Destiny: The Legendary Hunter

[Writers-Ablood]

Gotta say I was pretty hesitant when I first found this story, but its been a fun one I especially love the way you've slotted him in as a faction leader and quest npc for the players that's been consistently fun each time it shows up.

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Appreciate the comment, it's nice that you've been enjoying the story, and hopefully you enjoy the chapters to come.

 

[purplefox1013]

Appreciate the comment, it's nice that you've been enjoying the story, and hopefully you enjoy the chapters to come.

Click to shrink...

I think a large part of what im liking about the pc ocs is that your using the same ones so it gives a sense of continuity that flashes out things a bit more

 

[Writers-Ablood]

Void didn't linger.

The moment the noise of the inner sanctum dulled into distance, he let the shadows take him again. He moved through the Vestian Outpost like a blur, and his eyes scanned the harbour lanes one last time. Corsairs. Paladins. Wolf Guard. Too many people were already gathering, likely having heard of what had happened inside.

"Transmat, now", Void said.

Void vanished from the harbour and reappeared inside the cockpit, boots hitting metal with a dull thud. He sank into the seat and punched the thrusters. The Jumpship trembled and flared to life, shooting off into deep space.

Only when he had left behind the Vestian Outpost did he let his shoulders drop a fraction.

He looked at the engram resting in his palm. Old. Encoded. Heavy with layered locks.

He exhaled. "Did it work?"

Obsidian scanned the radar. "Well, no one's chasing us, that's a good sign."

Void didn't smile. His gaze flicked toward the Ahamkara resting on his neck. "Zamyr."

«It was complete,» Zamyr murmured. «As complete as illusion can be. There is no doubt about it.»

"If she wasn't convinced…"

«Then you would already be bearing the brunt of her Ahamkara's powers,» Zamyr said, low.

Void nodded once, slowly.

The illusion around his shoulders and neck, the little ghost serpent he had made Mara see, finally began to crumble. It didn't vanish in a flash. It collapsed like ash. The tail thinned. The claws became fog. The head faded last, grin lingering for half a second longer than it should have, then dissolving into nothing.

Void watched it go. "If she thinks I can still wish," he said, voice quiet, "she won't move. Not yet."

«Indeed,» Zamyr replied. «She is a cunning one. She will watch you, but will not strike while she believes you have a wish to answer hers.»

Void's jaw tightened. "Good."

Obsidian drifted closer, eye flickering. "That sorcery she used. The binding. It wasn't Hive. It wasn't Light."

Void's gaze narrowed as he remembered the feel of it sliding up his arm.

Zamyr's tone shifted, interested now. «It intrigued me. It is not the shrewd rot of Hive craft, nor the bright shaping of your Warlocks. It sits between.»

Zamyr's energy began to fade, his phantasmal presence whittling away as he spoke.

«It seems my time is up, O brother mine.»

"For now." Void sighed, "I'll get you back as soon as I can."

Obsidian hummed. "The Awoken are… an existence in between Light and Dark. They were made in the collision of both. It tracks."

Void stared out at the outpost shrinking behind them. "There's no good information on what they can do."

"There's good information," Obsidian corrected. "It's just not for us."

Void snorted. With the Gate Lord's remains secured, he set course for Venus. And for the first time since he'd entered Mara Sov's chamber, he allowed himself a thin, tired breath.

-

[Campus-9, Hidden Subspace]

Void stepped through the entrance and immediately walked to the centre of the workshop.

Pahanin was at a central table with Alemyr and Marcus, slates and projections layered in the air like stacked glass. The Stoic stood off to the side, hands moving with calm precision as he tweaked the projections using magical output.

Taeko-3 was perched near a console, half leaning, half hovering, already deep in a stream of numbers.

When Void entered, the room didn't stop. Not at first.

Then Pahanin looked up.

His eyes narrowed.

"What happened?" Pahanin said with a dogged voice. "You were gone too long."

Void didn't answer immediately.

He stepped closer, and for a moment, the only sound was the hum under the floor and the soft clicks of keys still being pressed. Then Void's lips curved faintly into a thin smile.

He reached into his cloak. And placed the engram on the table.

It hit with a dull, heavy clack.

Pahanin blinked once, then twice. "No."

Marcus leaned forward. "That's not…"

Alemyr's eyes widened, just a fraction. "How did you-"

The Stoic didn't react at all. But his gaze sharpened, every fibre of his being locked onto the hologram on the table.

Void rested his palm on the table beside it. "As I said, I got what we need," he said, voice calm. "Gate Lord remains."

Pahanin's mouth opened, then closed again. "How the hell did you swipe that from the awaoken?"

Void cut him off with a look. "Not important."

Pahanin's brows knit. "Not important."

Void's smile flashed, quick. "Not important."

Taeko-3 pushed off the console and glided closer. "You're insane."

Void shrugged. "Yeah."

Then his expression tightened. "Before we do anything, we make sure it cannot connect back to the Vex network."

Alemyr's gaze snapped up. "It's alive?"

Void's eyes went cold. "No, but the remains are completely preserved. There's no telling what might happen."

The room sobered instantly as the danger of a Vex Gate lord being accidentally resurrected was now a real problem.

The Stoic stepped forward at last, twirling their wrist softly and began working on a new spell.

Taeko-3 didn't waste time. She flicked her comms open and sent a tight burst message. "Gallida. Isidel. Uzoma. Get here. Now."

A reply came almost immediately. Three quick pings. Nearby.

Alemyr and The Stoic then moved together; a glance was all they had needed to communicate what was required to prevent the Gate Lord from reconnecting to the Vex Network.

They needed a cage.

Alemyr's hands were already pulling up projections. A cage model formed in the air. Not physical. Not exactly. A set of layers, or rather a shape made of spells that was slowly being filled in by The Stoic's magic.

Alemyr added, "This cage we make will prevent it from communicating with anything outside."

Marcus whistled softly. "A prison for a machine."

The Stoic's fingers moved with a strange harmony, weaving his magic into the shape of the cage that Alemyr kept projecting.

Minutes passed in tight silence as The Stoic wove and wove, till magic itself was condensed so tightly that it lashed out against the world, sending faint ripples through the air.

Finally, the engram's outer locks were cracked under the Stoic's direction, Alemyr guiding the process like he'd done it a hundred times.

The engram opened with a soft sigh of light that spat out a single Vex corpse. A husk of a machine so powerful and elusive that it had never been once examined by human hands.

They laid it out on the table.

Even dead, it felt… alive.

The Stoic placed a thin node at the edge of the table. The isolation cage flared once, then settled, invisible but present. The Stoic nodded in affirmation.

Void exhaled. "Good."

Right on cue, footsteps approached, and the air shifted as Gallida, Isidel and Uzoma came in.

They stopped at the table.

Gallida stared at the corpse, eyes narrowing slowly. "You actually did it."

Uzoma blinked, then laughed under his breath. "Ghostsword. What the hell."

Isidel didn't speak. He just leaned in slightly, gaze heavy with judgment and interest.

Taeko-3 pointed at the corpse. "We're isolating it. Before you touch anything, understand that if this thing manages to ping the Vex, we all die."

Gallida's gaze flicked to Void. "So like a ticking bomb?"

Void nodded once.

The Stoic carefully began his operation.

He opened sections of the Gate Lord's chassis with a careful splinter of magic that cut through the metallic outer coating, revealing trapped radiolaria, pooled and thick liquid trapped in a broken vessel.

The Stoic paused, fingers trembling for just a brief second. He treated it like it was venom and gold at the same time. With a flick of his finger, he extracted it, guiding it into a new glass sphere. Not just a container. A seal. A controlled environment.

The ball filled, and the radiolaria inside swirled slowly, as if it didn't like being watched.

Uzoma swallowed. "That's… a lot."

Alemyr murmured, "About five times the amount you'd find in a Vex Minotaur."

Void's eyes didn't leave the sphere.

The Stoic palmed the glass sphere, sealing it completely from the inside out and gently set it down on the table. He then continued dismantling the remains. Layer by layer. Plate by plate. Until the deeper structure showed itself.

Then they reached it.

The mind.

A compact core of complexity that made everything else look like armour. It wasn't just a processor. It was the identity of the Gate Lord itself.

Gallida's breath hitched. Marcus leaned in.

Pahanin whispered, "That's it."

The Stoic frowned slightly, pausing before he tampered with the mind of the Gate lord.

Void's eyes sharpened. "What's wrong?"

The Stoic's fingers hovered over the exposed mind, but he dared not touch it.

Alemyr's voice was quiet, "The only way to access the mind of a Vex construct is to power it."

"And?" Void frowned.

"The only power it accepts is radiolaria." Taeko-3 shook her head.

Silence gripped the group.

Void looked at the glass sphere.

The radiolaria inside swirled again, slow and patient, as if calling out to its own body.

Taeko-3's jaw tightened. "If we feed that back in, there's a chance it wakes. If it wakes, it tries to connect. Even if it fails to connect to the network, the probability that it doesn't just up and teleport away still exists."

The Stoic nodded once.

Gallida's eyes flicked to Void. "So we either keep it dead and know nothing. Or we wake it carefully and pray our cage holds."

Void stared at the mind core, then the sphere, then the magical cage that surrounded the body.

He thought of Mara Sov's warning. He thought of the Black Heart. For a moment, countless such thoughts swirled in his mind. But he couldn't reach a conclusion. No matter what he tried to work it out, it seemed impossible.

He couldn't figure it out.

He had worked so hard to just reach here; was he expected to risk everything just to take another step forward?

That didn't sit right with him. There had to be another way. Another choice, another line of thought. But there wasn't. No one else had reached this problem before.

No one else except-

'Except me'

His mind shook, and realisation dawned on him.

Void's voice came out steady. "We stop here."

Pahanin looked at him sharply. "Stop?"

Void nodded. "I need something first."

Gallida frowned. "What?"

Void's gaze stayed on the mind. "A plan. One that will definitely work."

The Stoic's eyes lifted to him and curiously scanned his face.

Void stepped back from the table, already turning. "I'll be back."

Taeko-3 called after him, "Where are you going?"

But Void shook his head and didn't slow down. "No time to explain."

-

A/N:

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[SenpaiSamaChan]

If the "no time to explain" was a funny then it was a good one. Nice chapter boss