GRIMOIRE CARD - WARLOCKS LAST STAND

Civilians were fleeing a frontier town to reach our last stronghold, our last city, all other Guardians had long since retreated against their better judgement. The civilians were near starvation and have been pursued by Fallen for many days, all forms of transportation were out of fuel or rendered useless by the initial attack, they resorted to walking. A long and arduous task it was, the Fallen pursuers did not make it any easier on the poor souls. Using their last ounce of power in their radio they called for help, hoping that a Fireteam of Guardians would stumble across the signal and save them from the horrors that followed. One lonely Warlock void of a fireteam heard their cry for help, oddly enough it was an Exo, not an Awoken or a Human, an Exo, but this one knew the importance of an individual life and valued it above all else, because he had and will never feel, taste or dream he thought these as beautiful and worth saving. An Exo normally would have weighed the risks and calculated the outcomes but he, he was more human and more caring than ever thought possible from the mechanical war machines. The Fallen were upon the refugees when the Warlock came over a hill overlooking the spectacle. Easily a thousand Fallen Captains, Vandals, Shanks, Dregs and Walkers advanced on their position. He remained hidden from the Fallen snipers and as they were about to open fire on the trembling and horrified men women and children. "ENOUGH!" His first word spoken in months ever since his fireteam had been slaughtered by Hive knights with their blades of darkness that ripped the light from their bodies. His single utterance halted the Fallen midstride, he heard clicking and the Captians utter orders to their lessers in the Fallens strange language. He drew his cannon and placed himself between the Fallen and the Refugees, one man against insurmountable odds he thought to himself this is how it ends. The Fallen advanced a few paces but he remained still "What are you going to do?" His ghost asked in a tone that signaled doubt. He ignored the Ghosts doubtful tone and spoke to the civilians behind him "When I fire the first shot you run and you don't look back.. got that!?" He yelled as he risked a glance back towards them and their expressions were that of solemn understanding and in one fluid movement that even a Hunter couldn't track he raised his cannon and fired a round into the nearest Captains head sending ether into the cold bitter air. He fought with everything he had, he shot until his guns ran out of ammo and even then he was nowhere close to being finished. Knocked to the ground by a Captain as he struggled to reload his machine gun he was lifted up to head level face to face with his aggressor and it spoke, not in some Elinski tongue but in English albeit broken and barley intelligible "Your..bullets none!" It roared "Don't need 'em." He grunted "I do not..too" the Captain replied as he ran his sword through the warlocks shoulder but when it invoked no response the Captain was confused "Possible NO!?" then it ripped his sleeve off revealing a mechanical arm made of coolant pumps and metallic tendons "Machine!?" "That's right." Then the Captians body twitched and spasms jolted through the alien and when it looked down the Warlocks hand was buried in its chest with void light trailing from the wound "You won't be needing this anymore." He said and ripped out the Captains heart or what could be described as one. Ether dripped down the Warlocks arm in florescent trails. The Exo looked at the crowd of Fallen and with the warning of his vital systems realized that this was a one way trip. "Ghost, go on, leave me there is no way I'll survive this." As much as it pained him to say it "This is the end of the line for me, go search and find another Guardian." "I won't leave you, not yet." "No choice, I won't take you with me. They need more Guardians, try to find one better than I next time, can you do that?" "Fight, then talk" his ghost said with sorrow. With the remaining Fallen forces advancing he dropped his guns to the earth and and called forth upon the power of the void. The continuity shifts between the tales, this is where the fables align once more. Woth every explosion of violent void light and every dead Fallen it gave the refugees hope which as of an hour ago was nonexistent. His suits alarms screamed at him, the amount of Void light he was dispersing was not meant to be survivable and as such he had warning after warning flash across his vision. His robes started to singe and burn, normally built to withstand a Warlocks energy the super high levels of light had begun to tear apart his robes and melt his metallic skin and fuse circuits together, coolant pumps worked overtime but failed and erupted. He was dying but this didn't worry him much because if he did not do this then that would mean the death of over four hundred innocent lives, others would say live to fight another day but with humanity stretched so thin there was no rational way to explain the death of an entire refugee populous. As he executed the last Captian with its own sword he turned to face the refugees, crippled and dying he fell to his knees and then a group of them rushed over to him to pick him up, he raised a hand motioning to stop and he dipped his hand into a puddle of water and instantly it boiled and evaporated away when his hand came in contact with it "I'll only cause pain." He said weakly "He's an Exo?" An elderly woman said from the crowd "I am." "Why did you save us?" She asked "Your a war machine, a killer, mindless and thoughtless." These remarks hurt and wounded the Exo more than the Fallen but they weren't unfounded. Exos were built for war their sole purpose but after the collapse and when the Guardians came about he had full conciousness just as much as a Human or Awoken, even more so. "I'm not thoughtless nor am I mindless, if I were mindless I would've continued marching on and ignored your distress signal But. I. Didn't." "Thank you Sir." A small voice spoke from the crowd "Your very welcome little one." His voice became glitchy and wavering, probably a side effect of the damage taken "What's your name?" The little girl asked "I don't remember, it's been so long." "Can I give you a name?" she asked quietly "It won't matter much, I won't be around much longer." "I know but what about us, won't we need something to remember you by?" "I supPOse youR right." His voice was getting worse, bordering on malfunction "Leonidas, how about Leonidas?" "A fine nAMe For a TITan maYbe, but not a WArlOck." "It fits, so that's final." She said adorably making him laugh his mechanical laugh "I suppose I have no choic---" then a Fallens roar echoed across the hills "Evac is almost here, I'll hold them off for as long as possible." Then almost perfectly the sound of a few Hawks engines made themselves known. The Civilians were loaded up onto the numerous dropships and were lifted out of harms way and the Warlock struggled to stand up and when he did he sent on final message to the survivors "I'm dying and I know that there is no way out, I gave my way out to you. So you all owe me one task, one single request. I want you to live for me, feel the wind on your cheeks, warmth of the sun, cold of water and even a little pain for humility. You ask me why I saved you, it's because I hoped that one day I could too feel the warmth of the sun but as this realization set it that it is an impossibility I now ask you to do what I cannot and never will, Live for Me... Leonidas out." The message ended and everyone aboard the Hawks felt a pang of sadness for the Warlock but decided to heed his request. As the Hawks got out of Fallen artillery range the Warlock looked to the oncoming army and stood there watching, broken and borderline malfunctioning his ghost was able to record the Warlocks last readings before "Ghost, can you find another?" "I can, do I want to? No." "I want you to find another, better than me." "That's not possible." "Why's that?" The warlock said curiously "You are impossible to be better than, but it was a pleasure being your ghost." "Thank you, I am thankful you were mine." "Oh and I did choose right." This simple statement brought a memory from the depths of when he first met the speaker and what he had said to his ghost "I only hope your Ghost chose correctly." As the Ghost left the Warlock he felt for a brief moment a rise in temperature on his metal face and he looked up and the sun shone down on him, he felt the warmth of the sun and he was content. After a brief moment of happiness Leonidas placed his helmet on his head and faced the Fallen "ONe lAsT StANd." He spoke to himself and then he drew energy from the void, more than he had ever done before, his helmets sensors were burnt out from the previous barrage. He looked to the Fallen and unleashed hell and fury on them in one massive detonation of Void light. REPORTS OF THE LOCATION OF THE WARLOCKS LAST STAND Fireteams dispatched to the site have stated that the ground is covered in a thick layer of ash that sparked and flowed with void energy and at the epicenter of the explosion lay the Warlocks helmet still emanating void energy burnt obsidian black from the unusual amount of Void light dispersed.