Here it finally is... The massive cavern of stone was just as we had left it, silent, still, and glowing with an eerie green light. We walked down the bridge, toward the shards of crystal that once held Crota’s soul. A transparent, light blue one that took the shape of a hexagonal sphere, much like one of the cryptarch’s engrams, lay amongst the other dull, opaque green ones. The six inch diameter stone seemed to have an aura of light. It caught my eye as I looked around the deserted chamber, and I walked over to it slowly. “Sierra…” I said as I knelt down beside the peculiar crystal. “Take a look at- Ah!” The instant my finger had touched it, pain shot up my arm, like it was being ripped open with a dull and rusted razor blade. As soon as I could withdraw my hand, the crystal rose above me, and the air became thick and hazy, just as it did when we first fought the Taken. The crystal burst into a dozen shards that stretched and grew into the gleaming diamond like armor of the knight that glared down at me. The knight held no weapon, but its three fingered hands burned with dark energy. It threw its hands to the ground, and the shockwave that it created threw me across the room. Sierra ran to my side and helped me to my feet. “Ok,” I said with a groan, “don’t get close to it.” “Get behind something,” Echo warned us, “he’s gathering a massive amount of energy.” The knight worked it’s hands around an orb that burned green flames, and pulled darkness from the air around it. A muffled roar came from the knight, who’s mouth was covered by it’s shining helm, and it outstretched its hands, releasing the energy it gathered. It was an onslaught that hit everything that stood before the beast like a hurricane. The rock we had managed to get ourselves behind began to crack beneath the force. It produced a deafening roar as it rushed past us, which grew louder and louder before abruptly stopping. We emerged from the rock where we hid, to find everything that had been hit by the devastating blast was blackened and smoking. The knight had fallen to its knee, and seemed to be breathing heavily. “One of the texts from the World’s Grave referred to something like that. The Hive call it a Catalyst, a weapon of unfathomable power, wielded by the Ascendant that uses the wielders power as an energy source.” Echo explained as we began to shot at the knight, only to find that our bullets merely ricocheted off it’s armor. “Okay…” I started, “that’s only helpful if we can find a way to hurt it.” “May-” Scarlet was cut off when two blights appeared next to the knight, along with a host of Taken. Sierra began shooting at the centurion and thralls on the left, and I threw a deluge grenade at the group on the right. When the lightning struck, the blight itself seemed to shift, as if it felt the pain. The knight reached it’s hands out to each of the floating black spheres, and started to draw energy from them, its head hanging low. “The blights!” Sierra called, “hit them!” With a magazine from each of us, the first blight ruptured and exploded. The knight staggered, momentarily off balance while it tried to regain its footing. When the blight had ruptured, a black burn had crawled up the knight’s arm, which slowly faded as he siphoned energy from the second blight. Before we could destroy the second blight, the knight pulled the last of the darkness into itself and again rose to it’s full height. For a second time, the knight rose his hands in front of him, summoning dark energy in a trance like state. “Catalyst!” Echo called, “Hide!” I dove into the cover of one of the ribs of the titanic skeleton that rested here in the Chamber of Night, and Sierra behind another. With a rush like the sound of a tornado, the knight unleashed the Catalyst. The bone I hid behind began to crack and bend. “Oh shi-” I said as the rib snapped. The Catalyst felt like running top speed into a brick wall…that was on fire. I staggered forward against the endless barrage, shielding my face, and dropped to the ground behind a low rock. I looked down at my robes to find them scorched and blackened. When the knight’s attack finally finished, I grabbed my rifle from the ground beside me, gave Sierra a nod that I was ok, and dragged myself out from my hiding spot. Again the knight fell to his knee and Taken surrounded him. We both stood side by side, on the rocks above them, picking them off one after another. The blights appeared on either side of the giant knight, and he reached out to them, drawing in their darkness. “I got the left,” I called to Sierra, “you take down the right.” After emptying my mag, the blights burst , Sierra’s a second after mine. I replaced the magazine and watched as the knight roared in agony as the smoldering burn crawled its way up both of the knight’s arms and onto its chest, which began to flicker with a blindingly bright spark of corrupted, tortured light. A twisted cry came from the entrance of the room, and the thralls we had seen earlier ran in, coming straight for us. The thralls seemed bigger, spikes of bone protruding from their elbows and spines. They looked mutated, broken, and more importantly, really angry. “What the hell did the Hive do to them?” Sierra asked as the thralls made their way towards us, soaking up bullets without even flinching. I called down lightning, and rose up of the ground, I hurled arc energy at the twisted creatures, and eventually they fell with the help of a few rockets from Sierra. I set my feet back on the ground and saw that where the thralls had stood, orbs of light hung in the air. I took a step towards one, and before I could react, it shot towards me and disappeared with a flash when it touched me. Immediately, I felt it. I felt light coursing through me, like I could do anything, I felt stronger, faster, invincible. More Taken began to appear around us, and while Sierra began shooting, I drew my sword. I let the light flow through me, I embraced it, and ran forward, leaping off the rocks we stood on. I came down from above the knight, sword raised high above me, and with all the strength I could summon, drove it into the knight’s exposed light. The instant the two collided, a blinding blast of light sent the knight reeling back as I pushed the sword deeper and deeper into the chest of the Hive beast With a wail, the knight began to disintegrate, armor falling to the ground and corpse turning to dust. The light inside of me dimmed and I hit with a thud, suddenly exhausted. All of the Taken had disappeared when their leader fell, and Sierra ran to me to help me up. “I like this thing… a lot.” I muttered, examining the sword, then replacing it on my belt. Sierra put her arm around me to help keep me on my feet, and Echo appeared in front of us. “That light you absorbed, was from a dead guardian.” He said solemnly, “Looks like the Hive are trying to use our dead as a weapon against us.” “Not gonna happen.” Sierra joked, but there was a seriousness behind what she said. “Let’s get this done with, and get out of here, Echo, we’re pretty far underground, so start setting up a transmat to the ship.” I said, taking the runestone from the pouch on my belt and held it out in my hand. Just like it had before, it floated into the air, runes shining brightly, then fell back down again, lifeless as ever. All that remained of Oryxs son were three glass like balls of crystal that somehow contained the same dark fire that burned within the Taken, and several shards, almost like scales, that shifted and morphed in my hands when I picked them up. I couldn’t tell whether they were bone or metal or stone, the color changed from shiny silver, to dull green brown, to pitch black. Touching one gave an incredibly odd sensation, perfect equilibrium, neither hot nor cold, light nor dark. The only thing that didn’t change was the shimmering silver energy that fell from them in slow motion, dissipating after mere inches. I slipped them into a pouch and handed the crystals to Sierra. “Fascinating stuff,” I said, entranced by the melodically shifting of the shards. “Your warlock friends will love it.” Sierra responded, I didn’t have to see her face to know that she was grinning. “Hey Scarlet, you wanna leave Sierra behind?” I retorted. “Will do.” Sierra’s Ghost said with the closest thing to sarcasm it could achieve. “Ok Echo,” I started on a more serious note, “transmat out, and set course for the Tower. Bout time we gave ol squidface a status update.” PS, I really am sorry I cant post these more often, there's nothing I would like more than to write this all day, but life is crazy right now, so bear with me, more is on the way. Prologue/directory [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139146382[/url]