Destiny 2 - Shadowfall I

"Vergift, I'm on approach."

"Welcome back. Did you have any problems?"

"Nearly got my head taken off by the Rachis. But I got the amethyst."

"Good. Ruin's prowling around in Gale's Watch. Some House Salvation bittereinder still lurking around there."

"And Kalki?"

"Dormant for the moment. But he'll wake up when we need him."

"Noted. Djinn, take us in for landing."

~*~*~*~

Ana Bray lifted her head from the sensorium, shared a look with her Ghost, then turned to her sister. "Just caught a transmission from Bog. Looks like the whole crew has arrived. Jinju thinks she can backtrace it and locate where they're holed up, but it's definitely somewhere in Eventide. Possibly in Riis-Reborn."

Elsie, who to some people would always be known as the Exo Stranger, nodded. "Morgan should be back soon with some more backup. I hope we won't need them." Her eyes were distant for a moment, remembering countless loops she'd gone through. How long had it been since she'd been a participant in this battle? How many loops ago had she lent her aid to Ohr and her friends? The Vanguard's clash with the Shadows of Salvation was a constant through the timeline, but the details were variable. The members of the Vanguard team, the notable leaders of the Dark's forces, her own involvement... these were variable. The outcome had always been a constant, too.

But then, the Traveler's dormancy had always been a constant, with the Hive's torture of its fragment beneath Luna, until this most recent loop, when the Young Wolf had freed it. And since then, things had been changing. Constants were becoming variables, though a distressing number of things still seemed to keep happening. How mutable the timeline was, remained uncertain to her.

Elsie looked at the Awoken woman knelt by the table. The shaven side of her head shimmered with the subdermal luminescence common of her kind, the silvery hair on the rest woven into a cascade of thin dreadlocks that hung past her shoulders. Her blue eyes glazed over with concentration as she regarded the strange rosary in her fingers-- a long leather cord knotted at irregular intervals, strewn with hand-carved beads of various materials. Wahei Ohr was weaving a cat's cradle between her fingers, occasionally flicking a bead into position as if it were instead some arcane abacus. That some of the beads glowed added to this observation. And on the table in front of the Warlock was the waxen, scrimshawed avian skull known as the Traitor's Die. Every so often as Ohr pulled and adjusted her cat's cradle, the Die would tumble of its own accord, one of the sigils on its sides or in its sockets glowing.

Ana followed her sister's glance over to the Warlock, then sighed. "She's been like that for hours. Vizier?" Wahei's Ghost swiveled to look at her from where he'd been keeping watch by his Guardian. "She's all right, yeah?"

Vizier made a sighing noise. "She gets like this a lot. I know that she can ... see things this way. Not prophecy, I think, or at least nothing she'll admit to," he added, after a moment's thought, "but she thinks she can somehow commune with the Darkness this way."

The Bray sisters shared another look, before Ana gestured toward the door. "Well, I mean, there's the Ziggurat just over the hill that way--"

"I seek insight on my terms." Wahei let the rosary fall to dangle from her fingers. She absently looped and wrapped it around her wrist and scooped up the Traitor's Die. "If I were to try this at the Ziggurat, I'm doing it by the Darkness' terms. I'm not letting it dictate my actions." She rose from where she knelt. "I make my own fate."

Elsie nodded carefully, then caught Wahei up to speed. The Shadows of Salvation were in the Eventide Ruins somewhere, but they didn't have specifics, and Morgan was en route with more backup. Malphur was out acclimating himself to the local area, doing some scouting of his own, as was Wahei's regular teammate Rega-7. There weren't many Fallen left in the area of Rathmore Chaos; most of the remnants of House Salvation had either been hunted down and killed already, or had dropped their colors and either turned pirate again, or had defected to House Light. Any lingering Fallen would probably stay out of their way, not wanting to get caught between two sides of Lightbearers.

Wahei digested all this quietly, turning the Traitor's Die over in her hand as she considered all this. "Unfortunately, there's too many places that Vergift might be." She looked to Vizier and Jinju. "You're sure that you can't pinpoint her location any better?"

Both Ghosts indicated negatively. "There's too much interference, between prevailing conditions out there," Vizier glanced to the door of the shelter, through which white-out conditions could be seen, "and the Jovian magnetosphere. Plus the Pyramid and Ziggurat. The nearest we can tell is that she's definitely in Rathmore, but she could be anywhere-- Eventide, Riis-Reborn, or out at the Deep Stone Crypt."

"Wherever she is," Wahei mused out loud, "she's got to have access to a forge or something to allow her to construct her weapon. That tells me she's probably in a Braytech facility, so she can make use of their manufactories." She glanced at the Bray sisters. "Unless Mister Big Head locked it down from her?"

Elsie shook her head. "I doubt it. Vergift was able to lock Clovis out of a lot of Braytech systems. I don't think he has the capability to lock her out anymore. She's too smart to leave him that level of access."

Wahei nodded and tapped into her comm-link. "Rega, Malphur, it's Wahei. Sitrep. Where are you two?"

After a moment, Shin Malphur's voice responded, "Checking one of the emergency bunkers beneath Eventide, just to cross it off the list. But this place is a tomb. No one's been in here since the Fallen cleared it out of anything useful."

Rega-7's voice was next, through some heavy static. "Out at the Deep Stone Crypt. Chaukeedar's picking up some signs that someone was out here recently, but we can't tell if they're still here."

Ana tapped into the comm channel next. "Stay alert, Rega. But we think they're somewhere close to Eventide. Start making your way back as soon as you can."

~*~*~*~

Rega-7 nodded, even if no one except her Ghost could see it. "Wilco. Nothing left in here except dead Fallen and dead Exos. Be there soon." She looked around Clarity Control. The pristine lines of the Clovis Bray laboratory were still clean. Sanitization automata were still keeping this place spic and span, though the dead bodies of House Salvation's forces were still in evidence. She wasn't surprised; between the computer systems being compromised twice over, plus the damage caused by the battle here, there likely weren't any larger automata left to remove them.

Rega frowned briefly at that. There probably should have been, unless the Fallen's co-opting of the manufactories in the Crypt had inhibited them from replenishing their automata. She thought about investigating, but decided against it. By the sounds of things, it was about to get messy at Eventide, and it was still going to take some time to climb back up out of the facility to the surface for transmat.

She was turning away from the orbital launch tubes when she noticed a faint ripple out of the corner of her eye. She didn't say anything, but she shot a glance at Chaukeedar. The Ghost bobbed a nod and decompiled out of sight, before whispering in her head. "I saw something, too. Can't detect what it was."

The Exo's hand slid down to the hilt of the IKELOS sub-machine gun on her belt as she scanned the area again. The glimmer of light had been faintly purple, almost like particulates, but she couldn't be sure. There was also a different shimmer she noticed in the air. It would have been easy to chalk it up to some kind of digital artifact, interference from some form of electromagnetic radiation, but she had seen something like this before. On Luna, after the Scarlet Keep's emergence, and the discovery of the Lunar Pyramid.

Rega stopped herself. "No. Bog's crew are in Eventide. They're not down here," she reminded herself aloud.

"Good point," Chaukeedar noted. "Should we put a pin in this?"

"Yes," the Exo agreed. "We'll come back here and figure this out later."

~*~*~*~

"Narusheniye perimetra."

"Shit. We have company."

"Kalki, where are they?"

"Vkhod v ruiny Eventide. Uznay: Ana Bray. Uznay: Elisabeth Bray."

"If they're here, then so is Ohr. Bog, stall them while I get you some back up."

"On it."

"And Ruin?"

"Yes?"

"Playtime."

~*~*~*~

They'd left their Sparrows near the entrance from Asterion Abyss. Even with weather conditions as they were, the engine noise would carry in the Eventide Ruins. Trekking across the established patrol areas of the ruins had taken some time, but there were few signs of life in the area now. Most Guardian patrols had waned in the past few months, and even the lingering House Salvation forces had gone deeply to ground. A group of Guardians moving in force would keep any Fallen forces away.

The view of Jupiter overhead was obscured by the hanging shapes of Riis-Reborn's underbelly above them, built atop the structures of the Eventide buildings. Dark windows looked down upon them, the occasional flicker of light from derelict electronics periodically illuminating a pane or opening. Wahei turned slowly in a circle as they proceeded along the wide avenue between the building ruins. "Everyone keep a weather eye," she warned. "We have to assume they have means in place to spot us coming." She glanced at Elsie. "Any details you have on foundries or forges around here?"

The Exo Stranger nodded. "We're still heading in the right direction. If my knowledge is still accurate from previous iterations, there's a manufactory ahead that Versenne worked out of. If what Clovis told me is correct, then she remembers it now after she reclaimed her original memories. This is far enough off the beaten path that no one should be bothering her back here."

Vizier spoke up. "I'm detecting some caverns under the square ahead," the Ghost noted.

"Some Vex architecture down there too," Jinju added.

"Stay alert," Ana cautioned them all. "Pretty sure that we're--" She broke off as her shoulder erupted in a spray of blood, spinning and falling into the packed snow. At the same moment, the crack of a sniper rifle reached them.

"Eyes up!" Wahei shouted as she whirled, raising her scout rifle in the direction of the shot, peppering it with bullets. "Elsie, cover me!" As the Exo stepped up and began firing toward the high-angle sniper perch, the Warlock threw down a healing rift as she channeled the energy directly into the woman's shoulder.

There was a squeal as derelict and failing tannoys came to life, and then the harshly accented voice of Dredgen Bog rang out. "I have you sighted, Ohr. Drop your weapons and stand up, and I'll make this quick."

"You know that won't happen," Elsie replied.

"She's right," Wahei said as she reached for her Deafening Whisper. "You knew this day was coming. It doesn't have to end the way you think. Stand down."

"You know that won't happen," Bog laughed derisively. "Besides, all I have to do is wait. If I won't get you, then she will."

That was when a shape dropped from above, landing in the middle of the street with an earthshaking slam, snow and ice fountaining up, blown back by the shockwave of the landing. The Guardians could see a dark-armored figure rising from its three-point landing, a V-shaped visor of its helmet lifting to stare at them as a distorted three-note motif blared over the tannoys, followed by a screaming vocal.

"I'M A -- HEAD-BANGER!!"

"Scatter!" Ana shouted, snap-drawing her 18 Kelvins, which bloomed with radiant sunfire as she sent three flaming streaks of pure Solar Light in the Dark Titan's direction. The Ruiner, however, flung a hand up and raised a towering barricade in front of her, stopping the shots from striking her. Elsie dashed in one direction as Wahei Blinked away in another, just as Dredgen Ruin lunged forward, slamming an ice-crusted fist into the ground before Ana, who sprang straight up and flung a grenade into the Dark Titan's face.

Ruin slapped it away with a hand, the ice on her other fist cracking as she conjured a dark purple shield up to blunt the explosion from Wahei's grenade launcher, then pivoted about to hurl the shield in the direction of Elsie before she could fire with her hand cannon. The Exo had to duck and slide behind cover as Ruin drew her blackened auto rifle, wild firing in her direction, then pivoting back toward Ana as she came in with her Hunter's knife. Ruin only grunted as the knife plunged into the gap of her armor between her cuirass and her pauldrons, then snapped her head forward and into Ana's face, driving her back before riddling her with a flurry from her auto rifle.

Ana collapsed back in the snow, gasping on blood as she felt her Light struggle to recover. She heard Jinju's voice in the comms. "Guys, that's a Weapon of Sorrow! Ana's Light's been suppressed!"

"Come on!" The Ruiner's voice bellowed out as she tore the knife out of her neck, hurling it toward the Warlock to keep her behind cover. "Ana Bray! I saw you leave burning pools of Light at Twilight Gap! Where's that fire now?!"

The Dark Titan grunted as a hand cannon bullet pinged off her helmet, hurling a grenade in Elsie's direction, then stowing her auto rifle to grab one of the k-rails lining the road. She heaved it overhead as the visor of her helmet seemed to almost glow with malevolent bloodlust. "Give me a real fight!"

~*~*~*~

Above, Dredgen Bog squinted through his sniper scope, sweeping it from the Exo Stranger, then back over to Ohr, who had to duck as another spray of bullets came her direction. She was shimmering with Void energy, preparing to unleash it, but then he lined up the crosshairs. "Nope, none of that," he sneered, and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet struck, but then the image of Wahei Ohr shattered into glittering voxels that collapsed in a rapidly vanishing heap. Bog lifted his head in shock, then cursed. "Ohr's got hard light duplicates," he reported into his comm.

Vergift's voice tsked thoughtfully. "Must have picked that up on the Shore after the Rifleman was killed." She paused. "Do you still need backup?"

"No," he said. "I may not see where Ohr went, but I can still take a piece off the board." As he spoke, he shifted his aim toward the Exo Stranger.

The click of a hammer drawing back stopped him. The Dark Hunter gave an exasperated sigh. "Can you just give me a minute?"

But the voice that answered made his blood go cold. "Put down the rifle, Bog," Shin Malphur growled.

~*~*~*~

Ana bit back a scream as Ruin brought the k-rail down on her leg, trying to gather enough Light to stem off the pain, and to retaliate, thankful at least that her sister was distracting the Dark Titan. However, the Hunter was now pinned, the weight of the concrete barricade atop her leg making it impossible to escape. Ruin tossed a duskfield grenade toward Elsie, leaving her struggling to escape from the Stasis field, while she turned back to her prey.

"This is how the last Night Wolf dies." Her face was obscured by the helmet, but there was an impression of a smile in the Ruiner's voice. Or at least a baring of teeth.

The tannoys crackled again, as a different wailing chord disrupted the distorted music that accompanied the Ruiner's rampage. The sound of it echoed through the snow-covered streets, over the howl of an approaching engine. 

Dredgen Ruin stopped, turning, just as the Sparrow slammed into her chest. Snow and ice and concrete beneath was plowed aside as the Dark Titan planted her feet, trying to slow the vehicle's momentum, and looked up into the grim visage of a Torobatl Celebration Mask. "Morgan," she snarled.

"Ainu," he returned, as he kicked off his Sparrow, just as she drew forth a flaming great-axe, bifurcating the vehicle as she came to a halt. Morgan landed on his feet, seeing her already lunging forward with the axe, and hurled a flashbang into her face. She staggered, still charging, and grunted as his fist caught her under the jaw, lifting her into the air, then Morgan exploded upward himself, lightning coursing about his form as he caught her in the midsection, propelling them both across the square and through a building. The ruins trembled and swayed from the impact.

~*~*~*~

"I see you reach for that Thorn, boy, and I will shoot you in the back." Malphur kept the Last Word trained on the Dark Hunter.

Dredgen Bog sneered beneath his slit-eyed gas mask. "You getting soft, old man? Time was you'd just gun us down without waiting."

Malphur shook his head "I always waited for you sons to turn and face me. Shootin' a man in the back has no honor in it."

"Ahuh." Bog sneered again. "Tell that to Salz. To Morte." His voice rose as he rattled off more names from the list of fallen Dredgens. "Frag. Gem. Whis. Diable. Scourge--"

"If you're expecting me to feel sorry for taking them out," Malphur interrupted, "then you don't know me."

Bog snarled. "And if you think I'm going to go down to a thrice-orphaned piece of shit like you, then you have another thing coming." 

He slapped a smoke grenade down and vanished as Malphur fired the Last Word where he'd been, and then withdrew behind cover as he heard a mocking chuckle from the shadows of the room. "You have lost a step. What are you even doing here?"

Shin Malphur peered around the standing cabinet as he tried to pinpoint where the Dark Hunter was lurking. "I mean to kill you in one minute, Bog. Or see you clapped in irons before the Praxics and Aunor Mahal. Which will it be?"

Dredgen Bog laughed again. "I call that bold talk for a crumbling old relic!"

Malphur's eye twitched. "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!"

They both stepped into view and went for their cannons, but then the building shook as a pair of ballistic Titans slammed through it, and the floor buckled beneath them. Malphur fired a shot, but Bog leapt sideways, jumping off a piece of debris as he caught himself on a window frame and then sprang backward, drawing his Thorn as he went. As he fired one of the hateful rounds, it sailed over the renegade's head as they started to fall as the building began to list to one side.

Bog hurled himself back toward the building and swung through a window as the air filled with smoke and dust. His footing went out from under himself as he landed on a patch of ice, but he threw himself to the tilting floor as another shot from the Last Word punched through a sliding table above his head. He rolled away as Malphur continued to fire, and then came up in a rush with his SMG drawn, sending the renegade dodging out of the way.

"Where's that Golden Gun of yours, Malphur?!" The Dark Hunter cast his Solar Light into his Thorn, firing again, blasting a hole through a tumbling cabinet. As it fell past them, the cabinet began to melt and corrode around the edges of the hole, which smoldered with green fire. He spun aside as Malphur flung a knife at him, and fired his Golden Thorn again, blasting another corruptive hole through a wall behind the renegade.

"Oh, I don't need the Golden Gun to take you down, Bog." The renegade gunslinger had vanished in the swirling smoke as the building continued to shake and rumble, the noise of battle rising outside. "Even with all you've been doing, you're barely a shade compared to someone like Yor."

Bog's voice growled. "Shut up."

"Seriously," Malphur continued, "collecting maltech and powers for... what, exactly? Why even are you doing this? Do you even know?"

"The Light will not protect us!" the Dredgen snarled, as another green fire punched through a cabinet. The renegade wasn't there. Bog steadied himself as the building rocked again, firing two more shots from the burning Thorn into the smoke and dust, then ran to the window, drawing out his sniper rifle again, sighting on the battle scene below.

~*~*~*~

"Malphur's keeping Bog busy," Elsie said as she helped Ana to her feet. "Morgan's got the Ruiner. Anyone else on comms? Does anyone have eyes on Wahei?"

"I'm heading down for the bunkers," Wahei's voice answered. "The longer we leave Vergift to her own devices, the more time she has to finish assembling the weapon. Also, she has a Splicer Gauntlet, and given her engineering brilliance and computer skills, she could easily use that time to hack into Bray's systems, make the manufactories build anything else she wanted, and there's any number of things she could--"

"Not the time, Wahei." Rega-7 interrupted. She came racing in on her own Sparrow, hopping off of it and sweeping the area with her Dreaded Venture. "Ana, you all right?"

"I'll be fine," she answered. She was limping a bit, but Rega came over to her and lent some of her Light to cleanse away the suppression effect of Ruin's auto rifle. Ana reloaded her sidearm as she stretched out her leg. "Anyone catch if Morgan had any backup with him?"

Aunor Mahal appeared in a swirl of transmat particles. "That would be my cue." The Praxic Warlock checked her pulse rifle as she turned to the Bray sisters and the other Exo Hunter. "Morgan brought one other person to the party, and he's en route to go help him." When she saw the expression on the sisters' faces, Aunor shrugged. "As soon as Morgan contacted me, I dropped everything. I would have brought more Praxics with me, but it was short notice."

Elsie nodded, then pointed. "The manufactory complex is this way. I propose we split up. Two of us try to catch up with Wahei and find Vergift, the other two stay here and help Shin and Morgan."

"You know the way there better than anyone," Aunor said. "I'll go with you. Ana, you and Rega stay to fight?" With nods all around, the Guardians split up, the Praxic and Exo Stranger hustling toward the manufactory entrance, while Ana and Rega followed the sounds of battle through the ruins.

~*~*~*~

After smashing through several buildings, the missile that was the Titan Donovan Morgan realized that Dredgen Ruin was starting to recover from the shock of the collisions. She had started pounding on his spine with her fists, denting his armor as she did. Gritting his teeth, he poured more of his Light into his momentum, angling the pair of them back down toward the ground.

The resulting blast wave of impact evaporated snow and ice for several hundred meters, but the harsh Europan winds were already blowing more into the area. Morgan rolled to his feet in the inverted dome of the crater, drawing his Parcel of Stardust and racking a round into the chamber as he rose. He spun, firing wildly as the Ruiner's Ghost appeared, but his shot went wide. The Ghost let out a squeak, snapping its shell closed and vanishing again. "Nope, stay down," he declared.

Debris rained down around him as one of the buildings lining the street crumpled and collapsed against a smaller one beside it. The windows lit up with fire, and he could just make out the telltale cracks of a Golden Gun firing, but the resulting flashes were tinged with green. Morgan blinked and tapped into the comms. "Malphur, sitrep!"

There was no immediate response from the renegade, but something else warbled over the tannoys. "I'm a -- head-banger!" He spun back around and fired again as Ruin barreled toward him. She shrugged off the blast from his shotgun, a huge haymaker smashing across his jaw, then an uppercut that almost knocked him off his feet. She grabbed him by the front of his armor and hurled him across the road and through the broken window of what had been a storefront. He smashed through a counter and rolled to his feet as he reached the back wall, but just as he reached his feet, Ruin was already on him again, slamming him into the wall and shattering it.

She brought both fists up into his jaw, the lightning-infused blow driving him up and through the ceiling. As he came back down, Stasis energy was welling up around her as she prepared to slam him again, but he smashed a ceiling tile into her head, then pivoted about, conjuring a Burning Maul and swinging it into her midsection, propelling her back across the store. She hit the floor on her back, then rolled back to her feet and slid to a halt. She rose back into another maul strike, one that shattered the faceplate of her helmet. But Dredgen Ruin just gave Morgan a bloody smile. Or at least showed her teeth.

She kicked him backward, and conjured up a Sentinel Shield as he swung again with his maul, blocking the blow, but the shockwave of force from the impact blew out what glass remained in the windows of the building, which shook and rumbled as support beams cracked. She flung the shield toward him, but he ducked underneath it and thrust the head of his maul up and into her jaw, then snapped it down into her chest, knocking her prone.

As she started to rise again, Morgan raised one rime-covered fist and drove it into her torso, flash-freezing her to the ground. "Stay down, dammit!" Then he thrust the maul straight up and unleashed an explosive burst of Solar Light, shaking the building again. Debris rained down as the ceiling began to collapse. She started to crack free of the Stasis ice holding her as he dashed toward the broken storefront windows, coming back out into the street as the facade of the building collapsed inward behind him, burying the Ruiner beneath it.

Morgan stood back up, just as a sniper round punched through the back of his armor. He grunted, staggering, and swung around, thrusting a hand up to throw up a barricade, just as a second bullet came. "Malphur?! Malphur, sitrep!"

A series of muffled thumps, getting louder, arose behind him, and he heard debris shifting and sliding as well. He glanced back to see the Dark Titan emerging from beneath the collapsed storefront. Another sniper bullet slammed into his barricade as he watched Ruin forming a lance of ice in her fist. "Malphur, I could use some backup!"

"Morgan! On your left!" He stepped out of the way as a lithe form came streaking past, a faint crackle of lightning trailing behind her. Rega-7 had her katana drawn, taking a swing of the sword in mid-lunge, the blade's eager edge carrying her forward again, closing the gap between her and Dredgen Ruin, who raised the lance in her hand. The Hunter landed on her chest, planting a grenade on it, and then rolled and sprung off her back, landing in a three-point stance with her sword still drawn as the Ruiner's form was obscured by a flash of flames.

~*~*~*~

Bog lowered his rifle as he saw the storefront collapse. "Ruin? Ruin! Get up, dammit!"

The bullet that came next caught him in his unarmored shoulder, and the Dredgen snap-drew his Thorn and fired in his direction, but the smoke obscured where Malphur was hiding. Bog cursed. "The Light was supposed to keep us safe." His golden fire had ebbed, but he still held his Thorn ready, firing another round into the dissipating smoke. "But it didn't, did it?! Burning Lake was when it all changed. I got knocked out in that battle, and by the time I woke back up, the Great Disaster had happened! None of us were the same after Crota!"

"Crota's dead," Malphur retorted as he popped out of cover and fired off another flurry of shots, none of which landed as Bog weaved, though the last one caromed off the armor plate on his shoulder. "So's his father. But you think getting knocked into a coma is justification for what you've done?"

As he tried to go back behind the support pillar, a linear fusion round punched a chunk out of it, knocking him into view. Malphur channeled his Light, but Bog stood and flung a frigid kama at him. The renegade gunslinger staggered back, frost and ice covering his arm, and then the Dredgen vaulted over a desk and kicked him into a wall, another kama against his throat. Bog snarled as he ripped his gasmask off, venom in his voice. "Look at me, and say that again."

Malphur saw, then, the haggard face of Afa Kashaf, with the crescent moon tattoo framing his right eye. But his gaze was inevitably drawn to the livid gash on the other side of his head and face. The scar ran from his left temple back across his head, and it festered. The flesh around it had blistered and rotted, glistening with fluid that flowed but did not overflow the gash and diseased skin. Looking closer into the depths of the wound, the bone could be seen as well. The rot had seeped into that part of his face as well, the skin around his eye socket sagging, with the eye itself clouded with blindness, the sclera stained dark red. The close-cropped hair on that side of the head had turned white, and his teeth were bared in a furious snarl.

"The Light heals, everyone keeps saying," Kashaf spat. "But this never healed. I lost track of the number of rezzes I went through, but it never got better. It just kept rotting, oozing, festering. The Light's supposed to protect us, but the Hive were stronger. Their magic, their Darkness, did this to me. In Light, there is only weakness! Or this wouldn't have happened!"

"So you got a cut on your face and you decided you were gonna try to kill the Traveler?" Shin Malphur glared at him. "That's more pathetic than I thought. Yor would be ashamed that you bear his name, you goddamned edgelord."

Kashaf's eye blazed as he put the mask back on. "I am no longer a Shadow of Yor," he declared. "I cast a shadow in the light of true salvation--"

A sniper shot caught him through the midsection, and Dredgen Bog staggered back, hurling the kama in the direction of the shot, a swirling wall of frost and hail obscuring the ruined hallway. At the end of it, Ana Bray stifled a curse and hustled closer, while Malphur kicked out, catching him in the stomach. Bog let out a scream of pain, then roared in fury as Solar Light bloomed in his palms. Rising to his feet, he flung two handfuls of burning knives at both Hunters.

Ana and Malphur both dove out of the way as the blades exploded on impact, collapsing more of the building around them. Bog tracked the renegade's movement as he raised his Huntsman Longbore. "Die screaming, you son of a--"

But as he fired, the building shook again from a massive blast outside, and then all three of them were falling again.

~*~*~*~

Rega-7 cursed as she saw that Ruin was still standing. The Dark Titan's armor was smoking and cracked, the helmet shattered, but she herself was still standing, but the way she was shaking her head told the Hunter that she was stunned. "Keep on her!" she shouted to Morgan, as she dashed in and made a thrust with her sword. She saw Morgan draw his shotgun and pump a blast into the Ruiner's chest, but apart from a mild grunt at the impact of that blow, she didn't seem to otherwise react. She dropped her shoulder, causing Rega's katana thrust to skim off one pauldron, then grabbed the Exo's arm to yank her forward, throwing her toward Morgan.

"Two at once," the Ruiner conjured up her flaming broadaxe again, stalking forward. "Almost a decent fight."

"Your math is off." Morgan had caught Rega and helped her land on her feet. "There's not two of us."

Dredgen Ruin paused, head leaning to one side almost quizzically, and turned as the figure materialized on the devastated street, fists clenched at his sides, his Exo eyes blazing with cold fury. She pivoted to face him, but did not turn away from the other Guardians completely. Her bloodied face lit up as she gave him a smile. Or at least showed her teeth. "Been a long time since I fought an Iron Lord."

"May it bring you pleasure, in these last moments," Revenant-19 declared.

In a blink, he had closed with her and thrust a palm into her nose, breaking it, Arc energies crackling over her head as she reeled back, only to slam her head forward, her brow catching him in the face-plate. He rocked back, only barely managing to stay upright as he blocked her overhead hammer-fist. Her other hand lashed out, grabbing him around the throat. "All these years, and you never learned not to get into a fight with a Titan?"

The palm that struck her in the chest next exploded with Void Light, knocking her backward and breaking her grip. She regained her footing, only to catch the head of his Penumbral Staff across the face. Revenant spun with the swing, catching it across the back of his neck as he aimed the head of his staff at her, firing off a blast of Stasis, which caught her and froze her to the spot. "You think this is a battle of fists?" The Staff crumbled to powder as he drew his shotgun and aimed it at the frozen Ruin.

But as he fired, the Ruiner burst free from the ice wreathing her, her flaming broadaxe materializing again, not even slowing as the shotgun blast punched a hole through her armor. Rev dropped his shotgun as he conjured up his Dawnblade to intercept her overhead chop. "Fists, guns, Light, Dark, a fight is a fight," Ruin's smile would have frozen molten metal. "And battle is where I thrive."

"You thrive when facing those lesser than you," Revenant retorted. "Desperate Fallen, defenseless villagers, kinder-Guardians, you've never faced anyone close to your level."

"There is no one close to my level," the Ruiner sneered.

"Wrong. You stand now on equal ground with someone." Revenant-19 abruptly vanished in a flash of Void Light, reappearing behind her and slashing across her back with his Dawnblade. In the same moment, Rega-7 had closed in as well, her katana flicking out to leave a bloody gash across her cheekbone. Then Morgan barreled in and slammed his Arc-infused fists into her.

But the Ruiner had not gone down. Light flashed in her eyes as she channeled the Arc that had just been punched into her and raised her fists overhead. "All ground gives way," she scowled, before slamming her fists into the cracked pavement beneath her.

The blastwave rocked the street, the ground shattering outward from where she hit, beginning to collapse into the caverns below. With the ground beginning to crumple, the ruins around them began to shudder and list again, metal groaning as the destabilized buildings buckled, the weight of Riis-Reborn overhead warping their weakened structures. Debris began to rain down as a sector of the Eliksni city above began to plummet.

~*~*~*~

Afterword: Thanks to RewsterSause on Reddit for allowing the use of his character, Revenant-19.