[i]Chapter Twenty Two: The Well Part Four[/i] “The Templar…” I identified the behemoth. “That’s bigger than the one on Mars…” John commented. “About as big as the one on Venus,” Hunter shrugged, unimpressed. “The shield’ll be a problem,” Warlock acknowledged, and to prove her point shot a few rounds that were stopped dead against the translucent barrier. The same rumbling groan from earlier filled the air, but this time we could clearly mark the Templar as its source. Its call was answered by several quieter and higher-pitched cries from different corners of the platform. Before any of us could figure out what was happening, blue energy bolts flew out of the Templar’s cannons. Drew stepped in front of me, taking a shot that shattered his overshield and toppled the both of us. Hunter and Sierra also got knocked off their feet by the blasts, but we all managed to scramble out of the way before anyone could take any real damage. “Yikes,” Drew said calmly, and I turned to see him looking at the warped metal of his shoulder through a hole in his armor. He held out his hand with palm upwards, “Sally, could use a patch.” His Ghost appeared above his palm, already beginning to glow with her Light, but before she could do anything, several flashes of red streaked across my vision. Sally’s lifeless shell fell into Drew’s grasp, a hole burnt through her core from a bolt that had landed by pure luck. I blinked and Sally was floating again, her shell undamaged. Unable to think from the struggling feelings of despair and relief within me, I stuck my arm out on reflex just as the air hummed with red energy once again. Just in time, the back of my hand caught a single one of the Slap Rifle charges right before it hit Sally, which sizzled into nothing against my shielding. Taking Sally in my hand, I pulled her closer to Drew so she would be hidden from the enemies around the corner, then stepped out myself and shot down the pair of Goblins that had shot at us. “Light!” Drew clutched Sally against his chest protectively, “That was close!” “Don’t come out for any reason,” I warned Sally, “The Vex won’t let a chance like that slip.” “O-o-okay,” Sally whimpered, disappearing from sight. Drew’s body and armor glowed after a moment and were restored. The Titan looked down at his hands where his Ghost had been a moment longer before standing up and clenching his fists. “NO ONE HURTS MY SALLY!” he roared, then bounded out of cover and blew a group of Hobgoblins apart with a single Arc-fueled punch. “Take out all the little buggers,” Sierra commanded over the channel, “We’ll figure out how to get he big one later.” With no need for confirmation, all six of us slipped out of cover, avoiding the center isle, and pushed back against the advancing Vex. They were coming from the left and right of the Templar as well as teleporting into the space below the ledge the Templar was perched over. First we cleared them from the point where all three streams of Vex converged, then Drew and Warlock took the left side while Hunter and Sierra took the right, leaving Guardian and I to keep any Vex from making it up the stairs that led up from the lower area. We weren’t able to totally block the stairs because of the Templar’s clear view of the area, but even when we were hiding off to either side no Vex could make it up between Guardian and I. After a minute I had to sit back and reload while Guardian shifted back to avoid the splash from the Templar’s blasts. At that time a couple of Goblins managed to slip up into our level, but as it was just a couple I wasn’t at all worried. But then they did the oddest thing. They only fired a few bolts at the two of us before teleporting several feet further from us, towards the conflux that had appeared after we had arrived, then turned their backs and began marching to the device. They completely ignored us. I watched them for a moment in confusion before I shot them down. Staying seated with my back against the Vex wall, I stared at the destroyed Goblin chassis, then at the conflux. Realization struck and I snapped around, peeking out at the Templar and then across the gap to Guardian as he shot down at more Vex. “Everyone! Fall back on Guardian and I!” I ordered, “We can’t let the Vex reach the conflux!” “What are you talking about?” Sierra snapped. “The Templar is using that conflux as a way to kill us. If any of the Vex slip past us in these positions we won’t be able to stop them from sacrificing themselves into it!” I explained, “Drew, you and I will guard the conflux to keep the Vex away, everyone else stay right here at the stairs to bottleneck the Vex.” “Go, quick!” Warlock came around the corner next to me and immediately started urging me off while Drew shot back the way they had come. Within a few moments Hunter joined Guardian and Sierra joined Warlock, who was shooting down the stairs. Sierra took over for Drew while the two of us fell back on the conflux. We couldn’t stand directly in front of it because of the Templar, but we stayed close at its sides where we could shoot past Sierra and Hunter at the Vex coming from the left and right. We held our ground against the Goblins, Hobgoblins, Harpies, and Minotaurs summoned by the Templar until the flow suddenly stopped. The six of us remained in our places, weapons ready, and I was sure that I wasn’t the only one who sneaked a peek to make sure the Templar was still there. Suddenly, the Templar’s roar filled the cavern again, and with it the conflux disappeared behind us and a ring in the middle of the lowered area suddenly burst to life with white light. It felt… “That’s Light,” Guardian’s Ghost breathed, having felt the same thing I had. “What in the hell?” Sierra gawked. “Kabr said he pierced the Vault with Light,” I recalled, “This must be it.” “Well what’s it for?” Warlock inquired. The air crackled with electricity and light and two more confluxes formed on the left and right ends of the arena. “We’ll worry about that later,” Hunter remarked. With nothing more than a couple of points from Guardian, Warlock and Hunter shifted up to get between the new confluxes and the sources of Vex to the sides of the Templar. They seemed to instinctively know what to do without needing to communicate. “Drew,” I called the Titan’s attention, “Help Guardian at the stairs. Sierra, you and I are on the confluxes.” “Stop talking and move, then!” Sierra quipped, and I couldn’t help but smile just a tiny bit. Drew rushed over to fill in the gap left by Sierra and Warlock, and I leapt over Vex blocks and around walls to the right side until I was next to the conflux. This one was very close to the tunnel that the Vex were emerging from and wasn’t in sight of the stairs, so I kept my gun trained on the cave, shooting over Hunter’s shoulder anytime a stronger Vex managed to get close. Because of a large rock jutting up out of the ground and the way the tunnel was shaped I couldn’t quite see where the Vex were coming out, but after a minute I noticed a strange green glow join the red, white, and violet that accompanied the Vex in battle. After only a few seconds the light suddenly flashed and the green glow danced across the rock walls before fading back down. This was accompanied by a yelp from Hunter, who took a few steps back from the tunnel but didn’t stop shooting. “What happened?” I questioned over the din of battle. “Some headless little Goblin just exploded when I shot it,” he answered, “Like, EXPLODED. Ew…and now there’s this glowing puddle.” “We just saw a couple over here, too,” Sierra spoke up. “We haven’t seen a…there’s one!” Drew narrated, “Haha! They do blow up!” “Blow up?” I mumbled to myself where nobody else would hear, thinking over what I knew about the Vault. Kabr had basically created a list of several special kinds of Vex that dwelled here, but I couldn’t remember him mentioning any that exploded. But the puddles… Pt3: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/249614215/0/0 Pt5: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/249614356/0/0 ToC: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/212710816/0/0