault only a couple of millimetres wide and slithered through. Their dark surroundings were replaced with blinding white.
"Looks clear," Xiān said.
Ikharos solidified. Instantly he was met with the wash of pure Darkness. It ripped at him, nipped his skin and clawed his eyes, filled his ears with insidious whispers and his lungs with shards of glass. It perforated him with cold malice, ran him through, rent his form open straight down to the soul-
But he was more than that. More than prey. With gritted teeth and surging Light Ikharos knit himself back together. He became steadfast, a bastion against the Dark, and the waves of its hate broke on him. With a shudder he opened his eyes - and beheld the source of it all.
A scythe-head. Broken from the haft and clutched by steel claws. What little remained of the handle was gold, the blade silver, and a pinkish energy wreathed every inch of it. Crimson essence bled from a Dark-soaked metal that could only be refined hadium, filling the air with writhing phantoms. Hands clutched at the edges of his robes. Faces leered out of nothing, mouths stretched impossibly wide. Ikharos trudged through the mass of human, Eliksni, Cabal, Hive. Friends and enemies surrounded him, screamed at him, begged him to help them. Step by arduous step he closed in on the relic - and the moment he touched it he opened his third eye, viewing its memory through Deepsight.
Formless but not without will. Senseless but not without awareness. A sensation universal, born from the same gradient it would forever be slaved to feed upon.
Fear.
Given shape. Given purpose. Given a cause to champion and enemies to rend low, low, low. Fell them. Fell them for me/us/all. Fell them for you.
A prize. A prize most dear, to haunt before that Final Night. A prize-
Betrayal. The witch. The damned witch. Prize free, ambitions sundered, worship stolen - acolytes, acolytes to me, to me-
Gone.
"Gone," Ikharos rasped.
The Nightmares had faded. The scythe-head hung frozen in Stasis.
"Gone," he said again, because the word ringing in his head demanded it. "Gone. Gone."
ENOUGH
The eye blinked. Pain shattered the relic's hold. Ikharos staggered back with a cry, wrenching his head up to glare at Shelbth's pallid form. The God-Thought stood before him with its limbs taut, eye bright, face... scowling. A sight just as biologically impossible for a Psion as a smile. The unease prompted by the sight of it left him reeling.
"What is this?" Ikharos demanded, looking past them. But that was a stupid question because he knew well what it was: the very weapon that cut into the anomaly around the world to save them.
The very thing that allowed the Scorn to reach the Disciples.
NOT FOR YOU, Shelbth snapped. Each word struck like a whip, bringing fresh bouts of crippling agony. It was all he could do not to collapse right then and there. If there was any consolation, it was that Shelbth let up rather quickly. NOR FOR THEM.
"Uh," Xiān said.
Ikharos twirled around. They were in a containment chamber, an exhibit - and outside, in broad view, stood a pair of Exos. Staring. At him.
"I thought we were clear," he said icily.
"I thought you were looking," Xiān fired back.
"Fuck."
One of the Exos looked to the other. If they were talking Ikharos couldn't hear them, but their mouths weren't moving. The first Exo turned back to stare at him and the second began backpedalling.
"Yeeeaaah, he's going to get friends," Xiān deadpanned. "That sure lasted long."
Ikharos raced to the glass screen and pressed his hand against it. It was thick, resilient, but ultimately mere matter. With a sibilant hiss the Void melted through it and the Exos-
They shot at him.
He consumed the bullets as they came, dashed to the closest and swung a Stasis-coated hand, decapitating it in a single blow. Discoloured alkahest and nanites spurted from the stump. The second broke into a run and Ikharos all but Blinked right on top of it. He didn't bother killing it; he simply opened his Light and Devoured it on the spot, drinking in the steel-turned-Void energy with his eyes, all in the span of a second. There was nothing left in his wake.
"Someone'll have noticed," Xiān said.
Ikharos grunted and flicked the bloodied Stasis from his hand. "We're not finished. I need to know what's going on."
"That's a tall order."
"We won't get another chance."
"See, that's why we call you reckless- Did you feel that?"
Ikharos fell to a crouch. "My Light's muddled. Feel what?"
"Like... oh fuck. Door. Door!"
He turned just as the door opened and a flash of energy raced towards him. Ikharos Blinked out of the way and dropped a Bleak Watcher. The turret only managed to fire off a single burst before the energy stream swung about and smashed it apart - but a burst was enough. Through his own inherent Darkness Ikharos felt his will hook into his assailant's entropy, changing them within and without, freezing them solid. It fought, hard. In the moments before it could break free he closed the distance with another series of Blinks, enough to slide beneath the third coming beam and smack the weapon - a glaive longer than he was tall - aside.
It was the winged creature from outside. Must have caught his scent. Must have tracked him. Somehow. That was a problem. One that necessitated a quick solution.
Ikharos fired off a blast of penumbral energy, froze its spear along the doorframe, then leapt on a burst of Solar. It tried snatching him out of the air with its offhand; he Blinked through and solidified as a storm of living Arc. He closed jaws of rushing power around the alien, locked fangs of lightning in its steel hide and flayed the illusion from its Exomind skeleton. It staggered back, crying out with a voice fit to shatter glass.
Then it spoke. "Waíse letta." (Be stopped.)
He had a ward for that. But the ward required energy, his energy, and the strain was immense. The alien didn't let up until his focus was disrupted to such an extent that he was bodily ripped from his Stormtrance, and by then it didn't need to press on. The back of a huge hand smashed him aside with power only a machine could muster. He hit a metal wall and fell to the floor in a broken heap. His ribs were shattered, maybe his entire ribcage. His lungs were collapsing. Couldn't breathe. Ikharos imagined sucking in air - and he melted through the floor, Devouring the station's hull until he could rise up whole once more.
There was a shattering sound as the creature pulled its spear free. Ikharos gritted his teeth and Blinked again, this time behind it. It twirled, startlingly quick for something of that size, but he was already moving. He knew Exos. Understood them on an anatomical level, in ways even Ghosts found difficult. He had to. For Len's sake. He could see her hovering on the edge of his vision, smiling knowingly. But this wasn't a maintenance job between friends; this was a murder-in-the-making. Converting that knowledge into something lethal came far too easily.
Ikharos could've tried chucking a Nova Bomb, but he wasn't optimistic the station's integrity would survive it, and dropping another orbital installation wasn't quite on his bucket list just yet. Caer Lerion was a fluke, nothing more.
He went for the legs first. Ikharos compiled his Resonant Darkness into the Lubrae's Ruin and carved through one of the Exo's knees. It tried moving away but he was just as quick. It dropped the spear toward him, blade first, as it fell; he danced aside and turned the dodge into a follow-up strike, opening its belly as it collapsed. It hit the ground, he Blinked out from beneath it, and a number of wriggling hoses slithered free of its torso to spray Alkahest in every direction.
It didn't put up much of a fight after that. The Exo clasped at its stomach in that oh so familiar echo of mortal terror. The wound wasn't so dangerous as it was in an organic victim, but it believed it was, so that was just as effective. Ikharos Blinked to its other side and severed the wrist still holding the glaive. The weapon looked nothing like the ExSec's modified Valkyries; rather it seemed to be formed of the same material whatever the holographic disguise was supposed to emulate - smooth silvered metal grown into shape rather than forged. Even at a glance he could tell it was pure hadium. Purer than any Hive sword he'd ever seen before. The perfect medium through which to channel paracausal power.
With it cooling and still, Xiān was free to snatch it up with transmat. She didn't even need to ask; theirs was a shared avarice, however reluctant she made it seem. "You going to finish it?"
Ikharos fell to a crouch by the spasming alien's side. It ignored him entirely, trying in vain to stuff it's pseudo-intestines back inside. "I don't know. What is it?"
"We both know the answer to that."
"But an Exo of what?"
"Hell if I know. Where's the mouth supposed to be?"
"Perhaps it doesn't have one. Hello?" Ikharos tried waving his own glaive in a vaguely threatening manner. It didn't so much as glance at him. "Does it have an energy reading?"
"Some. Full of Dark, surprise surprise. Other stuff too - like that new toy of yours."
"Dragonspeak."
"Brain's- I mean, its processor is going wild. Pretty sure this guy's tagged into the local network. Those other bozos too, before you murked 'em. Me thinks we've been had."
"I figured."
"...Soooo we're not doing anything about that. Cool."
Ikharos closed on the Exo, glaive in hand - but when his Light flickered in warning he twisted around and raised the Ruin's kinetic shield to block the coming energy blast. A second Exomind, the splitting image of the one behind him, pulled free of transmat and fired again. A third appeared beside it, horned head fixing on Ikharos' position.
"Ike-"
"I know!" He fired back with a stream of twisting Resonance. It took one of them in the shoulder, annihilated its arm and spun it around. The other fired, forcing him to raise his shield again. Then the injured one behind him swatted its good hand along his back and his spine snapped. Ikharos fell with a curse, pressed his fingers into the floor to eat and eat and eat, but the shooter was running for him, glaive leveled with his head-
-and a wall of Stasis rose up between them, catching it just before it could reach him.
"I won't die here," he panted. Steel warped and melted beneath him, becoming flesh and bone. "Not now. Not yet."
He rose up, off the floor and into the air. Light bled from his eyes.
"Not to mere mortals."
The closest Exomind smashed through the wall - and he plunged a Void soul in its chest. It staggered to a halt and screamed as indigo light ran along its power cables and nervous system. Limbs folded into its chest, its torso collapsed with an almighty crack, the soul grew until every inch of the alien was sucked shrieking into the quarter-sized singularity... and Ikharos gently caught it in his hand. It melted into his skin, suffusing him with more power than he'd arrived with.
Burning wings flared out behind him. His fingers sharpened, plated in Stasis to form talons. He took up the Ruin, aligned it with the second Exo and unleashed his Darkness. A pillar of superheated Resonance punched clean through its head, ripping and tearing until all that remained were a few scraps of molten steel. The last - and coincidentally the first - he landed on, tearing away the remaining arm that tried to snatch him away. It cried out "Brisingr!" and the air filled with heat.
Ikharos waded through it, shielded in glimmering Void. He grabbed the base of one of its mighty horns and tugged its head up, searching for something to look at. There was a rudimentary optic in the centre of its head so he settled for that. "My name," he said, a growl if nothing else, "is Ikharos, Guardian of Humanity. And you," he pulled its head closer, "are not human. So I'm going to ask you: why are you here?"
The Exo tried, and failed, to wriggle out of his grip.
"You have ten seconds. Either you speak or you die-"
It laughed. Suddenly and without warning. It sounded nothing like the human version of laughter, but it was undeniable. "Little human. Little man. Little-"
He ran the Ruin through its sternum to hold its body in place and proceeded to wrench its head off. It didn't even have time to scream. Ikharos gasped for breath, trembling with adrenaline and fury.
"Smooth," Xiān quietly said.
A part of him wanted to smash through the station until more Exos showed up. A more rational part advocated leaving and returning to the planet's surface. The ExSec had paracausal suppressors. They had aliens armed with Darkness. They were dangerous. But he couldn't just leave empty-handed.
Ikharos re-entered the containment chamber and didn't stop until he reached the scythe-head where, with delicate care, he broke it free of its holdings. There was no vision this time. He kept well clear of opening his eye of Deepsight, though Shelbth continued to hover on the edge of his vision.
"Beautiful," the witch whispered with hideous reverence. She manifested from a sidelong reflection in the broken glass, emerging with a low hiss. Her claws drew across his chest and dug grooves in his robes. "A weapon fit for a king."
Shelbth glared at her. She cackled madly. Ikharos couldn't breathe. His lungs were full of blood, his brain full of cobwebs - and he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't-
"I've got you," Xiān said softly. The scythe faded until only transmat particles filled his hands.
With a deep ragged breath he turned on his heel.
He settled for a rampage.
Seven more. Seven more aliens they threw at him. The first three came as a coordinated pack. Not that it amounted to much. The others angled for traps, ambushes, even sniping him down a corridor. He dismantled each and every Exo piece by piece, leaving no leftovers. It would have been wasteful.
Bit by bit, room by room they cut through the depths of the facility. Ikharos went where the resistance was. If they had something to protect, he wanted to know about it. Over time he grew... aware in a sense that they weren't alone. That something was peering down at them.
"Network's gone quiet," Xiān reported. "Reckon the big boss is watching?"
Perhaps, but it didn't feel like a Warmind to him. What Ikharos felt was... something different. Vaster. Stronger. Utterly, utterly inhuman. Something to which the Darkness naturally flocked to.
Eventually his violent tour culminated in the observation deck. It was white - or the walls were and the lighting was a particularly pale hue. The flooring, however, was a thick sheet of glass. Ikharos gingerly stepped out onto it. Beneath them writhed a forest of steel limbs. There was no bottom as far as he could see. Just an endless automated factory, beholden to no gravity. Scrap steel was broken, molten, reforged anew. Familiar features took shape - arms, legs, torsos, skulls. Conveyors and robotic servos manipulated the creation of living machines, sending parts around and around and around until the suggestion of a human body took root. Then - they were moved along, bathed in waterfalls of pale liquid dancing with Darkness. Engrams were planted in place of exoneuro-matter. Some stayed still. Others trembled, flailing about with newborn fear until the station whisked them away to places unknown.
It was wrong. It was all wrong. He'd seen the recordings, the schematics, the reports. He knew what Morning Star looked like. Even Clovis, in all his sociopathic glory, had arranged for something grander. This... this wasn't even close. The Warmind wasn't transforming people. He was fabricating them.
"Look," Xiān said, highlighting something on his HUD. Other cables wended their way through the press of automation, funneling the cosmic radiation from outside - and the Light within - further up. The hologram of a half-formed schematic slunk through his sensorium, blooming at the forefront of his mind. Ikharos saw their current location, the scythe's containment chamber far below and the rest of the cables coiling around it before winding onto their position.
"It looks like a heart," Ikharos said, blinking against the strain. His new elven eyes liked the overlaying HUD not at all. Too bright, too distracting. It left him queasy. "If the chambers were held apart. Someone designed it this way to limit cross-contamination."
"One to sort through Light, the other to pulse out Dark," Xiān said. "Yeah, I see it."
"Xiān-"
"Ike, that's Taken energy down there. Blight. I think they're using it to synthesize Alkahest, but the substrate..." she trailed off. "It's not right. It's not right."
"Is it radiolaria?" he asked, fearing the answer.
"No. No, it's not. It's not silica-based at all."
"And you can tell this how-"
"I'm in. I'm in their systems. They've left the door open. Ike..."
He tensed.
"They're just... they're just watching." Xiān paused. Her voice grew shaky. "I think they've been watching from the start. Like, before we entered. I don't know how; we were perfectly quiet, perfectly cloaked, it's... I don't know. None of this feels right."
"Stop. Take a breath."
"I don't have lungs you idiot."
"Xiān."
"Right. Right..." Xiān stopped talking. "Okay, they're... I don't know how to describe it. They're unlocking everything - well, not everything. Just the things we'd normally consider important. They're letting us have it all."
"Like?"
"Like a map of the entire facility." Said map draped over his eyes. "Where we are? It's designated Cradle: Beta."
"Cradle," Ikharos echoed. "What about the station?"
"Oh you'll get a kick out of this. It's named Triumph over Numidia, Third Nymphaeum."
"Triumph over..." Ikharos nodded slowly. "Rome's victory over Syphax."
"... Syph-who?"
"Numidian, Second Punic War. Forget it."
"No, continue," the witch purred. "I want to know more."
Ikharos pushed her away. "I need a tincture."
Xiān growled. "Not a chance."
"Please."
"Ike. It'll kill you."
No, it wouldn't. And that was all that stopped him from pressing the issue. With a ragged sigh Ikharos put his back to the Nightmare and looked the station's plans over. "What's this Cradle for? Just the Exos?"
"I'm not sure, but there's..." Xiān grew quiet. "Okay. I think... I think I found out what they're doing with Nightmare energy."
"Oh?"
"There's a meter here. Apotheosis threshold. It's at seventy-eight percent."
"Is it active?"
"Yeeep." Xiān's tone turned grim. "Okay. Each time this place releases Nightmares it's increasing."
"What's the progress now?"
"Seventy-eight point... it's a decimals my man. A lot. Thousandth of a thousandth."
Ikharos set his jaw. "Apotheosis."
"If they're trying to bring Nezarec back..."
"Aye. My thinking exactly. But we removed the central component."
"Yeah-"
"Are there other relics onboard?"
"Uh... no."
Ikharos nodded slowly. "There might be other pieces scattered across the Warsat network."
"That would... hold on. If they've stretched out something capable of making Nightmares across an entire planet..." Xiān trailed off. "Nightmares need thinking beings. Do you think-"
"They're using the denizens of this world to produce them somehow. It's all one big Nightmare. Just as the Hidden Swarm intended on Luna. They thought to use the Pyramid to reimagine Oryx."
"Is it possible?"
"Nightmares can be worked into living beings, resulting in chimeras like Zulmak. It's not true resurrection, but... it's something."
"And we don't like something."
"No. No we don't." Ikharos pursed his lips. "How long do you think until the process is complete?"
"Well, if we take our little Speaker friend's word for it, then they've been at for eight thousand years? That gives us a couple of centuries. Another millennia if we're lucky."
"Nightmares aren't a science. There's nothing certain about any of this. If the Scorn are rampaging and the Disciples are on the move, it'll only speed things up."
"So they want the Disciples running amok?"
"Better than to risk their own troops."
"That's fucked."
"It does paint a dire picture, yes."
"So... let's piece it together. Nezarec's followers? Nezarec's followers run after the Collapse. They track down the Exodus Prime. They do horrific shit to it. Warmind's theirs, ExSec detail too. Disciples come after them because... because? And they're at war. But these followers let humanity propagate across Kepler-186f because their fear can be farmed."
"That seems the long and short of it."
"But why? Nezarec IS dead."
"Yes."
"According to Sol-based evidence, anyways. Let's say these cultists are looking to revive him through a world-spanning Nightmare because they lack all the physical parts. This scythe - maybe it's his weapon. Badge of office. Glorified walking stick. Whatever, it's related to him and they're using it. But what I don't get is why. Why is this all necessary? The Witness is ruthless but it doesn't follow the Sword Logic. If Nezarec's useful, it'll raise him up."
"...You believe there are other powers at play."
"Witch Queen for one. That's kinda obvious; she was workin' hard during the Collapse. But what did she do exactly? And why did the cultists run?"
Ikharos shrugged. "Fear of failure. Nezarec might be useful, but his own servants?"
"And these weird Exos-"
"Based off the cultists, I imagine."
"You think?"
"I don't see what else they could be. Unless-" Ikharos tilted his head. He could feel the thrum of power moving through the station, Light and Dark both, but something changed. A rise in pitch, an increase in intensity. "What's that?"
A flicker of confusion came from Xiān's side of their shared Light. "What's what?"
It came again. "That."
"Ike, I'm not sensing anything. What does it feel like?"
"Like a hum. Rising and falling and..." He frowned. "I can smell ozone. Ash."
"Your filter's still active. I'm not reading anything, but if they're trying to poison you..."
Ikharos paused, then shook his head. "We need to finish up."
"What's left?"
"Ideally making sure Nezarec stays dead. But I'll settle for destroying his powerbase. Can we transmat out?"
"Shouldn't chance it until we can see stars. If we're close to the ExSec grid, they might scramble us."
"That'd take too long."
"They already know we're here."
"Not what I mean. This place is armed with SIVA terraformers. If it enters the lower atmosphere we could be seeing a Permian-Triassic level extinction event at the very least. It all has to go."
"We'd need a clean bomb."
Ikharos found himself looking down again. "I might have an idea."
"Yeah?"
"We sink this place into the Sea of Screams. Ambient weathering will break it down in a couple of weeks. Support systems will fail in days if not hours. The SIVA payloads will be rendered useless."
"And how do you expect to manage that?"
He nodded to the rivers of Blighted Alkahest. "That down there's my inheritance. I think it's about time I take it back."
"Ike," Xiān's voice fell to a whisper. "It's uncontained. Uncaged. There's no telling what it might do to you."
"Someone has to leash it."
"Does it have to be you?"
"Better than a mad Warmind or a death-hungry Disciple."
"... Alright."
"Will you prep the Trespass for evac?"
"I already told you I'm not leaving you-"
"You'll have to. Gotta be quick. Take a couple skin cells, hair strands, anything. We probably won't have a chance to transmat so a rez'll be our next best option. Can you handle that?"
"Fuck you."
"Xiān?"
"Damn it. Yeah I can handle it."
"Will you be able to get out safely?"
"Close as. 'Least I can be sneaky, mister oops-I-shot-the-place-up."
"You're very funny," he drily remarked.
"I know. Look, this isn't going to be the norm. I can't do this over and over again; this is the last time. Got it?"
"Xiān..."
"Don't be long." He felt her presence lift.
Ikharos sighed and his head lolled back. He hated how weak he felt without her. Hated how the guilt tugged at him, made him want to turn and run after her, damned be the consequences - but he wasn't in a position to enjoy emotional frivolity.
Phantasmal claws danced across his shoulders, scratched silvered shell. He remembered the hag he tore it from. For a petty moment he imagined it could have been one of her sisters, one of her daughters - but no. That witch bore the colours of a different brood. Her talons slid over the edge of his helm, causing the Nightmare-essence arrayed in the shape of a skull to distort and rise. Her eyes burned holes in his own, seeking. With a psionic growl Shelbth materialized opposite her, glaring with the spite of a thousand subsumed souls.
"Shut up," he breathed.
Dûl Incaru laughed. Shelbth watched on.
Muttering a curse under his breath, Ikharos pushed past them. Their fingers ripped furrows in his mind, demanding blood, blood, blood. Oh how he ached for silence. For sweet oblivion. He stopped in the centre of the room, overlooking the core of the factory, and he gathered in his hand all his Light - condensing into an orb of ravenous Void.
And he let go.
The fissure of Void erupted. It bypassed him solely because he was already in the form of Voidsmoke, kindred, of the same spectrum. Their surroundings had no such protection. Glass shattered and disappeared. The impromptu Nova Bomb fell into the pit of the factory, growing and eating and growing. Steel warped and shrivelled. Air popped, condensed. Gravity upturned. The chamber crinkled like a crushed can, the pressure too much to bear. Alkahest burned in violet flames, withering to nothing, while their charge spread like wildfire. The Taken Blight rooted itself in the chaos of imploding debris, opening star-speckled apertures along the cracking walls. It would have spread without end in the absence of a hand to direct it. Ikharos solidified, descended into the growing singularity on flaming wings and grasped for it, balancing his Dark will along the tips of his fingers.
He caught hold. Condensed puddles of sterile neutrinos slithered up his arm quickly, ripped straight from the snarling Void. There were no Taken Kings here, no Witch Queens, no Gods of War or rogue drifters; the yoke was his alone. In realspace, outside the anomaly, such a gamble would've garnered resistance, if not cost his life and sanity. To Take was to pit strength of will against that of another - and such was never a sure bet. But here, isolated from the greater universe, his was the premier power over the Blight.
The more the Nova Bomb annihilated, the more energy he absorbed. In the end it was enough to crown a new king. Ikharos sliced his hand through the fresh vacuum, extinguishing the Void and replacing it with a new singular rupture. This was the riskier part of it - the Sea of Screams was contested territory on the average. To so violently open an aperture was to make waves, and those waves would be battles, and those battles were the feed of dark gods. In the pits of the Deep only apex predators roared, for to make noise was to make oneself a target.
But, like the Blight, this facet of the Ascendant Plane was empty. By all rights it should have linked with the wider wastes. The lack of response was telling in itself. A proof to a hypothesis he long feared: that theirs was a new universe grown from the old, regardless of how real it was.
The portal grew. No one was there to stop it.
It grew. Where the pull of the singularity had vanished there was now the draw of a new space, so great was its mass that everything folded inward to find it.
It grew. Ikharos noticed the flash of movement and shifted, the silver spear missing him by inches.
It grew. In its greying light he spied the silhouette of the winged Exo and he darted for it, ducking beneath its swing to find its throat.
It grew. And Ikharos kicked the dying creature into it.
It grew. Beyond even his means to stop.
It grew. He pulled his knife, ready to make the last cut and return to his Ghost.
It grew but now it was not alone. Ikharos twisted, smoke again as the buckling mass of the space station phased through him, and beheld a twinkling light winking in and out. Approaching. Matter parted before it. His own weightless form was stripped from him, returning him to flesh and blood. Shards of metal nicked his robes, planted in his armour. The cold burn of vacuum washed in, held at bay only by his internal biosuit.
He called on his Light but it did not come. The Dark did, banishing all notions that he'd been struck with a suppression field, and yet it bewildered him. Still the glow, of a bluish hue, came bounding forth through ruin and madness. He plated his body in Stasis and formed his Resonance into the Ruin. It closed in and stopped and opened like a flower, revealing the movements from within of something-
And he was swallowed whole.
(He stood on a piece of the world. A world. The only world that ever mattered.)
(It wasn't Earth. It had a name, but not one he could pronounce. It was the heart the core the centre of the web. It was the birthplace of the noosphere and the cerebellum of their great being.)
(Their)
(Their being)
(Their being.)
(A sliver of objective thought surfaced only to drown. Individuality quashed. He was of the web. He was of the whole. And the whole... burned.)
(Noesis. They were Noesis. He was Noesis. Noesis was the web - the N-web the noosphere the great scatter to the stars. Worlds bundled up in wire. Prey seized from the surface. Light drunk deeply, to nourish the whole. Such pretty colours. The likes of which he never could have dreamed before)
(before)
(before what?)
(No)
(He was one, young, a nymph. Slithering through nutrient waters, hunting for Light. He found it: a small burrowing animal that didn't understand what he was save that he was a threat. It tried to break the upper layer of mud, to scurry out of view, but he caught it in long needling claws, so gentle, so precise. He drew it out, he dragged it back to his den, he wrapped it up and bit down until it stopped squirming. It never felt even a blink of pain, doused in anesthetics venom the gift of grace.)
(He drank. Drank until nothing remained. Curled up in his own silken hollow to sleep it off, to grow-)
(A scream. Legs, dozens of them, breached the water's surface and scooped him out. A swarm of jawless spiders, their hundred eyes glittering with the wisdom of shared millennia. He did not feel fear. These were a fragment of the whole he was to grow into, the very same whole that had shaped him.)
(... No.)
(No?)
(No. No, he doesn't have parents, he isn't a child, he is Risen HIS MIND IS HIS OWN!)
(He was not alone. The God-Thought hung over him, jaws slavering and eyes shining. It was no Psion at all; a Royal Warbeast of bloated proportions floated in its stead, quills dripping with excess moisture. The beast snarled, for it faced a shifting foe. A living curse.)
(The Nightmare took the form of the Eternal Return one moment, the Subjugator the next, even shifting into that of Lennox-2. They bit and tore and stabbed at one another with terrible ferocity. This was a competition for territory. For him. The battlefield was his mind. The prize was his every waking thought. Each believed they could reshape them into their own image. Each sought to wear him like a shell, to devour his remaining humanity from the inside out. No. No. No!)
(A shadow fell over them both. God-Thought and Nightmare turned about with snarls, they lunged for him with furious desperation, claws sinking deep, sinking down to the bone, flaying the Light of his soul to the world.)
(Until they tumbled away. He collapsed, bloodied and ruined and dying, into the numbing hold of something else. Something gentle, something larger than either, something with eyes like stars. It drew him into its embrace, wrapped him up in a blanket of bliss-soaked silk and took him away.)
He coughed. His lungs were full of liquid. Something obscuring his vision. Resonance filled his hands, tearing through the soft cocoon. With a surge of panic he wriggled his way out and broke the shallow surface, gasping in air, vomiting something. He could taste electricity on his tongue. Ikharos wiped the back of a hand across his eyes and looked around.
It wasn't the station. Wherever he was, it was far from that. Beneath him, around him hung huge sheets of spectral webbing, following along a vast tunnel in either direction. It looked like the home of a trap-door spider, only a thousand times larger. A viscous liquid trickled at what he could best tell was an uphill direction. It was up to his waist at the deepest and glowed a luminous blue. It had the stink of something organic, but as far as he could tell it wasn't waste. There was a charge in it, an abundance of raw power. It had the same viscosity as human blood.
From the ceiling gently drifted fleshy strands lined with primitive eyespots. When he turned to the closest one the tunnel... flexed. As if it were breathing. Each breath radiated a Darkness so chilling, so needling he was wracked with shivers. The urge to call out passed him by. If someone was watching they'd come in their own time. He still had to find his bearings.
Ikharos checked himself over. As far as he could tell he was alright, but his legs still fizzled with fading numbness and he couldn't shake the pins-and-needles in his fingers. He was soaked to the bone in... whatever it was. If anything he felt drained. Empty. Devoid of Light, left with nothing but his own inherent Darkness. Xiān wasn't there anymore. She was alive, he could tell that much, but otherwise unreachable.
Without warning the liquid brightened for a split-second - and Ikharos froze as he finally caught a glance at the wider chamber. There were other cocoons.
Nothing happened. Nothing jumped out at him. He waited and waited; still nothing. Only when he was sure he was in the clear, so much as he could be given the circumstances, he waded over to the closest one affixed to the wall and wrenched it open. The silk was difficult to tear through. Only with the Dark did he find any solid purchase, peeling strands of discoloured white apart to reveal the bleached surface of a skull, still wet from where it dipped into the pool. That it wasn't human did little to console him. Ikharos paused, tried to place it and found he couldn't, then opened the rest of it.
Bones, once packed tightly together, spilled out and splashed into the blue liquid. He managed to catch a hold of the ribcage before it all came tumbling out. It didn't look like an animal. Most animals didn't have hands, but then, he wasn't aware of any sapient race with six fingers and two thumbs per. The skull was suggestively porcine, if far more compact. It was a little larger than the average human which surprised him not at all. He did notice a faint bluish residue along the back of its ribs, as well as some small fracturing around what he imagined to be the sternum.
Ikharos moved onto the next. It was a different species, quadrupedal and the size of a horse but of a more carnivorous inclination. The same blue tinge and fractures were present. The third, immediately recognizable as a bear, had the same. The fourth was something like a cross between a lizard and a primate.
The fifth was human. Squat, thick-boned and with six toes, so he deduced it was neohuman, but that didn't change it was still human. Much of it was fossilised, having joined with the ancient silk wrapped around it, so he put it at several centuries to a millennia old, but the cause of death perplexedhim. The bindings weren't so tight as to suffocate, though the way it was set meant that the victim's face would have been submerged. All of them were, for that matter. Even his own. Drowning was possible, even likely. But why? And why the damage around the chest? What was the point?
He expected to hear a reply, so used to the presence of Nightmares, but none came. With a start Ikharos realised it was quiet - truly quiet. The curse was gone. So was Shelbth. He couldn't feel either. It was like...
It was like when Formora had taken his consciousness into her own mind.
"This isn't real," he said, the realization dawning on him at long last. "This is a mindscape."
The tunnel shivered again. Liquid rippled. The nearest tendril flexed slightly, eyespots blinking. It curled to the ceiling. Others followed suit, on and on until none remained as far as he could see. Then - he heard something. The slick sound of something moving through liquid. Ikharos turned, summoned the Ruin of Lubrae to hand, and watched in uneasy silence as a shape peeked over the far end of the tunnel.
It didn't have eyes. The head was squat, almost round, affixed to a hunched back and devoid of any obvious features. It had shoulders and six thin arms, but no palms. Long fingers sprouted from the base of its wrists, crooked and clawed. Two of them clutched the edge of a newly-spun cocoon while the others blindly felt out for the edges of the cavern. Its body was in the realm of humanoid if swollen in some places and sleeker in others. Beneath the waist, instead of legs trailed several long tendrils with hooks on their undersides. Its skin was a slick pallid hue, broken only by dark quills running in rows down its sinuous back and patterns of piercing blue biolights along its flanks.
His own Darkness trembled, suddenly at war with itself; it was plagued by primal aversion and strange kinship. Whatever the thing was, it radiated power - just not any kind he'd felt before.
It came to a stop. Ikharos held his breath, stilled his hands. It was massive. As large as the greatest Ogres he'd ever fought. The cocoon in its hold jerked and it made a soft trilling sound. It felt around the left wall and with practiced care hooked the cocoon up to it, the base sinking into the blue pool. Whatever was inside was big and gave another buck, a muffled gurgle rising from where its head should have been. The shape was indecipherable; Ikharos couldn't even begin to guess what was inside.
In the end he didn't need to.
The creature, once finished, ran its hands over the cocoon, paused at one spot in particular and lowered its head. Its face opened, fins peeling back from its skull. Blue light spilled out, so bright it was almost blinding. Its prey yelped, coughed, and then began to moan terribly. Closer and closer it leaned until the wet petals of its open head were lathered against the silk. A blue glow entered the cocoon, silhouetting bones and skin for a brief moment. When it lifted its head away, it took the light with it. Not just any light; the Light. Ikharos felt it clear as day. Even if he hadn't, from the way the cocoon fell limp was as clear a sign as any that whatever was inside was now dead.
With sudden blinding clarity he placed what it was. A horror that never should've been born: an Aphelion. Ontopathic extrasolar predators, above even Ahamkara and Worms, cloaked in choking radiation and ruled by ceaseless hunger. A spike of fear pierced his heart. To his credit he didn't run, didn't cry out, didn't even flinch. All Ikharos did was exhale. And that was just enough to give him away.
The alien whipped its blank head around. Blue saliva dribbled from the almost imperceptible folds of its mouth. It twisted its body and came towards him, floating on Darkness. Ikharos raised the Ruin - and the creature ground to a quick stop. It had the stench of a thunderstorm, so acrid it burned on his elven senses. With a low croon it craned its head down, almost touching the Ruin's bladed tip.
"That's far enough," Ikharos whispered. He might as well have been shouting.
The Aphelion - if that was it - shivered its quills. It had to be twenty, near thirty feet long at least, maybe more. So close he could feel how steeped in Darkness it was. Even the Hive gods were never so pungently wrong - and he'd slain Oryx in His own realm. It wasn't Ascendant, but it didn't need to be. Rhulk had been reforged from head to toe to the Witness' liking, but he'd been mortal in the beginning. There'd been something almost relatable about him, detached as it was. Not so for this thing.
Its tendrils slithered beneath the pool. Ikharos only caught on when one of them curled around his leg - and when he tried to chop down a near-skeletal hand caught the Ruin. Resonance burned but its skin did not split. It wrenched the glaive aside, out of his grip, and another pair of limbs surged in to catch his shoulders. Ikharos tried Blinking but his Light refused him. He tried summoning a staff of Stasis yet, whether it was due to the creature's proximity or his own panic, it shattered as soon as it formed.
Far enough.
He froze. The alien tilted its head. His own words played back to him, relayed in his own mind. That's far enough.
It wasn't a Psion. It didn't wield its will like a needle nor a hammer. It was just... there, passing through his mental blockade without a smidge of difficulty. "What do you want?" he demanded, mouth dry. His heart hammered in his chest.
The creature's sightless gaze fell to his chest. The tendril on his leg tightened, bony hooks breathing through the biosuit to prick his skin. There was no pain. None. With a lurch it leaned closer. When he realized what it was about to do he thrashed, throwing everything he had against it. Even the Dark denied him. It pinned him in place, opened its mouth and unleashed its blinding light.
(He is-)
(He is not. We are.)
(We are the Noesis.)
(We are a nymph, still clutched in gentle claws. We can taste their fear. The web-beyond-our-reach is failing. Falling. The living noosphere N-web unity of thoughtforms breaks. They are fractured. Soon we too will be fractured. Our mind will join with their dying mass.)
(We, the Noesis, will soon be extinct)
(We are growing. We are expanding. We are becoming.)
(Our molt comes with difficulty. Our creators defy it; they fill our veins with poison, they halt the change with every passing minute, they beg us to remain as we are even as they swoon with fresh agony. They have a task for us. A legacy to live up to. A new shape to grow into.)
(We are opened with scalpel and thought and left out on the rocks, still alive, still breathing, still aching to become more.)
(Waiting.)
(They are dead when it arrives. Whatever words they intended for us is but a faded memory. The death that runs like wildfire through the N-web has claimed them, body and soul. They will never see the fruits of their work. They will never know us.)
(us)
(it hungers always)
(When it finds us it douses its appetite in curiosity. Rituals once forbidden were committed to draw it in. Script in blood remain to convince it of this unity. It crawls inside. It sutures broken flesh closed with glowing teeth. It sears away the poison, ejects useless organs, rearranges its new accommodations - for both our sakes.)
(We awaken to a world where no final molt awaits us.)
(Once our kindred our pattern the Noesis lived.)
(Now we, the Cacovinea, defy the shape-maker in their stead.)
Reality plunged around him. Ikharos slid limply down the tunnel wall, falling up to his chest in liquid blue. He could feel the prickle of radiation on his cheeks. Taste the Dark on his tongue. His chest ached. He felt empty, like an Eliksni with no ether. Just an empty shell, devoid of Light.
The thing lowered itself on its foremost hands. Its featureless head leaned over him.
"Cacovinea," he croaked. The word came unbidden, as conscious as the urge to breathe.
The beast trilled. The Aphelion-
No. Not an Aphelion. Just the meat it inhabited. It took his chin between two long fingers and tilted him side to side with ill-fitting care. Only a moment ago it had shucked the Light out from his bones, now it was inspecting him for injuries. Weakly he slapped the hand aside. The Cacovinea trilled again but backed off nonetheless. He craned his head up to look at it. Ikharos couldn't even muster the energy to scowl. "What do you want?"
It crooned. And opened its mouth.
Everything grew so much brighter.
(We had no instructions directions limits. How could we know what to do next? War was never our domain. But we searched. Searched the web-cities nests modal spaces. We reached to the stars and followed the steps of our people everywhere.)
(Dead. Always dead. Not one survived. Soon we began to wonder if we were meant to be alone.)
(So we looked to others. Those traded with or sent scurrying back at the point of swords in the memories of the N-web. We soon learned this was not the first attack. Though the Architect of the End was new to us, its directives were not.)
(The whisper Nightmare predatory memeplex was of its employ. The very thing that haunted each step of the noosphere's trek to the sky, the very creature that had taught us fear; it belonged to the End. So we tracked. Followed its steps to the beginning. Parsed through the veil of time purpose existence until we found the point it emerged.)
(Brother and sister tearing each other asunder, raging against the end.)
(Dead worlds dead webs dead space. Nothing nothing nothing.)
(But we found their writings. Their regrets. Dreams hopes contingencies that never came into play.)
(The Ideal of a Saint and a Sinner, the dream of a demon who died cursing his own power.)
(We want that.)
Ikharos' eyes rolled back in their sockets. His diaphragm was too heavy; he felt like he was suffocating beneath the weight of his own ribs. That he was conscious at all was only because he refused to let go of that last shred of life. With great strain he looked upon the Cacovinea. Though he made to speak, his tongue refused to move.
It regarded him curiously. Its quills flicked and coils writhed as it waited, seemingly content to hover there. In time, while the effects of its venom faded from his flesh, Ikharos found enough strength to reassert some small measure of control. "Let... me... go," he demanded, if it could even be called that.
The Cacovinea made a clicking-whistling sound... and pressed a hand against his chest.
"Please."
It cocked its head. And pushed, parting bones and gristle in a painless if horrifying procedure, flicking viscera aside to reveal the flickering power of his own umbral core.
As if to say do it yourself.
So he did.
Ikharos came to with a groan, scrabbling at the dagger of Stasis piercing his heart - but his fingers found no purchase. Only the smooth hadronic cloth and Hive leather of his robes.
"Ike? Ike!"
A weight instantly lifted from his shoulders. "Xiān."
"Finally."
His head whipped up. He almost filled the room with fire - and only the Stranger's freezing hand on his wrist prevented as much. She crouched beside him, hood pulled back. Her optics cut right through him, hard and suspicious.
They were in the Shadow Trespass.
"What are you doing here?" Ikharos demanded. He tried to lean on that old anger - but he was too tired. Too empty. Too full of alien ideas.
She studied him a few moments before bothering to respond. "Saving you."
He grumbled and leaned forward, still cupping Xiān to his heart. "I have everything under control."
"I saw. You did good."
Ikharos frowned. "Elisabeth-"
"Are we in the clear?"
"I'm not the one flying this ship."
"She's talking about Shelbth," Xiān said quietly.
His eyes flicked down his Ghost in surprise, then back to the Stranger. He almost retorted with bitter heat, only to realise how quiet his mind was. Shelbth... was gone. The weight of their many-faceted eye was absent. In the recesses of his brain, where dark alien things lurked, he felt only the familiar burn of Nightmare, and even those were repressed. He blinked, the words failing to come.
"The Cacovinea," the Stranger said.
He inhaled quickly.
"It caught you."
"... What the fuck is that thing?"
"I think you already know."
"That doesn't tell me shit. What- No, what are you doing here?"
The Stranger gave him a long look. "Stupid question."
Xiān disappeared. Ikharos Blinked to his feet, hands curled into fists and Darkness spilling from between his clenched fingers. "I'm not playing this game."
"Good." She straightened. "Is Shelbth gone?"
"If they aren't they're being damned quiet."
"Ike."
"Don't. Call me that."
"Ike," she said icily. "I need your word. I need to know they're gone."
"...Therr hávr gánga," he said, if reluctantly. By all rights he should have frozen her there, handed her over to Indilic and his ilk to find some answers. "Does that satisfy you?"
The Stranger slouched without warning. "Like you wouldn't believe."
"What's this about?"
"Do you know what it's like, waiting for months for someone to do something of their own volition? Unable to save them, or even tell them how to save themselves?" She glared at him from under her steel brow. "When I told you to check out those Exos, I wasn't saying it because you might find it of passing interest."
"You... wanted us here?"
"Yes. Yes! Of course I did, you fucking dolt!" She raised a hand to her forehead. "Putain de bordel de merde. Months! But oh no, you and the witch have to have your little adventures first, gotta see the sights, meet the people, try to kill each other - priorities, right? Jesus Christ."
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. You're the most stubborn Warlock I've ever met."
"Are you saying... the cure was here all along?"
"Yes!"
"Why didn't you- Ah." He blinked. "But it was in Teirm-"
"It wasn't. I warned you. On Vroengard, remember? I fucking warned you."
"Not with any urgency!"
"And risk alerting Shelbth more than I had? I already spelled it out! I told you what Shelbth was!"
"How long was I compromised?"
"Since Shelbth laid eyes on you."
"That's... before we even reached the surface."
"Exactly."
"But my Cabal-"
"They're fine."
"How do you know?!" he retorted, fear and fury mixing together.
"Because Shelbth's a dog," the Stranger spat. "They can't resist their impulses. If your people were hosts, they'd have turned on you long before now."
Ikharos made to ask another question, but the Trespass rocked unsteadily. He caught the side of a counter and held out an arm as Elisabeth staggered. "What's happening?"
"Blight," Xiān said tersely. "You made a damn mess of things. Ascendant Plane and realspace are bleeding into each other."
Ikharos shoved the Stranger to the closest seat, then clambered up to the cockpit. "What's the yield?"
"It won't hit the stratosphere. It's already stabilizing, but things'll get rocky. We're still in the edge of the blast zone."
He climbed into the pilot's seat and activated the sensor array. A huge field of interference lurked behind the ship. It was gaining on them, fast. "We should jump."
"Nah."
"Xiān-"
"There're other stations, remember? I don't know if they have fighters, but I'm not in a mood to be shot down by a warsat. So long as we surf the blast we're outta their eyes. I just need to calculate a trajectory that won't lead us into their guns."
"I see."
The Stranger entered behind him. She took the co-pilot's chair without a moment of hesitation. "By the way? Not impressed with how you've treated my ship."
"Don't you start," Ikharos growled. He scanned the radar for additional signatures, just in case the Cacovinea wanted seconds - but what would that look like? How would the ship pick up on it? "How long?"
"Need 'nother minute to be sure, but I reckon we'll be here another half hour, so sit tight."
Easier said than done. At least it gave them time to talk. "How'd the Cacovinea do it?"
The Stranger hardly glanced at him. "Do what?"
"Everything. What is it? Don't give me more bullshit."
"You know what's inside it?"
"An Aphelion."
"As much as one can fit inside a mortal body. The host's another species-"
"Noesis."
She nodded. "Exactly."
"What are they?"
"A species annihilated by the Witness."
"By the..." Now the beast's memories made sense. "The Witness calcified them."
"I know."
"You saw it too?"
"No. I don't have Light. I can't reach the Cacovinea. That's the same reason why it hasn't eaten its way through the ExSec."
Ikharos exhaled shakily. "It took my mind. Stripped the Light from me. At least Hive usually kill you first-"
"It's not Hive."
"I know."
"What I mean is it's not Dark. Not originally."
"Elisabeth. I felt it."
"You felt the Aphelion."
"What's the difference?"
"Only that they sustain each other. Symbiosis. The Aphelion gives the Noesis the power to destroy memeplexes-"
"Like Shelbth."
"Like Nezarec. Fending off Shelbth is a happy little accident."
"How?"
"Psychotoxin. Apparently the Noesis used it to paralyze their prey. The Cacovinea's custom-built to take on the Black Fleet, so it adapted the means to defend itself."
"Is it an enemy to the Disciples?"
"That's why they're here."
His head turned quickly. "What about Nezarec?"
"What about Him?"
"He's here-"
"He's dead, Ike. Been dead for centuries." She paused. "If ever He does rise, it won't be here."
"But that doesn't make sense."
"No?"
"The Exo I killed... On Vroengard, you told me to look at the Exos."
"To see what they were made of. But I know what you mean."
"Nezarec wrote to me-"
"Someone did." She paused. "The Warmind seeks apotheosis."
"Scipio? That's all?"
"He's not just Scipio. Hasn't been for a while. Nezarec might be dead, but He's not only a Disciple. He's an axiomatic entity. Except here, that doesn't carry quite so much weight. That's the whole point of the ExSec - they're garnering power to make something new of themselves. By all rights Scipio occupies a small part of the Prince's identity already."
"So Scipio means to mantle Nezarec."
"Exactly."
"By absorbing the Nightmares of this world."
"With the Cacovinea's aid."
"...You need to start at the beginning. I don't understand."
The Stranger started to speak, then stopped herself. "I'll admit, it's difficult trying to figure out what you do and don't know. We've been here so many times."
"Elisabeth."
"What do you know about Nezarec's death?"
Ikharos leaned back. The turbulence, if it could be called that, was starting to even out. "That He was there at the Collapse. That He died. I expect Savathûn was involved?"
"She killed him."
"Thought so."
"In such a way that He couldn't simply resurrect Himself as He normally would. It was clever; She spared the Witness and laid the blame at the feet of others."
"...His followers?"
"Precisely. Nezarec hails from another dimension, formed entirely from the psychic byproduct of fear. His latest incarnation came in the form of a member of the species known as the Harmony."
"I... recognize the name-"
"World's Grave. The Hive destroyed them on order of the Witness. The survivors rallied beneath Nezarec."
"And He gave the Black Fleet another set of pawns?"
"Those who survived the following millennia found belief in the cause. They would've been a problem."
"So… the Witch Queen took out two birds with one stone." It sounded like her - always scheming, always turning her enemies against one another. More often than not he'd been the unwitting lynchpin in those ploys.
The Stranger exhaled slowly. "And freed the Cacovinea while at it. It was always meant as a doomsday device by the Noesis, only it wasn't a match for the Black Fleet. They calcified like the rest of its kind after a protracted campaign. Nezarec interred its remains aboard His Pyramid. Have to assume it was a point of pride for Him."
"The one on Luna? That was Nezarec's, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"She tricked them. Left them the wrong body, all wrapped up in illusions. They thought they were retreating with Nezarec, but in truth She left Him buried and waiting for the Eliksni to find Him. Gave the Harmony His mortal enemy instead."
"To what end?"
"A distraction I think. Anything to keep the rest of the Fleet away from Sol. Of the leading Disciples Rhulk was confined to High Coven, Nezarec was dead, but Xhafi was free to take over the assault on Earth. By giving them another target, by showing the Black Fleet it wasn't unified, She forced the Witness' hand. And in doing so, spared us."
"She didn't do it for us."
The Stranger looked at him strangely. "She did. She might not be our friend but we're all in the same boat."
"You say that like She's still alive."
"Immaru is."
He grimaced. "Should have crushed him when I had the chance."
"Good thing you didn't."
"Elisabeth-"
"We need Her. We do. Besides, doesn't matter anymore. We're here, Immaru's still in High Coven." Her optics fixed on the planet below. "They fled here. The Harmony. Followed the Exodus Prime. They needed... meat. Something to build the Nightmares, give Him a new body to inhabit."
"But it went wrong."
"That's the beauty of the con. They had an Ahamkara with them. She gave it kindling, it became the match."
"Of course it's because of a fucking dragon." The disgust welled up in him. "Was its name Balaur?"
She turned to him in surprise. "How'd you know?"
"Angela."
"...Right. You know-"
"She's a Speaker, yeah."
"Good. That's good..." The Stranger nodded. "Balaur. The Harmony were fond of dragons, called them bishops. They used to worship the Anthem Anatheme."
"How'd you come by this?"
"You told me."
He blinked.
"A different you," she said. There was a hint of regret there. Grief. "We lost. You did everything you could to make sure I was ready for the next cycle."
Ikharos shifted uncomfortably. "What did the dragon do?"
She averted her optics. "It wasn't immediate. The Harmony took everything over - Warmind, ExSec, the terraformers. Kepler was always hospitable, they just stabilised the atmosphere and seeded it with better plants. Animals next, humans not long after. The crew. The colonists. Pod by pod, unleashed onto the universe's biggest game reserve. That's how they harvested fear."
"Traveler above..."
"But our Warmind wasn't happy. You know how they are; they'll never accept a leash. And Balaur... granted his wish. By freeing the Cacovinea." She trailed off. "They didn't last long after that."
"And the Harmony..." he stopped as a realization struck him. "They're the Exos I fought inside."
"That's their sentence. To have their minds fractured between a hundred separate bodies and slaved to fight for him."
"But he didn't change anything. He abandoned humanity."
"He chose a different sort of tyranny. A gentler one."
"Tyranny is still tyranny."
"Would you rather a grave?" she shot back. "The Cacovinea demanded it. It'll demand the same of you."
"Me?"
"You're a Warlock. You understand the reason we're at war. Life is violent."
"Doesn't mean we can't be better."
"That's what the Cacovinea's after. It's called for balance. I know you're a fan of Ulan-Tan's Symmetry."
Ikharos wore a troubled frown. "He made some valid points. What does that have to do with anything?"
"And Ikora's Treatise on the Societal Need for Grace."
"Neither of which call for depriving people of technology or medicine."
"I know. They might be going about it wrong, but their goal is noble. The Traveler did humanity - and countless other species across the galaxy - a world of good, but in a world full of Light no one ever dies. No one ends. We'll be begging for death unto eternity."
"And in a world full of Dark there will only be one lonely creature left," Ikharos finished. "I know. And to achieve balance you can't simply fill an ocean half full of water and half full of poison. You have to be measured. You have to be sparse with the cruelty."
"Scipio is that cruelty. He's the Sinner."
(The Ideal of a Saint and a Sinner)
"And the Cacovinea's the Saint." He winced, vision dancing with wracking blue. "So that's what it... fuck."
"Do you understand?"
"No. No! I don't understand any of this!"
"The Traveler's been our Saint. We've just lacked a Sinner who understands their job. A Saint can guide us, protect us, help us flourish, but it's the Sinner's duty to ensure we remain in flux. To bring plague to our crops. To press us before we turn on ourselves. If not for the Hive at her back, Caiatl would have brought her armies to conquer Earth. If not for the Vex and Scorn, the Fallen would have stayed bashing against our walls."
"I know what desperation does to people, Elisabeth. Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven."
"Then you do understand-"
"I grasp the theory. I fail to see an acceptable practical. If Scipio's the Sinner, then he's got rivals."
"That's the stalemate. The Disciples came to punish the Harmony, instead they found an old enemy. And when the Cacovinea made its play for a better universe..."
"You don't mean to say we're not in our universe anymore."
The Stranger hesitated. He didn't like it one bit. "Only a little. But if it gets its way... we'll be cut off. For good."
"...So what's our play?"
"Kill them all."
Ikharos made a face. "That feels reductive?"
"If the Disciples win, they'll rejoin the march on Earth. If the Cacovinea wins, the Coalition will be deprived of strength.
"And here I thought you were advocating for it."
Elisabeth scowled. "We deserve better gods."
"I'd rather kill the gods, but that's just me." Ikharos sighed. "Most of my company's already dead. That strength's already gone."
"I mean us. You and I."
"Oh."
"Do you understand now?"
"I... have an idea of it."
"Good."
"So you've been playing coy purely because of Shelbth?"
"Been cleaning up your messes too."
"Then why the witch?" He looked at her. She stared back.
"Why do you think?"
"She's a danger-"
"She's also fighting for the same cause. I don't like it, I know you sure as hell don't, but I'll take whatever edge I can get. If that means I have to recruit Savathûn herself, I'll do it."
Stasis frosted the air between them.
"You walk a thin line, Doctor Bray," Ikharos said icily. "Be careful you don't trip over it."
"Is that a threat, Lord Torstil?"
"Take it as you will."
She turned ahead, optics glowing bright. "You won't like what I have to say next."
"Just spit it out."
"They need Light."
"Who?"
"The Disciples. To escape." She rubbed her temples. The subconscious humanism disarmed him of some of his hostility. "The anomaly's of the Aphelion's making."
"Is that how they hunt?"
"To a degree."
"I read the reports on the Amestris. No bodies."
"That was a fragment."
"Explain."
"A piece of an Aphelion. Broken. Most of them are. They're born from the Dark, much like the Worm Gods, but they exist only to extinguish the light of stars. The act of devouring souls is a learned behaviour. So far as anyone can tell, most were punished for it, broken in tiny pieces that they might never enjoy the same omnipotent power. The one inside the Cacovinea is intact. It's stronger than the shard the Awoken found."
He breathed in deeply. "It devours souls?"
"You know souls exist-"
"As a form of Light. The Cacovinea drained me over and over."
"I doubt it could help itself."
"But that doesn't distract from the fact it eats people."
"Anything it can get its hands on. That it hasn't wiped the planet clean is entirely due to the ExSec keeping it contained."
"Did I break its bindings?"
"Maybe. We wouldn't be here if it stayed that way. It was curious. Hungry too, but mostly curious."
"Because I don't die?"
"Because as prospects go, you're a more attractive Sinner than Scipio right now."
Ikharos scowled. "I refused godhood once before. The throne was right there and I turned from it, damned be the Sword Logic. I haven't changed my mind."
"I know."
"What do I have over Scipio?"
"Only that you're already established in the Ascendant Plane. Only that you bear Rhulk's weapon. Scipio's ascension is slow, difficult. He's gained power but it still amounts to nothing. Xhafi's fighting him every step of the way, trying to wrest control of the Nightmares away."
"The Nightmares don't obey me."
"The Blight does."
"I... see."
"Good."
"...But why Light?" he asked, eager to change the subject. "Why can't they just send the Scorn to kill the Cacovinea?"
"Because it isn't here."
"I know it occupies a mindscape-"
"Ike. It is the anomaly. That... thing you saw was just the avatar it wields."
"Can it be killed?"
"Anything can."
"Can I kill it?"
"Ike-"
"I understand the risks, but I'd prefer to know regardless."
"Not as you are."
"But the Disciples can?"
"Yes."
"And they need Light?"
"Yes."
He bit his cheek. "Why are you really here?"
The Stranger sighed. "They're hunting her."
Of course. Of fucking course. Ikharos grimaced. "I… see."
"I understand your doubts-"
"Why aren't they coming for me instead?"
"They tried. Failed. Shelbth couldn't find purchase, and Zendolyn…"
He leaned back, one hand clenched into a fist. "She offered to kill me."
"She has her reservations."
"About the cause?"
"About her chances outside. The end is still the end, regardless of what side you side on."
"So your witch is in danger... and you want me to do what?"
"Stop them. Kill them. You're good at that."
"She's good at killing people too. A lot of people."
"Ike..."
He closed his eyes. Tried not to linger on the sight of thousands dead, bodies mutilated. A city in ruins. Funny how often that came up. "Swear it."
"What?"
"Swear that's all this is. An extermination job and nothing more."
"I... I can't."
"Elisabeth..."
"I'm sorry."
He scowled. "It's about the dragon, isn't it?"
"Grimnir," she whispered. "I swear I didn't know until a couple of days ago."
"Know what?"
The Stranger sighed. "She's using him to find Balaur. I think she wants to open a way home."
Ikharos looked straight ahead, through the glass. The world, a fat blue, brown and green orb, took it up in almost every direction. Alagaësia hung there, a messy cut of rock and earth set against a wide sea. She was there, somewhere. His mistake.
Both of them.
"Fuck."
AN: as always, immense thanks to nomad blue for editing and feedback!
Might be coming as a surprise (it shouldn't), but I am really trying to push the angle that Ike (and Voidwalkers in general) are Destiny's version of a vampire. Guardians are already liches, just feels right. Why yes I've been rewatching Castlevania how could you tell