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local-fanfic-addict · 1 year ago

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Acolyte of Vengeance

Inspiration:

What The Water Gave Me by Florence + The Machine

Leaving Caladan by Hans Zimmer

Trigger warnings - none

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It had been weeks since Vlairyn had left the tower, since she had picked up her gun, or done anything other than sit in her apartment and brood. She was sitting on her bed, flipping a knife between her fingers before she threw it at the dartboard on the opposing wall and missed with abysmal aim. It was getting worse the more she refused to go out and participate in gambit or crucible, now it almost missed the board entirely.

Goldie didn’t really talk to her anymore, he tried, but was met with short answers or silence and so he had kept to himself and her backpack unless he was needed, feeling just as miserable as her.

It was this one rare occasion when he emerged from his hiding and approached her slowly, an incoming call glowing from his core.

“It’s for you; it’s Eris Morn.”

Vlairyn’s head lifted, she hadn’t seen Eris since the Leviathan incident months ago, though Eris would occasionally check in on the Hunter via the Drifter as she almost never left the moon herself. Did something else happen?

“Accept.” Vlairyn spoke as Goldie transmat her comlink into her hand and she placed it into what one might call her ear.

“Eris. What can I do for you?”

“I believe I should be asking you that question, Vlairyn.” The former Hunter spoke, sounding more concerned than anything. “Hiding in your room? You might be an Exo but you still need to perform human tasks. I hope Goldie has been keeping you accountable in such aspects.” Eris didn’t give Vlairyn a chance to speak before she got to her point.

“Ikora and I need you. You have been idle for too long and in the span of your self loathing, Immaru has made a deal that Savathun will tell us what she knows of the Witness if we take out her sister; I can think of no better guardian for this mission than you, Vlairyn.”

There were a few moments of silence before Vlairyn laughed, her eyes drawn to the dartboard before she turned in thought.

“You can’t be serious. Xivu Arath? You can’t possibly think you can beat her, she thrives off of any and all conflict, we’ll be playing right into her hands.”

“Maybe, but this is the only good lead we have received since the attack on the Traveler. We need this. I feel that Ikora, especially, needs this. And you need this too; you have been wasting away, letting guilt and anger claw at you since Cayde’s death until nothing remains. I understand how that feels. The feeling that changes into nothingness, shrouding your mind like an inescapable fog. You need a purpose again; help us put an end to this, and perhaps you will find your long needed rest afterwards.”

There was silence in which Vlairyn contemplated the witches' words. Sure, it didn’t feel good to just sit and do nothing but the bare minimum, but the alternative always seemed to play towards the light or the dark and Vlairyn was sick of it. Perhaps Eris was right in some aspects. One mission couldn’t hurt, right?

“I get to kill some hive?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Great. What else will I be doing?” The Exo’s voice was tired, but some part of her knew Eris might be right, at least about the lead on the Witness.

“Information gathering, for now. Immaru is just as cryptic as Savathun, he was frugal with his hints and so you must be cautious.”

“Got it. I’ll pack for versatility.”

Eris only hummed before the call ended.

Mission… successful? Vlairyn wanted to say yes but she wasn’t sure. The messages that Savathun had left only brought up more questions. Figured…

Still, the feeling of crushing hive ghosts beneath her hands had been a welcomed feeling. Her aim had once again become dreadful, but she could hardly care when her armor had now been built for high resilience. Eris had been right in her need to get out of her room after all. Not that the ex-Hunter would ever do something like gloat or say “I told you so.” That was something Vlairyn liked about Eris, and why they got along so well, but the revelation that they had learned of in the spire was now making Vlairyn feel on edge as Eris seemed so willing to accept it.

“What are we doing, Eris?” Vlairyn pulled the ex-Hunter aside, a quick glance towards the ritual center, crawling with hive worms. Ikora wasn’t there yet, so they only had a few moments alone, which was all Vlairyn needed.

“Do we even know what this ritual will do to you? What if this is a trap?”

“Whether it is or not, it is our only hope to defeat Xivu Arath. I must become her equal. I am willing.”

“I’m not!” Vlairyn took Eris’s shoulder gently. “I can’t risk losing more of my friends.”

“And yet you lose yourself. Is that not more important? What good are you to your friends if all that remains is a shell? I aim to become a blade, one that I will use to cut out the hearts of our enemies.”

“Okay fine, I’m a hypocrite, I accept that- but do you even know if you’ll hold your own blade at the end of this? Can you be sure that someone else won’t hold it instead? Look, I'm only asking if you doing this is truly the best option. Can’t we have… I don’t know— Finch? Can’t Finch just resurrect his lightbearer and they do this?”

“There’s no time, and there would be no guarantee that Finch’s hive would be loyal to our cause. It has to be me, Vlairyn. Savathun knew this, her recordings hinted that much.”

“That’s what I’m worried about! If she knew, or even suspected, then there’s no guarantee that this isn’t a trap of some kind…”

“I understand your concerns, I do. But I need you behind me for this. Ikora will have her own reservations, and I need you to help me quench them or this will not work.”

She knew Eris was right, Ikora might want the Witness as much as anyone, but she had seen her fair share of the deaths of friends and wouldn’t be too keen on risking another.

“Fine… But you have to let me help you aside from that. I can’t… I can’t just watch you go down such a dark path alone.”

“Yet you are much further down your own than I am, and refuse such help.”

It was at this point that Ikora made herself known in a shimmer of transmat dust and took to standing beside Vlairyn, a silent signal between the two already there that the conversation had to stop. Vlairyn didn’t even know how to respond to Eris’s words, she was completely right and her pride hated it. This needed to stop…

“We should start.” The deep voice of Immaru broke the silence as he too joined the group, hovering in between Ikora and Vlairyn. The guardian looked at the hive ghost, the itch to crush him was immense.

“Xivu Arath draws straight from our conflict. She believes her logic absolute.” Eris nodded and grasped the staff which Immaru had granted the guardians, a relic of hive magic that looked to be made out of bone and dried ichor.

“I will grasp it, and contravene its power. There is no other way.”

Ikora crossed her arms, a look of concern on her face and rightfully so.

“But will you come back from this?”

“Does it matter if I do?” It was something Eris hadn’t said to Vlairyn, even though she had asked the same question without words. Part of it made Vlairyn wonder if it was for show, to tell Ikora that Eris wouldn’t back down from this and not that Eris had no sense of self preservation. Vlairyn wasn’t sure Ikora understood by the look on her face. The warlock looked horrified by the words that had come from her friend's mouth, and Vlairyn felt pity for the Vanguard.

“What I am has served me, and has served humanity.” Eris began making her way towards the center of the ritual circle, Ikora moving forward as well. Would the warlock really try to stop her? Would Vlairyn intervene?

“Akka… Xita… Sel…” The names of the worm gods left Eris’s mouth as she carved hive runes into the sand beneath her feet with the end of the staff.

Ikora advanced. “This is what Savathun wants!” It was said forcefully, a great parallel to Vlairyns prying questions in their prior conversation. This was why Ikora was a Vanguard and why Vlairyn was not. It almost made the Exo laugh at the thought.

“We serve our interests, not Savathuns.” Eris continued writing her runes, even through the harsh laugh of Immaru.

“Heh! She’s outmaneuvered you again.” It was a barbed comment, and Vlairyn knew exactly how to respond.

Her hand snatched him from the air, grasping his sickly green core and squeezing. Immaru let out a strangled set of cries. Oh how ridiculously easy it would be to crush him, and to never risk seeing Savathun alive again. Tempting was putting it lightly.

“This isn’t a warning, ghost. It’s a threat.” Vlairyn hissed, bringing his shell up to her face so he could see her eyes.

“Y-You need me!” His voice was strained, and yet no one moved in to stop her, she supposed they were all as distrusting of the ghost as she was. Maybe more so.

“We need your silence.” Eris cut in, nodding to Vlairyn who reluctantly released the bone-colored shell. Immaru glared at the Hunter as he grunted and growled, who only returned the favor with an equally malicious glare. She would have to keep an extra close eye on him in the future.

The runes had been completed, and so Eris handed the staff to Vlairyn, her gaze looking at both the Exo and the Warlock.

“Do not be afraid. Bear witness to my Sublimation.”

This was a show of trust. Vlairyn had every power to simply not start the ritual and so Eris’s words rang in her head.

“I need you to stand behind me.”

The Hunter nodded, and raised the staff into the air before she stuck it into the ground on one of the runes, igniting the remaining runes and the whole ritual circle into a flow of eerie green light.

“I separate the true from the dead. I am the many-mouthed hunger. I am the knife-edged truth.”

Eris was lifted into the air, and it reminded Vlairyn of the same ritual they had performed months ago on the Helm, though this was just for Eris.

“I devour the free. I conspire with my vengeance. I will take what I need. The words in my throat are the weapon in my fist. Aiat, aiat, aiat!”

A shuttering hand lifted and removed the bandage from Eris’s eyes, the thing she had never been seen without since her return from the Hellmouth. Both Vlairyn and Ikora stood, only able to watch as Eris was consumed by the hive light, her body contorting and bending and growing from what seemed to be her armor. Sharp edges protruded from her shoulders, spines grew along her back and her skin paled and warped into that of a hive. A shell of chitin grew in place of the witch’s clothing, wrapping around her mouth, her arms, and legs. Those three hellish eyes finally looked like they belonged on her body as her transformation ended and she dropped to the floor, a new and terrifying creature.

“I am the many-mouthed hunger. I am the knife-edged truth.” Her voice, while still carrying its low tone, now had the overlay of several others and she truly sounded like a hive. Vlairyn looked to Ikora and had never seen the warlock look more terrified in her life. Had this been a mistake?

“Bring me your tithes.” Her voice echoed.

Vlairyn stood in the Helm, her eyes wandering around the dark wooden shelves covered with books, the blood red carpet and cloth that draped against the walls where Eris had set up a little study room, a hive portal frame sitting in the center of the room.

The Exo lifted the staff she still carried and activated the portal. Eris had said she had wanted to meet after the ritual. It had only been a few hours since they had returned from Savathuns spire, did Eris already know what they needed? There was only one way to find out as Vlairyn stepped through the portal and into some kind of hive pocket dimension. It didn’t look like it was in Savathuns throne world, but some of the flora and fauna of the place was similar.

A great pavilion sat at the tops of eery jade steps, draped with the same blood-red cloth as it’s floor glowed with the same pattern as that of the ritual circle back in the spire. A lectern and table sat on the edge of the building, overlooking a cavern leading out to the stars that looked suspiciously like hive eyes.

“Vlairyn.” The voice seemed to echo, comping from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

“Eris?” Vlairyn ascended the stairs to the pavilion, standing in its center before Eris made herself known. She was taller, and up close Vlairyn could see the trinkets that hung from her neck, the same ones she had worn before her transformation.

“You’re… still Eris, right?” The question hung heavy in the air as the Hive god contemplated it.

“Though my form twists in this rune-bound circle, yes. I remain Eris Morn.” The Hives voice definitely had the hint of Eris’s voice, though strained and compressed by the ritual.

“Good… then I feel I can ask again. Will you let me help you? Walk this path together?”

Eris nodded, gesturing a clawed hand to the staff that Vlairyn carried. It’s bone and green ichor feeling heavy in her hands.

“A splinter of a Hive worm rests in your staff,” she says. “It is enough to bind us, and mark you as my acolyte. By the sword logic of the Hive, your conquests would strengthen me.”

This was not a command, though Eris’s voice now sounded much more commanding since the ritual. No, this was an offer.

“I said you needed purpose, Vlairyn, and you have begged to help me. Here I offer you purpose once more, to bring wrath upon the Hive so that you may tithe your enemies to me.”

She could see Vlairyn was hesitant.

“I am not given to the deep, but to vengeance. I serve no paracausal purpose but my own.”

This did grab the Exo’s attention. A third option? It had never occurred to Vlairyn that one could be hive and not serve the deep, and yet there Eris stood. With the setting of her jaw, Vlairyn looked up to meet the eyes of the Hive god.

“You feel better like this, don’t you?”

The hive seemed to chuckle, an odd sound like the clacking of bone.

“I do what is necessary, that makes my feeling better irrelevant, but in a sense, yes.”

“Then make me your acolyte, and I shall bring you the heads of our enemies.”

Eris grinned behind her chitin mask, the familiar sound and glow of transmat dust leaving something in her hands. Five items of clothing, all in the same green-tinted hive colors.

“I ask only one thing more, my friend.” Eris offered the clothing to Vlairyn, who looked upon it with a curious expression. The helmet that sat neatly atop the folded shirt and pants was like that of a hive, three tell-tail eyes glowing in a faint blue color.

“You have been mourning long enough. Take off the blue you have worn for so long, and embrace this gift I give to you. Let us show them what it is to be Hive.”

It dawned on Vlairyn what Eris was asking of her. The beep blue colors the Exo had worn for so long were in honor of Cayde, the same mourning colors she had worn to his funeral and subsequently the color she had killed Uldren Sov in. This was a request to let all that go. To start anew serving Eris until her battle with Xivu. Vlairyn couldn’t deny how much she had wanted to start over, to have something else to do besides serve paracausal beings or sit alone; so she took the clothing and armor in her hands, and was reborn.

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BONUS:

Vlairyn slumped back against the plush gray sofa that sat in her apartment living room, the eerie green tint of her new clothes actually matched her own skin color for once, her own metal painted a bright teal. With a blink and a shimmer of dust, her helmet was whisked away, leaving a hovering Goldie in its wake.

“I know what you’re gonna say-“ Vlairyn started, convinced she was going to get a lecture about the hive.

“I’m so happy for you!”

“You what?”

The ghost wiggled with excitement, though somewhat reserved as it was a tense moment for the two of them. Goldie really didn’t want to upset his Guardian, not when she was back in the field and doing what she was good at!

“You’re not… You don’t have your reservations? No big speech on why the Hive are bad?” Vlairyn asked gently, like just mentioning it would have him go off on a tangent.

There was a pause.

“Vlairyn, I always have my reservations, but seeing you out and about again is the best thing I could ever hope for! To see you have purpose again, no matter what it is now, will always be better than seeing you waste away in this apartment.” The golden ghost spoke with utter sincerity, and he nuzzled the Hive clad hunter.

Vlairyn’s voice caught on the wires in her throat. After how horrible she had been to him, all the pushing away and terrible words exchanged he was still here.

She could feel liquid prick in her eyes.

“Goldie…” She faltered, unsure of what to say.

“It’s okay.” He said simply, an expression like that of a smile overtaking his orb.

“I thought you might at least have something to say about the new outfit.” Vlairyn returned his smile with a slight upturning of her lips.

“Oh I do. I think Eris knew exactly what she was doing when she gave it to you, and I think you look like a proper Hive killer. Can’t very well be an Acolyte in mourning clothes, can you?”

“No, I suppose not.”

And so, they sat for the remainder of the night, gently talking and bringing their broken friendship back to the surface.

#bwcfic #fanfiction #cayde 6 #destiny 2 #destiny exo #healing

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