CHAPTER 12 CONTINUED “Orion, Cabal have landed on Ganymede.” the calm robotic voice of TAURUS relayed to the hunter over his radio. “Received, over.” Orion responded, and then turned off the radio. “Cabal? On Ganymede?” Vixen asked. “Yup.” Orion confirmed. Dover glanced at them from where he was hacking an old golden age terminal. “Well, they could be here to see what’s going on with the Hive. They have a lot of intel gathering in the system.” His voice echoed throughout the large research facility they had infiltrated. “We can deal with them later. Right now, we need to deal with this facility, and take as much data as possible on it’s machinery, purpose, and reason why the Hive have infected it so.” Vixen decided. “Aqualabs systems - a brighter, colder future. Huh. Catchy.” Dover said to himself. “I’ve got some data here. Mentions that there’s a network of tubes going into the core of the moon in order to research their contents.” he said aloud. “Interesting. The Hive could use it to go deep into the moon.” Orion mused. “Let’s get down there, it will give us a good outlet to explore from.” Vixen said. “Aye aye, cap’n.” Orion mumbled under his breath. They went down. It was a rickety elevator system that branched out into many different tunnel systems, but they were not heading for those tunnels. They just kept going down. The tunnels became less developed but more intricate, with greater amounts of ruined research equipment. After going down for thousands of feet, they finally arrived at a place that was a strangely cavernous place. There were wires and old scraps of machinery scattered around, as if they had been crushed, and then shredded. “What happened here?” Vixen said quietly, looking around at the enormous tunnels torn through the ice and stone of the lower levels of Ganymede. Then they heard a noise. It sounded like a groaning that an enormous ship makes when it has been slammed by a wave, or some deep primal echoing beneath the earth that an earthquake makes. And then a scraping sound like an avalanche of boulders coming down a mountain. And then they heard an earthshaking roar. They started to run back towards the elevator as an enormous worm like shape became visible in the dark, slithering through the tunnel and crashing towards them like a freight train. Then Vixen stopped. “I will not run.” she said calmly. She drew her blade, and exploded into solar fire. The beast became more visible - it’s enormous maw full of teeth the size of swords, a gaping cavern the size of small jumpship hangar, and enormous spikes as thick as communication towers. The lady Knight of Dawn struck the oncoming beast across the mouth with her flaming sword, and then vaulted over it as it tried to swallow her whole. She continued to slash at it, but it only angered the worm further. It thrashed and twisted its head, until it received a Nova Bomb to the mouth from Dover, whose void sucked the light from the dark. The beast swung around, and retreated back to whence it came with an anguished cry of pain, echoing through the dark chambers of those depths. As the avalanche drew further away, Vixen jumped off of the ceiling of the tunnel, panting with exertion and adrenaline. “Well.” I guess that answers my question.” she managed. Then she got a call from the other team. She immediately answered “Seb, what’s going on?” Static and screams echoed back at her. “There’s a demigod. A goddamned Hive King.” she said almost hysterically. “Transmat us. Now.” she spat at Lupus. “But-” “DO it!” she yelled. Without any other questions, they disappeared. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The booming steps of the Forsaken King came towards the fireteam. They couldn’t move - they heard screaming sounds in their comms that sounded like their ghosts. Seb tried to draw his sword and face the monster like the brave Titan he was, but it was as if he had to submit to this god. “Good. you bow like the parasitic undead minions that you are. Leaning on the will of a tiny construct of the Light to make your decisions. Fighting under the will of a being that does nothing but watch as you sacrifice yourself at its whim.” the Forsaken One glanced at Seb, who was visibly shaking with effort as he drew his sword. “I like you. I think I’ll have you.” the Hive demigod lifted up one foot and crunched Seb like a tin can. Innards and blood spilled everywhere, and without thinking his ghost came out to revive him. “Beloved.” Kirax said simply. Syor’s claws cut the air and the Void trembled, and then Seb’s ghost fell to the ground with a clatter. Kirax gently scooped up the little construct in his enormous claws, and then he also took the corpse of Seb in the other and walked off. “Have fun.” he called back to the guardians, who started to charge at him. The god of war sighed. “Very well.” he took up one of his blades and cut Lyla in half, and then broke Min’s blade with a shriek of metal with just one swing. He sheathed the blade and walked away, into the portal that Syor had opened before. The Hive disappeared, as the fractured team tried to recover from what had just happened. Well that was jarring. Sorry about the kinda bad writing, I'm struggling to find time to write and my lack of time is putting me off kilter a little bit. Hope you enjoyed!