Wahei's head jerked up as she heard the clanging on the door to her sanctum, quickly releasing the tension in her arm, then flicking a finger at the wall. A curtain dropped to cover the space across from her, and she blinked a few times to lubricate her eyes, dried out after a long unblinking stare. She tapped her comm. "Who is it?"
"Wahei, it's me." Eris Morn. "This is urgent. Please!"
The Warlock took out her umbral rosary and tangled it in her fingers, making a few flicks across its hand-carved beads, shifting her wards down out of defense mode, and then unlocked the door. Eris did not enter as it swung open, instead looking firmly at her with her thrice-green gaze. "It is as I feared," she began. "We were too late."
Wahei did not need to ask. "Calus. He's ascended?"
Eris shook her head. "I do not believe he has yet, but the Lunar Pyramid has surged to life in spite of our efforts. It has begun resonating. I believe Calus is assuming control."
Wahei immediately turned to her equipment racks, pulling on her armor and robes. "We'll have to stop him. Do the others know?"
"Yes. If we strike now, as one," Eris continued, "at the heart of Calus's presence within the Leviathan, we may yet be able to prevent him from turning the power of the Pyramid against us."
The Warlock nodded. "I'll contact my fireteam. Morgan, Rega, and Shaman together should be able to help burn through any resistance you encounter on the Leviathan."
Eris Morn was no fool, and she noted Wahei's choice of words. "You are not coming?"
She shook her head as she considered her weapon rack. "I will be attacking from a different angle. Calus's psychic imprint is huge, and he's trying to slither out of the Leviathan like a crab grown too large for its shell. I'm going to cut him off before he can reach his new one." Wahei contemplated her weapons again, and decided that there would be a deep irony in using the trophies that the exiled emperor had given her as payment for services rendered. She holstered an Austringer on her hip, then checked the clip on an Epicurean, and examined the edge of her Death's Razor.
Eris blinked. "You're going into the Pyramid?"
Wahei slammed her sword into its sheath. "It's the only way to be sure I can catch his psychic shadow and force it into the Light. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to be sure he won't overwhelm me." She began to pack some items from her work table into her satchel as she went. She paused, and picked up a jar, one festooned with sigils and wards, iron wiring wrapped around it. Its contents shimmered faintly with a sanguine luster. "There should be enough power in this phantasmal energy I bound after a few containment rituals to kick off one final severing." She handed this to Eris, before sliding a second one into her pack. "And one for me, to use inside the Pyramid."
The Light's Witch examined the jar. "Egregore, bound and contained," she noted. She looked up again. "You've been paying attention to my work," she noted, with no small note of pride.
Wahei smirked. "You may be the foremost expert on Hive arcana, but I'm fast catching up."
"I've no doubt you'll see great things with your insights," Eris said, and clasped her forearm. "Be careful, Wahei. Going into a Pyramid always carries risks."
"I'm a Guardian," the Warlock shrugged. "Trouble follows."
~*~*~*~*~*~
Morgan dropped out of his ship and into the Castellum, the head of his Burning Maul slamming down into the helmet of a Loyalist Colossus, smashing the mindless soldier into crumpled gore. He could see the fronds of fungal growth through the shattered armor, but this was already smoldering and burning from his hammer's blow. He heard the howls of outraged Scorn, but Shaman-9 descended on plumes of fire, snapping his fingers and igniting the undead Fallen, which shrieked as they collapsed.
Another Colossus was swinging his slug launcher into position, but then his head burst with a gout of flame from a burning sniper round. Rega-7 dropped from her ship to join the others. "And we're clear," she confirmed. She tapped her comm. "Rega to Vanguard. We're at the Throne door in the Castellum."
"Acknowledged, Fireteam!" Zavala's voice barked across the comms. "No margin for error! Eris, Crow, Caiatl, get into position and plant your amplifiers! Fireteam, straight down the middle."
Rega nodded to the others, then called to her Ghost. "Chaukeedar, you have the ident-code that Wahei gave us?"
The Ghost nodded. "Sending it through now. Me and the other Ghosts are ready to hack through the locks if it doesn't--" She broke off as the doors began to creak open. "--Never mind! We're good!"
Phantoms drifted in the darkened hallways as the fireteam advanced, though one hung directly in their path, a Titan by its shape, shaven head canted to one side and lips spread wide. The phantom of Sergei Bolvan grinned at them and began cackling, until his voice rose into howling peals of laughter, before the phantom faded out... just as the bulky form of a gold-masked Cabal materialized, brandishing its cleavers.
The fireteam quickly scattered as the Nightmare bellowed at them, lunging forward and swinging its blades. Morgan flung a flaming hammer into its face, but it just bounced off the creature's helmet harmlessly, drawing its furious emerald glare toward him. "Sergei, the hell, man?" Morgan grunted as he ducked and slid under the Nightmare's swing, reclaiming his hammer. "This some kind of sick joke?" In response, he heard the cackle once more on the aether.
The Nightmare chopped down toward Shaman, who drew his Dawnblade and parried the swing, then thrust his blade into the dense musculature of the creature's chest. "Morgan, disarm it!" the Exo Warlock called out as he ducked a lateral slash from the transfixed monster. He twisted his sword in its chest, but it still barely reacted.
Morgan rushed in and brought his hammer down on the creature's wrist. While the monster seemed immune to pain, the shock of the impact forced its fingers open, and the cleaver dropped from its hand. Without prompting, the Titan picked it up, and then Shaman commanded, "Open him up!"
Together, they thrust and pulled and twisted the Nightmare's lustrous gray flesh open, as it bellowed in fury. It swung its remaining cleaver at them, but then Rega hurled a trio of lashed-together grenades into the opening in its chest. Morgan grabbed Shaman and leapt backwards as the Gunslinger put a round into the explosive. The Nightmare burst apart, the pieces smoldering.
Shaman-9 saw Morgan's questioning look, and the Exo gave him a smirk. "What's that saying the Drifter always likes to tout? 'Nothing kills a Guardian faster than another Guardian?' Which boils down to 'like affects like.' Its cleavers were made of the same stuff it was. Our weapons only annoyed it until we cut it open with its own blade."
"Less talking, more moving," Rega-7 interjected, shouldering past them. "We can't linger. Fireteam to Vanguard, we're en route to the throne room, what's your status?"
"Amplifier set!" Zavala returned.
"Working on it," the Crow grunted. "I've got a lot of heat back here!"
Eris Morn cut in, "My amplifier is set, but Loyalists are converging on my position. Calus is not fooled by our diversion!"
"My amplifier is set," Caiatl boomed. "I am in position in the throne room!" Her voice dropped into a snarl. "My coward of a father is nowhere to be found."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Don't worry, Empress, I'll find him."
Flicking her comm off, Wahei Ohr stood on the precipice of the cliff above the Enduring Abyss, looking across the expanse to the looming bulk of the Pyramid. Phantoms drifted overhead, and the dead remains of Loyalist Legionaries lay slumped where they had fallen when the intellect animating them had left. She took a deep breath as she stared at the Pyramid, and looked to Vizier. "I apologize in advance if it tries to puppet you again," she said to her Ghost.
"Nothing for it," he returned. "And no need to apologize. I've said it before, Wahei-- I'll follow you into the Deep Down Deep Dark, if only to help pull you back out of it."
She flicked a fingernail off one of his shell's fins, then took another deep breath. She paused, then glanced up at the shimmering shape of the phantom that had been stalking her. "Is there any kind of special incantation or something I'm supposed to do to get it to let me in?"
The azure-hued phantom of the Haruspex smirked with her darkened lips. "I thought I was just a manifestation of your subconscious insecurities and fears, and not an actual instance of a potential future self?"
"Fine, be that way," the Warlock muttered. She pulled out her umbral rosary and wound it around her fingers. Without looking at it, her fingers moved its tangle into a shape like a gateway, and she focused her will and her paracausal power through it. "Open sesame," she hissed, and snapped her cat's cradle into a new configuration. With a crack, a portal that shimmered with resonance luster appeared before her, and Wahei stepped through.
She landed on the basalt admittance platform, seeing the eerily lit black walls around her, and felt that vaguely oppressive pressure of the Pyramid focusing on her. Wahei took a breath, and muttered aside, "How you holding up, Viz?"
Her Ghost made a sound like he was taking a steadying breath. "I'm... okay. For now."
She nodded, and drew her Austringer as she made her way through the Pyramid's interior, passing through the chambers and branching paths, until she came at last to the stairway leading up to what she and Eris had taken to calling 'the altar.' Standing above it was a statue, a humanoid figure of feminine shape, draped in a veil, her arms held out as if in supplication. Or perhaps invitation.
Wahei looked up at the statue, then settled down in front of it, taking out her satchel and beginning to arrange things before her. A worn leather cloth, on which she'd scrawled ritual circles and sigils. The jar containing the bound essence she'd collected in the Leviathan. Her umbral rosary. And the Traitor's Die.
Wahei finally took out a vial of liquid. Even corked, the concoction stank. She made a face as she pulled the stopper. Vizier eyed her. "You sure this is a good idea?" the Ghost asked. "You know that egregore spores are all connected to the mycelial network, even separated like this, right?"
"I need to find where Calus' intellect is hiding," she replied. "Otherwise the fireteam will cut the wrong end of the tether, and he'll slip fully into the Pyramid. We need to cut him off at both ends." Wahei indicated the vial. "This will help me make sure I'm making the cut at the right place."
Vizier made an unhappy sound. "All right. If you say so."
The phantom Haruspex chuckled. "This is going to be fun to watch."
"Quiet, you," Vizier grumbled.
Wahei took a deep breath, then downed the vial's contents in one go. The acrid tang of the queensfoil tincture was bad enough, as she could feel the paracausal energies moving through her brain, opening her perceptions to other planes. It always gave her a headache, and this time was no different. But this tincture was new, infused with egregore spores, and the taste was terrible. It was all she could do not to gag on it.
As it was, she dropped the empty vial and doubled over, hands clenched on her knees as she wretched and coughed, breathing heavily, but steadying herself as she forced her body to accept the horrible thing she'd just imbibed. The egregore-infused queensfoil tincture was doing its work, and she could feel her mind opening into the immaterial...
...and then into the mycelial network.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The fireteam moved through fungus-encrusted halls, striding up a slope of petrified fungus and royal wine toward the huge hulking and derelict shape of the emperor's throne. Phantoms floated ahead of them, staring. Not all of them were human phantoms, either. Though their shapes still held a humanoid shape, there was enough detail about their shapes to indicate they were something else. Shaman-9 was muttering about them as he identified them as being members of various Cabal client races, or rather Loyalist client races.
And this only strengthened as they stood before the throne, just before the elevator platform. A host of phantoms hovered there, and Shaman's eyes flicked from one to another. "Clipse, Sindu, Arkborn, Psion, Eliksni..." Then he paused and looked at one whose armor was human, and whose head was encased in a helmet featuring a grim stone visage. "...Baez?"
Rega-7 considered the list of races listed, and made the connection. "These are Calus's Shadows," she realized. She looked at them individually. "The Gun of Kaga-Clipse, the Ace-Defiant, the Fulminator, the Skull-Piercer, the Baron of Shanks..." She looked then at the phantom of the Eternal Warrior. "Baez... what happened to you out here?"
The phantom inclined his head. "I lost my way. And His Joyful Majesty helped me find it again." His voice echoed strangely. "And soon, he shall help you as well. His ascension has begun. Rejoice."
The other phantoms echoed, "Rejoice..."
Morgan shoved past Rega and Shaman, glowering at the specters. "Don't know what happened to you," he addressed Baez's phantom, "and I don't care. Don't care if you're hoping to convert us, or just scare us. All I know is, I'm not turning, and I ain't afraid of no ghost."
He stepped forward, and locked eyes with the face on the front of Baez's helmet, and did not look away as the elevator descended. Rega and Shaman joined him upon it, and watched as the phantoms of the Shadows above faded from view. They all flinched as their comms erupted in noise, the sound of gunfire cracking as Crow shouted, "Amplifier set! Heading to--" and then he cut himself off with a scream of pain.
"Crow?" Zavala was on the comms now. "Crow, report! Eris, can you reach him?"
"I'm already on my way!"
"Fireteam," the Commander addressed them. "Stick to the plan."
"Throne room was empty," Rega-7 reported. "Heading down to his robot storage now."
Zavala's nod was almost audible. "Good, find Calus and--" And once again, there was a scream of pain, and then nothing but static. The fireteam shared a look and then lifted their weapons into ready positions as the elevator reached the bottom. The hall before them was cloaked in darkness, but as it opened into the storage bay, it was illuminated by ambient lighting and the lustrous gleam from the portal at the far end.
Between them and that portal, several of Calus's robot duplicates hung from the racks, lining the walkway. And before each of these duplicates was one of the phantoms of the Shadows. They hung there, watching them, and whispered as the team passed by.
"Rejoice..."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Rejoice, my dear!"
"Ungh. Not your dear."
"You're touching something truly divine!"
Somewhere below her, in the realm material, Wahei's body was doubled over again, teeth clenched in a grimace at the immense pressure in her head. Vizier flitted around her in worry, babbling in concern, but she could barely make out her Ghost's words over the echoing boom of the Emperor's voice. In this place, she felt slammed from all sides, the presence of the gestalt consciousness of the egregore weighing upon her, and that was before the immensity of Calus's psychic imprint crashed against her psyche.
"Well, your ego clearly hasn't diminished any in your absence," she muttered as she tried to adjust to the avalanche of sensation she was receiving. The echoes of dying Cabal soldiers, their throats choked with fungal fronds, their bodies twisted by gravitonic anomalies. The susurration of whispered voices of Guardians snuffed out during the Great Disaster. The tortured last memories of a Hunter betrayed by his Ghost and left in presentation aboard a derelict research vessel.
And that was all beside the strange and varied sensations that the egregore was feeding her. Via the link in her brain from the spore-infused tincture, she felt as if her body was stretching out, growing across metal and wire, into mechanisms and slain clone bodies, feasting off decaying flesh, drinking of spilt blood and ichor and ether, and steeping in the mental backlash of death and despair. It clung heavily to her, only adding to the psychic weight upon her.
"Of course I haven't diminished!" The Emperor's voice was still as jovial as ever. "I am transcendent. In these past months I have experienced new sensations and tastes and delights that I might never have known. And soon I shall be in a new realm of sense, the likes of which you can barely comprehend!"
She took several deep breaths, forcing herself to endure the physical pain that echoed through her mind, and across the mycelial network. There were other sensations that it was buffeting her with, but these were inconsequential. Noise over the feed, meant to disrupt her and stagger her. She reminded herself: I am a Lightbearer. I am a Guardian. I am paracausal. I am not bound by the laws of time and space. Or by the limitations of flesh and thought.
"The last great sensation awaits you, your golden highness," she declared. "The one experience you've yet to sample."
"You speak of death?" The Emperor laughed, the psychic network trembling with the sound of it. "Ah, but I will experience that. When all else has ended, when all other delights and senses have been sampled, the Witness has promised me the right to be the last."
"It should know better than to make promises it can't keep," she spat. The pressure felt as if it were fading, but she knew that was a false belief. It was still there, still weighing on her, but she was merely adapting to it. She took a breath again, and willed her Light into herself, to bolster her self, and she let the Void lick out across the mycelial network, devouring the psychic energies it touched.
"What's this? Is this the Light I feel?" The pressure of the Emperor's attention redoubled for a moment, before he made a dismissive sound. "Bah! Not the Light as you know it, but how it feels to those you unleash it against. And I've sampled such feelings before. I wonder, dearest Warlock, if you've ever felt its sting yourself?"
And then Wahei shrieked as she felt the sensation being turned upon her. The powerful hungry teeth of the Void biting into her, threatening to consume her. In her physical body, as violet energies wracked her form, she lifted her head, her eyes deep blue glow turning pale and cold as she forced herself through the pain.
"You think you can turn the Void against me?!" Her voice howled into the network, and she felt the paracausal synapses tremble. "For all your bottomless appetite, Calus, it is nothing against the hunger of the Void, and you seem to have forgotten: I am not merely a Warlock-- I am a VOIDWALKER!"
Her fury and her power crackled across the mycelial network with earth-shattering force.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The fireteam looked around after emerging from the portal, and all three immediately tensed up. "Shit," Morgan muttered. "Eyeball, tell me we're not where I think we are."
His Ghost, in his white shell around his black enameled core, took a brief scan, then said, "Okay, I won't tell you." Morgan uttered a quiet, extended expletive.
Pyramid architecture stretched above them, and before them, a hallway leading to what appeared to be some open space ahead of them. The fireteam moved forward toward it, and beheld an open room like a dark cathedral, open into a cavernous abyss at the far end, with columns extending upward to a ceiling that was barely visible in the gloom. They were standing on a balcony that overlooked the space, and they were not alone.
Empress Caiatl turned, her sword embedded in the chest of a Loyalist Colossus, a number of other Loyalists and Scorn dead at her feet. She left the blade stuck in the corpse as she faced the fireteam, her eyes narrowing. "The others are not with you?"
"No sign of the Commander or the others yet," Rega-7 confirmed.
Caiatl snorted. "Then we do this alone." She drew her gun and faced the abyss at the far end of the chantry. "FATHER!" she roared. "DO YOU SEE ME?! SHOW YOURSELF!"
She leapt down to the chantry's main floor, followed by the fireteam. Shaman-9 hurried forward, taking out the Harvester and the jar containing the bound essence, placing the latter on a low pedestal and then jamming the Harvester through the lid. Sanguine energies swirled around it and pulsed, before the abyss swirled and assembled itself into the psychic visage of Emperor Calus, bigger than a building.
"I see you, daughter!" Calus's voice shook the chantry. "I see your failures, your doubts, your fears!" A note of sorrow echoed in his words as he continued, "You could have stood at my side, but instead, you chose this!"
Phantasmal energies coalesced and Scorn began to flood the chamber, alongside Loyalist troops. Fireteam and Empress drew their weapons and leapt into the fray, until the air cracked with lightning as a Nightmare manifested, shaping itself into the form of the Fanatic, which began to spray the Guardians with blasts of electricity from its staff.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Really, dearest Warlock, you think to turn your mind against mine?" The Emperor laughed. "I am far stronger than you. Grown fat with thought and strength."
"You are strong," Wahei conceded. "But I am stronger."
In this psychic space she was finally able to perceive shapes, and define her own. Draped in robes of starlight, her skin lit from within by the Light of the Void, her hair unbound from its usual dreadlocks and flowing behind her in a liminal breeze, she was a beacon in the Darkness of the mycelial network, which stretched out before her, taking the form of fungal fronds and boletes twisted into nerves and synapses. It shimmered and flickered with a profane luster, and it battered her again with a rockslide of sensation.
But she rose above this, letting the senses wash past her. "I am stronger," she repeated. "By an order of magnitude."
She spread her arms at her sides, as she flooded the network with Void Light again, and felt it wither and cringe away from her psychic touch. Her eyes shone with pale hues as she cast her gaze through it, shining her Light into the Darkness to bring the Emperor out of the shadows. She heard him grunt from sudden sensation of his own, and felt it as well. She grasped hold of that feeling, and cast her mind and her power along that line.
"You cannot hide from me, Calus."
Somewhere at once below her and right alongside, the Haruspex phantom whispered, "Be careful when looking into the Darkness, O Seeker of Insight..."
Wahei ignored her. The mycelial network was singing with activity, and she followed this, zeroing in on it. The egregore was belching forth enemies to confront her fireteam, and sending forth Nightmares to harry them. But if she could sense it twisting the Pyramid's energies to its purposes, then she could use it for the same.
In the physical plane, her body reached out and grasped the jar of bound energies, letting her own mingle with them. In the psychic plane, she conjured forth a staff of her own, crowned with a Harvester, and she clasped it before her. Her eyes shone brighter as she tapped into Light and Darkness, and let her mind reach through the veil and twist.
"Warriors, torchbearers, come redeem our dreams," she intoned, teeth grimacing against a renewed pressure from the fungal pseudo-mind. "Shine a light upon this night of otherworldly fiends."
Energies crackled. "Memory and Thought," she invoked. "Become a scourge of Light upon the Dark!" Her power wound out through the network, focusing on that distant place where the egregore was spawning forth entities, calling forth memories in defense of the fungal's foes.
She felt the Emperor's shock. "What?!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
"My weapons aren't doing anything to that Nightmare!" Morgan swept under a leaping War Beast's claws and smashed it down with a fist before firing a dropped Scorn pistol toward the Fanatic, but it continued to prowl before them, firing lightning from its staff. "And none of these weapons are doing anything to it," he added, throwing the pistol aside. "Like isn't affecting like, Shay!"
Shaman-9 frowned. "I'm not getting enough time to figure this out!" the Exo Warlock grunted, snapping his fingers to ignite a squadron of Loyalist Legionaries. "It should be working, it worked on the one upstairs--" Then he blinked. "I got it!"
"Less talking, more answers!" Rega-7 shouted as she rolled across the back of a Gladiator and jabbed a knife through its maw and into its brain.
"Light and Dark together," Shaman explained. "We need one of those scythes!" He staggered back as one of the Fanatic's blasts caught him in the chest.
"Ask and ye shall receive!"
There was an azure flash before a phantom appeared out of the Harvester, bringing one of the flaming scythes with him. The phantom, recognizable as the Memory of Uldren Sov, smirked and tossed the blade toward Shaman. "Hope you don't mind," the specter of the former prince laughed, "but I couldn't resist a chance to be the hero one last time!"
The hooded phantom floated high above the chaos of the battle, clutching his fists at his sides. "Calus!" he shouted at the imperious visage. "This is going to hurt--" With a flash of energy, a hand cannon appeared in his hand, warped to resemble the Ace of Spades. "--A LOT!"
The gun boomed in his hand, and Calus recoiled, roaring in pain. Below, all of his Loyalists and Scorn staggered, stunned from the backlash, including the Fanatic. Shaman-9 did not ask questions, there wasn't time. He spun the scythe in his hands and sent a whirling disc of flames toward the Nightmare of Fikrul, taking its head off and sending the body crumpling to the floor, smoldering rapidly into ash.
The visage of Calus snarled in fury and opened his maw, spewing forth a wave of filth. Caiatl looked up from the Scorn she had squashed beneath one massive foot, and slapped a control on her armor. "Guardians! I can protect you!" A dome of force blossomed around her, and the fireteam fell back within as Calus's attack splashed off of the forcefield. The hostiles outside the dome fell beneath the tide, dissolving within it, until the filth drained away.
Calus smacked his lips and belched, smirking. "Did you think it would be that simple?" And a fresh wave of troops materialized, alongside two more Nightmares, shaping themselves into a bellowing Fallen Captain and the grim visage of Dominus Ghaul.
But as these Nightmares took the field, the Harvester flashed again, as a brighter, azure-tinged phantom launched himself into the air. The Memory of Ghaul took one look at his Nightmare counterpart and sneered beneath his mask. "Nothing but a pathetic copy," he scoffed. He manifested a Cabal gladius in each hand and leapt toward the Nightmare, effortlessly parrying aside a flung sword from the same.
Shaman-9 cut through a swathe of Scorn and Loyalists with the scythe, and saw that the Nightmare of Ghaul had dipped low down in its efforts to avoid the Memory's assault. Their Titan was holding off attacking enemies beneath them. "Morgan! Catch!" He threw the scythe toward him, and the scarred warrior caught it, whipping around and hacking through a Scorn Chieftain, then whistling up at the Memory of Ghaul.
The spectral Dominus obliged, slamming his swords down in a twin overhead chop that knocked the Nightmare to the ground, where Morgan impaled it on the scythe's blade. The Memory shouted in triumph. "A worthy victory!" Then he spun around and hurled one sword, then the other toward Calus, who rocked backward again from the assault.
Rega-7 dodged away from the Nightmare of Kethiks, the huge Fallen Captain relentlessly pursuing her with its swords. She attempted to fling a knife, but the blade just bounced harmlessly off the lustrous energies shielding it. It stood poised to skewer her, before howling in pain from a bright flash in front of it.
Rega looked up and saw the azure-hued phantom before her, her hair's long curls fanning out behind her. "Stand fast!" the Memory of Safiyah assured her. "There is nothing to fear." And as she gently spun away from Kethiks' furious slash, Rega saw that the phantom had left behind another flaming scythe. The Hunter snatched it up and whirled into action, cutting Kethiks' feet from under it, then swinging the blade around and down through its head.
Calus roared in fury. "Impossible!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Impossible!" The Emperor howled. "You cannot do this!"
"Don't tell me what I can't do," Wahei spat. "I am a Lightbearer, and whatever power the Witness has promised you, it will never be enough to stop me or my friends or our allies."
"Bah!" The Emperor now sounded smug. "You may have slowed things down, but I shall come into my power and transcend this form. I will shed these chains and rise--"
But then Wahei's mind felt the twinge across the psychic network. The pulse of her Light across the fungal nerves was drawn toward the weight of Calus's psychic imprint. With another wave of her power, she was able to push aside the shadows obscuring him, and she beheld his presence. Her lips spread into a fierce, terrible smile.
"I see you."
She shaped her will into a blade, formed of Stasis ice and glowing with Light, extending forth from the end of her staff, and she lashed out, the Void devouring mycelial synapse as she went. Her will-glaive swung, and severed a connection, snapping it from the immensity of the Pyramid, whose presence she felt now too. The Emperor howled in rage, then in terror as he saw her streaking toward him...
...and plunged her blade into his heart.
~*~*~*~*~*~
In the chantry, the hostile forces all seized up, as the towering visage of Calus rocked backward, shuddering in agony. The energies that comprised his image began to dissipate into motes that drifted away into the air. The Emperor's eyes turned to look down at the glaring figure of Caiatl. His breath seemed to rattle as he whispered, "Daughter, I..."
But whatever words of regret or sorrow he might have had to say died on his fattened lips as his visage at last dissolved away. And as he did, so too did the Loyalists and Scorn, as the phantasmal energies were drawn away with him.
Caiatl lowered her gun, its barrel glowing red hot, looking up at the shining Memory of her mentor, Ghaul. He inclined his head to her. "Stand tall, Caiatl," he rumbled, as his form began to dissolve. "You have risen above your origins. Just as I did. Go and be a better ruler than your father. Be the Empress."
She inclined her head back to him as he faded away, and then dropped her weapon, shedding her battle armor, and sinking to a knee as she caught her breath. It had been far too long since she had personally taken the battlefield, and never to the extent that she had here. The Guardians turned to see this, and Morgan stepped forward, but the Empress raised a hand, shaking her head. "Don't," she growled.
A rustle behind them caused the fireteam to turn, but they lowered their weapons as they saw it was Commander Zavala, leaning on Eris Morn for mutual support. Behind them, his hand cannon ready, the Crow was swiveling and scanning the angles, but he stopped as he saw the Memory of his past self, who turned to look at him.
"Hey," Uldren Sov bowed his head to him. "I'm probably not going to be around much longer. But I don't think you'll mind." He gave a rueful chuckle. "You already know everything I'd say, anyway."
The Crow nodded, a rueful smile on his own face. "Sure. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to have you to talk to."
But Uldren shook his head. "Nah. You have someone better than me to talk to," and he nodded to Glint, who had alit on Crow's shoulder. "Just remember: the line between Light and Dark is so very thin. Remember which side you're on."
The Crow took a deep breath and nodded back to him as the Memory dissolved away into motes and nothingness.
As this had been happening, Zavala dropped his auto rifle to the floor as he limped away from Eris to approach the still recumbent Caiatl. "Where is Calus?" he asked her.
"Dead," came the blunt reply. But she looked toward the cavernous space that his visage had latterly occupied. "He has given himself over to the Witness. My father," she sighed, "is gone."
She looked back in surprise when Zavala clapped her on the arm, gently, in comfort, and then he approached the last Memory hovering there. Safiyah's hands were clasped before her, and she lifted her eyes to see her long estranged husband standing there. "Safi..." he began, but then words failed him. There was so much he wanted to say to her.
But the sad smile she gave him told him enough. Anything he wanted to say, she knew already. She had heard already. And she had already forgiven him. Because there was nothing to forgive. "It's okay, Zavala," she murmured. "You can let yourself rest. All will be well."
And she, too, faded into motes and nothingness.
Zavala, Titan Vanguard, Commander of the Guardians of the Last City, trembled faintly as he watched her go, and for what felt like the first time since the day he walked back into Saladin's fortress, he felt hot tears flow down his cheeks. He swayed backward, felt his knees buckle, and dropped down to one, bracing himself on the floor, chest heaving. He looked up as he felt a weight on his back, and saw that Caiatl had laid one enormous hand gently there.
Rega-7 turned to Eris Morn. "You look like you've been through it," the Exo noted. She paused, and glanced around. "How did you all get here? Was there a portal for you as well?"
Eris shook her head. "I had to open one for us. But we arrived somewhere else in the Pyramid." She paused, glancing around. "Is Wahei not here?"
"No." Sudden concern gripped her. Rega tapped her comm. "Wahei? Wahei! Sitrep!"
There was static, and then they heard her screaming.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The Emperor's shape began to fade away, dissolving around her blade. He chuckled faintly. "You may think you have won the day, my dear. But you have not prevented anything."
Wahei twisted her glaive in his chest as it collapsed inward. "Not your dear," she snarled. "Just have the good grace to die and fade away."
He chuckled again as his form grew thinner, more indistinct. "I will never fade away. I will be the last. I hope to see you there, Warlock Ohr."
She spat at him as she withdrew the blade, and watched the luster of his form flicker and drift apart, the mycelial synapses flashing briefly as it went. She frowned. That should have killed him, but with how entwined he was to the egregore's network, it was more probable that he had simply been subsumed into it, his consciousness dispersed and scattered. It would take him time to reconstitute himself, if it were possible. And she suspected it was.
At least she had prevented him from claiming the Pyramid. The pressure of the mycelial intellect was still there, but receding. The tincture was probably wearing off, and egregore spores weren't long lived in any case. This was all to the good, in her opinion. The excess of sensation was wearying. She lowered her staff and began to draw her consciousness back from the gestalt.
"Do you remember my warning?" The phantom of the Haruspex drifted around in front of her, her image beginning to dissolve. Her blackened lips stretched into a too-wide smile. "Be careful when looking into the Darkness, O Seeker of Insight. For IT can stare back into you."
Her form faded at last, and then Wahei felt something else. It wasn't like the weight of Calus's psychic imprint, or the pressure of the mycelial network, but something infinitely larger, and more focused, with an intensity like a trace rifle beam straight to the center of her mind. She recoiled back, fleeing from the mindscape and into the physical realm again, but the sensation did not abate, and she felt the Pyramid humming around her, resonating with it.
---WE SEE YOU---
And the words spoken into her mind were so enormous that she could not hear herself screaming over them. Everything was painful, too bright and too dark and vibrating with the resonance, rattling her teeth in her skull, and her blood was pounding in her head and she could feel it dripping from her nose, her ears, her eyes her eyes HER EYES--
Vizier was shouting and yelling somewhere, and she could barely hear him. She felt him channeling the Light into her, and she could feel it doing its work, but the pain wasn't going away, and her fingers dug into her scalp as if her grip would squeeze the agony out of her, but it wasn't fading and it was still hurting and why couldn't she focus on Vizier's voice what was wrong it hurts it hurts IT HURTS--
She felt hands gripping her, and she flinched, lashing out. She felt her Void slam into someone, and heard cursing. Morgan. Another set of hands, cooler and metallic, at once less rough but still firm. Rega. She strained, trying to focus on the Exo, until words resolved themselves, and the ringing in her ears subsided enough to make out her voice.
"--kay, it's okay, friends! Friends! Shay, get a healing rift down!" Rega gripped her arms firmly, keeping Wahei from lashing out again. "It's okay," she repeated. "We've got you, you're safe, calm, calm." Beside her, Shaman-9 cast down a healing rift, but his expression looked grim.
Wahei took several breaths to calm herself. Her face was a mess of blood, dried streaks and smears of it covering most of her purple skin. Rega took her canteen out and gently splashed it on her face, using a corner of her cape to clean it up. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any wounds. The blood had oozed out of orifices rather than split skin. Vizier was scanning away, pronouncing that any damage was being healed up by Shaman's rift.
"Okay," Rega soothed as Wahei's movements settled down, her eyes closed as she continued to take calming breaths. "I'm gonna give you a thumping later for coming down here by yourself, you know."
"That just shows you care," Wahei croaked, leaning forward to take a sip from the canteen to quench her hoarse throat.
"Don't get too mad," Morgan called from down the stairs where he'd landed. "I think whatever she did worked."
"Indeed it did." Morgan flinched and whirled around as Eris Morn had silently come up behind him. "But something else must have happened." The Light's Witch stepped over and stooped next to Wahei, gently examining her. "You opened yourself to the mycelial network," she realized, quiet shock in her voice.
"It was the only way," Wahei rasped. "Only way to cut him off. But I felt it. I felt the Entity."
She opened her eyes, the luminous blue glow had gone, her irises and pupils clouded over, and stared blindly forward. "I have been witnessed," she whispered. "It is coming, and I don't know if we can stop it."
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