Chapter Two“So...why didn't you just kill us?” Kainar asked into the long silence. “It's odd and somewhat suspicious that you aren't that hostile towards us like most Fallen.”
Soryx paused at the top of a deep ravine that looked like an ugly scar, caused by some sort of massive weapon many years ago. He pointed out the safest path down, then shifted so his left eyes were looking at the Exo.
“We were not always so violent and bloodthirsty. I have long been fascinated by my people's culture and history, but there is very little left now. The Fallen were once a magnificent, honorable, and just species. We may even have been allied with Humanity before or during the Collapse. But as you can see, since that time, my species has metaphorically 'fallen' and become barbarians. I desire to bring back the old ways, but hatred of Humanity is so ingrained within our lives that I'm not sure it can be done.”
The Fallen walked down the trail behind Cenric and Nyira, while Kainar almost jogged to keep up with his long strides.
“That's gotta suck.” Cenric said bluntly.
“Indeed. My own beliefs combined with my House's relative tolerance for Humanity is why I don't actively try and kill you. That and it's not exactly productive to fight against the Traveler, regardless of whether it's dead or not, though I tend to believe the latter.”
“Agreed.” Kainar nodded. He knew the best out of the four of them of what the Traveler could do. “Well, I-”
Soryx hissed, causing all three of the Guardians to get down.
“The House of Demons has never taken kindly to my existence here, and it's one of the reasons they joined several other Houses to destroy my own.” He explained softly, on his knees and with a sniper rifle in his main arms. “We must move quickly and quietly to avoid getting their attention. They control the territory around the temple, but once we go past the gates we should be safe. They fear what is inside.”
“What exactly
is inside this...temple?” Cenric asked, switching to coms as they moved into the underbrush as one.
“I don't know. I don't care to enter the place either, and I avoided doing so the last time I came here to lure away the Demons while the previous three Guardians entered. All I know is that they once tried to enter as well, and have good reason to stay away.”
“So why don't they try and destroy it?” Nyira inquired.
“I don't know that either,” Soryx replied, “but I think they've tried. They aren't the smartest or strongest House, though.”
Cenric drew his knife and lunged out, stabbing a passing Dreg in a weak point and dragging the Fallen back with him. White mist seemed to pour out of the alien's head, primarily from the eyes and mouth, but it was a quiet process this time. Kainar, Nyira, and Soryx all spread out and quickly gained their own silent kills through various means. Once the Captain leading the passing patrol had its neck shattered by Soryx, they started running, but still stayed close to the ground.
Surprisingly enough, they reached the temple grounds without too much interruption. All four found it suspicious, but they had to press on. Kainar, who was up front at the time, froze when he peered out into a clearing.
“...I take it those are the gates.”
The Warlock was referring to the massive metal structure just across from them. It jutted out of the long wall that stretched from side to side, wrapping around the presumed temple. There was about a 500 meter clearing between the gates and the forest. Soryx didn't bother answering, partially because his mind was on something else at this point.
“You three, climb over the gates in five minutes and wait for me. I wish to speak with the Kaiser briefly.” Soryx said after about a minute. “The House of Demons has gone too long without gaining a new leader.” With that, he vanished into the forest.
“So, I guess we just wait.” Nyira muttered.
“Seems so.” Cenric agreed.
Kainar merely grunted noncommittally.
Meanwhile, Soryx steadily forged a path through the jungle towards the main Demons encampment. Upon getting within a fourth of a kilometer from the stronghold, he brought his sniper rifle up and aimed it at the sentries. He fired until the magazine went empty, each silenced shot gaining a kill. Thirty seconds into his sniping spree, the Demons finally noticed the dead Fallen when one stumbled back and Released noisily.
Soryx holstered the sniper and drew out his SMG, as well as both pistols with his secondary arms. The Fallen chuffed darkly, then sprinted out of the forest and went to work. He didn't pause for cover or rest, instead breaking right through the House of Demons' defenses lines. The Houseless Fallen became a dervish, bullets tearing down any Demons who dared poke their heads up.
***
Roughly five minutes after he had left the Guardians, the Kaiser, Prroxil, stood at the top of his makeshift throne. Several Captains and Vandals surrounded him, guns aimed at him. All were smaller than him, even Prroxil, though the Kaiser was close to his size.
“You have accomplished nothing.” Prroxil jeered at him in their own language, simultaneously hating and fearing the Houseless Fallen. “Surely you had to know it was suicide coming here. What did you intend to do? Send my Essence screaming into the sky?”
Silence for several seconds.
“Yes.”
A massive shockwave emanated from Soryx's person, shattering his bonds and hurling those closest to him away. His Swords were drawn and slashing at Prroxil a split-second later, but the Kaiser held his ground against the onslaught. For the moment.
Then, in a moment, Soryx had parried a blow with a Sword, knocked Prroxil's left one out of his hands with his free weapon, and spun low. His right secondary arm held a shortened Sword in a reverse-grip, and he plunged it into Prroxil's back. Another moment later, and Prroxil was left without a throat when Soryx ran the serrated back edge of one of his Swords under the Kaiser's chin.
The Fallen's essence writhed and shot up high, vanishing a couple seconds after the Kaiser's death. Soryx twirled both Swords and short Swords before rushing a couple of unfortunate Captains in his way to the exit.
***
The Guardians jumped slightly when Soryx landed semi-silently on the ground next to them after climbing over the gates. Fallen blood covered his armor, particularly his arms and chest, but none of it seemed to be his.
“We should move on. The Demons may overcome their fear of the temple and try to follow us inside, if they figure out I've come here.”
“Wonderful.” Cenric muttered. “Also, why did you come here and not lead them away like last time?”
“Seven of your years ago, they were stronger and were following me in force. Plus, I'm curious about what's inside, despite everything else.”
“I see.” The Hunter narrowed his eyes at Soryx's back.
Still, that didn't stop him from jogging towards the temple with the others. The building was tall, the main part almost as tall than the wall that surrounded it, and had some rather strange features. Three spires reached up towards the clouds, and were all asymmetrical. They were twisting and winding, with the undersides of some parts looking like blocks put together, giving it an altogether unfinished appearance that seemed to defy gravity.
“That looks a lot like Vex architecture.” Kainar whispered to the other three.
“Yeah, no kidding.” Nyira held her machine gun uneasily.
“What would the Vex be doing here of all places, though?” Kainar's head swiveled slowly side to side as he took in the building.
“Nothing good.” Soryx growled, even more tense than the others.
They walked up to the temple entrance, which looked like the rest of the building apart from the large rectangle of lighter metal. Kainar placed a hand on the entrance to see if it really was a doorway inside. His hand glowed with Power for a few moments. He gasped and hopped back, clutching his hand.
“Looks like you did something right.” Cenric noted as the light metal almost...dissolved. It bubbled, and withdrew into the walls. The hallway leading inside was pitch black.
“Typhon, take a look.” Kainar ordered his Ghost, which lit up in his outstretched palm. The AI flew out of his hand and hovered at the entrance, then spread apart and moved cautiously in. A sphere of light was projected from the floating pieces and surrounded the AI, lighting up the hallway for a few meters on either side.
“You should really start sending me to scan flowers, puppies, or hell, women instead of creepy alien tunnels that are really dark and did I mention
damn creepy?” Typhon said as he looked for a light source of some kind.
“Once or twice.” Kainar replied drily.
“Now, let's see here...” Typhon's light went out as he moved out of sight. “Aha!”
The hallway glowed, just bright enough for them to see adequately.
“And there was light-”
“Don't start doing that again.” Kainar grumbled, holding out a hand to take the Ghost and put it safely away.
“Come on!” Cenric practically raced inside, scout rifle at the ready. No enemies appeared, Fallen, Vex, or any others.
The four stopped at a crossroads of sorts. The hallway went on straight, and also branched off to the left and right. However, the right side ended in a seeming dead end, so all but Kainar seemed to discount that way.
The Exo Warlock moved cautiously down the nine meter-long hall on the right, stopping about two meters from the wall at the end. He lifted a foot, then stepped forward. Nothing. He stepped again. Nothing. He stepped a final time, and promptly vanished as he flew up.
Cenric, Nyira, and Soryx drew their weapons and aimed down the passageway where he had vanished.
“Kainar!” The Titan shouted.
“...I'm alive!” The Warlock's voice seemed to float down faintly from above. “Sorry, I forgot the Vex don't like stairs.”
“Right.” Nyira muttered, holding her machine gun tight so it would fly out of her hands. She walked forward, and hurtled up at about the same place Kainar had.
The Awoken flew straight upwards for a couple seconds, then halted at the top of the vertical passageway a few meters from the end, which was slanted out towards the opening, which she was facing. It lead into a large room, with Kainar waiting there. The anti-grav machines pushed her forward into the room the second after she stopped, and dropped her to the floor. Cenric came up flailing, as he had been unsure of what to expect. Nyira grabbed him by the leg and flipped him right side up when he was dropped.
Kainar took a large step back as Cenric dusted himself off and nodded at Nyira in thanks. Soryx appeared and he bowled Nyira and Cenric over when the anti-grav system thrusted him into the room.
“My apologies.” The Fallen said, hauling both of the Guardians to their feet with ease.
“Nah, it's okay, that was my fault.” She replied, but still somewhat ruffled by it. Nyira didn't like being unexpectedly knocked onto her ass, especially if it was a huge Fallen doing so.
“Why do they have something like that?” Cenric asked in exasperation.
“Faster than stairs, holds potential enemies motionless in the air for a few seconds, among other things.” Kainar replied. He glanced to the side when Typhon came floating back into the room from a hallway at the opposite end of the room from them. He was almost hopping in the air, a sign that he had found something interesting.
“There's some sort of shrine or sarcophagus at the end of a huge chamber down the hall there.” The Ghost said excitedly. “Follow me.”
The four of them did so, guns at the ready. The halted in unison after reaching the end of the hallway. The chamber was massive and stretched on for a few hundred meters at the least. In contrast to the rest of the building, it had some sort of art and decoration in this room. Shiny metal statues lined the walls on either side at intervals, with braziers of dark green fire in between them.
Tapestries made out of some sort of shimmering material were hanging from the ceiling all the way to the floor. No less than eighteen of them were on either side of the aisle in the middle of the chamber, and they sparkled with strange symbols and glyphs in the firelight. They could distantly see a shrine- or sarcophagus-looking object at the end of the chamber atop a large dais. Typhon had no doubt used his enhanced zoom and scanning feature to actually see it, because if they didn't know it was there, they might not have noticed it for a while.
“I bet you guys ten Glimmer something bad's going to happen in the next seven minutes.” Kainar said, pocketing Typhon again.
No one was stupid enough to make the wager.
Cenric cleared his throat. “So, who wants to approach the scary sarcophagus?”
Once more, they started moving down the aisle. The statues, posed in different battle stances, looked like some form of Vex they hadn't seen before, but they were sleek and more lean than the others. Their crests were swept back and triangular, with a slight indentation on the top which seemed to be somewhat of an inversion of how the standard Vex trooper's crest looked. The statues also had two secondary eyes beneath the main one.
“You think the Vex are religious?” Nyira mused.
“Doubtful from what I've studied, but then again, no one knows that much about the Vex.” Kainar once again answered.
Soryx was unusually quiet, but no one could blame him. The chamber, and indeed the entire temple, had a very strange vibe about it.
They finally reached the shrine/sarcophagus, which looked like an alien combination of Egyptian and South American architecture, particularly Aztec, making it unmistakably Vex. Kainar set up Typhon to scan the sarcophagus while he reached out his hand once more and touched the top, bracing himself for the burning pain he had experienced at the entrance.
“Crap!” Kainar shouted after activating the sarcophagus, the burning running down his arm and into his chest. He froze upon hearing a grinding hum coming from behind the group. They turned to witness the tapestries float down from the ceiling and come undone, separating into individual strands. The shimmering streams of metallic thread converged and coalesced in the center of the hall, about twenty meters into the air.
They first formed a point, then a line before shifting into a square, then somehow a
tesseract. The braziers roared as fire poured out towards the shifting threads, surrounding and engulfing them as they created progressively higher dimensional forms. It was just as well that the four turned to face the sarcophagus when it hummed loudly, as once they had observed tesseract being made, all equilibrium had been distorted and everything seemed...off; the feeling only intensified when the higher dimensional forms had been made. No one could really explain it, save for a sense of wrongness.
The sarcophagus floated up, pulsed brightly, then fired a thin stream of purplish energy into the fire-engulfed shapes the threads were continuing to make. The entire chamber flared brightly, obscuring what was happening. The next thing the four of them knew, the threads, fire, and purple energy was gone, seemingly imploded. Then the sarcophagus exploded, sending them all flying away.
The object dissolved in a small shower of purple flakes, which crackled slightly before vanishing. Soryx was the first on his feet, SMG up and at the ready. Kainar was helped up my Nyira, while Cenric rolled upright and scanned the area.
“Wait...” Kainar hissed, lifting his rifle and aiming steadily from side to side. “Where are the...?” He paused upon hearing the slight sound of metal scraping against metal behind the shrine the sarcophagus had rested on. He whirled, but nothing was there. “Those...weren't actually statues.” He said softly, going back-to-back with Nyira and Cenric.
The Hunter swore softly, but he didn't let panic set in. “How many were there?”
“A dozen on each side, easy. Eight feet tall. Where the hell are they?”
“Watching.” Soryx rumbled, a few meters further up the hall from their position.
All four of them aimed their weapons at a portal that spontaneously appeared twenty meters in the air. It was pulsating poison green and rich purple, and was parallel to the floor. A few moments after the portal appeared, several Vex dropped out of it, metal legs clanging upon hitting the floor. Most were of the standard Soldier variant, but a few were of the larger Shocktrooper, Commander, and Artillery variants.
Almost simultaneously, five of the former 'statues' appeared, surrounding the group. Evidently, they had some sort of active camouflage mechanism. As one, they flexed their forearms, causing vicious looking blades to extended over their hand appendages with a small chorus of ominous metallic scrapes. The blades were blue, evidently because they were superheated. The air shimmered above the weapons, and Cenric swore he could feel the heat coming off the closest stealth Vex's blades.
Kainar summed up the situation succinctly in a moment. “Damn.”
