The Light has finally prevailed over Darkness, all the enemies that have come for the Light have fallen. The soul of the dark prince Crota sent into the void, Skolas the Kell of Kells beaten an recaptured. Returned to House Of Judgment an at the mercy of Petra. An Oryx the Taken King, the god of the Hive slain in his own throne world, preventing his resurrection. An the Cabal have been crippled by enemies from all sides, hiding away in the remains of their fleet. And so now has begun the Age of Triumph, the Last Great City can know rebuild our world, as the Fallen flee the system, the Hive cower under the crust of the Moon, the Vex travel back through their gates to rebuild the Minds and the Black Heart. The Taken with no leader, fight amongst themselves.
Though there is no need to keep fighting in such times of celebration and reward, some feel that they should keep pushing against the forces of Darkness to prevent its resurgence. The Warlock Vanguard has sent Cryptarch scientists to Venus to collect the lost secrets of the Golden Age. The Hunter Vanguard have gone to Mars to keep the Cabal in behind their walls. And the Titan Orders have remained on Earth to rebuild and build beyond the Wall to lands beyond the Traveler’s shadow and the City to bring greater peace to our world.
But there are some who still fall away from these ideals to follow what they believe what will keep the City safe. One of these Guardians is named Aumishir an awoken, a race of humans mutated by an unknown event that had occurred to colonies furthest from Earth during the Collapse, giving them blue-green skin and making their irises to glow. And a Titan who is as of right now on the moon. Knowing that the Hive that still reside on the moon, being so close to Earth makes them dangerous, an as long as they live they will rebuild and conjure up new forms of magic to destroy the Light. They were once found with a shard of the Traveler, siphoning its energy in an attempt kill it, such abilities are the greatest threat to us, so they must be destroyed.
So he had decided to to go deeper into the Temple of Crota then any before him, beyond the Summoning Pits, even to the portal entrance to Throne World, if there is a way to destroy the Hive for good, he would do it.
But he would never make it to the depths, an nor would he make it out the same.
Chapter 1
The Decent
“++YOU MUST TURN BACK-
-SAVE YOURSELVES FROM THE DEEP++
++SAVE THE WORLD FROM YOURSELVES-
-YOU MUST TURN BACK++”
- Leviathan, Book of Sorrow; Verse 1:7-TheDive
As he made his way deeper and deeper into the Temple, below the crack surface of the moon, the Hive grew ever denser. Their three glowing eyes fixed on him as they charged. Never letting them surround him an always with his back to the exit, his rifle fired off in bursts that echoed throughout the dark caverns of the moon like roots to its core as the Hive kept coming. But after a drawn out culling of a horde of drones called Thrall that had flooded in as he had made in into some sort of ritual room, did the Hive cease their assault. The room fell silent, faintly all he could hear was the rattling of chains that run throughout the moon and the occasional cry of a tortured Ogre, but these sounds came from deep within the cracks of the moon, but he was alone in these chambers.
He continued through the caverns and tunnels in the dark, his companions the Ghost might have lit the way but he would not chance it, he had mounted a flashlight to his chest and his rifle. But once he made it into on of the open chambers his comms, burst open with static, he could barely make out the voice of Zavala, “We are…tack…Cab…For…all guard…re…City” then the transmission cut out.
“Ghost, what was that?” Outstretching his hand summoning his Ghost to appear, the Metal star extended its shell to reveal a glowing blue sphere and arching its form upward in search for a signal,
Ghost responded “I don’t know I can’t reach out to the Tower, we might be too deep to into the moon, I don’t know how we picked up the signal in the first place. It could have been sent from a emergency boosted channel, we should head back to the surface to be sure.”
Aumishir hated the idea of turning back know, but the transition concerned him a great deal. His train of thought was broken with a wailing cry from a Hive Wizard, turning to see she was no longer alone, seeing the company of Knights accompanying it brandishing dark jagged swords.
Reaching back trading his rifle for his shotgun, pumping it readying a shell for the first Knight brave enough to charge in first, and he didn’t make it far before its head was torn from its shoulders, an its body decade rapidly into flakes before it met the ground only leaving only the chitin armor behind. Then the rest of the Knights rushed him with their swords raised, spreading out to give him no where to run. Unexpectedly he charged in to meet them. But just before the closest Knight could bring his sword down on Aumishir, he jumped and used his Light pushing out, forcing energy to glide above them like if he were wearing a jet pack. Raining shells down on the Knights as he passed by, killing two. But what he didn’t expect was a Knight, who had jumped up into the air after him, striking him with the sword, hurling him into the into the adjacent wall.
Before he knew the Knights were on him again, he fired what was left in his shotgun into the oncoming Knights, an once the Knights were on him he used his gun to bat away and block the sword blows. Now overrun he pulled from the Light within him, reaching into the void and drawing out a power to protect himself and the City. Crossing his arms and curling his torso, then with a quick extension of his body he created a violet bubble around himself, a Void Barrier. The creation of the barrier threw the Knights that were within its range, a few of them landed head first producing a cracking sound as their broad bone helmets shattered as well as what ever kind of spine they might have.
At his moment of respite Aumishir gave himself a once over, his armor was warn away were the swords struck him, he was bleeding a little at his side, his blue blood running down onto his waist cloth, probably where a sword didn’t strike plate. But he could feel the cool/calming sensation of the Light mending his armor and his wounds, and Light forming an extra layer of armor around his whole body. Drawing his machine gun, opening the receiver an checking the belt, readying himself for the indefinite attack. Noting that the some of the Knights that had been thrown by the barrier had dead, he still had to fight what looked like about twelve more Knights.
The Knights stood a few meters away from the Barrier in a group, not daring to enter the bubble, but Aumishir knowing how much longer he had before the Barrier would dispel waited till the last possible moment, and as it did, he rushed forward noticing the Knights raising up their empty hand preparing to summon their own shield. He threw a grenade that stuck itself to a Knight that didn’t raise his shield fast enough, it tried to grab onto it just before it exploded twice. The grenade left a gap in their shield wall and through that he fired away with his machine gun mowing down the unprotected Knights, fortunately they can’t move when they project their shields and that was an opportunity he would not pass up.
An when the shield finally dispelled and his machine guns belt was empty he switched back to his pulse rifle once more and slaying the remnants of the Knight company.
In silence among the piles of armor and he dissolved piles of ash that used to be Hive, he caught his breath, surviving a wounds made by A cursed blades takes a lot out you, almost like you are ill, like you don’t feel comfortable in you own skin. Interrupted in that thought from amongst the silence a unnatural laughter grew from the all around him. Jumping to his feet he searched his surroundings with his rifle drawn, the keckeling continued, it began to echo in his head.
Then his body began to feel heavy and fatigue fell upon himself, he’s body felt weak, his armor constricting, it was hard to breath, collapsing to the ground. Looking himself over to see if he’d bin hit with something. The blade wound began to feel worse an began to burn. Looking around again he saw his ghost laying in the dirt…lifeless. Crying out, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE…YOU FILTH…SHOW YOURSELF!” In response the Wizard finally showed herself, she looked like any other Wizard Light armoring, chitin headdress that covered her whole head only letting through her three piercing green eyes, and draped in a winglike webbing. Except there was a small green glow almost a mist was emitting from he head and small faint green thread seemed to be hanging from her body.
“The Light… has abandoned you…I haven’t done a thing.” She looked out away from Aumishir as if seeing through the wall into the beyond. “An know your City burns.” Shocked and in disbelief, Aumishir tried to pick himself up and reached for his rifle, “Impossible there are hundreds of guardians, and it only took a handful of us to kill you ‘God’ who was the greatest threat to the Light and the universe!” he snarled. As he tried to aim his rifle the wizard swooped down and knocked the rifle from his arms and picked him up by his neck.
“Then I’ll show you” raising her other hand just inches from his face, green smoke began to emit from her palm and it began to seep into his helmet, it burned his throat, his head felt cold and his brain felt like it was being squished by a grasping hand. His vision went dark but he knew his eyes were open, then he could see it, the City was on fire, large red ships flying overhead. He could see the Traveler but something was off it was glowing an amber tone, the vision went cloudy and cleared up to show guardians strewn about in rubble, they were all dead, they had large bullet holes in their armor and he could also see slices in them some even cleaved in two with the wound still burning…they were slaughtered. He came too as he was thrown to the ground, the wizard looking down on him, “What will you do know…you are without ‘that’ power, you are but a larva trying to flee from the slaughter…what will you do know?” Dragging himself away from the wizard he replied, “I will fight, it’s what I was brought back to do, with or without the Light I WILL fight.”
The wizard flew down, her face inches from his, she was floating parallel to the grown, Aumishir laying on the ground trying to dig in more so not to touch her, “Go…go…fight back…go…” Aumishir felt a sharp pain from his wounded side, she had stuck one of fingers into his wound and was dragging it through the cut. The pain made him freeze up, he didn’t want to move. But his hand then found a large stone, and mustering what he could into a battle cry and swung the stone, striking her crossed the head, it broke off he chitin helmet and she was lying on the ground now and with what left on his strength he had he run over to her and brought the stone down with both hands crushing her skull.
His body heavy he fell down next to the the corpse of the wizard, he wanted to rest, but if he were to, he’d surely be found, if so he’d die his final death. He had to get out of there. He picked himself up, his body screaming all over for him to stop especially on his side, he tore off his mark waist cloth and tucked it into his armor and wound. A rifle in hand and his ghost in the other he began to ascend to get out of the Hellmouth. It was deafly quiet like before, you could only hear the bugs in the air and the occasional cry of a Ogre as it was transformed and distorted, but he was not pursued, not even a roaming Thrall crossed his path, the fact that there was nothing, worried him. As he dragged along…“Saturn”…he continued up…“Titan”…“what will I do, without my Light can I really fight?”…“moon”, echoing through his head. Finally making it to the surface, he luckily found his ship, it had an auto pilot landing protocol, thank the Shipwright for that. Using an external panel he was able to transmatterialize into it.