Destiny: The Legendary Hunter

[Writers-Ablood]

The three Vex Axis Minds hunkered back before leaping across the altar, their chassis locking into place in the air. The three minds hovered above the altar, radiating a grey energy that seeped out around them. Then the Primaeval Mind raised one arm, and multiple rifts tore open above the edges of the altar, like wounds cut into the fabric of space.

Hordes of Wyverns barreled through the rifts, a cacophony of shrieks cut across the altar before they'd fully crossed, their leg-cannons charging mid-flight.

Dozens of them leapt into the air and banked hard downwards, descending into a crushing flight to hit the ground.

"HOLY SHIT!" Undecided sped up with a dash and a roll. Waffles flashed a horrified look, IEatPaint stood stunned, and BearSpray and TheOneWhoKnocks immediately darted to the sides.

The dark tides surged forward, and Wyerns shot down from the skies one after the other, erupting into a massive explosion that shook the altar from side to side.

[Guardian Down!]
[Guardian Down!]
[Guardian Down!]
[Guardian Down!]

A turbulent upsurge collapsed on itself, breaking into a thunderous whip of air that cracked centrifugally.

The dust snapped away, leaving behind four faint motes of light.

[Last Guardian Standing!]

Only Waffles hung in the air, hovering inches above the ground. She had jumped a split second before the Wyerns struck. Her health bar flashed a dreadful bright red. She slowly drifted back to the ground.

"MOTHERFUC*ER", TheOneWhoKnocks cried out.

Undecided immediately crashed out. "NOOOO. STAY ALIVE, STAY ALIVE!" Undecided immediately crashed out.

"Alright, boys, looks like the run's over. We'll try again next time. Like, subscribe and don't forget to leave a comment!" BearSpray immediately transitioned to his outro for his recording.

"SHUT UP, shut up." Waffles panicked. She sprinted towards the closest revive point, but the moment she triggered a revive, a Minotaur blinked and immediately slammed downwards.

Waffles jumped again, the attack barely grazing her.

"HOLY SHIT. HOLYYY SHIT."

Their voices went crazy, no matter what happened, Waffles was the only one alive to clutch it.

"WYVERNS AGAIN!" Undecided called out the enemies spawning above. Waffles chucked down a healing grenade, but her health bar only crawled forward at a snail's pace. With no choice but to run from the surging tides and the Wyerns above, she raced around the altar.

Void perched atop a pillar, watching it all unfold.

He had masked his presence the moment the Wyerns had appeared. It had worked. As long as the Vex didn't notice him, they'd focus all their efforts on the players. That was precisely why he'd brought them.

But with only Waffles left, the probability of them failing here was too high.

'Of course, I can't let that happen.'

He flickered down, akin to a spectre prowling the altar. With a swift stride, Void closed the distance between himself and Gandalf.

His eyes snapped back; the tide was far but steadily approaching.

Void reached for the mote of light and offered it a wisp of his own light.

Gandalf's figure burst into glimmer and respawned in the chaos. He immediately fumbled with his controls and slobbered on the mic, mumbling as if chewing on something, then he wiped his lips. "Wha- WHAT! I'm back!"

"YOU BASTARD! Lock back in, now!" Undecided growled. He didn't know how Gandalf had respawned, but this was no time to be asking questions.

"Wait! Were you eating? Did you die earlier just to eat!" TheOneWhoKnocks immediately picked up on the mumbling and lashed out.

"No- NO!" Gandalf hurriedly darted across the altar, running from the tides and reequipping his primary rifle. He gunned down the Minotaurs from the back and rushed towards Waffles.

As the tide passed over, Void flashed across the altar and revived IEatPaint.

Before the titan could register what happened, a Minotaur spawned right on top of them. IEatPaint planted his barricade directly in its path, hit it with everything he had before it could reorient.

The Minotaur staggered backwards toward the altar's edge. One more step and it was over the side, into the endless violet beneath the island.

It didn't take that step. It blinked again, reappearing ten metres to the left, already raising its weapon.

"PAINT! Revive, get the revive!" TheOneWhoKnocks felt his heart skip a beat.

The odds were no longer against them.

IEatPaint sprinted and slid to the closest mote of light and triggered the revive, but just beside him, another revive triggered.

IEatPaint darted his eyes to the right. He couldn't see anyone there; it seemed like a glitch, because something had definitely triggered the revive. Just then, the invisible figure in front of him rippled for a faint second, revealing Viper's signature black armour.

"It's Viper!" He gasped. TheOneWhoKnocks and BearSpray respawned side to side.

"There's a mechanic like this?" Undecided was utterly confused.

"F*ck if I care. We're back!" BearSpray did an instant 180 and restarted his recording, "All right, boys, we got the clutch, and we're BACK for worlds first!"

The players focused on the Minotaur beside them and savagely tore it apart.

"These things are insufferable," Gandalf said, and shot it twice in the chassis.

Then the players fractured their attention across four threats simultaneously. The dark tide which tracked their position around the ring, the Wyverns that dove from above, the Minotaurs that appeared from thin air, and finally the three Axis Minds, whose firing patterns had tightened since the last phase, their dark bolts now arriving in coordinated volleys rather than independent shots.

Waffles revived Undecided, and with the six-man squad back on their feet, they finally switched to attacking.

Waffles spotted the Eschaton Mind's barrier fading away and called it out.

"It's slowing," she called. "Same sign as before."

"Everyone, get the heavies out!"

BearSpray dropped a Wyvern with his last heavy shot and immediately switched weapons. "I'm dry on heavy."

"Same," TheOneWhoKnocks said.

"Use what you have," Waffled replied. "I'll call it."

The Eschaton Mind's eye dimmed.

"NOW!"

The players converged their fire without breaking their stride, shooting on the move while the Wyverns and Minotaurs were still active in the arena, and the tide still surged around the altar.

There was no pause in the chaos to stand still and aim properly. They fired through it all, each player managing their own immediate threats while pushing damage into the window, and the Eschaton Mind cracked further with each hit, its chassis fracturing along the geometric lines carved into its frame.

It fought back harder as the damage climbed. Dark energy erupted from it in wide pulsing rings that the players stepped through or absorbed, their health dipping and regenerating in ragged intervals.

Void joined in, firing controlled bursts with his heavy weapon, pacing every shot to only hit the criticals.

A moment later, the Eschaton Mind's health dropped. Its eye went dark.

It came apart from the inside out, the geometric carving across its body splitting along every line at once, a crack of light escaping through each fracture before the whole structure collapsed, and the viridian flames that had burned across it extinguished entirely.

"ONE DOWN!" Gandalf called.

"Don't stop," Waffles said immediately. "Watch the other two."

The moment the Eschaton Mind fell, something shifted in the remaining pair. The Primaeval Mind and the Imminent Mind abandoned their fixed positions in the formation and began moving, their chassis advancing toward the players with a sudden aggression that neither had shown before.

The invulnerability that had cycled predictably between three points now completely covered the two.

"Which one's open?" TheOneWhoKnocks fired at the Primaeval Mind. The shots deflected. He pivoted to the Imminent Mind. Same result.

"Nothing's happening!" BearSpray said.

"Conserve your ammo." Void chimed in and revealed himself. "The moment one opens, everyone switches."

But as his words landed in their ears, the Heart's pulse changed beneath their feet.

The steady rhythm it had kept through the first phase, that slow breathing draw, collapsed into something erratic.

One pulse drew inward, the air compressing toward the membrane's core, a sudden vacuum that pulled loose debris across the altar floor and tugged at the players' frames. The next pulse erupted outward, a concussive shockwave that radiated in all directions, not strong enough to kill but more than enough to fling anyone over its altar, into the nothing below.

The Heart continued, in and out, drawing and erupting with steady intervals while the Axis Minds stayed kneeling.

The dark tide now multiplied into a cross pattern. Two raced clockwise, while two surged anti-clockwise; the only way to dodge was to jump between the gaps, which required dexterity and timing to ever hope of making it.

-

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[Writers-Ablood]

The four tides each spun around the altar, surging and receding in rhythm, forcing the players to constantly stay on the move.

Besides them, tall stone formations that had sheltered them in the last shockwave phase began to move. Stone grinding against stone, each pillar slowly shifted from its position, now circling the altar, narrowing the viable space on the altar's ring with every step.

"The pillars are moving!" Undecided shouted, breaking into a sprint to stay ahead of the nearest one.

"Keep moving. Don't let them corner you." Waffles tracked the two remaining Axis Minds and the moving pillars to stay near them.

At that instant, the Imminent Mind's barrier shattered.

"IMMINENT!" Waffles called.

Every player turned their weapons to it and fired. The Mind stayed kneeling, absorbing the damage while returning its own, dark bolts fired towards the players and forced them to dodge mid-attack.

Void took the opportunity and zig-zagged ahead, using a shotgun at close range to crush the Mind's outer armour.

The invulnerability barrier flickered back in, and the Imminent Mind surged forward, charging towards Void.

With a deft step to the side, Void vanished into the shadows, leaving the Axis Minds utterly baffled.

"How much?" Undecided shouted.

"Halfway, maybe a bit under," Waffles's eyes widened as she realised what the Heart was about to do, and raced towards the nearest pillar, "Quick! Hide!"

The instant the damage phase ended, the Heart pulsed outward, releasing a shockwave that erupted across the altar.

Gandalf, BearSpray and TheOneWhoKnocks slide to the nearest pillars. Undecided crouched under the one beside him, but IEatPaint stumbled two steps too late to the pillar's edge, the shockwave crashed into his chest and flung him towards the endless abyss below.

IEatPaint reacted immediately.

As if the gears in his mind turned, he consumed all his light to unleash a Thundercrash that sent him flying towards the altar, his arms flayed out, and he barely grabbed the ledge to pull himself up as the shockwave passed overhead.

"NOT EVEN CLOSE!" IEatPaint howled, rushing back into the heat of the battle.

The players ran amok, dodging the tides, the attacks, and the enemies, all biding their time for the instant one of the Axis Minds dropped their barriers.

Void did the same, albeit he lurked in the shadows, prowling the altar, discreetly dismantling one enemy after the other and occasionally picking up a revive or two.

Each phase felt longer than the last.

But after five full minutes of multiple damage cycles, the Primeaval Mind's chassis finally buckled, leaving only one boss behind.

"We're close!" BearSpray chuckled victoriously.

As the Imminent Mind stood alone before the Heart, the altar went quiet for the span of a single breath.

Void felt a shiver run down his spine.

The Heart trembled, as if aching for the loss of the Vex. Then, it shivered again.

For the first time, the viridian flames that had burned steadily across the Imminent Mind's chassis since the fight began erupted outward, doubling in volume, climbing the full height of the construct in rolling waves of infected green.

The Mind's eye, which had been pale and mechanical throughout, now burned the same deep viridian as the Heart itself.

"What the f*ck?" Undecided's jaw went wide open.

The Imminent Mind raised its head again, born anew within the Viridian flames.

It burned with power, and a seam split across the centre of its chassis, running vertically from collar to base, and from within it a laser flashed brilliantly before the Imminent Mind turned towards the players.

"Get Down!" Void hit the floor.

The air bubbled.

A heatwave erupted overhead, and plasma burned in a straight line, shooting out of the Axis Mind's chest. The beam passed over Void by inches, its intense heat registering even through his armour.

Around the ring, the players dropped, rolled, and vaulted over the beam as it swept.

The Mind stomped, and the altar shook. The shockwave from each footfall radiated outward from the point of impact in a visible ring across the stone floor, and the players who didn't read the timing and jump were lifted off their feet and thrown sideways, dangerously close to the edge on every side.

TheOneWhoKnocks went over.

His fingers grazed the altar's lip on the way down, and his body hung over the endless violet, just then Void flickered backwards and caught the hem of his cloak, pulling him back up.

The Axis Mind swept its beam across the arena once more and stomped. The viridian flames on its chassis intensified with each passing second as the Heart poured everything into its final guardian; now, all the players could do was dodge.

There was no more room for attacks. The final phase of the fight had all but descended into a chaotic round of instant death; whoever managed to dodge the lasers and the tides would survive.

The only opportunity they had was when the Imminent Mind's invulnerability broke down.

"ATTACK!"

The players converged everything they had, burning the last of their ammunition and the last of their light, but through it all, Imminent Mind took each burst and fought violently, carrying the Heart's full fury in its chassis.

"Don't Stop!"

Void joined in, revealing himself fully, and finally unsheathing his sword.

Lightning wreathed his form. He channelled every last ounce of light he had saved for just this instant. A deep and violently intense blue colored his form. Lightning overtook him, spilling over his surging silhouette.

His figure was no longer that of a man, but of a thunderous spectre. He swung his sword, aiming at the Mind's core.

A thunderbolt flashed, and Void cut through the Mind with such force that his blade shattered the Mind's chassis into a hundred pieces, leaving behind a gaping hole in the Imminent Mind's chestplate.

A fraction of a second later, Void's light fizzled out; just as he had expected, the Heart had absorbed it all in an instant. But he had already finished what needed to be done.

Then Imminent Mind seized up. A fracture started at its core and spread outward in every direction at once. The viridian flames boiled over, and the plasma seam went dark. The Mind's stomp faltered mid-stride, its foot landing without the shockwave that should have followed. Its eye dimmed.

The Imminent Mind, final guardian of the Black Heart, came apart where it stood, and its viridian flames went out.

The silence that followed was total and immediate. It was deafening and surreal.

The altar was still.

Six players stood scattered across the ring, breathing hard, their light bars at the edge of empty, their weapons dry. Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then, one by one, they walked toward the centre.

Toward the altar. Toward the Heart.

It hung there in the air, above the stone, its ichorous membrane still pulsing slowly with a deep violet hue laced with green.

Void stopped at the altar's edge.

"We did it." Gandalf's heart skipped a beat; reality slowly settled in. He turned to TheOneWhoKnocks, "Holy shit, we actually did it!"

"Calm down." TheOneWhoKnocks shook his head, but struggled to maintain his calm, "The raid's not over yet...we could still get screwed over."

Void moved again, this time stepping up to the altar. The players held their breaths and gathered beside him.

For the first time, since its creation, the Black Heart now faced the very thing it was made to destroy. The Black Heart thrummed, as if filled with purpose, as if it recognised who or what stood before it.

But Void thought that maybe it wasn't the heart at all.

Perhaps it was something or someone that was watching through it.

Void couldn't be sure, but the closer he got, the more he felt his strength being sapped away. Despite knowing that it had lost, the Heart still carried out its purpose, akin to a faithful yet mindless machine.

Was this the thing that had haunted the Guardians for so long? The reason the Traveller could no longer strengthen their forces? Faced with it, Void couldn't help but be dismissive.

'It's just a blob of darkness. Nothing more, nothing less.' He scoffed.

But the job wasn't done yet. No, there was still more to do. Void glanced down at his guns, but then his eyes drifted to his sword.

In the original game, the Heart was broken open and destroyed. Yet a thought lingered in his mind.

'A blob of darkness.'

The grip on his sword tightened, and a realisation settled in his mind.

'Of course. Why didn't I think of it before?'

Void raised his sword and held it an inch away from the Heart. The blade trembled, drawn towards the darkness. Void steeled himself and stabbed the Black Heart. As the sword pierced the membrane and entered the Heart's core, its blade shimmered.

The altar shook, the ground trembled, and the Violet horizon creaked and crowed. Void felt the sword slipping from his grip, and he grabbed it with both hands to pull back. The Heart's membrane fractured, and countless small cracks split open its form.

Darkness leaked through the openings, threatening to flood the realm itself. And then. It stopped. No, rather, it disappeared.

The Black Garden quaked with a newfound presence.

A pale grey light enveloped the world.

-
A/N: Check out my Patreon for more chapters! Thank you for reading.

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[Writers-Ablood]

A pale grey light swallowed the world.

It arrived without sound, flooding the Garden's horizon inward until the entire realm had bleached to the colour of ash. Following it, a weight emerged that pressed against the chest from the outside in, enormous and deliberate, moving through the realm akin to a tide.

The altar shuddered, and pale light erupted.

It came from beneath the altar's stone in one violent upward burst, and the altar came apart under it. The geometric scripture cracked along every carved line simultaneously, the stone launching outward in every direction.

The Black Heart contracted violently, its ichorous skin pulling inward as the pale light drove into it from beneath, boring through it, consuming it from the inside out in a sustained and total annihilation that left nothing behind.

With the last of its essence consumed, the heart split open. Sending a terrifying shockwave outwards.

The blast wave hit the players and Void at full force, hurling them off the mountain entirely. As the edge of the mountain disappeared beneath them, the group fell towards the endless abyss.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING!" BearSpray's pov was still rolling.

"ARE WE DYING?" Undecided's voice cracked.

"WE'RE DYING!" TheOneWhoKnocks confirmed.

"&!#&&# WHAT THE #&@&!" Waffles said something the comms channel filtered out.

"Mamaaa! Life had just begun" Gandalf broke out into a song, and IEatPaint immediately joined him in a duet; the two had lost all hope.

Void said nothing.

His instincts had fired the moment the grey light first appeared at the horizon; he already knew what was going on. He let the fall happen around him and kept his eyes on the ashen expanse above, reading the shape of the presence moving through the realm.

A pale silhouette rose over the horizon slowly at first, then all at once, a form so vast it covered the Garden's violet expanse. And then, it revealed itself. A sinuous serpentine body came into view with scales that radiated pale light. A gargantuan Ahamkara reared its head below the horizon, and opened its jaws wide.

Void's lips curved into a smile as he fell.

The pale Ahamkara coiled and rapidly descended towards them. With a swipe of its claws, Zamyr gathered them all and banked wide across the Garden's expanse in one long arc before gently placing them on the broad face of a lower island

The players hit solid ground and went completely still.

Nobody spoke.

Above them, the coiling form diminished as it descended toward Void, the pale radiance concentrating into a single thread of light that conjured itself into a blade that slung into his grip.

Void caught the blade, and immediately noticed the changes.

A new pattern ran the full length of it from hilt to tip. A coiling dragon, its scales rendered in detail too precise for any hand to have made, spiralling the blade with its head raised at the point.

Then a notification surfaced.

-

Zamyr's Requiem

Rank: Legendary (Infused)

" A lament, an Odyssey, a pilgrimage to ascension, shattered through fate but bound by vows. "

Perks:

(Fated): Only those chosen can hear its cries; the blade answers to its wielder.

(Hunger): Feast on the paracausal paradigm, an ever-shifting gradient dividing the light and dark. Consume the souls of your enemies. The blade will ascend and fulfil the lament of an everlasting wish.

[Unlocked!] (Cleave): Cut through the very souls of your opponents. No armour shall protect them, and no magic shall elude your blade.

(Locked): Infusions Required

-

Void read it once and lowered the blade.

A shrill voice grated on his ears. Void scoffed in disbelief, "You could have warned me about the entrance."

Zamyr broke into a chuckle, «Where's the fun in that?»

"What about the heart?" Void sheathed the blade.

«I consumed it entirely.» Zamyr paused. «It will not be remade.»

Void nodded and read the Cleave inscription in the status screen. "What's this second infusion?"

«The Heart's power was potent. Far beyond my expectations. It has allowed me to delve further into the magic of souls. With this, the blade can reach the souls of even the strong, given enough time.» Zamyr's voice steadied, the resonance of it settling into something more familiar.

"Powerful. We'll need to test that later." Void turned back to the players. "For now, let's leave this place first."

«As you say, O brother mine.» Zamyr's voice faded. The pale light along the blade dimmed to a quiet, steady glow and held there.

The players were still awestruck.

Waffles stood with both hands at her sides, looking at the sword. Gandalf had his head tilted at a slight angle. BearSpray had his camera pointed directly at the blade and was breathing audibly.

"The sword," TheOneWhoKnocks said carefully. "The sword just talked?"

Void noticed their reactions, but chose to stay quiet.

"It has a voice?" Gandalf marvelled.

BearSpray turned his mic back on. "Guys," he said, his voice very measured. "Guys, are you seeing this?"

"We need to move; our job here is done," Void said, already reading the horizon.

The realm shook. A ripple moved through the violet expanse in slow concentric rings, spreading outward from a single point far below. Void's eyes darted along its path.

The rift they had entered from was glitching in and out of existence.

"The gate's unstable! Move." Void grimaced and ran towards the edge of the mountain. "Now!"

"Zamyr, make a path for us." Void jumped from the edge.

«As you wish.»

A coiling path unravelled below Void and stretched above the jungle, back to the rift.

"Oop! We'll talk about the sword in a depth video, dropping tomorrow! Let's continue the raid!" BearSpray rattled off into his mic; the rest of the players jumped into action and raced behind Void.

As the group rushed back, the Black Garden shook again.

-

[Freehold]

Freehold burned.

The Vex advance hadn't paused. It hadn't slowed. The rifts above the crater replenished what Vex forced faster than the combined forces of the Cabal and Guardians below could reduce it. The Cabal fought tooth and nail, the two surviving tanks firing in alternating salvos to keep the Minotaurs from rolling through what remained of their infantry.

As the battle continued, the southern ridge of the crater broke open, and the Cabal reinforcements arrived.

The Cabal pressed forward with a squad of imperial tanks and a legion of their soldiers. Weapons charged and loaded, they marched in formation towards the centre of the crater and read the battlefield.

The Legionnaires opened fire on the Vex without a word exchanged with anyone.

Shaxx watched the reinforcements arrive, and the gears in his mind turned.

"Everyone! Pull back," he bellowed "Staged withdrawal. All squads off the western engagement. Let the Cabal hold the line."

The Guardians followed his orders, slowly retreating from the front lines in droves that were too busy to track. With the fresh reinforcements, the Cabal finally struck back with full weight, and the Vex advance slowed for the first time since the Gate Lord's second shriek.

Shaxx himself retreated and reached the rift's perimeter.

He Exhaled once.

Tevis appeared to his right, and behind him the Nightstalkers pulled their forces back. On the other side of the crater, Wei Ning, Sai Mota and Eriana had safely joined the Tuyet Fireteam and secured the Gate Lord's cage.

Both Tevis and Shaxx felt their wrists buzz. A bright red light flashed on their transponders.

At that instant, Pahanin, Marcus and Kaviss landed beside the two, heaving exhausted breaths.

"Rasputin?" Pahanin raised a brow.

Shaxx and Tevis exchanged another glance; a hint of unease was present in both their eyes.

Shaxx opened the message, and Ikorra's voice urgently leaked through. "All Guardian forces. Be advised, we've got ships inbound!"

"The hell? Is it the fallen?" Levi's eyes widened.

But before any of them could answer. The horizon above darkened.
-
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[Writers-Ablood]

The horizon above darkened.

It was not the gradual dimming of smoke or settling dust but a total, sudden withdrawal of light across the entire sky above Freehold, as though something titanic had moved above.

Tevis felt his skin prickle, and a shiver ran down his spine.

The air around them tensed, thickening with a murky miasma.

Shaxx watched his own light shrink back in horror.

As all eyes turned skyward, a fleet of Tomb Ships pierced the horizon.

There were dozens of them filling the upper atmosphere, their descent covering every angle of Freehold's crater. The ships moved slowly, with certainty. Their ancient hulls were reinforced with dark chitin that didn't just obscure the light, but displaced it entirely.

"Hive," Shaxx muttered, shocked.

The Tomb Ships descended, and the air beneath them changed. The largest ship came directly overhead, its belly crossing the crater's width without clearing either edge, and the shadow it cast swallowed Freehold completely. As every Guardian, every Cabal soldier and every Vex unit stood in the same wretched darkness and looked up at the same thing, they all shared the same wordless recognition that the scale of what was above them belonged to a category none had prepared for.

The Tomb ship trembled with the deep resonant shudder of something enormous exhaling, and then the hull beneath its belly split open.

Two gargantuan bodies fell out, and they hit the crater floor with impacts that each sent their own shockwave rolling outward in rings across the stone. The craters they left were deep. The tremors from the landing moved through Freehold's floor and into the ruins and up through the feet of everyone standing in it.

When the dust pulled back, two Ogres stood at the Centre of Freehold and shrieked.

Their enormous size cleared the ruins around them entirely. Their presence reached the perimeter of the crater before their forms were even fully visible through the settling debris; a sickening pressure preceded them.

"Levi!" Cory cried out.

"I know!" Levi's eyes widened in disbelief. He had recognised at least one presence even before the dust had settled.

The Might of Crota.

He had faced that Ogre with Void and his entire team. Yet even then, all they could do was force it back. Now, as the curtain of dust unfurled, Levi spotted a scar on its crown.

The Ogre was wreathed in Crota's own pale, sickly light, its single eye burning a green so deep it had no warmth in it at all, only bottomless wretched darkness.

Beside it was Phogoth the Untamed.

A terrifyingly feral presence rolled off its shoulders that forcibly gripped everyone's attention. One thing was clear: a monster had entered Freehold.

Every combatant in Freehold went still.

Guardians. Cabal soldiers, even the Vex Minds and their units, held their positions. The battlefield that had not paused once had stopped completely, with their priorities completely reordered.

"What the hell are the Hive doing here!" Tevis urgently barked into his transponder.

Ikorra grit her teeth and surveyed the logs around Mars, deftly scouring through their surveillance system. "We have no idea. Their ships somehow bypassed our satellites completely. What's the status on the mission?"

Tevis whipped back and glanced at the portal, waves of energy wildly fluttered his cloak, "No sign of Void, but things aren't looking good."

Tevis's eyes widened, and he jerked back.

Shaxx raised his hammer again, "Bubble, now!"

The titans around him gathered their light and began conjuring a massive dome from the ground up. The Cabal hunkered back in formation, and even the Vex stretched their lattice barriers to the limit.

Phogoth gathered its energy, and Freehold was swept up in its tides.

The dark force built around its form in visible coils, pulling all the ambient light nearby into itself, its eye brightening from deep green toward white at its core, and its chest cavity cracked open to channel.

But while the whole world braced for impact, the Ogre itself had never targeted them. No, from the start, it had aimed itself at only one target.

The portal.

"NO!"

Elsie moved.

She crossed the distance between her position and the portal's perimeter in the span of a second. Elsie raised both hands, and a strange power came forward.

Phogoth's fiend fire erupted from its chest.

It crossed the crater at a velocity that left a visible trail, a condensed beam of dark energy that burned the air along its path, and hit Elsie's barrier three metres from the portal's surface.

And stopped.

The beam of energy hung in the air, frozen. The leading edge of it pressed against her power, straining and pulsing as it churned against the invisible resistance that Elsie had raised.

But Phogoth's power only surged greater; the beam of energy was neither stoppable nor exhaustible.

Yet as Elsie's powers held, the Might of Crota turned its eye toward her. Unlike the beast beside it, it had been watching since it landed. Assessing. It raised its head now and fired.

The second fire crossed the crater from the opposite angle and struck the other side of Elsie's barrier simultaneously, the two beams now pressing from opposite directions towards the portal.

Elsie's feet slid back across the stone.

The muscles in her jaw set. Her arms shook. The temporal force she was projecting flickered at its edges, where the pressure was heaviest; the two fiend fires each carried the full output of a Gargantuan Ogre.

"I...Can't hold on for long!" Her voice cracked.

The Titans broke down their own barrier, and the guardians darted.

"Stop the Ogres." Tevis desperately raced forward, and an Onyx coat of light clung to his figure.

Levi, Cory and Bandit followed in his tracks, crossing towards the Ogres in a fraction of a second.

Each of them had drawn their bows and aimed at the Ogre, but just before the arrows left their grasp, a wretched magic enveloped them.

Unbeknownst to the Nightstalkers, two figures had secretly descended from the Tomb Ships while every eye in Freehold was on the Ogres.

Kinox and Voshyr. Two daughters of Crota.

Their wicked magic radiated from their figures, slithering chains rooted up from the ground, and before anyone could respond, spread in wide arcs that wrapped around the Nightstalkers, anchoring their feet to stone, bringing the entire advance to a standstill in the span of three seconds.

Levi pulled against his chains, but felt his light begin to sap away. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't break through.

"Shaxx!" Tevis roared.

The warlord charged with a blazing axe, leading a group of Crucible squads with him. "With me!"

Shaxx flung the axe; it swept in an arc and struck the black chains with sparks, but was thrown back.

He grabbed the axe mid-air and charged his light into the weapon. Behind him, warlocks rose, their robes fluttering with light.

A sea of Nova Bombs was conjured above them and flew to the Daughters.

Facing the endless barrage of violet light, the daughers brewed their own wicked magic. A black tome appeared between the two, and armies of the Hive descended from the ships.

A legion of Hive Knights tore through the space ahead and raised their obsidian shields.

As the barrage of Nova Bombs clashed against their shields, the horizon split into light and dark, violet and black, but an instant later, the light had fizzled out. With the Guardians completely helpless, the Hive began their advance.

Kinox and Voshyr stood between the Freehold and the Ogres and watched Elsie with an expression that could be described as patience.

Elsie's vision scattered, and her feet slid another inch.

Her powers flickered again.

She held it.

Behind her, the rift pulsed.

A shot was fired. Then another, and another.

Cabal imperial tanks began unloading their ammo into the Hive armies. Their Legionnaires rose from their defensive formations and charged into battle.

"What the hell?" Tevis chuckled in disbelief.

Shaxx crashed downwards with a slam and cracked the chains holding Tevis. "Are the Cabal truly insane?"

Tevis shook off his restraints, "Insane? I don't think those bastards were reasonable to begin with." An onyx dagger conjured in his right hand.

As the Vex realised the Hive's objective to close the conflux rift, their plans shifted. By allying themselves with the Hive, they could easily eliminate the Cabal and Guardians. Yet as the Vex Mind instructed its units to fight, an incomprehensible sight followed its orders.

Thousands of Hive acolytes attacked everything and everyone.

Allies? Enemies?

It did not matter. For the Hive, conquest was the ultimate goal, and none would stand between them nor beside them.

The Vex Mind was shaken; it had never computed anything so unfathomable.

Within a span of seconds, the battlefield had reignited, allegiances had switched completely, with the Hive now facing all three sides at once.

Yet Elsie held the Ogres back on her own, still preventing their fiendish fire from reaching the portal.

-

A/N:

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[Writers-Ablood]

"I CAN'T HOLD THIS LONGER", Elsie groaned, her teeth grinding in retaliation.

The time barrier flickered violently, and her feet skidded another inch across the stone. Both beams of energy surged against her, the pressure doubling as the Ogres leaned forward.

Shaxx spun. The voice had reached him, and his eyes widened. He couldn't allow the Ogres to harm the portal, but he couldn't leave the battlefield out of control.

There was no time; he had to make a choice.

"Tevis. The battlefield is yours." Shaxx growled; he charged his light, and dark lightning erupted across his frame. Shaxx jumped.

The arc energy detonated against the crater floor as he launched skyward, the shockwave rolling outward beneath him. He rose fast, clearing the ruins, clearing the smoke, leaping into the sky.

As his figure rapidly crossed the horizon, the Daughters of Crota were shaken; they hadn't expected anyone to try to clash against them head-on.

Their magic flared to life, chains exploded upward from Kinox and Voshyr's hands, dozens of dark tethers lashing through the air to stop Shaxx's ascent as he broke towards the skies.

Coiling chains swam upwards, akin to a tide that followed the lightning rippling towards the cloud.

Tevis's cloak fluttered, a fraction of a second after Shaxx had jumped; he had also moved.

The onyx dagger's edge grew, lengthening into a short sword. Tevis swiped across the air, and a torriental slash struck the chains.

"GO!"

Once, then again. The chains were cut before they could even reach Shaxx. Tevis flipped in the air and landed on his feet.

"Levi! Bandit! Cory! On the Daughters, now!" Tevis barked.

Following his command, the three Nightstalkers broke forward immediately, and Tevis took a half step back, taking in the battlefield with eagle eyes.

Up above, Shaxx had reached his apex. He stood above the clouds, the dust, the smoke, and the ships, striding from cloud to cloud like a surging bolt of lightning. His eyes were darting below, searching for the perfect moment.

Phogoth's fire still hammered Elsie's failing barrier, and just then, the Might of Crota had already begun redirecting its massive frame, swinging its beam closer to the portal.

That was his chance.

Shaxx tucked his body and dove through the clouds.

A storm brewed above, lightning rumbled, and thunder roared. The skies split.

An azure column flickered and struck the ground, Shaxx thundercrashed between the two Ogres with an impact that shook everything around him in a hundred metres. The shockwave threw everything within that radius off its footing. Both fiend fires cut off as the Ogres staggered and braced.

The beams of energy faded, and Elsie's barrier finally came down.

Elsie collapsed to one knee. She pressed her palm to the stone, lungs heaving, vision scattered. Her arms shook with residual strain. Holding off the two Ogres had exhausted her beyond measure.

Across from her, Shaxx now stood at the crater he had created. Around him, both Ogres recovered fast, dark energy beams igniting again, this time erupting from opposite directions towards the warlord.

Shaxx tussled. He threw himself between them, conjuring a barrier that shattered in seconds under the fiend fire. The beams of energy struck his chest, pushing Shaxx back. He hurled his arm over, using his lightning to grab the energy beam and redirect it.

Shaxx shifted forward under the intense pressure from Phogoth and the Might of Crota. He raised his fist and smashed it ahead. A lightning bolt cascaded towards Phogoth and burst into a wide arc, hurling the Ogre backwards.

He whipped around, dashing towards the Might of Corta with a shoulder charge. The two bashed against each other, the Ogre stumbled a step back, and Shaxx was pushed back.

The fight against them was brutal. There was no room for Shaxx to make a mistake; every punch, every step, every breath had to be perfect, or he'd get overwhelmed. The warlord juggled the Ogres, engaging one at a time with gusto.

His confidence alone carried through the former half, but as the Ogres were roused with his relentless punches, they only got stronger.

Shaxx was jostled by the Ogres, forced to brawl in a close-range frenzy, until a fist of lightning smashed into the back of one Ogre.

Wei Ning hit the Might of Crota from behind without a word. Her thunder cracked against its back, and it staggered forward.

"Finally!" Shaxx roared and drove into the gap she created.

The two Titans moved in sync and tore into the Ogres from opposite sides. Their thunder synchronised, and they unleashed a barrage of slams and punches that pushed Ogres back hard. Harder.

With Wei Ning by his side, Shaxx still couldn't win, but that had never been his goal. As long as he stood, the Ogres would not get any respite to even think about attacking the portal.

Elsie was back on her feet; the time the two titans had bought for her was immensely valuable. She moved and set up her rifle, aiming into the Hive infantry lines and began firing, placing each shot to open space, covering whoever was closest.

Around her, the battle had reached a pitch that none could truly comprehend.

Cabal legions buckled where the Hive concentrated their push. Vex units stuttered and failed inside the Hive's interference. Without Shaxx leading the charge, even the guardians dodged and scrambled and held on by margins that kept shrinking.

Levi cut through a cluster of Knights and came out beside Pahanin.

His eyes scoured the Hive's movements across the crater. Every attack, every push, all of it pointed in the same direction.

"They're not fighting us," Levi said, wiping his daggers against the coarse sand. "They're all focusing on the rift."

Pahanin's eyes narrowed, his figure already split into seven clones that were mid-combat. Neither of them said the next part out loud. They didn't need to.

The Hive had come for Void. Somehow, they'd known that he was vulnerable when inside the strange rift. But how?

Before that thought could finish, the Hive ships shook overhead.

A high-pitched shriek reverberated across the battlefield. Those who recognised what made that sound stopped moving for half a second without meaning to.

Dense fog came next.

It poured over the crater's edge in a rolling curtain, and where it spread, the Hive rose, and everything else fell apart. Cabal soldiers dropped. Vex units froze mid-sequence. Guardians already running on empty felt the last of their light reserves drain faster inside it.

A dark figure descended through the fog. Every existence in the crater could feel it.

Whoever had come possessed power of a different scale. Power that was inherently and overwhelmingly evil.

The dark silhouette scattered the ethereal shadows that obscured it.

Omnigul appeared.

A Pale mark burned across her face. Her presence felt heavy and vast. Her ascendant fog rolled ahead of her across the crater, and her spells of ruin were already building in her hands.

She didn't look at the Guardians. Didn't look at the Cabal or the Vex or the Ogres or the Daughters.

Her gaze was glued to the portal. As if reading the chaotic patterns of space in and around it.

Omnigul's lips curved into a wretched smile. One of recognition and revenge.

Her spells surged; Dark and lightless fire took the forms of worms that rolled towards the rift.

Elsie dropped her rifle in a panic and threw both hands up, throwing up her barrier of time.

But Omingul's magic was different this time. It was a magic without origin, without end, a magic beyond time itself, ascending the laws of the world.

Elsie had realised that too late, and Omingul's spells of ruin passed through the barriers unfazed, striking the heart of the rift

"NOO!"

-

Void raced forward; his instincts told him to rush, and he had. His figure turned blue, using up whatever remaining light to move at lightning speeds.

He sprinted towards the rift, but only inches away did he finally understand why his instincts were unsettled.

Fog covered the rift, and strange fiery worms ate it away from the inside. A fraction of a second later, the rift inverted, and the shockwave hit him at full force, sending him flying back into the illusory road Zamyr had carved.

The tremor passed through the entire Black Garden, and the horizon's pale hue began to fade away. The realm shook, as if the concept of space itself had collided against something immense, something unmoving.

When he finally looked up, the conflux was gone. There was no lattice, no rift, nothing remained.

The players who had raced after him had finally arrived.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then Waffles looked at the space where the exit had been. Her head tilted in confusion, and she looked back.

"Wait...was that. Wait." Confusion colored her face. Waffles cried out, "Are we... stuck here?"

Void's jaw tightened, but he had no answer; the rift was gone, and now only the Garden stretched endlessly around them.

-

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[Writers-Ablood]

Void's mind raced.

Something had collapsed the rift from outside.

That was the only explanation, but it no longer mattered why it had happened. No. Instead, he was focused on how.

Elsie was guarding the portal. If the attack managed to get through her, then the situation in Freehold was worse than I thought.

He ran the possibilities, and none of them were good. There were far too many variables and not enough answers.

Void's eyes darted to the blade.

"Zamyr. What do you know?"

The pale light along the blade pulsed. «I only know what you know, and only see what you see. I do not know what happened outside.»

"Can you open another rift? Get us out?"

Zamyr paused, a second longer than he usually did.

«No.» His voice lowered in tone. «That is a level of control I cannot yet exert on the world. It is beyond my ability.»

Void's jaw tightened.

«However.» Zamyr's gravelly voice reverberated in Void's ears.

«Right now, my senses are running wild. There is a presence here. Hiding in the crevices of space. Hiding in the folds between realities.» Something shifted in Zamyr's voice; it was old and curious, playing with the words it voiced out, as if solving a puzzle.

«I see. I see now.» Zamyr's voice rose a pitch, «There is a way out, O brother mine. A way that neither you nor I could have ever thought of. A rift out of here? It's possible, but only with him.»

Void frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Zamyr chuckled, his voice now barely a whisper, «It would seem that, unbeknownst to the two of us, O Brother, there was another. Another who survived.»

"Another what?" Void's voice turned solemn.

«Follow my lead, now! We cannot let it hide away again.»

The pale light along the blade shifted direction, orienting toward the Garden's eastern expanse.

Void stared at it for a moment. Then he moved.

"On me," he called back to the players ", We're moving."

"Moving where?" Waffles stepped forward. "The exit is literally gone. So where exactly are we—"

"To find a way out. Let's move."

The six players looked at each other, and curiosity burned in their eyes. What kind of event were they involved in now? The raid seemed genuinely over with the last fight, but with the exit gone, it had developed towards something no one had really expected.

The players didn't dally and followed Void into the Garden's depths.

-

"THE RIFT IS GONE!" Pahanin's voice cracked across the comms. "Void is trapped, the rift is gone, we need to—"

"STOP." Tevis stepped directly in front of him. "Stop."

"Tevis, he's—"

"I HEARD YOU." His voice sharply overwhelmed the noise. "Panicking won't open the rift; lock it down and fight. We figure the rest when we're still alive to figure it out."

Levi pulled Pahanin back by the shoulder. His own face was tight, jaw set, as he focused on swallowing his own thoughts that he didn't dare voice out right now.

Because right now, around them, Freehold was coming apart at every seam.

Omnigul drifted above the crater's centre, her ascendant fog thickening across every surface; Cabal soldiers dropped in clusters where it settled heaviest. The Vex were fighting tooth and nail, but even the Vex Mind seemed to be suppressed against Omnigul.

Shaxx and Wei Ning were bleeding energy fast against the Ogres, the two Gargantuan bodies only growing more furious with every exchange. Even with their two best titans, they could at most squeeze out a draw versus those monstrosities

Aside from them, Kinox and Voshyr continuously suppressed the guardians. The Hive Knights behind them were grinding forward through everything the Guardians sent at them.

Tevis read the field in one sweep.

"Tuyet fireteam." He opened the channel. "We need to group. You're in. Praxic Fire, all of you, Eriana, Sai Mota, now. Group back, we'll need to push and find a way to reposition or retreat."

Eriana's voice came back without hesitation. "Finally."

"We can't move now." Gallida's voice was sharp. "If we abandon containment, the Gate Lord breaks out; we have no idea what happens after that."

Alemyr chimed in, his voice strained against his throat. "She's right. If we drop our guards, this thing will break out, and trust me, it won't be nice."

The voices grated against his ears. Tevis went still.

His eyes cut across the field. Omnigul and her fog. The Hive advances. The Daughters. The Ogres. Guardians holding on by margins that kept shrinking with every second.

Something shifted behind his expression.

"Say that again," he said quietly.

"If we leave containment, the Gate Lord—"

"Breaks out." Tevis's eyes widened. "And what happens to the Vex when their Gate Lord breaks free?"

Silence fell across the channel.

Alemyr grasped his words and turned slowly from the prison. Across from him, the Stoic's grimace deepened into something that wasn't quite agreement but was moving toward it. Isodel looked between them; Uzoma said nothing.

"The Vex are getting pinned," Tevis said. "The Hive have their number right now; their Gate Lord breaks free, and the Vex respond with everything they have. Spatial rifts, Minds, full force. The Hive have to contest that." He paused. "A Vex escalation is exactly what we need right now."

"If it gets loose, we will never get it back," Uzoma replied, "F*ck, there's a chance this thing will just turn on us right now and kill us first."

Tevis chortled. "I hear that. But if we don't release it, I guarantee we'll all get buried in this crater. Between you and me, if it really is a gamble, then I am damn well willing to take my f*cking chances."

"I don't care what other reasons there may be." Tevis spoke again, this time turning towards the chaotic battlefield. "But you better make a decision. Now."

Alemyr and The Stoic shared a long glance; they understood what they risked. They understood everything. Finally, the Stoic exhaled through his nose.

He gave a single nod.

Both Alemyr and The Stoic released the containment at the same time.

The prism shattered, and the spectral chains dissolved instantly. The astral prison's walls collapsed inward as the light across its surface died. Inside, when the Gate Lord registered the absence of constraint, its shriek tore through the crater without warning, shaking the stone, shaking the ruins, shaking the bones of every Guardian in Freehold.

A fraction of a second later, the Gatelord vanished, dissolving into space, and reappearing above Freehold.

It shrieked again. This time, with a strange lattice power that spread across the crater. The Vex responded immediately.

Every rift above the crater tore wider at once, each one bleeding violent light into the smoke-choked air. Three Vex Minds crossed through in rapid succession, their chassis radiating the cold authority of Axis constructs deployed at maximum priority; their arrival reconfigured the Vex formation across the entire battlefield within seconds.

The Gate Lord now crossed into the Hive lines, bending space along its lattice barriers and creating small gaps in space that collapsed inwards with a sharp snap.

Omnigul's fog rippled and contracted, her attention pulling from the destroyed rift toward the Gate Lord as it tore through her fog and slaughtered her army. Kinox and Voshyr's chains loosened; the Daughters pulled their power back, fracturing their suppression across the Guardians to respond to the new threat cutting through their army.

The pressure on the Guardians eased by a fraction.

But Tevis didn't celebrate it; he watched the three Vex Minds anchor their formations around the Gate Lord and drive into the Hive lines with a coordinated force that the Hive hadn't encountered from the Vex until this moment. The Cabal, given breathing room for the first time since the Tomb Ships descended, reformed their tanks and opened fire into the chaos from range.

The balance of Freehold had shifted again; now, the Hive itself faced an ancient enemy. An enemy that could counter even their ascendant magic and was entirely unaffected by their wicked illusions.

As the Hive and Vex cut at each other's throats, Levi leaned against a wall, chest heaving, and watched it all churn across the crater. Beside him, Pahanin and the others were focused on getting the injured guardians away from the front lines.

He glanced at the rear; warlocks like Eriana had already set up their healing formations, doing their best to nurse the wounded. Levi's breath settled, and he looked back to Tevis, anxiously awaiting new orders.

It was then that he noticed that Tevis's eyes were glued to the sky. He paced towards Tevis, but as he neared, his steps slowed, and his eyes drifted upwards.

"Huh."

Levi looked up. Hundreds of Warsats hung above Freehold, covering one edge of the crater to the other, and only one word came to mind.

"Motherfu—"
-
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[Writers-Ablood]

The WARSATs struck. Carpet bombing Freehold from one crater edge to the other without pause, each impact erupted into the next in a continuous chain of eruptions that left no ground untouched.

Every combatant still standing was thrown back; Guardians, Cabal soldiers, Vex units, Hive Knights, all of them were swallowed by the same roaring shockwaves. Four walls of fire closed inward from every direction at once, each one feeding the others as they converged, the heat compounding with every metre gained until the air above the crater was no longer air but a ceiling of churning orange pressing downward.

The shockwaves compounded, then rolled across the crater floor in sheets, consuming everything in its path. It passed over the Cabal wreckage, reducing it to rubble; the vex in its path boiled to death, and the hive facing it burned alive.

As the walls of fire closed in, towards the furthest end, all the Guardians ran ahead of it.

Shiro-4 and Sai Mota moved first.

Arc lightning rolled off their figures, and they darted, two thin bolts of lightning jolting from the fire, biting at their heels, racing away from the boiling tremors,

Across the distance, Elsie enveloped herself in a translucent barrier.

And just as it seemed that everything beside her would be consumed and burned to ash, the world greyed.

Time drew a breath and held it.

The eruption's leading edge hung frozen inches from the nearest Guardian, its fire suspended mid-bloom, reaching and reaching and going nowhere. Dust motes hung in the air between, a collapsing shockwave stilled completely, frozen in space and time, akin to a sculpture.

Space rippled.

It stretched outward from a single point, warping like molten glass pulled at both ends, until it tore open a portal. From within its maw, two figures walked into the frozen world.

Ouros clicked her tongue. "We're late."

"Late?" Osiris scoffed. He stepped through without hurrying, his faded golden cowl settling around his shoulders as he moved through the greyed world. He reached out and pushed a Hunter gently away from the eruption's nearest edge; the Hunter's body drifted backwards through the frozen air. "What the hell are you talking about? We're right on time to save them."

"Tsk." Ouros followed him, her Sunbreakers filing through the portal at her back. "You wretched old thing. Admit your mistakes sometimes."

"Never," Osiris spat back with a cackle.

He turned from Ouros and sighed with a shake of his head. Osiris surveyed the field.

His eyes settled on Omnigul first. Her body was held in the stopped time like everything else, but her soul was not; it moved behind her eyes, watching him, aware, calculating. He knew whatever his power held over this moment, it did not hold over her.

The Gatelord was a step beyond Omnigul. It moved even through the frozen time, its lattice energy cycling steadily; its awareness had already oriented towards Osiris with cold patience, as if it now ran endless calculations in its mind.

Finally, Osiris's eyes settled on Elsie.

He looked at her longer than he'd looked at anyone else. Standing unfettered and unharmed against the fire, rifle raised, till she saw him, and her eyes narrowed.

"There are far too many surprises in this crater today," he said quietly.

"Stop the cryptic speak." Ouros moved beside him, great hammer in hand. "All I need to do is prevent that explosion from hitting them, yes?"

Osiris nodded. "Though it may be more complex than it appears, let me form a barr—"

Ouros was already raising the hammer.

"Fight fire with fire, Osiris." She glanced at him sidelong, lips curving. "I'm shocked you haven't heard of it. Old as you are."

"Ouros, don't—"

Light gathered at the hammer's head, and Ouros slammed it down.

Time unfroze.

The eruption surged forward and met Ouros's channelled light head-on; a second detonation rose from the impact and swallowed the first entirely, fire consumed fire in a collision that reduced both to a wide bloom of ash settling harmlessly across the crater floor. The shockwave that followed rattled the Guardians; they were staggered but held their footing.

Time exhaled.

The eruption surged; Tevis raised his arms to block what he could, but just as he'd thought he'd be hit, nothing happened.

Caught off guard, Tevis hesitantly lowered his arms, and his eyes widened.

His gaze found the golden cowl first, then the frayed dark robes and the unmistakable presence he had encountered before. Around him, the other Guardians felt the same, in varying degrees of recognition; some straightened instinctively, some could only stand there, slack-jawed.

Osiris swept his gaze across the assembled Guardians, his eyes evaluating everyone present stringently. He'd long lost his position in the vanguard, but habits died hard.

"Handle the rest," he said, looking to Ouros over his shoulder.

But she hadn't waited for his words and was already moving.

Osiris walked closer to the guardians, then his eyes settled on Pahanin. The silver Hunter stood a few metres away, his clones long since dispersed, his breathing still uneven from the bombing. Osiris looked at him for a fraction of a second; something moved behind his expression, his brows furrowed, and there was a brief flicker of something that sat between recognition and pain.

He pressed two fingers to his temple, shook them off, and turned away.

"So? Where's the so-called Ghostsword?"

"Inside the Vex rift," Tevis said, stepping forward. "Trapped; the exit was destroyed from outside."

"What?"

Levi rushed forward before Tevis finished. "Can you get him out? Can you open another rift?"

Osiris frowned. His brows knit; this was something even he hadn't expected.

Across the crater, Ouros had reached the battlefield.

Rasputin's bombardment had burned through Omnigul's fog, leaving behind wide scorched corridors, leaving her exposed where the strikes had been heaviest. Ouros crossed the open ground fast, her Sunbreakers fanning wide on both flanks.

She charged forward, the heat rolling off her body boiling the very air around her. Ouros raced and drove into Omnigul before the Witch could fully reconstitute her defences. The witch shrieked; her counter spell came half a second too late; Ouros had already reached her, her giant hammer already swinging.

The hammer struck the witch.

Omnigul's arm was crushed away in a cascade of dark energy, her shriek splitting across the crater as her own magic finally hurled Ouros backwards across the stone. Ouros rolled to her feet without stopping and planted the hammer.

She taunted the witch with a cheeky flick of a finger.

Omnigul raged, hanging above the crater, her remaining hand pressed to the wound, her fog contracting rapidly around her. Her eyes crossed the battlefield, sweeping the horizon till she found Osiris.

She was moments away from victory, and yet, his appearance changed everything.

The look she gave him was wretched, but brief. Osiris himself could only cheekily smile in response.

Then, Omnigul turned and rose, pulling her ascendant fog with her as she ascended toward the Tomb Ships above, pulling the two Ogres away with her. Kinox and Voshyr read her retreat without a word exchanged between them; their chains dissolved, their magic retracting, and the two daughters of Crota rose after their mother without looking back at the Guardians they left unchained.

The Hive's ascendant power was gone.

What remained of the Hive army on the crater floor felt the absence immediately; their momentum collapsed, and with the Gatelord unchecked, it drove through the disorder, its lattice barriers snapping shut around Hive units in clusters, overwhelming them.

Eriana and Sai Mota moved through the crater, reviving the guardians that had died. Ouros crossed to where Shaxx and Wei Ning had fallen; both Titans had died immediately after Rasputin's volley of warsats.

The Tomb Ships shuddered above Freehold and began to rise.

One by one, they ascended back through the atmosphere, their shadows shrinking across the crater until the sky above Freehold was its own again; battered, smoke-choked, but no longer dark with chitin hulls. When the last ship cleared the crater's edge, the Hive were gone.

But with no one left to stop the Vex, their armada moved.

The Gatelord turned from the last Hive line and oriented toward the Guardians and the Cabal; its lattice power cycling, the three Vex Minds repositioning behind it in formation. The Vex's full attention again turned against them.

-

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