A/N: Enjoy the chapter, LEAVE A GODDAMN REVIEW.
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The Sanctuary buzzed like a hive. Laughter rose in ragged bursts, Ghosts flashed and vanished, someone beat a rhythm on an ammo crate, and a dozen voices tried to sing over it. Word had already run through the lanes that Crota's sword was gone. The wind felt thinner. The lamps burned steadier.
Tevis, Levi, Cory, Bandit, and Pahanin rode into the base camp, their sparrows grinding to a halt. The five guardians looked around to see the festive celebration. They quietly got off, walking towards the tents with a dour stride.
They pushed the flap aside and stepped into the war tent.
Maps sprawled across the table, weighted by knives and empty magazines. Chalk notes spidered into the margins. A magnetic kettle hissed as steam gushed from its nozzles. The flick of the flap echoed, and Cayde looked up first.
"There they are!" he boomed, both hands spread into a wide hug as he waddled up to Tevis. "Heroes of the Moon. Tell me how it went? Huh, was it flashy?" Cayde slyly looked at Bandit, "Did you get something good out of it?"
"Good job." Ikorra cut in, softer and cleaner, already standing. "All of you. You did it. Well done."
Zavala didn't smile. He watched the flap an instant longer. His eyes began to widen, and his lips parted. He then looked at them again. He muttered a count under his breath, as if in disbelief. And then, Zavala fell short.
He paused.
Cayde's grin thinned. He turned to Tevis out of habit and raised his brows. Tevis met his eye and shook his head once.
Cayde's pupils glitched; he took a dazed step back.
The room tightened. A grim silence settled, no one spoke while the realisation set in. The noise from outside faded against the canvas. Even the kettle went quiet, as if it were listening.
Ikorra broke it. "How," she asked, voice level. "Tell me. What happened?"
Pahanin stepped forward because none of the others could make themselves do it. He pulled back his forearm plate and thumbed a small cover open. "As planned," he said. "Void went down into the Hellmouth to keep the fog from taking the field."
"We held the gate. The New Lights did the work." He swallowed and kept his eyes on the display instead of on faces. "When it was over, he didn't answer comms."
He pressed the recessed points. A light came up under the metal. He angled it so they could see.
"Locator chip says he's still inside. Deep. No movement." He tapped a side tab. The last line glowed blue.
"Light: zero."
The words landed heavily on their ears.
Ikorra's posture didn't change, but something in her face did—a small, but sharp grief that had no space to live here yet. Cayde stared at the chip like he could argue it into telling a different story. Zavala's jaw set. For an instant, his shoulders slumped. Then, after a moment, he let it go because it wasn't useful to clench it.
Finally, Zavala's shoulder rose again, not out of strength, not out of belief, but out of duty.
"We were counting on him," Cayde said, too honest to dress it. "For the next moves. For… all of it."
"No. It's not over yet." Tevis sharply replied. "He might be alive," he said.
All eyes went to him.
Tevis didn't back off on it. "Void was reckless," he went on, "but he wasn't stupid. He never took a risk he couldn't beat. Not once. If there's a way through whatever he's in, he's already looking for it. He has to be."
He lowered his head. "I don't know where he is. I don't know what that zero means down there. But I don't believe he's dead."
Bandit looked at the ground. Cory closed his hand until the glove creaked. Levi didn't move at all.
Zavala nodded once, slowly. "Then we behave as if he can return," he said. "I'll put scouts on the maw. Rotating watches. If he climbs out, we will see him the second he does."
"Good," Tevis said, and the word came out like a splinter. He didn't wait for anyone to tell him to sit or to breathe or to be smart. He turned and left the tent.
Levi watched him go and followed. Bandit and Cory came next, faces shut, boots quiet. Pahanin stood a heartbeat longer, the locator dim against his wrist, then slipped the cover closed and went after them without a word.
The flap fell back into place. The tent felt bigger and colder.
Ikorra stayed standing. Thoughts were racing in her mind. All that had happened, all that was happening, and all that could happen. With him gone, none of it gave her the shape she needed.
Ikorra's eyes drifted up; she already knew that Void was important. Without him, no one could ever infiltrate the Hive on that scale. Her jaw clenched; she herself couldn't believe it.
A hunter of his calibre, gone? Ikorra was the amalgamation of everything the Warlock order had desired to be. Strong, cunning and adaptive. Her mastery and potential alone far surpassed that of every single warlock before her, perhaps even every warlock after her.
Yet from what she saw, Void was a being beyond her. He was no mere hunter. No mere scout. Her eyes flickered, and memories of that fateful day flashed in her mind. A day marked in ruin. A day where the light was all but buried on the lunar plains.
But a single hunter had saved them all. Without him, the light was all but lost.
She moved.
Ikorra's eyes flickered again. The day he left the city replayed in her mind. The very day Void had shown the entire city his strength, causing everyone to realise the monster they had raised.
Ikorra was sure of it; without Void, the chances of victory were abysmal. She walked towards the flap, hands behind her back.
Cayde lifted his chin. "Where are you going?"
Ikorra drew a breath and let it out slowly. "To someone with answers," she said.
"Who?" Cayde asked, already knowing she wouldn't say.
She didn't reply. She stepped back, light gathered along her edges, and her figure scattered into glimmer. A jumpship lifted from the far pad a moment later, engines bright and clean, cutting a line up and away from Sanctuary.
Cayde glanced at Zavala.
Zavala watched the blip on the board make its arc. "Mercury", he said, not asking.
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[Shrine of Oryx, Hellmouth Depths]
The vision opened.
The shrine didn't change; it just stopped being there. A black sea lay where walls had been. A sky without day settled over it.
In the distance, a lone winged figure walked the shoreline with a single blade. He climbed a mountain, ascending to the very top. And then, the figure roared, raised its blade against a gargantuan beast that bellowed and covered the horizon.
But the warrior didn't falter.
He stood alone, fought alone and won alone. This figure was the uncrowned Oryx. With his protoworm defeated, Oryx claimed the right to be an ascendant. The right to etch his will into the world.
Centuries passed, and Oryx mastered himself. Mastered his power till the world itself commended with his will. And then Oryx walked inside the narrow halls of the ancient dark, where the Deep taught without speaking.
He took from its teachings a simple word, etched into his blade. A word etched into his very soul.
"Take."
Oryx began his new crusade. Armies went quiet and stood again under one name. Knights rose heavier with obedience. Wizards stripped their songs and rewove them into a single tone. Oryx lifted a hand, and those who sought to disobey were consumed by his power, turned into mindless servants.
With the Hive finally under his command, Oryx finally turned to the stars, his wings unfurled, and he soared up.
Void watched it all. He watched as Oryx built the Dreadnaught; he watched as Oryx claimed words, conquered universes and journeyed across the galaxy.
But then, something strange happened.
The world tipped.
Colour drained. Sound thinned to a heartbeat. A pale flame found a wick and climbed, showing a throne at the centre of a room that hadn't existed a blink ago. It did not sit there; it imposed.
Void steadied. The feeling of being watched arrived before the reason.
Shadows leaned towards him and inked the vision. Once again, he was in a place without form. Until a shape crossed the distance and took the throne without hurry.
Horns, robes and wings furled behind his back. A blade across a knee like a law laid on a table. Oryx did not appear. He arrived—and the arrival flickered once at the edges, thin as a skipped frame.
And then, the vision stopped being only a vision.
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(p.s. Throw some goddamn stones, cuz I am uploading another chapter in a few hours.)