Destiny 2: A Lost Soul

Chapter 12: A Trick Of The Mind

Spe-7 and Suzuka found themselves back in the Jetsam of Saturn, on the hunt for a Hive knight that was acting very erratically.

"Huh, any idea where this knight may be?" Spe-7 asks.

"Spider told us that he would look different than the other knights." Suzuka replies. "Mentioned something about his eyes being a darker shade of green."

"And I think that's him!" Spe-7 calls out as she notices that one of the knights among the many Hive is moving much more differently- with the rest of it's kind avoiding him. Even more noticeable is the strange thing on top of it's head- a pair of extra horns that appear to have been grafted on by an unknown source. The knight immediately spots Spe-7 and Suzuka and begins firing it's weapon, but instead of firing it like a normal knight would this one does various rolls, firing from a crouching position of some sorts much like a Fallen captain would- it even holds a sword in it's free hand that it takes slashes with much like a captain would. Unfortunately for the knight all it takes is one bullet from Suzuka's sniper rifle and it quicky goes down without any further resistance.

"Something... No, someONE did this to it." Suzuka mumbles. "If we know anything, Hiraks is probably behind this."

"And I bet that Taiki is already on them." Spe-7 says as she looks around, trying to look for signs of the vengeful exo. Suddenly the two can hear the sounds of terrified acolytes and the source comes from none other than Taiki himself as he takes his grenade launcher and blasts an ogre in the face with it, sending it tumbling around before it slumps onto it's back lifelessly.

"Well well well! Look who's the coward now!" Taiki laughs as he then proceeds to cleave through a wizard with his sword and it's not long before ALL of the Hive in the area run for the hills, leaving behind only a large group of Hive that much like the knight they killed earlier were warped by someone and given intrinsics of Fallen. The thralls that came charging at them moved like wretches, instinctively moving in pairs and attacking from opposite sides when possible and the acolytes moved much like the vandals that they had killed so often- barely ever throwing their fireball grenades and relying more on coldly calculated shots from their shredders. The only Hive that remained untouched by the strange magic were the ogres as the mindbent wizards began throwing protective solar shields instead of poison clouds, and Taiki found himself more than thrown off. "What the hell?! These aren't normal Hive!"

"Quickly, let's get away from the others." Suzuka quickly says as she and Spe-7 make more distance between them and Taiki, watching from afar as the exo takes down the wizard with a few shots from his hand cannon and charges forth with his sword, dicing up the mindbent Hive and drawing forth a towering scorn who appears to have grafted Hive brood horns to his helmet.

"Wait... Is that Hiraks?" Spe-7 asks, but she gets her question answered when the towering scorn starts speaking in an unintelligible tongue that Ghost seems to recognize.

"Wait... It's speaking in the Hive language!" Ghost says. "He must have warped some of the Hive here!"

"That's about what I expected, but he'll still fall like any other scorn!" Taiki shouts, but he quickly finds himself flipped on his end as when he delivers a few powerful slashes with his sword, Hiraks vanishes instead of taking hits. "Not... Where did he go?"

"It looks like he retreated into that crashed warship over there. It's mentioned that he was obsessed with creating his own throne world, but he's not Hive so that wouldn't work... Would it?" Ghost replies

"He looked more Hive than scorn, but who knows?" Taiki mumbles as he moves deeper inside the warship. That's when the exo comes across a strange portal, and the realization hits him like a truck. "Oh no..."

"He actually did it?!" Ghost asks in disbelief. "We have to get in there and kill him before he tries anything else with the other scorn."

"You read my mind." Taiki replies as he and Ghost run straight through the portal, and Spe-7 and Suzuka carefully follow behind- and the equine guardians find themselves in the ascendant plane for the first time.

"Whoa... What IS this place?" Spe-7 asks.

"Not a place I would want to be that's for sure." Suzuka replies as she scans the area for any potential threats. Threats do show up in the form of Hiraks' mindbent hive, but it's nothing that Taiki can't deal with as he blasts them away with his grenade launcher. The ascendant plane ends at an area with three portals, and through one of them Hiraks emerges. He continues to speak in the Hive tongue as he ushers forth his mindbent troops and Taiki almost finds himself outnumbered.

"What the?!" Taiki shouts. "There's too many of them!" Suzuka quickly jumps into action though, temporarily switching her energy to arc and coming crashing down on the swarming Hive with a powerful slam. The mindbent troopers are fried to ashes by the attack and she quickly backs away, allowing Taiki to refocus on Hiraks. "Thank you, whoever you are." And with that he brings out his flaming hammer. "All right you Oryx wannabe, you're going down!" He yells as he charges forth, not even caring that Hiraks currently looks much bigger than he is- all that does is make Taiki strike down low, crushing Hiraks' nether regions and causing the gigantic scorn baron to come crashing to the ground in agony.

"Ouch. I don't want to be on the receiving end of THAT hit." Ghost mumbles as Taiki proceeds to wail away at The Mindbender's head with his hammer before it dissipates. By the time the hammer dissipates, Hiraks is no longer moving and the ascendant plane begins to warp. "And it's starting to collapse! Let's get out of here!"

"Right." Taiki replies as he bolts.