The guardians approach the edge of the ice. Within moments, similar to the moon-based Pyramid, a force begins to pull them towards the massive structure. Harker and Tyr do their best to shine a light, but the overwhelming darkness envelopes the group as they cross the expanse. Eventually, the small flashlights begin to illuminate the sleek surface of their destination, and an opening slowly reveals itself. The guardians land safely inside as the door shuts behind them.
Immediately, the room around them starts to change. Passages open, walls rearrange, and remnants of a battle start to make themselves known. A wall vanishes nearby to show a room filled with dead Fallen; discarded weapons at their sides. It’s as if the Pyramid itself is trying to tell the guardians something.
Gus walks over to a dreg to check for signs of how it died. He picks up the gun and notices that it’s fully charged. Not a single shot had been fired.
“Rez, come look at this.” He lifts the gun and hands it to him. Rezic turns it over, looking for any sign of tampering, but finds none.
“What could have happened?” he asks. Gus shrugs, surveying the scene while more hallways open nearby. “Maybe the ship is trying to defend itself, moving the walls like this, trying to confuse us.”
“What’s your plan, Rez?”
The Awoken thinks for some time, hands on his hips, biting his lip, looking around him as if the answer is written on the walls and he just needs to find it. Eventually, a thought strikes him. He pulls the dead ghost from his pack and holds it in his hand, out in the open.
“Maybe this place will react to this,” he says with little confidence. As if on cue, the pathways nearby all close except for one. A small light blinks slowly in the new opening, beckoning the guardians to follow it. Rezic walks close to it with the ghost still in his outstretched hand; the light glows a little bit brighter. He looks back to Gus. “Let’s see if our little friend can find his way home.”
Gus follows the warlock into the passage, glancing at the dead bodies of the Fallen as he steps over them. What could have killed them all without firing a shot? He hesitates for a moment, seeing slight discoloration on the face of a vandal, but quickly moves on. Rezic is nearing the first turn of the hallway up ahead and he doesn’t want to get separated from him behind a temporary wall.
Whether the Pyramid can sense the ghost or not is unknown to Rezic, but the path opening up before him seems to be taking them directly to their destination; whatever that is remains a mystery. The desire to find Tissea is becoming an obsessive compulsion at this point as he mindlessly puts on foot in front of the other, hoping an answer is around the next corner. The fluidity of the Pyramid around him fades into his subconscious. His sole focus is returning the ghost to its rightful place. The impulse pulls him along.
Gus hurries to keep up with Rezic, who’s now in some sort of trance-like jog through the corridors. The warlock’s head continues to hang lower with each passing minute, while his arm remains outstretched, almost like the dead ghost is pulling him somewhere. Gus squeezes the grip of his shotgun tighter, hoping it’s not leading them to a trap, but almost positive that that is exactly what is happening. The speed at which the Pyramid moves around them is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Almost as if the Pyramid itself is just as desperate to be reunited with the ghost.
Something is off here.
Keep it together, Rez. I can’t afford to lose you too.
Rounding the next corner, Gus almost slams into the back of Rezic, who’s now standing completely still, with his face pointing directly down and his arm raised above his head. A strange sight to see. That is until Gus looks up at the wall in front of them. Harker shines his light against it, and slowly the ornateness of the entrance begins to reveal itself.
The polished, black walls rise higher than can be seen; their tops hidden within a green-tinted fog that appears to thicken with each passing moment. Strangely, the fog maintains its elevation above the entrance. Harker lowers the light, tracing the immense statues of shrouded beings looming over them. They look similar to the other statues, until the light illuminates their hooded faces to reveal demonic grins. Haven’t seen that before. Gus stifles a shudder. I wonder who’s portrait that is, but not enough to want to find out. Gus grabs at Rezic’s shoulder.
“I think we made it. Do you mind waking up now?” he asks while shaking the warlock’s shoulder. There’s no response. He shakes a little harder, moving Rezic back and forth, but his feet and legs stay firm. The warlock is frozen in place.
“Shit,” Gus says. Moving around to stand in front of Rezic, he waves his hand in front of his face. No reaction at all. On closer inspection, he can sense a vibration coming from the dead ghost. Leaning in, he tries to determine if it’s just emitting a noise or is it slightly vibrating in place. The sensation becomes gradually more intense, until…
It stops.
The humming disappears, and the ghost remains dead, umoving.
Huh.
Gus turns to continue his observation of the doorway between the demonic statues, only to find it wide open. A plain room with a pedestal in the middle stands before him. He looks back at Rezic and the ghost, in the same position they’ve been, and then back at the room.
What is going on…
He turns back to Rezic and debates picking him up and carrying him into the room. Instead, he chances a peek into the room. As his foot crosses the threshold, a gasp behind him draws his attention away from the mysterious room.
“Gus!” Rezic yells. Gus instantly whirls around, keeping his balance and his feet on the outside of the room. “What’s going on? Where are we?” Rezic questions frantically while his arm remains outstretched holding the ghost.
“I’m not sure. You entered some kind of trance that led us to this doorway. Then the ghost started vibrating, or…something. Before I knew it, this door opened and I was about to step inside. Then you woke up.”
Rezic slowly lowers his arm with the ghost and inspects it. Turning it over in his hands, he can’t see any changes to it. It remains lifeless. He looks through the doorway, into the small room, and focuses on the pedestal.
“Well, I’m fine now.” Gus questions the validity of that. “No point in wasting any more time. Let’s see what happens.” Rezic strides into the room confidently and approaches the pedestal. Gus stays close behind him, scanning the walls, waiting for some threat to make its presence known. Without delay, Rezic sets the ghost on the pedestal, and waits.
Instantly, the ghost vibrates and glows as some type of energy begins coursing through it. Both guardians stare at the object, not sure what to expect, when suddenly the walls around them begin flying to and fro, revealing passageways and rooms all around them. Gus plants his feet firmly as the room itself seems to be racing through the Pyramid, gravity and inertia pushing his body this way and that. Where the room is going could be anyone’s guess, but the quiet of the Pyramid fades away as distant sounds reach the guardians.
Yelling and panicked voices of battle start to increase in volume and proximity. The room flies across an abyss where far below Fallen can be seen sprinting. Gus and Rezic look through the gaps of the moving walls, revealing the world around them in flashes. A few of the dregs near the back of the group start disappearing into shadow, and the vandals ahead of them look back with absolute fear in their eyes as the darkness rapidly approaches the rest of them. The bodies of the dregs can be seen, splayed out, in the wake of the shadow; bodies contorted in strange ways.
“Is that shadow…killing?” Gus asks.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Rezic says.
It doesn’t take long for the shadow-beast to overwhelm the vandals and leave their twisted bodies across the floor. The shadow disappears just as mysteriously as it arrived, and the guardians return to looking at the pedestal with the ghost. Their progress seems to be slowing, apparently arriving at whatever destination the Pyramid is bringing them to. The glowing of the ghost has increased to the point of blinding them, when all of a sudden the room stops on a dime, forcing Gus to take a step to keep himself from falling. The ghost goes dark.
No sound, or light, comes from it.
Rezic steps forward. Gus scans the area, trying to determine where the room has taken them. Hallways disappear into darkness in each of the four walls surrounding them, but the room itself seems to have grown in their travel. Gus shakes the thought from his mind. Trying to decipher what the hell has happened to them and their flying room is only going to result in more confusion. Best to leave that problem-solving to the warlock.
Gus assesses the situation for danger.
The room is lit well enough that there doesn’t appear to be any shadows; so, no need to worry about a shadow-beast just yet. And no trace of any Fallen activity. Wherever “here” is, it seems to be relatively undisturbed. Gus walks towards Rezic.
Rezic draws near to the ghost, waiting for some response, but when none comes, he slowly lifts his hand to reach out and touch it.
“GET DOWN!”
Gunshots ring out, pinging off Gus’ shield and whizzing by Rezic’s head. They both dive for cover behind the pedestal.
“The shots came from the hallway,” Gus says as he checks the ammo in his gun. “Harker, thanks for the heads up back there. That was close.”
“Wasn’t me, Gus. Tyr?” Harker replies.
“No, and it wasn’t Rezic either…” the warlock’s ghost speaks hesitantly over the comms channel unsure of who, or what, might be listening. Gus and Rezic exchange a nervous glance as more shots strike the pedestal and the wall opposite of them.
A small shape floats down into their field of view, bullets whizzing past it. The dead ghost is no longer dead, as it speaks for the second time.
“We need to eliminate the threat,” it says. The voice is robotic, almost identical to that of Rasputin’s without the Russian accent. The light dancing with each syllable is red, but does not seem aggressive or evil, although it lacks the curious nature portrayed by ghosts of the Traveler. It’s speech is curt and succinct.
“Can you tell us what the threat is?” Rezic asks while firing his hand cannon blindly around the pedestal. The suppressive fire coming from the hallway keeps the two guardians from poking their heads out.
“I warned you not to resurrect that thing!”
Elsie’s voice echoes off the sleek walls. Each word emphasized with another burst from her infamous pulse rifle. From the sounds of it, her little temporal buddy is firing rounds in their direction as well. Suddenly, a small stasis shard lands next to the guardians and a turret manifests above it.
“How the hell does she have one of those?” Gus screams as he blasts it away with his shotgun.
“I have no idea, but we can’t stick around and find out,” Rezic says, blindly firing more hand cannon shots in her direction.
“I thought you said she never steps foot into this thing?”
“Apparently, I was wrong. She must really have it out for you,” Rezic replies, directing his statement to the red-lit ghost in front of him.
“I’m unfamiliar with the threat, but it must be eliminated. I will call forth reinforcements.” The light at its center starts blinking rapidly.
“No! We’ll talk to her. There has to be another way,” Rezic says, and then shouts, “Elsie! Let’s talk this out. I’m sure you can understand how desperate we are. We just need the ghost’s help finding our friend. No one else would know where she is.”
“Rezic, you idiot, that thing only answers to the Witness. You just resurrected the one thing it came to Sol for. The ability to create more like it. You can’t let it get back to him!”
Gus stares at Rezic, wondering how much of this he already knew. This whole plan was to rescue Tissea from wherever she is, but the closer they seem to be getting to her, the more the Darkness comes into play. Thoughts race through the titan’s mind. What is the connection between Tissea and the Darkness? What else is Rezic not telling me?
The darkness ghost starts blinking rapidly again.
“You search for the one called Tissea?” it asks.
Rezic turns to the ghost, avoiding the stare coming from Gus.
“Do you know where she is?” he asks hopefully.
“This ship has records of her, but they terminate unexpectedly. She has not perished, but she was removed from this ship without warning.”
“Where?” Rezic asks, slowly rising, anticipation pounding in his veins. He’s so close to her, he can feel it. He knew this ghost would be the answer. He knew the risk was worth taking, and now it will all pay off.
Gus stares at his friend, and worries that the eagerness in his voice is clouding his judgment. He wonders for how long his judgment has been compromised and should he have stepped in sooner to stop him. This is madness trusting this machine. He can’t allow it to go on any longer.
Suddenly, Rezic stumbles. The shots etched across the back of his armor burn brightly. Whatever bullet created such a wound, Gus has never seen it. They burned right through the warlock’s shields and tore through the metal. Behind him, the footsteps of the exo stranger draw nearer. Gus barely catches Rezic before he falls to the ground.
“Rez!”
The fury rising inside of him can only be quelled by bloodshed. He’s had enough of the lies and the deceit. He wants answers, and he wants blood. Lots of blood. The slow rise and fall of Rezic’s chest continues as Gus stands to attack the Stranger and end her, once and for all. He readies his shotgun with a smile on his face while she approaches quickly, racing across the room in a zig-zag pattern, when Tyr appears next to him.
“He needs you, Gus!”
Tyr distracts him long enough to look down at Rezic and the slowing of his chest. Tyr administers a shot of adrenaline through Rezic’s body and it convulses violently. Rezic jolts awake.
“Holy hell that hurts,” he says while clutching his chest. “Gus, I’m sorry.” His speech is strained. “The ghost is the only answer for becoming a Disciple. That’s where Tissea went: to investigate the Disciples of the Witness and how they came to be.”
Gus’ mind is racing at the thought. Why would she go on such a dangerous journey alone? Has she lost her way? Why would Rezic let her go? Thinking back through this whole adventure, he can’t forgive himself for letting it get to this point. The signs have been there the whole time. Rezic has been lying to him since they chose to go to Mars and investigate the temporal distortions. He must have known why the Vanguard was chasing them. Was he hoping to lead them on a false trail in the mayhem of the Fallen and the distortions? Is that why we left the Last City in such a hurry?
“If the two of you would like to find your friend, I recommend following me,” the ghost says, breaking through the veil of Gus’ thoughts and emotions. Gus looks at the ghost and sees a portal behind it. The other side is pure darkness. With no indication of where it leads, they’ll have to trust the ghost.
“Gus, I’m sorry. I promise I’ll get us out of this,” Rezic says. “We have to trust it now. We don’t have another choice.” His breath is becoming more labored as the adrenaline fades away. Gus doesn’t have time to decide. Behind them, the terrifying sound of a Super popping fills the room. A tornado of stasis energy appears next to the portal. Gus looks down at the warlock and back up at the ghost as it disappears into the portal.
Worried that it will vanish just as mysteriously as it arrived, he picks up Rezic. Chancing a glance behind him before leaping through the portal, he sees the Stranger leaping through the air, gun aimed straight for him. The sound of the bullets ping-ing off the floor and his shield are the last things he hears before being overwhelmed by the darkness.
Writing by Adam 